Now I’m ready for some football.

Last week, I fell in love with glassless 3D (and heart shaped waffles) at the consumer electronics show, IFA, in Berlin.

This week, I’ve given my heart to Ultra-HD TV at the content creation and broadcasting trade show IBC here in Amsterdam. Where today most HD is 1080p, Ultra HD is 7680p. But these are just numbers. What they mean is that you feel as if you’re part of the movie, at the event, inside the stadium. The experience is so real you want to walk up and touch what’s on the screen — even if it isn’t Tom Brady. (But what if it was…)

This Ultra HD technology was developed by NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories in Japan. They call it Super Hi-Vision, and I must say it is quite a brand name. My guess is they put some beautiful Japanese phrase into an online translator and that’s what it spit out.

In the theater at their booth, NHK did a live transmission from Amsterdam Central Station, showed the 2010 Tokyo marathon and figure skating, and previewed a gorgeous movie, “Nagigama’s Dream.” For me, the marathon and figure skating were the most dramatic. When the presentation was over, I asked the engineers from NHK if they would please broadcast from Gillette Stadium sometime this Fall.

Unfortunately for me, NHK will broadcast publically for the first time at the London Olympics in 2012 and not at Gillette. Oh, well. With such realistic technology, now we’ll know what it feels like when it rains inside.

3D in Ultra-HD is not as stereoscopic as the 3D solutions shown at what seems like every tech, film and gaming show on the planet these days. Instead, it provides 3D immersive quality without the gimmicks– no flying objects or hands waving in your face.

And what’s just as impressive as the visual quality is the sound. The 22.2 multichannel sound uses 24 speakers arranged in three layers: upper, middle and lower – an audiophile’s 3D surround sound fantasy if you will.

Super Hi-Vision has been demonstrated for about 5 years. And it may be another 15 before it makes it into our homes, say the folks at NHK. So, no 33 megapixel quarterbacking Tom for me. But, hey, maybe we’ll be watching the Cubs finally win it all in the Ultra-HD 2025 World Series!

Leslie Sobon is corporate vice president, product marketing at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no endorsement is implied.

My name is Casey Gotcher, and this is my first official blog on AMD’s behalf.  I chose to wait a while, specifically to speak to this particular topic.  We have been working diligently for over a year now on this product, and I am very excited to finally take the wraps off of it publicly

What is AMD Fusion Media Explorer?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sME1gH0IC4

The AMD Fusion Media Explorer (FME) is a new 3D Immersive Social Media and Digital Media Browser, built and distributed by AMD.  In addition to enabling unique multimedia and social media experiences, FME does a great job of showcasing the power of AMD CPUs and GPUs. This application demonstrates what our platforms are capable of when the software is designed to take full advantage.

AMD Fusion Media Explorer combines a user’s local media items, plus related online content from providers such as, Flickr, YouTube, and Microsoft Live.  In addition, FME has Facebook integration which gives our users even more options for posting or interacting with their favorite photos or friends’ photos.  All of this is managed by an integrated search engine, that makes it very easy to quickly locate what you are looking for.

I like to put the goals of the AMD Fusion Media Explorer into these 3 buckets:

• Explore – Explore your digital media content, from multiple local and online sources, in a quick and easy to use browser.
• Experience – Experience your media in a more exciting 3D, immersive application
• Discover – Discover new related photos, and videos, pertaining to what you are currently looking at or listening to.

Primary Features of Fusion Media Explorer

Photos

• Find and View photos from your local hard drive, removable USB or SD cards, and online sources, such as Flickr, Facebook, and Microsoft Live.

• View related photos and videos from some of these online sources, which pertain to what you are looking at in the main viewing area.  For example, if you are looking at  your photos of Paris, you might also be presented with other users’ photos or videos from the same area.

• Upload your photos to your Facebook or Flickr account with a simple button click.  This is  often much faster and easier than going through the Web UI’s for these services.

Music

• Easily find and listen to your favorite music with our integrated search engine or 3D Ribbon.
• Use our AutoDJ feature to automatically queue up playlists for you from the same genre or artist you are currently listening to.  Click on one song and AutoDJ will take it from there.
• Be presented with related music videos or other clips while you listen.  For example, if you are listening to U2, you will likely be presented with some of their music videos to the right in our related media bar.

• As was the case with Photos and Music, easily find the video, movie, or TV show you are looking for with our integrated search engine or 3D Ribbon.
• See your video collection come to life as FME will actually start playing multiple videos in the ribbon, while you browse, making it easier to find what you are looking for.  The better the performance of the machine, the more videos FME can play simultaneously.
• Watch full screen or send to the integrated Mini player so you can surf the Web while you watch a movie.
• Be presented with related YouTube videos pertaining to the content you are currently watching.  For instance you might see cast interviews, bloopers, and sometimes even full episodes, depending on what FME can find on YouTube that relates to what you are watching.

Some other details to note about FME… It has been developed for our notebook platform technology, “Puma” and desktop platform technology, “Dragon.”  It will be provided free to our customers, via download from www.amd.com, or in some cases may come pre-installed on select AMD-based systems.

Concurrent with the posting of this blog, I am releasing a special build of Fusion Media Explorer for friends and family members.  This will supersede our public beta by a couple of weeks.  If you are interested in giving it a try, you can find it here, www.amd.com/fmepreview or find me on twitter at www.twitter.com/caseygotcher if you need the link or (especially) if you have feedback on the application.

* Internet access is required to take advantage of the online search / retrieval functions.

Casey Gotcher is Director, Product Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.