LOL....

When I was at AES in San Francisco back in October, a spokesman from NHK Tokyo (equivalent to the CBC or BBC) was discussing the Super High Vision TV format which is already in development. Super High Vision TV is the next step in the HDTV format sequence (although we barely have standard HDTV ready). The audio stand for this is supposed to be 22.2 -- 9 upper layer channels, 10 mid layer channels, 3 lower layer channels, and 2 LF channels.

22.2...At first we thought it was a typo in his powerpoint presentation. Then he said it again. So, someone asked for clarification of the 22.2 specification. Then, we just thought he was crazy. ;-)

If this is for Super HDTV, how does one go about installing a 22.2 system in their home? I can understand it for movie theater venues...but my living room? Not only that....how do we record live audio for 22.2? 5.1 live recordings are tricky enough!

Don't get me wrong....I think it would be great....just think of the accuracy that you could achieve in locating your sounds within a 22 speaker soundfield. Match that with a 52" plasma TV......and it will literally be almost like being there! ;-)

Something to think about!
dwh

The idea for 10.2 & variations has been around for years. The problem is implementation on the manufacturing side & configuration on the consumer end. Manufacturing an amplifier that can handle 12-24 channels in a single box requires a fairly serious bit of engineering, right down to fitting all required connectors on the back of a reasonably sized unit. Then there are power consumption and distribution issues & unit weight issues (impacts shipping costs). On the consumer end, it turns out that most current 5.1 systems are mis-configured or otherwise incorrectly set up. And that's 6 channels. To add insult to injury, surveys show that most consumers don't stray from the primary (default) audio stream on the DVDs they play on their systems, further increasing the possibility of incorrect playback of downmixed audio to incorrectly configured systems, etc. My point is that we're not close to 22.2. The idea is being driven by non-manufacturing/non-consumer industry interests.