How High Can Resolution Climb and Still Be Cost-Effective?

In a few, quick years - years that feel more like quantum leaps than years, at least in our industry - we have witnessed the transformation of SD picture quality into ever higher levels of resolution. Even the much-touted HDTV – with its 16.8 million approximate primary color variations (more gradations than the human eye is capable of detecting) – has begun to feel outdated in the face of new technology coming down the pipeline. As I write these words, there are 16-bit visual display platforms developed that can articulate upwards of 280 trillion possible shades of primary color, a number dwarfing what only a few years ago seemed like a pioneering achievement. We are a far, indiscernible cry away from the days of the SD pictorial quality we all grew up with watching on television. Given the current rate at which ever more sharp resolutions are being adapted for the market, we can only assume that the “resolution revolution” still has a ways to go before manufacturers and technicians realize that there is no need to proceed beyond the very high standards already set.

Simply put, the bit rate transmissions to sustain that level of resolution for broadband applications would cost ludicrous amounts of money. We’re still living in an age of transition, where encoding technology is desperately striving to keep pace with the platforms which it is expected to provide functionality to. While new and higher resolution video technologies will doubtless continue playing a key part in the ongoing digital revolution, encoding technology needs to sharpen its performance level to match the already-overtaxed needs of the system as it stands. Simply ladling more pixels into an already high-resolution visual framework may prove to be a case of “gilding the lily,” adding unnecessary resolution at a price not worth paying. After all, a higher pixel count equals a higher cost.

Not only is Telairity a thought-leader and advocator for encoding technology to “catch up” with the network systems already in place, but we’ve actually made good on our word by the products we’ve developed. We are neck-and-neck with current digital technology as it stands, and customers around the globe – from Silicon Valley to Sydney to Beijing to Dubai – are well aware of this. We will continue overcoming all future technological hurdles placed in our path.