20 TVBEurope Wrap-Up


Retina quality 2D 4K resolution in the sun


NAB saw a very serious push towards display resolutions that go far beyond 1920 x 1080 high definition. David Kirk looks back to the standout new moves


AFTER SEVERAL years of 3D hullabaloo, this was the year of ‘retina quality’ 2D 4K. The key message emerging from the 2013 NAB show can be experienced either by taking a close look at your nearest Apple iPhone 4 or a fourth-generation iPad. With no visible pixels even


when seen in close-up, their respective screens are almost as clean as back-lit photo- transparencies. Extrapolate these display sizes up to 30-inch diagonal and you start to get the picture: a very serious push towards display resolutions that go far beyond 1920 x 1080 high definition. Many television viewers in industrialised countries today own 40-inch 1920 x 1080 displays. At a typical 8-9ft viewing distance, upconverted 525/625-line standard definition is itself ‘retina quality’. So who actually needs higher


resolution? Most obviously, the CEOs of Hitachi, JVC, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba in their effort to sustain demand for domestic television screens. Likewise for manufacturers of broadcast production equipment, in response to fierce competition in the traditional SD and HD markets. Several NAB exhibitors


attempted to overcome the lack of a 4K-ready audience issue by promoting 4K as a programme production format from which 1920 x 1080 HD can be selectively drawn either live or in post. This was a technique demonstrated by Sony at IBC2012, and again at NAB, in which multiple 4K camera outputs are stitched together to create a single panorama. It is a formula that is already attracting outside broadcast production companies. Pittsburgh-based NEP Broadcasting has applied the idea to sports television using six For-A FT One 4K cameras feeding an Evertz Dreamcatcher slow-motion server, allowing producers to perform digital zooms within what amounts to a oversampled incoming video.


Many exhibitors demonstrated


4K screens, most impressive of all being a prototype 30-inch 4096 x 2160 Sony OLED (scheduled for delivery by 2014) adjacent to a 56-inch 3840 x 2160 version. 4K displays of various sizes were also commonplace on many other booths, many of them ideal for multiscreen playout monitoring once they can compete with four-in-a-group 1920 x 1080 displays.


Highlight NAB products Bill Leadbetter explains the virtues of Axon’s Audio Video Bridging


There was, of course, much more to NAB than beyond-HD resolution. A fast run-though of some notable innovations: Artel Video Systems and


Sony continued to promote 4K as a production tool One snag in the proposed


elevation to 4K production from a manufacturer’s angle is that some of the most aggressive hardware companies are at the forefront of the push beyond HD. Blackmagic’s new ‘Production Camera 4K’ attracted at least as much attention as the previous-year introduction of the 1920 x 1080 pixel model on which it is based. Listed at five dollars short of US$4k, it has a 21.12 x 11.88mm (Super 35) 3840 x 2160 pixel resolution imager and is designed for use with EF mount lenses. Video can be recorded to an integral removable 2.5-inch solid state drive in either the Adobe- defined CinemaDNG RAW format or 880Mbps Apple ProRes 422 (HQ). The camera can capture 4K at 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97 or 30fps. It can also output progressive or interlaced in 1920 x 1080 resolution. Also new from this company was the US$995 Pocket Cinema Camera with a Super 16 sized 1080 HD imager.


The push for higher broadcast


display resolution is unlikely to stop at 4K unless the television market follows the audio model. Super Audio CD, in case you have forgotten or never heard of it, made very little impact in the consumer audio sector following its initial promotion in 1999. The subsequent rise to popularity of highly compressed MP3 demonstrates that consumers don’t always buy into higher quality, at least in the short term. NHK meanwhile hopes to consign 4K into a transitional resolution on the way to the 8K ‘Super Hi-Vision’ which it has been promoting as a potential broadcast format since 2003. Certainly the best images at NAB this year were NHK’s 8K demonstrations in the Future Technology area of the North Hall.


Exhibiting in the Central Hall,


Astro displayed an NHK-developed 8K 60fps compact camera head which a has a single 2.5-inch 33 megapixel CMOS sensor and PL lens mount. Size was 125 x 125 x 150mm and the weight 2kg.


Nevion demonstrated the delivery of uncompressed video plus audio over IP/Ethernet using the SMPTE ST 2022-6:2012 standard, including the ability to reconstruct each other’s IP encapsulated SMPTE 292M HD-SDI signal. Axon promoted the merits of the IEEE 802.1 audio video bridging standard as an alternative


channel employs IP control of headend switching. BVH exhibited an unusual


device that I missed when introduced at NAB 2011. Based on the phantom power concept used for capacitor microphones, the Video Ghost allows 65 watts at 12 volts direct-current to be delivered along up to 150m of standard video cable. Camera Corps demonstrated a


wireless remote pan/tilt/zoom camera system with a transmission range of up to 1.6km. Initially available for hire rather than sale, it is designed for fast installation and can operate in daylight or infra-red. It is compatible with Vinten Radamec’s CP4 controller which combines a touchscreen user interface, focus wheel and three- axis joystick. Matrox announced the Mojito 4K, a quad 3G-SDI video monitoring card for use with Adobe 4K editing software running under Microsoft Windows. It allows realtime monitoring and output of video footage at resolutions up to 4096 x 2160 and up to 60fps.


Samsung demonstrated a transparent LCD screen forming


One snag in the proposed elevation to 4K production from a manufacturer’s angle is that some of the most aggressive hardware companies are at the forefront of the push beyond HD


to SDI-based delivery. Packetised clock information is exchanged between master and slave to define the delay between the two clocks. The slave clock alters its settings to match the master clock frequency. Additional slave nodes can be added to the network, all following the same approach to form a fully synchronised asynchronous network. Ateme announced that a


DVB-T2 digital terrestrial TV service with more than 75 MPEG-4 channels is being launched in May. Built around Ateme’s TITAN software platform, the Haiti-based TiVi


the front of 14.8-inch deep rectangular display case resembling a goldfish bowl; more a shop-window device rather than a studio tool. 3D product promotions were small in number. Dolby demonstrated the latest version of its autostereoscopic 3D system, which uses laterally tilted rather than vertical lenticular lenses to split the left and right images. Claimed to produce ‘the best 3D picture from any seat in the house’, it managed to deliver z-axis inversion to my initial viewpoint, duly rectified when a more central seat became available.


www.tvbeurope.com May 2013


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