In another post, we spoke about a October gala in NYC that had Gran Turismo 5 running at four times 1080 HD through a Sony SXHD projector. However, another item of interest was a playable demonstration on a Nano-Spindt FED / Field Emissions Display developed by Sony, with a frame rate of 240fps (240 frames per second). Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has already achieved a frame rate of 60p (progressive), but in this demo, Gran Turismo was made playable at four times this frame rate at 240fps. The SXRD demonstration described above used four PS3’s to improve image quality, but this used the same to increase the frame rate.
The display used in this demonstration was the 19 inch nano-Spindt FED screen produced by FE Technologies, who is a company that has taken over the development of the FED technology that was being developed at Sony. This display contains over 10,000 electron sources called the nano-spindt emitter, per pixcel. A fluorescent substance is exposed to the electrons from the emitters to produce light, and this format is very close to a cathode-ray tube in principle. The resulting view angle is wider in comparison to a LCD panel, and it shows superior performance when displaying moving images, with no blurring of the outline.
Structure of the nano-Spindt FED. With over 10,000 nano-Spindt emitters per pixel emitting electrons to a fluorescent substance to produce images, the principle is very close to a cathode-ray tube type display. It has many high image quality performance characteristics, with a wider view angle, superior ability to produce black color, rich tone expression, motion pictures with no blurring of the outline, etc.
- Expanded view of a single pixel. The diameter of one nano-Spindt emitter is approximately 120 nanometers (left). Over 10,000 of these comprise one pixel (middle). A fluorescent substance is exposed to the electron emitted from these emitters, to produce an image (right)
- Comparison of the nano-Spindt FED and LCD panel structures. The nano-Spindt FED does not have a backlight, polarized plate nor light guide plate, making the parts structure very simple.
Four PS3’s were also used in this demonstration. The frame rate of a single PS3 is 60fps, or 1/60 of a second, but by having four PS3’s draw an image four times within this 1/60 of a second, a frame rate of 1/240 of a second is made possible.
You can see the shocking difference of this high frame rate Gran Turismo immediately when you see the screen. It is as though you are following a real world event happening right in front of your face with your own eyes. Any and all flickering in the movement of the vehicle, in the smoke from the tires, etc. are completely gone, and you are almost tricked into believing you are watching something in real life. The guests at the event were baffled by the quality of the image, and stared in amazement at the screen.
