Eutelsat Communications launched the first dedicated demonstration Ultra HD channel in Europe on January 8th. Delivered via satellite with the resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 ( 4K ) at 50 frames per second — the European equivalent to 60p — the stream is encoded in MPEG-4 with help from video compression solution provider, ATEME, and transmitted at 40 Mbps. This is over twice the bandwidth used by most 1080i broadcasts, but not necessarily an indication of future Ultra HD broadcasts utilization, as they’re expected to use the more efficient HEVC codec — depending on color space and other factors, Ultra HD broadcasts might use less throughput than 1080i does now. With only three very expensive Ultra HD TVs on the market, there aren’t many who can take advantage of this. Hopefully if you are one of the lucky few, you’re in a position to take advantage of this native content on your latest prized possession. Continue reading First Ultra HD channel goes live in Europe Filed under: Home Entertainment , HD Comments
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First Ultra HD channel goes live in Europe
RocketAcademy writes “A petition on the White House website is calling for the United States to rapidly develop a nuclear thermal rocket engine. Nuclear rockets are a promising technology, but unless NASA develops a deep-space exploration ship such as Johnson Space Center’s Nautilus X, a nuclear rocket would be wasted. Launching nuclear rockets may pose regulatory and political problems as well. Practical applications may depend on mining uranium or thorium on the Moon.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
A fascinating project is making the rounds this weekend that could change the way we think of 3D printers. The Filabot is a robot that can turn scrap plastic into 3D printer filament, thereby allowing an almost endless supply of material for prototyping and manufacturing. While it’s probably not that exciting for non-hobbyists, the Filabot is essentially a way to make the raw materials used in products like Makerbot out of stuff you’d throw away. The creator, Tyler McNaney, ran a Kickstarter campaign last year and he is slowly but surely bringing the devices to market this year. Obviously you’re going to run into problems with such a small system – the impurities in the plastic and bubbles being of primary concern – but at about $50 a spool, PVC isn’t cheap and if you’re printing quite a bit of prototype hardware there’s room for a bit of error. Kickstarter backers paid $350 for their Filabots and a “public” price isn’t yet set. While there are problems with any recycling technology, the Filabot is a fascinating study at the potential for in-home 3D printing. Imagine, for example, printing out repair parts or toys using stuff that you would normally recycle? It’s a wonderful example of technology finally digging us – imperceptibly slowly, I’ll grant you – out of the plastic waste problem. 
