October 2006 BROADSHEET - The Future of Home Entertainment
For the first event of the CETC's 2006/07 programme, CETC Committee member, Ke Yang invited three expert speakers to address from display, sound and media perspectives “The Future of Home Entertainment".
The first speaker was Dr Adrian Travis, Research
Director of CamFPD, which focuses on the development of superior optical
displays and scanners, and licences the Wedge® optics technology. The technology
directs light from projectors through waveguides to enable breakthrough optical
products. Applications include conventional displays, interactive, virtual and
3D displays, cameras, and optical motherboards. Adrian believes that in 25 years
time display as we understand it will be history: the office of the future will
be high-resolution on big screens to improve office throughput threefold;
displays will respond to hand gestures and allow eye contact interaction. He
believes that the display of the future will be projection plus Wedge®
technology. The aim is not to replace CRTs, but to give users what they need.
Displays will be like windows, and we will look through them, and the displays
will see us too. With his extensive optics experience, Adrian is now an
internationally recognised authority on Flat Panel and 3D Displays. He is also a
Fellow of Clare College and lectures at Cambridge University
Engineering Department.
Our second speaker was Dr Neil Harris, who is Chief Scientist of NXT
plc, which is a provider of unique sound solutions, best known for its
flat-panel loudspeaker technology. In the home of the past, loudspeakers were
instantly recognisable as the large, black boxes stuck in the corner. The
fashion conscious listener would possibly opt for a wood-finish or an odd shaped
box, but it was still the large box in the corner. Neil talked about the two
trends that have emerged regarding loudspeakers in the home of the future. One
option has been to follow the fashion route, moving away from ugly boxes into
iconic, usually slim statements of style. The other, emerging option has been to
make the loudspeaker disappear completely and integrate it conveniently into our
lifestyles, such as hidden in the wall or a fashionable sofa. Of the various
loudspeaker technologies developed by NXT, the most successful applications
typically fit well with one or other of these trends. With a flexibility of
material choices unrivalled by conventional loudspeakers, the advanced sound
technology can deliver solutions that seamlessly blend with our homes and our
lives, taking sound where it has never been before.
The final speaker was Dr Paul Walsh, who is Chief Executive Officer of
Vidanti Ltd, which use an IPTV software suite (BBTVsoft™) to design, licence
and supply networked home video equipment for High-Definition TV over IP-based
Broadband networks. Vidanti is now developing a new generation of Social TV user
interface applications that will take BBTVsoft into a new realm of profitable
end-user applications for IPTV Service Providers. Paul explained the undergoing
changes of TV in the internet age and mentioned that the television of the
future will have optimised picture quality (High-Definition TV). Television of
the future will offer on-demand entertainment: whatever, whenever and wherever
you want; and television of the future will be a networked communications
device. He also discussed the pros and cons of Internet TV (TV on PC) vs IPTV
(TV over broadband), whether the broadband networks can cope with HD-over-IP,
and other trends of the future TV such as, time-shifting, place-shifting (mobile
TV) and social TV.
The Club is very fortunate in benefiting from the sponsorship of the following organisations:-
There are also other companies who give us generous help with specific meetings and services.
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