July 2014
www.tvbeurope.com
44 per cent of consumers in France, Germany and the UK are aware of 4K/UHD TVs — Futuresource ‘Living with Digital’ consumer research
picture quality over their HD set, 42 per cent were reasonably/ very interested in doing so while 26 per cent were adverse to buying such a set.
Wetherill asked how 4K content is going to get to the home. “There’s a lot of talk about OTT and online services… will there be enough content out there and will the online providers be able to get their hands on it?”
According to Wetherill, 4K is a ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. “Streaming sources will be the key source of content while pay TV/packaged media gear up their propositions. Upscaling capabilities of TV sets themselves will be a stop gap measure for many years to come.”
The IP connection Claus Pfeifer, strategic marketing manager, live production at Sony Europe, believes 4K and IP are interrelated. “We would like to have a system that is in the broadcasting centre and have the fl exibility to connect everything via IP, plus the possibility to connect to remote locations like regional stadiums/ sites. That means a future- proofed IP-based system needs to be decentralised with one cable for all signals and routing of sources without glitches in video etc.”
Commenting on better pixels, he said: “We all want this, but I’m worried that it’s an ‘either- or’ discussion at the moment.”
Sounding off
Later in the day, talk turned to the area of next generation audio. Dr Frank Melchior, head of audio research, BBC R&D, assessed the volume of innovations available from an audio standpoint. “We have a massive variety of devices but how we deliver audio to these devices today is more like the smallest common denominator (stereo or surround) rather than taking advantage of these devices and giving the audience a better experience.” As a public broadcaster, he explained how the BBC wants to deliver a new digital live experience on a variety of devices. “We want to do it in an intelligent way so we want to create content that goes much beyond just a linear piece of broadcasting. So we want content that adapts to the environment.” He feels that the next generation of audio will be responsive and/or immersive.
TVBEurope 31 4K: Beyond HD What’s missing in the standards debate?
Q: What’s your take on delivery? A: Simon Parnall, director, new initiatives, service provider video software and solutions, Cisco.
“We’ve been doing some
interesting work on how we think TV might evolve in the home. We’ve been looking at opportunities afforded by new display technology, particularly technology that is unobtrusive and immersive. We feel one of the opportunities of the next few years is to break out of this world where this box dominated the corner of the room.”
Q: The rate of change of standards is so quick, how can we apply them? A: Andy Quested, head of technology for HD and UHD, BBC
“We think about standards that will allow us to fi nish a programme. If you have a four-year natural history
“I found it encouraging that the next generation system will probably be an object-based sound system,” he added.
Bert Van Daele, CTO, Auro Technologies, spoke about the company’s Auro 3D product, which is about immersive 3D sound. “Immersive sound also increases the emotional connection to what happens on screen. That’s the same for TV productions.”
Van Daele said the ultimate goal in audio recording has always been the most natural, immersive listening experience. He also compared object- based versus channel-based audio. Object-based allows for maximum fl exibility while channel-based allows for the best audio quality and maximum artistic control. Rob France, senior product marketing manager, Dolby Europe, also discussed object- based audio and how far it can go. “It’s a key opportunity that as we look at the transition to 4K it will be really disappointing if we miss.” He highlighted that stereo has to be the forefront of our thinking.
France also stressed that we need to give consumers access to the content in a way that works best for them. “The only audio setting consumers understand today is volume.
“We have to think about bringing the next generation of immersive surround sound into the home” he remarked.
Delegates learn more about Ultra HD, the standards debate, and next generation audio among other topics
programme, you could have a different TV standard from one to another so we do have to think about the longevity of a standard.”
Q: Should we bring 4K and 8K in parallel? SP: “We need to ask the question: what is the modality for television in the future? Young people are quite happy to use an iPad as their TV and the different ways of watching television need to work together.”
Q: How long has SD delivery got to go? AQ: “Standard defi nition will never go but will exist in IP terms based on bandwidth and requirements. Resolution is just another variable from mobile phones to 8K. I think the question is, how long will MPEG-2 last?”
The panel addresses the rate of change of standards and how we can apply them
A: Simon Gauntlett, technology director, DTG
“How do we migrate DTT platforms to something more effi cient? We want this fl exibility because we want to have different
content that has different requirements and is targeted at different devices. We need to think about what we’re delivering the content to and how best to make the design for those types of devices.”
“If we could aff ord to work in 8K that would be great”
Ruth Sessions,
director of operations, Atlantic Productions
Enhanced Ultra HD
IN A series of quick-fi re presentations, speakers from the BBC, ARRI and Dolby Laboratories discussed the area of enhanced Ultra HD.
The BBC’s Andy Quested, head of technology for high defi nition and ultra-high defi nition, said the public broadcaster does not believe UHD will take off just on the grounds of resolution. “We see it as a family of requirements. We believe just adding more pixels isn’t enough,” he added.
Milan Krsljanin, business
development manager, ARRI, spoke about the company’s offering on show in the exhibition area at BAFTA on the day of the event. “This year we wanted to do something to push the boundary.” Showing natural history material, Krsljanin explained that the images
are all documentary style, acquired with its new camera Amira. “The essence of the exercise was to show how important the dynamic range of the sensor is in capturing as much of the highlights and tone etc in order to achieve and fully utilise the device.”
Prinyar Boon, director of system architecture, Dolby Laboratories, told the audience that his company had been shooting HDR material using Alexa cameras for several years.
He explained that Dolby had carried out acceptance tests where users could turn the brightness up and down and decide where to set blacks etc. The fi ndings showed that viewers want 200 times more brightness and 4,000 times more contrast than current television standards.
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