Since autumn of 2008, the CREAS HD video chip has been implemented in all Blu-ray Disc (BD) recorder models, promoted as a technology that will enhance all HDTV images. Sony leveraged its rich storehouse of advanced digital video processing technology in creating a new chip capable of reproducing video images with their original rich color gradation and detail to reverse the degenerating effects of digitization and compression. The result is CREAS---the world's first (*) technology with the capacity to recreate incomparably realistic video images with 14-bit processing and 16,384 levels of gradation. Measuring just 1cm x 1cm, this tiny chip is packed with the technology needed to upscale the image quality of BD recorders and players to a new level.
* As of September 2008, based on Sony research
- |
- What is CREAS? |
What is CREAS?
Digital broadcasting and BD have already become mainstream technologies, and high-definition (HD) content is, by definition, content offering highly-advanced quality and clarity, but will it still seem so attractive once HD is the everyday standard?
Because of limitations imposed by the compression format, BD-ROM is recorded in 8-bit.While terrestrial digital broadcasts are classed as HD, they have only 1,440 horizontal pixels, compared with 1,920 pixels for full HD. Even if the original video content has been recorded at a higher bit density, it needs to be compressed for broadcasting. This means the original video content cannot be reproduced perfectly.
CREAS is based on the concept that image quality can be enhanced by recovering and reconstructing HD video data lost during compression and other processes. Another concept that is built into the CREAS system is the ability to reproduce video with color gradation equivalent to 14 bits even on a TV with an 8-bit or 10-bit panel. Sony has used two technologies to realize these two concepts in the CREAS system: HD Reality Enhancer, and Super Bit Mapping for Video. An overall block diagram is shown in Fig. 1.
