July 2013
www.tvbeurope.com
“With this project we wanted to test the complete production chain, including broadcast and reception of 4K content” — José Luis Garcia, Canal+
TVBEurope 13 News & Analysis A showcase in 4K
Guest Opinion: Sebastián Wainberg, general product manager Promovisa, reports from Canal+’s first ‘4K Day’ held last month at its Madrid offices
DURING A4K Day held on 13 June Canal+4K broadcast a five-minute UHD (3840x2160 pixel) production, with four times more pixels than a regular HD image. The five-minute 4K production was broadcast in loop throughout the whole day via Astra satellite. This transmission provided evidence that both Canal+ and its partners already have the technological capacity to start flirting with this new TV standard. The event involved help and
collaboration from SES and TSA, and technology from Newtec, Ovide, Promovisa, Sapec, Sony and Trigital. Considering that a 4K production has four times more resolution than a regular HD image, Canal+ looked for shots with plenty of detail that showed all the quality of the new format. The increase in resolution means not only an increase in pixel density but a 50% reduction of the viewing distance to the screen, compared to the HD resolution — passing from three times the height of the screen to just 1.5 times.
Production phases Canal+ brought together Spanish broadcast industry leaders for this first 4K
David Martinez: “In addition we collaborated with consulting services for the workflow and the supervision of the post production tasks”
production. José Luis Garcia, Canal+ head of Operations, summed up its motivation for this project: “Canal+ has always offered its subscribers the best content with the highest quality standards. We were pioneers offering high definition content and we want to be ready for all the choices that technology can offer. Thanks to the bandwidth of satellite transmissions, we will be well prepared for broadcast UHD when this kind of TV becomes a reality in the homes of our customers.”
Canal+4K broadcast a five-minute UHD (3840x2160 pixel) production
The result was the creation of a unique audiovisual piece in Europe, developed in several steps. Ovide, a technical equipment rental company, provided the Sony F65 4K camera as well as optics and auxiliary material for the shoot. “This recording was a very special project for us”, explained Sergi Maudet, Ovide’s technical director. “Everyone wants to see how much 4K can give us. We need to have the best results and from Ovide we bet on this format and contributed the most advanced equipment we could find in the market: Sony F65RS camera and Arri Master Prime optics”. Promovisa collaborated with 4K editing systems and as a consultant in the post production
phase. An Avid Media Composer 6.5 system was used for offline sequences and an Avid DS was used for titling and final version conforming. David Martinez, Promovisa systems manager said, “we provided consulting services for the workflow and supervision of the post production tasks”. Trigital provided the DVS Clipster system and was part of the original RAW file developing and finishing. Pedro Escalona, general director, affirmed “this system can achieve very demanding visual effects without delaying workflow, since most of its operations are processed in realtime.”
Miguel Angel Cristobal, general
director from Sapec, added that as a professional encoding developer
and manufacturing company, “we were responsible for codifying UHD TV signals under ITU H.264 (MPEG-4/AVC) standards. Altum encoders were specially adapted to support the new 4K format, getting an optimal image quality even with the high compression level (more than 100 to 1).” Newtec was in charge of the
ASI frame generation and satellite uplink modulation. Commercial director Fernando Andreu said “we supplied the new MDM6000/6100 modulators that support the new DVB-S2 extensions to get up to 37% additional efficiency compared to the traditional DVB-S2”. Dolores del Campillo, project director from TSA added “we were responsible for the uplink services of the signal from the Armuña satellite teleport to the ASTRA satellite.” SES general director Luis Sahún
explained that the signal broadcast was made by its satellite systems. “For the 4K emission the 1062 transponder was used from the ASTRA IKR satellite, which was situated in orbital position 19,2˚ E.” Finally, Hector Sierra from
Sony Professional said, “We participated in this project with our KD84X9005 4K screens for visualisation of the result. A 3D 214cms/ 84-inch TV in 4K resolution with more than 8 million pixels was used, with an X-Reality Pro process that intelligently optimises and enhances the images in any format for more precise details and vivid colours.”
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Photos: Pedro Menendez
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