8K Association CEDIA Pavillion Highlights Content
The 8K Association had a pavilion at the recent CEDIA 2025 show in Denver, Colorado in the US. The presence was quite increased on last year and as well as the exhibition area, we had four panels and a dealer reception. If you haven’t been to the show, it’s the main US event for the high end home theater and systems integration markets. It’s a chance to see the latest and greatest technology for home entertainment. Just to give a sense of how high the high end is, the most expensive system that I saw at the show was listing at $1.3 million!
There were four new logos on the 8K Association booth at CEDIA compared to our booth at NAB. They were MGM, Warner Brothers, Kaleidescape and Epson. Although neither of the last two have made any product announcements, they have joined the association to be involved in the setting up of our logo programs for STBs and projectors. However, the combination of the Hollywood studios and Kaleidescape was catching the attention of integrators and others at the event.
The four panels that we ran were on hardware, content, integration and alternative content. The areas of the booth covered were:
- High end content – we were showing a 15 minute ‘sizzle reel’ with content from IMAX, MGM and Warner Bros. The content shown included an 8K scan of 2001: A Space Odyssey that, along with another from West Side Story, brought gasps from visitors. It’s amazing to see fifty year old content that looks as though it was captured yesterday. We also had a number of items of a range of vintages from IMAX including Chapter 51 and some amazing footage from NASA. The speakers on the content panel had a lot to say about the advantages of 8K and we’re planning a full report on it as well as a video of the full panel.
- Next around the booth was a demonstration of an 8K 120Hz camera and monitor from Astrodesign. The camera is in production although the monitor is not yet available. There are real advantages to showing 8K on large displays with higher frame rates and the firm had a lot of interest throughout the show,
- In the corner we were showing a demonstration of gaming. The 8KA has been working with AMD to demonstrate 8K 120Hz gaming. At the CEDIA show, there was lots of discussion about moves by vendors to better support game playing on home cinema equipment and so lots of interest in our demo.
- In the other corner, Spin Digital was explaining the advantages of its VVC encoder technology which, among other things, as used in the streamed content from the Paris Olympics that we have previously reported on. It had some impressive content at surprisingly low nitrates.
- As at NAB 2025, 4BY4 from Korea showed how its Pixell video processing and upscaling technology could be used to improve existing archive and current content.
- The final demonstration area showed content from other 8K creatives including Savage Studios and The Explorers.
We will shortly have a video on YouTube that covers all of these areas.
Content Panel Comments Echoed by Exhibitors
The comments from our Content Panel speakers were echoed by others at the show. In his demonstration of its high end LED display (used by Hollywood studios in post production), Ken Hoffman, CEO of Quantum Medium Systems, said that he thought that 8K content was just ready for take-off, as 4K had been some years ago. Quantum is offering its LED walls in 4K and 8K configurations. We got a chance to see his demo and the LED walls are spectacularly good. At the show, the firm was collaborating with Kaleidescape (a recent new member of the 8K Association that is helping with the development of our 8K STB specification).
Lumagen was also at the show and we had a great chat with the company about its 8K ready video processing products. It has the hardware built into two of its new video processors. The 8K feature can be enabled later but the hardware is in place. The top of the range model includes 8K processing. We asked whether there was really a need for this kind of video processor, when many displays have a lot of processing integrated and Jim Peterson, CEO of the firm, explained the huge difference in processing power between the chips in TVs and projectors and his dedicated high end processors. His processors are also sold under OEM labels (but if we told you who, we’d have to kill you!).
MadVR Labs was also at the show and talked about its 8K processors and its AI-based upscaling technology. The company competes with Lumagen and others and its processor was used in the $1.3 million demonstration system. That system was incredibly impressive (although the special press demonstration suffered from a number of early ‘teething troubles’ so we went back later to check it properly). The visuals for the system were provided by a Christie Eclipse G3 projector. This huge unit (the projector is (without lens and feet): 55 x 28 x 24.7″ (1,397 x 711 x 627 mm) but you also need the chiller (including casters): 23.4 x 14.8 x 37″ (595 x 377 x 976 mm)) uses lasers (not laser phosphor) and six DLP chips to produce incredible black levels.
Like Sony’s dual panel broadcast monitors, the 6 DLP devices are used in a ‘contrast multiplication’ mode with two allocated to each color. This allows the >1,000:1 contrast of each to be multiplied together to give over 1 million to one contrast. Of course, the overall system contrast is never even close to that, but the demonstration (in a black lined demo room) showed a very good black level. The projector was calibrated to on-screen peak brightness of 330 cd/m2 but when ‘full black’ was shown (said to be with the projector at full 30,000 lumen output), it was hard to see any light on the screen. The writer was reminded of the first time that he saw the Pioneer ‘Kuro’ PDP at CES many years ago. The image quality on the Stewart tab-tensioned screen was very impressive indeed (although the sub-woofers were so loud that it almost spoiled the demo! Almost…)
JVC Impresses
JVC was demonstrating its 8K e-shift projector. There was some confusion at the event that it was showing its ‘native 8K’ device, which is currently being sold into simulation markets, but we clarified that the comment about ’native 8K’ referred to the content, not the projector. However, this writer was very impressed with the performance of the e-shift technology. It’s hard to see why the extra cost and complication of native resolution would be needed, although it should allow larger/brighter images and high frame rates.
Samsung was showing its Frame Pro TVs. Staff told us that the initial Frame product was very optimized for the picture display mode, for example with lower power and very low reflectance but some users felt that the video performance was not so good. So, the company has now developed The Frame Pro which has better video performance. Although staff told us that the Pro uses 8K, we have been unable to confirm that so far. The firm was also showing the very impressive 115 inch set with an RGB microLED backlight that will be available towards the end of the year. Contrast and color are really good, but again, it seems to be 4K only.
So, all in all, the show was a great success. Watch our YouTube channel for more details over the next few days.
