content distribution ultra hdtv


One year ago Japanese public broadcaster NHK was talking about starting its revolutionary ‘Super Hi-Vision’ 8000-line test transmissions in 2020. That long delay, of some 10 years, is consistent with NHK’s well-established road map for the ‘super- realistic’ TV technology’s introduction, which anticipated the fixing of the transmission standard being agreed internationally by about 2008. Chris Forrester reports.


next all-important stage and using the emerging ‘high efficiency video coding’ (HEVC), which is expected to be an agreed MPEG standard within the next year. The formal ‘call for proposals’ went out on time in January 2010, and the current draft standard is expected to be published in February 2012. It is hoped this will morph into the draft international standard by about July 2012, and - trumpet fanfare - the final draft in January 2013, which will then be standardised as the natural successor to MPEG4/AVC H.264 - or, as some people have already dubbed it, H.265. However, at this year’s IBC, a


bombshell was dropped by NHK. The


The S-HV* standards road ITU-R BT.1201-1


ITU-R BT.1706 SMPTE 2036-1 SMPTE 2036-2 SMPTE 2036-3


ISO/IEC MPEG} ITU-T VCEG


*Super Hi-Vision/Ultra HDTV 8 l ibe l november/december 2011 l www.ibeweb.com


(2004) (2006) (2009) (2008) (2010)


} ‘H.265’ 2013


will it ever happen? T


Ultra HDTV:


hat 2008 target date came and went and although various standards bodies (ITU and SMPTE) have agreed elements of the scheme (see box) NHK is still awaiting the


The extra dimension is the speed at which NHK is making progress to its 8K goal. 2020, in realty, is not that far off. 2015, however, is just around the corner and in broadcasting terms is ‘tomorrow’.


statement came from Dr Keiichi Kubota, head of NHK’s science, technology and research laboratories: “The official target has not been changed - yet. But our management is pushing very strongly to start the experiments in 2015. It is a possibility, but many elements have still to come together.” Japan was due to switch off its


analogue TV transmission on 24 July 2011 and, for much of the country, the date was kept. However, the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami means that in three large prefectures badly affected by the catastrophe (Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima), the date was understandably allowed to slip by one year to 31 March 2012. The statement from Dr Kubota


brings an important extra dimension to broadcasters around the world, and especially to those who argue that image quality is an important element to their overall package. This might well include those who see 3D as being important in their mix of offerings. The extra dimension is the speed at


which NHK is making progress to its 8K goal. 2020, in realty, is not that far off. 2015, however, is just around the corner and, in broadcasting terms, is ‘tomorrow’. As with NHK’s introduction of digital


‘Hi-Vision’ (as distinct to its analogue version) it first employed satellite (in 2000) before adding terrestrial transmissions (in 2003). Much the same pattern is planned for Super Hi- Vision, with satellite being specified for initial transmissions. The higher Ka- band (21 GHz) is planned for satellite distribution over Japan, although to date there is only very limited Ka- band capacity available. In other words somebody needs to start designing and building satellites very quickly! Not helping is that such satellites tend to have a long lead time from design to launch, typically stretching to four years or more. Dr Kubota also said that significant


technical progress had been made in this past year, especially in image displays: “Up until now almost everything that we have done has been projected onto screens and in darkened theatres. For broadcasting we need direct-view displays such as plasma or LCD units. We now have an LCD working at 85”, developed jointly by us and Sharp. Our goal now is to move onto a second-generation set, probably at 70”, but with finer, reduced-size pixels.” Sharp’s display operates in ultra-


high resolution (7680 x 4320 pixels). Sharp in now a subsidiary of Panasonic, so it will be interesting to


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