July 2013 www.tvbeurope.com


“Pixel science is critical: all 4K cameras require careful management” —Richard Mills


4K recorded programming: Technical and creative issues


4K-ACQUIRED TV productions from flagship docs and high-end drama are rare but increasing. Should TV producers be mastering in 4K for archive? What budget premiums are there for 4K production and where are those costs incurred? Should post facilities be investing in greater storage and fatter ethernet pipes today?


(From left) John Ive, Peter Sykes, Alan Bright and George Jarrett discuss issues around live 4K production


very well for sports yet. With large single sensors, existing 4K cameras will deliver objects near to the camera in focus and objects in the background out of focus when the sports fan wants as much detail as possible. Plus, they want RF and instant replays which are well beyond current capabilities.” He added: “Clearly 4K kit


is available now if, for example, you run four high definition circuits around an OB truck in Quad HD and use fibre connectivity from the cameras. But what is holding the industry back on a larger scale is the lack of broadcast or delivery standards.” Bright revealed he had


recently visited Sony for 4K kit demos but had held off purchase “until I know what the standard frame rate will be.” TVBEurope contributing editor George Jarrett observed that learning to use single sensor cameras in a live environment was a central production concern, as well as finding lenses that can deliver the best results possible without costing an arm or a leg. A related problem, highlighted by TVBEurope associate editor David Fox from the floor, is that extra pixels on the sensor means less light


captured at high speed and when that occurs under flickering, stadium illumination there is even less light to play with. The sensitivity of lenses needs improving in order to avoid noisy images, he said. Peter Sykes did not comment


on whether Sony had a 2/3-inch 3-chip 4K camera in


development, preferring to promote its existing F5 model which will further benefit from HFR firmware upgrades over the next few months, taking it from 60-120fps. “We do acknowledge that as well as operating prime lenses on the F5, outside broadcasters will be looking to operate with standard HD lenses already in their inventory,” said Sykes, pointing to the trial of a solution using lens adaptors for broadcast zooms at the Confederations Cup. ARRI, which has its own higher than 3.5K resolution digital camera in the labs, has always emphasised the quality of the debayered image rather than resolution per se. “Latitude is more important than pure pixel count,” said ARRI’s director of business group development, Milan Krsljanin, noting that the company already has a 6K model — the 35mm ARRICAM. —Adrian Pennington


AIMING TO prove that for 4K recorded programming, UHD was neither a huge additional expense nor as complex as the shift to HD, Richard Mills, CTO Onsight showed a clip of Red Dwarf. The most recent series of the comedy was shot on four 5K Red Epics in front of a studio audience with an HD deliverable. “This approach provided the best of both worlds — very good picture and colour and dynamic range with the benefit of being able to shout down the ears of the camera operator live,” he said. The media for the six shows totalled 70TB although final turnaround needed to be quick in order to accommodate topical material shot literally hours before transmission. Onsight has posted several 4K originated documentaries for Atlantic Productions and also the 5K single camera shoot for BBC drama Mr Stink. “You could expect daily


storage requirements shooting four hours at 2K today of 4,500GB in F65 Raw or 960GB of Sony F5 plus three copies of it for verification. The transfer speed of reading and writing is very important but so long as there is a thorough planning process before you shoot it can be managed and managed cost-effectively. “Remember, these cameras are not rec 709 broadcast


cameras but ones that produce a Raw image, so colour management throughout the process is paramount. “Pixel science is critical: all 4K cameras require careful management. It’s very easy to produce disastrous results. That said, 4K production, if controlled, need not be a complicated issue.” One solution for reducing the amount of data, and therefore the time and cost of transfer content between sites,


representational model of an image by mapping the level of brightness of objects within a frame. The resultant video vectors can be used to reproduce the image on reception and in theory significantly reduce bandwidth requirements. Root6 is installing the software into its pipeline for further tests and the project has Ovation Data and Smoke+Mirrors as trial users. “Hopefully, having proven our credibility and the


Philip Willis: “Our


concept is to get rid of the pixel altogether”


TVBEurope 25


is being researched at Bath University. Philip Willis, Professor of Computing and director for the University’s Centre for Digital Entertainment, updated delegates on a means of avoiding pixels altogether, at least in the digital intermediate between capture and display. “Higher frame rates and


greater resolution means even more pixels and more storage and therefore greater processing power so our concept is to get rid of the pixel altogether,” he said. The concept, under test for the past 18 months, creates a


quality of result, the next stage is to actually fulfil the goal of significantly reducing data volume,” he said. “We started with stills and moved to movies to prove we can contour the image and render it back again at high quality. “The next phase is to move


from individual frames to moving images — which is in the lab right now. If successful we will get pixel and frame rate independence. The latter is much more of a challenge but the preliminary results are promising.” — Adrian Pennington


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