Inter BEE Special Interview Video Section Taro Kimura & Hideichi Tamegaya [Part1]

Kimura: "Invention is the mother of necessity." Tamegaya: "Technology constantly seeks to evolve". What will new video technologies give rise to?


Kimura:
I first saw HDTV around 1970 when I went to cover NHK's Science & Technical Research Laboratories. It was there that I saw my first widescreen TV, and I later wrote an article saying that televisions of the future would be CinemaScope. So that must have been HDTV?

Tamegaya:
At the time, it was called "high-quality" television.

Kimura:
And now HDTV has even come to home camcorders. But will we be able to use it properly?

Tamegaya:
At that time, it was pure HD, which didn't use any compression technology. The problem was that display performance wasn't up to it, so people said the picture was pretty, but the screen was dark. After that, displays became more advanced, and so did the cameras. Although the picture was superb, there was also the issue of how to reproduce it. Recently, digital technology has advanced and there are now ways to convey the true quality inherent in HD. This has evolved and is now even used in moviemaking. While taking advantage of these fundamental performance gains, there have been simultaneous advances in downsizing the hardware and compressing the data in order to expand consumer use. Looking back, we can say that HD is becoming the norm in media today.

Kimura:
All of those technologies have been applied to the existing 525 NTSC format, and picture quality has become so good that we have to ask if 525 itself is good enough without HD. When I think about it, although no one doubts the quality of HD, I wonder whether we know how it should be used. Looking at a picture with the 16:9 aspect ratio, I feel we are perhaps making a mistake if we're using it just like 4:3.

Tamegaya:
The important factors are the difference in aspect ratio and the difference in resolution. I believe that, depending on how we go about exploiting these differences, the way we use the media will change. As both HDTV and the existing 525 format have become digitized, people have said that there isn't much of a difference between them on a small screen. However, you can tell the difference with HDTV, which has a large number of pixels, as screen size increases. And as displays these days have become larger, the difference has become obvious. The burden is on content creators to show they have the expertise needed to make use of such high resolution.

Kimura:
When I'm watching a baseball game on TV on a 40- or 50-inch monitor, I feel like saying, "Enough with these close-ups!" [laughs] I'd rather let my gaze roam around the field than have a close-up of a sweaty face, but I suppose producers are going to be increasingly faced with complaints of this sort.

Tamegaya:
Precisely.

Kimura:
In the world of broadcasting, I believe it is not "Necessity is the mother of invention" but "Invention is the mother of necessity". I have come bang up against new technologies again and again, and repeatedly asked how I will use this or that. Something which I remember very clearly happened in 1964 with the Tokyo Olympics, when NHK switched to color, even for the news programs. At the time, the head of the news department sent a memo to all the regional stations saying, "When you do your reports, be sure to keep this color broadcasting in mind". Everybody was puzzled about what they could do, and for a while there was a lot more news with close-ups of flowers or reports on a new breed of rose. [laughs] People didn't know what color news was supposed to be like. There was this constant sort of pressure as we had to keep on thinking up ways in which to use new technology after it had been created. So what's the perspective of someone who actually makes these new technologies?

Tamegaya:
Technology constantly seeks to evolve. But it's not a matter of creating something and then just sitting back. We have to do the R&D hand in hand with the people who are going to use the new technology, so we are both thinking about how it will be used for a TV program. When producers and directors tell us how they want to do something, we mustn't say outright that it's impossible. Instead we think of ways to make it possible. That's how new technology is born.

Kimura:
So, what new hardware at this year's Inter BEE should we be interested in?

Tamegaya:
Well, one of the themes is how to develop products that are easier to use. For example, with the latest technology it's possible to process graphics in real-time. CG content can also be generated in real-time. A good example is the virtual studio or "electronic set". In this case, the CG forming the electronic set must be generated at 30 frames per second just like the TV camera; otherwise, it will not be in sync with the live image from the camera. To do this, we need technology for the real-time processing of video images. Not only CG, but the actual picture will be run once through a computer, and output in real-time. Now, the importance of Inter BEE is as a forum for coming together and discussing what to create with this technology. At the video sessions being held at this year's Inter BEE, there won't just be explanations of the hardware. We would also like the people who make the programs, the directors and producers, to think about and suggest how to make better use of the technology, or if there are any ways to improve it. Then Inter BEE will not simply be an exhibition of equipment: it will become a forum for developing serious discussions about the future.

Kimura:
As someone who reports on the news, when I think about how I would use this technology, it's like this for example. During the Upper House election in August, say I had wanted to interview people who were far off somewhere. Then, I would use the electronic studio so that they could participate from where they were. It would look just as if they were seated right here with me. So it will be possible to do things like that with this technology?

Tamegaya:
Yes. That would involve combining the two video images together in real-time. We are now entering an age when there are many more production possibilities and there are new ways to use real-time imaging systems. The virtual studio is really a collection of technologies for generating CG in real-time. Rather than using one technology, it's also important to develop production techniques that combine a number of basic technologies to enable us to do something completely new. [Continues to Part 2]