Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
Changes are in motion
You’ve followed the BRAVIA-drome ad from concept to post-production. You’ve even enjoyed a sneak preview of the final cut.
Now the wait’s over as the commercial hits TV screens and the new Motionflow site goes live. Click here to view the new site and see great behind-the-scenes videos, more of Kaká and Motionflow demos.
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Motionflow 200Hz - bringing action sequences to life
This is it, the last post before the ad officially launches and lots more content heads your way. Before we move onto the next stage of the campaign though, here are five action-packed movies to see on the BRAVIA Z4500 for the ultimate sensory experience.
While standard TVs have a 50Hz frame refresh rate, meaning that high-speed action can look blurred and appear to flicker, Motionflow 200Hz quadruples the frame rate to produce a clear picture that’s judder-free. The end result is an intense, enhanced experience and action sequences that look as if they are happening right in front of you.
Casino Royale
Bond movies are pretty much all one amazing action sequence full of breathtaking stunts and explosions. The first Bond film with Daniel Craig is no exception.
The 6th Day
Arnold Schwarzenegger does what he does best in this movie about a sinister human cloning operation that is sweeping America. When Schwarzenegger finds he has been cloned, it’s a fight for survival to escape the assassins who will stop at nothing to kill him and single-handedly stop the cloning of humans.
Hancock
Will Smith plays Hancock, a superhero with a bad attitude, a bad reputation and a bad drink problem who costs the state a fortune in damage to public property. This is action adventure with a comedic angle is packed with explosions and awesome special effects.
Surf’s Up
A computer animated mockumentary, this movie follows Cody Maverick, a penguin who wants to become a famous surfer like his idol Big Z and win the annual Big Z Memorial Surf Contest. Full of lovable characters and brilliant surfing scenes this is a fantastic film for all the family.
Men in Black
In this hit from 1997 Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones star as agents from a top secret agency that monitors alien activity on Earth. Men in Black is a classic science fiction adventure flick with a comedy twist and one big Bug - which the heroes must find and exterminate in order to save the galaxy.
Watch the Men in Black trailer
Monday, February 23rd, 2009
Putting motion in focus
Sight is so immediate and familiar that it’s easy to overlook just what a staggering process it is. While we all associate the sense with our eyes, that’s just the beginning of a breathtaking cascade of computation going on inside our heads.
Research suggests that our brains have separate systems for perceiving colour, objects, faces and motion, which is what we’ll look at here.
Fired up by motion
Scientists have used a number of different techniques to explore motion perception. One approach has involved electrophysiology, which measures the electrical activity of a neuron, or brain cell, while the brain is doing something. In this way scientists have found that a large number of neurons fire up at the back of an animal brain only when the eye records motion. More specifically, certain neurons seem to be associated with movement in particular directions.
You can see this for yourself. Just like muscles, neurons tire if you use them too much. So if you stare for 30 seconds at an image moving in one direction, then look at a static object, like your hand, it will appear to be moving in the opposite direction. This happens because the neurons which have not been tired out upset the overall balance leading to the illusion of motion. Try it out here.
What happens when it goes wrong
Another way of delving into motion perception is to analyse what happens when it goes wrong. In 1983 a report described the experiences of a woman with damage to the area of the brain already identified by electrophysiology. Instead of seeing moving images, her vision of the world was as a series of static snapshots, like living with a stroboscope in your head.
Distinguishing between types of motion
Another decade would pass before neuroimaging (fMRI) arrived, allowing scientists to peer deeper into the fizz of neural activity that accompanies motion perception. Intriguingly, this technique revealed that our brains seem to separate the movement of humans and objects. So the sight of Kaká speeding across the pitch is processed in a different area to the vision of a ball flying through the air.
How Motionflow 200Hz helps
How does Motionflow 200Hz fit in to all this science? By quadrupling the frame rate, our brains no longer have to guess what’s happening between frames because all the information for perceiving crisp, smooth motion is provided by the TV.
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
The experts behind Sony Motionflow 200Hz
What’s it like, inventing a new technology? Get the inside story on Motionflow 200Hz from its developers, Sony engineers Kyoichiro Oda and Wataru Mamiya.
Identifying the task in hand
Oda: “I began wondering what the key features would be for next generation LCD TVs and felt the focus had to be on the quality of fast-moving images. We did a careful evaluation of existing image-improvement technologies and found that each involved a tradeoff between the components of LCD display performance. For example, the picture might be improved but luminance is reduced.” (more…)
Thursday, February 5th, 2009
How Sony Motionflow 200Hz works
BRAVIA Z4500 hit the shops last year, complete with Motionflow 200Hz. The technology has been hailed as a world first, but what does it actually do?
Picture this. It’s match day. You turn on your TV and there’s your team pelting down the pitch, in razor-sharp detail. That’s what Motionflow 200Hz delivers. Our revolutionary motion enhancement technology captures every kick, every swerve, every flick at 200 frames a second. So you get action that’s as smooth and clear as real life.
Standard TVs have a 50Hz frame refresh rate, which means that high-speed action can appear to flicker and blur. By quadrupling that frame rate Motionflow 200Hz produces a picture that’s crisp and judder-free.
The technology works by adding three frames to a fast-moving sequence. It predicts movement in all directions and creates new images to match these movements, so any gaps in the action are filled. The result is an intense and immersive viewing experience. From sports to games, action movies to cartoons, Motionflow 200Hz means you won’t miss a thing.
Thursday, December 11th, 2008
The Sony BRAVIA-drome sets a new world record
It’s official: the BRAVIA-drome is the world’s largest zoetrope. Measuring 10 metres across and weighing 10 tonnes, the massive motion machine has been declared a world first by Guinness World Records.
The BRAVIA-drome is all about world firsts. It’s a modern take on the world’s first moving pictures device, the zoetrope, a 19th-century invention that creates motion from a series of still images. And it’s a celebration of the world’s first Motionflow technology, which with 200 frames a second provides the smoothest on-screen action ever.
Get breaking BRAVIA-drome news here.
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
Spectators react to the world’s first Motionflow event
Hundreds of onlookers joined us in Venaria Reale’s historic Piazza Annunziata to see the BRAVIA-drome in action.
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
21st-century technology creates the ultimate moving image
It’s 1834 and William Horner has just invented the zoetrope. Its rotating drum transforms still images into a single moving picture. As the Greek name suggests, it’s the ‘wheel of life’ (zoe ‘life’, trope ‘turn’).
Fast forward to today and Sony’s Motionflow technology, which intelligently adds new frames to action scenes to make them appear smoother than ever. At 200 frames a second, Motionflow 200Hz is like a fast, fluid 21st-century zoetrope.
What better way to celebrate this technology than through the creation of the BRAVIA-drome, the most technologically advanced zoetrope in the world. We’ll bring you breaking news of our Motionflow 200Hz event, as it happens. Stay tuned.
