5 replies to this topic

[Bill Cotter]

I expanded the descriptions for the A Block pavilions.

http://www.worldsfai...o85/a-block.htm

I've been restoring a large group of photos from Expo '85 and will be expanding the rest of my Expo '85 coverage soon.

[waynebretl]

Thanks, Bill - great stuff!

[waynebretl]

I notice Toshiba had a Showscan movie presentation. In the early 90s, excerpts from the Showscan travelog "Kiwi Magic" were used by the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service (ACATS) to compare various proposed HDTV standards. Zenith acquired a custom-built step-by-step 70mm projector that was optically interfaced with the only existing HDTV cameras at the time, and I spent many a late night babysitting the beast as we captured one frame per second into a solid-state frame store so 10-second clips with the best quality possible could be played out in real time onto HD tape.

[Bill Cotter]

Wow, have things changed, huh, Wayne?

I remember seeing HDTV for the first time in 1985, both at Expo '85 and at the Sony headquarters. It was priced so far out of reality that it was sort of comical, but you could see that it was something you would want. Happily like most things electronic they got the price down and the quality up. Do you know what the HDTV specs were back then?

Bill

[waynebretl]

Wow, have things changed, huh, Wayne?

I remember seeing HDTV for the first time in 1985, both at Expo '85 and at the Sony headquarters. It was priced so far out of reality that it was sort of comical, but you could see that it was something you would want. Happily like most things electronic they got the price down and the quality up. Do you know what the HDTV specs were back then?

Bill

Original Hi-Vision was 1125 lines total, 1035 lines active. The original systems were analog, so the horizontal resolution was somewhat limited, but much better than any standard definition system. Also, the aspect ratio was 5:3 instead of 16:9, and the pixel spacing of the digital version was not "square" (i.e., different in vertical and horizontal directions) in an attempt to get the simplest down conversion to both American and European standard definition. NHK developed the "MUSE" system to squeeze the signal onto a limited bandwidth analog satellite, and eventually showed a 6 MHz MUSE system for broadcast - but the quality was much inferior to the digital systems that were eventually developed. Those crazy Americans in the computer industry insisted on "square pixels," and Sony and NHK agreed, giving the world the 1920x1080, interlaced, 30 fps, 16:9 pictures we have today. The computer guys, plus Zenith, AT&T, MIT and ABC also insisted on progressive scan, and they got it in the 1280x720, progressive, 60 fps format.

[Bill Cotter]

Thanks, Wayne.