30 TVBEurope 4K: Beyond HD
www.tvbeurope.com July 2014
Future resolution
TVBEurope’s Beyond HD Masters 2014 conference, held at London’s BAFTA in June, generated informative debates around the topic of 4K and prompted the question of whether it is an interim format. Conference report by Melanie
Dayasena-Lowe
THIS YEAR’S keynote Stephan Heimbecher, head of innovations and standards/ products and operations, technology, Sky Deutschland, opened the conference by refl ecting on the lessons learned since last year’s Beyond HD Masters event. “A year ago we weren’t quite ready yet to do an Ultra HD [UHD] production live as we would do HD today. But we have advanced,” he explained. Heimbecher told the audience that UHD will require bigger screens to reach and wow the consumer and that bigger displays require different production grammar than for HD.
He went on to talk about Sky Deutschland’s live football trials earlier this year.
“Today, we have continued to focus on all the different aspects in the end-to-end chain. On 26 April in Munich, we were fi nally able to do a full 50p live end-to-end broadcast in UHD with a multi-camera production with HEVC live encoding.” On 17 May, Sky Deutschland completed a second full 50p live end-to-end test in Berlin.
Heimbecher stated: “50p will do for now but we will certainly be benefi ting from higher frame rates in the mid to long-term.
Chairman John Ive introduces Beyond HD Masters 2014
High Dynamic Range [HDR] might help.”
Talking about the demand and awareness of UHD, he believes consumers are anticipating UHD but they are not in a hurry at this point in time. “People are very well aware of UHD but they are also well aware of the lack of UHD content. People know there are sets out there but feel they are still too expensive. They would
What does the future hold?
Q. Should we go beyond 4K? A: Ruth Sessions, director of operations, Atlantic Productions “When working with 4K we were only looking at broadcast delivery in HD and 4K for the giant screen. Now we’re creating 4K TV masters. Not because anyone needs them yet but we’re future proofi ng. If we could afford to work in 8K that would be great.”
Q: Is a higher resolution bringing 3D closer?
A: Duncan Humphreys, head of broadcast and content acquisition, Stream TV Networks
“8K, 12K, that’s all in the pipeline. I don’t think 3D is dead. It’s sleeping.
The fi nal panel discussion of the day debate whether higher resolution is bringing 3D closer and ask if we should go beyond 4K?
Live 3D conversion from a 4K source is going to be very exciting territory.”
A: Claus Pfeifer, strategic marketing manager, live production, Sony Europe
“4K is the format where I see practical production happening in the short-term. 8K is still a long time away.”
A: David Wood, chair, DVB CM – UHDTV and DM – 3DTV
“Even if it is six to eight years until 8K comes along, is it really worth changing our whole infrastructure to 4K now for something that’s only going to last six to eight years?”
like to see a full conversion to HD fi rst before they see anything else.”
One of the questions from the audience was about Sky Deutschland’s plan for 2015 in terms of 4K transmission. Heimbecher responded: “We’re working hard to start a service at some point in time. We think it needs more ingredients to come to a point where what you end up with
on the screen is something that people pass by and say ‘this is what I need and is so much better than what I have at home’. If we rush too fast to the market with something that is technically UHD, especially with the scepticism people already have, I think we have to be very careful.”
Why 4K?
Jack Wetherill, senior market analyst at Futuresource Consulting, looked at what’s driving 4K. He highlighted that this time last year only four models of 4K TV sets were available in the UK. “The message was 4K will come. It’s going to be on very high-end TV sets and prices will remain quite high in the mid-term.” By March 2014 20 models were available in the UK and by the end of May 2014 there were 30-plus.
Awareness of 4K TV sets is encouraging. The Futuresource ‘Living with Digital’ consumer research found that 44 per cent of consumers in France, Germany and the UK are aware of 4K/UHD TVs. When asked if they would be interested in buying a 4K set with improved
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