Euromedia May June | Page 26

4K UHD : Good to go ?

UHD is part of every broadcaster conversation but is it ready for the market – there are plenty of TVs being sold but what about standards , content capture , workflow and transmission ? Chris
Forrester chaired a panel of experts brought together by Advanced Television .

Nothing holds a system back like failure to agree on basic standards and UHD doesn ’ t have its ‘ act together ’, yet on issues such as colour gamut , frame rate and High Dynamic range ...?

“ It does matter ; it is unfortunate we ’ re drip feeding the standards in terms of the change from a broadcast HD environment to an IP UHD 4K one , but I think that ’ s inevitable and it ’ s up to us to manage ,” says Ian Trow , senior director of emerging technology , Harmonic .
“ It ’ s relatively straightforward to produce a standard for production but much less so for delivery to home ,” warns Tim Felstead , head of product marketing at Snell Advanced Media . “ In production , the moment there is a new standard available to us , we adopt it as we are strong believers in
“ The difference for the consumer is incredible .” open and agreed standards .”
“ We have been on air with UHD since last August ,” declares Jamie Hindlaugh , chief operating officer for BT Sport . “ I think there ’ s a real danger in getting too involved with formats and engineers trying to drive what is consumer behaviour . We made the decision to move into UHD because we have an IP platform . I think it ’ s about evolution and we need to be wary of formats for formats sake . We work with what is available , and you can see the difference for the consumer is incredible and that ’ s what we need to deliver - a differential the audience can see .”
“ If we look at the last few years , specifically on the production side , the tools for acquisition have been there for four or five years ,” explains Peter Sykes , strategic technology manager , Sony Professional . “ Then we had to develop monitoring tools that allow us to get the best out of those pictures but that ’ s still evolving . Standards are important because they will allow manufacturers to implement up to those standards but there ’ s always an evolution in the market .”
“ I think by bringing a service to market we ’ ve become like an R & D department for manufacturers and it was important we did that – I think 4K was in danger of talking itself to death to be frank ,” comments Hindlaugh . “ You learn as you go along and the development has ramped up dramatically .”
“ It is , though , in live events like sport where getting standardisation will be important . Equipment has to work right now , every time ,” says Felstead .
“ There are two things developing here ,” says Trow . “ UHD delivery and IP infrastructure and certainly I don ’ t think any manufacturer would get away with a strictly proprietary approach .”
“ The standards approach for an EBU broadcaster is going to be different than for an IPTV or OTT supplier ,” comments Felstead . “ On the one hand , you have terrestrial delivery where you don ’ t control both ends so you want signals to play on myriad of different manufacturers ’ devices .”
“ In terms of production we ’ re already capturing more than just sport ,” says Sykes , “ and when people see the pictures you immediately get that engagement and it ’ s impressive . Making content in UHD now – when there isn ’ t a massive audience available – is about the future and about gaining a competitive advantage now . We ’ re providing tools to let customers differentiate themselves in a crowded landscape .”
“ It ’ s a far different environment than going form SD to HD which was a much smaller incremental increase ,” advises Hindlaugh . “ When we down convert from 4K to HD , the quality of the HD is better .”
“ A big challenge is delivery of this very data heavy format ,” says George Mikeladze , founder and CEO of Qarva . “ We started
“ Equipment has to work right now , every time .”
developing our open internet solution five years ago . We are able to deliver a 35Mb stream from continent to continent over the open net with almost no latency . OTT is delivering movies and sports events and that trend will continue .”
“ We have 1.5 million homes served over IPTV , for UHD homes need BT Infinity but with that and our UHD box we ’ ve encountered less problems than we anticipated ,” says Hindlaugh . “ There are some restrictions depending on your speed and use , but as broadband speeds increase that goes hand in hand with us increasing our content output .”
“ Prestige programming – sport , movies , concerts etc . – will showcase the technology . Other content will catch up eventually but there must be backwards compatibility in the content and at the viewer ’ s end ,” notes Trow .
“ If you ’ re producing file content or live content in 4K and you ’ re not tying to over crush it , then you instantly have a problem with disc capacity and network bandwidth . On the delivery side we have fantastic compression algorithms that can deliver
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