With the Sochi Olympics a few weeks away, television operators around the world are racing to flex their broadcasting muscles by dabbling in 4K territory. Disheartened by the lack of 4K television content, US’ Comcast is filming part of the Olympics in 4K to demonstrate the format’s potential in sports; meanwhile, Russia’s NTV+ wants to both film and transmit the event in 4K to public areas around the country.
“We have already been testing 4K in July in readiness for the Olympics and we very much want to demonstrate the technology to Russian viewers,” Oleg Kolesnikov, NFT’s CTO, tells panelists at Eutelsat’s 4k exhibition during this past fall’s International Broadcasting Convention. Eutelsat, a French based satellite provider, is partnering with NTV to “take this technology rapidly forward” for the Sochi Olympics.
Samsung’s head of business development John Adam was pleased with the topic of 4K television dominating this last IBC, and shares similar sentiments with Kolesnikov. “This IBC is a 4K show…although 4K is kind of here today, there are still gaps that need filling. There are certainly discussions about the connectivity with the set-top box, and we have to solve copy-protection issues, but looking forward we are seeing broadcasters in Europe, in North America and in Asia who are gearing up for 4K.”
The present broadcasting infrastructure is the primary challenge in 4K fruition; a massive overhaul is needed to accommodate the exponentially larger data transmissions. But is 4K standardization worth the investment with 8K looming around the corner? Skeptics believe the format is transient and may echo the leap from 720p to 1080p that took place within a few short years.
A quick 4K review
The 4K format, officially recognized as “Ultra HD” by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) group, crams eight million pixels into a resolution of 4096 x 2160. That’s four times the pixel resolution of contemporary 1920 x 1080 HD/1080p! Consolidating this kind of pixel density into a 40 to 60 inch television creates an extremely detailed image, but only if the user is in close proximity to the screen. Stand more than a few feet away and the difference between 1080p and 4K is less apparent.
Samsung’s 85-inch UHD S9 is ripe for 4K content
However, you’ll immediately spot the 4K TV when dealing with televisions larger than 80 inches. Unlike its 1080p predecessor, which does not contain enough pixels to fill a large screen and still produce a sharp image, the 4K TV has more than enough pixels to do this and retain HD fidelity. To illustrate my point, consider two balloons of opposite thickness being inflated. The thinner of the two will appear transparent after containing less air than the thicker balloon because it lacks the same material density. 4K and 1080p function in the exact same way when “stretching them out.”
Image courtesy of digitaltrends
So what are 4k’s biggest challenges?
Filming native 4k content at a 4096 x 2160 resolution takes up a huge amount of bandwidth and the data communication infrastructure in place for delivering that bandwidth (satellite links, over-the-air and cable channels, and even Blu-ray) can’t quite handle it yet, nor will be getting any more in the near future. Hell, some consumers’ Internet can’t even handle HD video streaming.
Next generation broadcasting and consumer electronics rest on video compression to reduce the bitrate of the video stream into something the infrastructure can actually handle. The issue with doing this is that we’re exacerbating an already unresolved issued. For example, HD cameras film at bitrate of 1.5 gigabits per second but TV broadcasts are limited below 19 megabits by law. This forces broadcasters to a use a lower amount of mbps, such as 12 mbps for HD transmissions, resulting in a resolution less than 1920 x 1080.
So if we can’t even broadcast in full 1080p HD today, how will we view something that is exponentially larger? Updated decompression software will be key, but a number of years remain before commercial 4K TV’s have this feature built-in. Fortunately, an innovative High Efficiency Video Codec capable of doing this is up for review with the FCC.
The first long distance 8k TV broadcast has already happened
In May of 2012 the NHK’s Science & Technology Research Lab in Japan successfully transmitted an 8K, 7680×4320 signal a mere 2.7 miles. But two years and some advanced equipment acquisition later, the organization was able to transmit an 8K signal to a receiving station over 16.8 miles away. This distance is approximately the same used by contemporary digital over the air Japanese broadcasts.
With 8K hot on the tail, it’s no wonder developers fear that 4K is transient. The ultimate question that needs answering is whether or not 8K resolution is overkill for the way we consume television content. Is the quality increase so miniscule between 4K and 8K that the technology treads on the path of diminishing returns? Once the industry decides where it wants to go, then a substantial upgrade in communication.
Via tvbeurope, variety, digitaltrends, and gizmodo
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