HD DVD for that real grainy film look

Thomson have developed a technology that will allow media-playback devices to add film grain to an HD image. Rather than increase the bit-rate to capture this in the HD stream, they manage to model the look of the grain and send details in a handful of bits. The Thomson software will then generate the resulting grain and apply it over the HD video.

Sounds bizarre, but grain is one of the things that we subconsciously see when we are in the cinema, and is one of the factors that make big screen cinema seem different from home projectors or large panel displays.

Microsoft's up and coming Xbox 360 HD-DVD player will have the technology, as will devices and software from Toshiba (HD-DVD player), RCA (HD-DVD player), Broadcom, Sigma Designs, Horizon Semiconductors, NVIDIA (graphic processing devices), InterVideo (HD DVD player software), CyberLink (HD DVD player software) and Sonic Solutions (HD DVD production tools)

More details from ITNews in Australia