8 TVBEurope
Opinion The Year Ahead
www.tvbeurope.com January 2014
Ideally, the industry would adopt 100/120fps, but the bandwidth requirements implied by such an increase in frame rate present a daunting proposition for broadcasters
2014: a 4K future?
With all the buzz surrounding 4K throughout 2013, the logical question is if and when these formats will be widely adopted as a replacement for HD. As the industry looks ahead to 2014, Ian Trow, Harmonic senior director, emerging technology and strategy, offers his opinion on what to expect
AS THE industry looks ahead to 2014, it is clear that the readiness of 4K to serve as an HD replacement depends primarily on the application. Consider home cinema applications, in which the 4K screens already on the market are proving to be a solid match for the demands of cinema content. With respect to factors such as resolution and frame rate, it seems clear that cinema releases can be successfully repurposed as 4K content for home theatre viewing. In fact, it has been for this particular application that most early 4K screen sales have been made. As far as content from
providers such as Netflix and YouTube is concerned, it appears that 4K content will become available in the form of 4K downloads. Advances in Blu-ray technology do accommodate film- length 4K content. A new triple- layer disc capable of storing 100GB does provide an
alternative to the bandwidth- intensive delivery of 4K files, but consumers’ increasing interest in investing in streaming media or downloads rather than physical media tends to favour the former as the distribution mechanism of choice.
means of moving content from source to 4K screen. Offering an attractive solution for near-term delivery of 4K movies, this approach is helping to fuel initial market traction for 4K screens, despite the scarcity of native 4K content. As time passes, however,
rate, dynamic range, bitrate, and audio scheme. Movie content already features a frame rate and resolution displayable on the early 4K/Ultra HD screens, and work is progressing to bring bit depth, chroma sub-sampling, and dynamic range up to a
“As time passes and display manufacturers continue to refine their screens 4K must gain living room acceptance as Ultra HD”
In either case, whether the
4K screen source is a disc or a download, most of the content will not be provided in a true 4K format; even content identified as having been mastered in 4K is often 1080p that has been up- converted. When HD content is streamed at a high enough data rate that subsequent upconversion is viable, this approach offers a much needed
and display manufacturers continue to refine their screens (and drive further consumer investment), 4K must gain living room acceptance as Ultra HD.
4K for linear TV? Whereas 4K differs from HD primarily in providing much greater resolution, Ultra HD aims to be a complete standard that enhances resolution, frame
Ian Trow, Harmonic senior director, emerging technology and strategy
Ian Trow, Harmonic
standard that would allow Ultra HD screens to offer the vivid colour portrayal offered by cinema. While 4K is on solid ground and moving forward in this application, the transition from 4K for the home cinema to the delivery and display of scheduled linear television content presents a much greater challenge, especially for live sports coverage.
For higher-resolution live sports television, a frame rate of 50/60fps is the minimum requirement if 4K/Ultra HD broadcasts are to match the current HD format and gain equal footing. Ideally, the industry would adopt 100/120fps, but the bandwidth requirements implied by such an increase in frame rate present a daunting proposition for broadcasters. Even taking advantage of the HEVC/H.265 format, this approach would require significantly more bandwidth than what is now used for HD services.
Considering this issue, a more
feasible solution would be to broadcast 50/60fps and use temporal up-conversion at the screen to provide the viewer with the enhanced 4K or Ultra HD output. For this approach to work, the 4K/Ultra HD screen itself must boast a significantly advanced up-conversion algorithm, as well as the necessary processing power to implement that algorithm. While screen manufacturers are eager to provide consumers with screens that optimise visual quality, they may be less excited about the investment in the preprocessing necessary to achieve this quality for live 4K/Ultra HD broadcast services. With respect to viewers’ screens, both bit depth and dynamic range need to be improved to give the new format the ‘wow’ factor to succeed. Looking forward, a key question for the industry is whether ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020, which defines various aspects of Ultra HD including display resolution, frame rate, chroma subsampling, bit depth, and colour space, can displace ITU-R Recommendation BT.709, which has been used to standardise HD television since the early 1990s. This shift would offer tremendous quality improvements for both movies and television, thus providing viewers with the full benefit of their move beyond HD.
www.harmonicinc.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52