theibcdaily DVB tackles German DTT By George Jarrett
One of the most significant and certain-to-happen demonstrations involving the new coding muscle offered by HEVC is the DVB Project’s delivery of seven HEVC encoded HD channels in a single 8MHz DVB-T2 channel. This introduction of HEVC encoded services is both a technology triumph and a startling political turnabout as inspired by Germany’s vision of DTT.
“It is a U-Turn because there
were numerous discussions in Germany about stopping terrestrial transmission,” said DVB executive director Peter Siebert. “The DVB is delighted to see that German broadcasters will upgrade the terrestrial platform to be compatible with satellite and cable. “The numbers for terrestrial as the primary distribution format in Germany are 10-11%, but there are many TV screens in with digital antennae and I am pretty sure that this new platform, delivering a wide range of HD services, will give a new push to DTT in Germany,” he added.
Peter Siebert: “It is a U-Turn because there were numerous discussions in Germany about stopping terrestrial transmission”
One of the first products to take advantage of now available HEVC chip sets is the Technicolor set-top box used by Siebert in the DVB demo. “My other partners are
TeamCast for the transmission, Fraunhofer for the encoding, Rohde & Schwarz for the multiplexing, Arte and IRT for the content, Vestel for the display, and Sony for the mobile receive devices,” said Siebert.
Amira to go ProRes UHD ARRI By David Fox
Users of ARRI’s documentary-style Amira camera will be able to upgrade to recording Ultra HD at up to 60 frames per second, in a paid firmware update due later this year. It will record all ProRes codecs in UHD directly onto the in-camera CFast 2.0 cards, thanks to what Arri promises will be “an affordable software license
(and a sensor calibration for existing Amiras)”. The Alexa/Amira sensor
has already proved it can deliver the image quality needed for 4K or even IMAX theatrical releases of such films such as Gravity, Maleficentand Iron Man 3, but this requires post production up-sampling, which may not be suitable for fast-turnaround or lower- budget documentaries. The Amira’s UHD output uses the same efficient 1.2x up-sample filter that allows Alexa’s Open Gate mode to
“I took largely German partners here to emphasise relevance for the German market. I assume that many countries are looking closely at what is happening there. I think Italy is considering combining T2 with HEVC too,” he added. “It halves the data rate. For broadcasters, for a given service and a given quality it halves transmission costs. That is hugely relevant because in addition to the three traditional delivery networks we will see more and more IP delivered content.” EBU members will put their
current bouquets in a reduced spectrum, but Siebert has one concern. “The open question is, what will the spectrum transition scenario look like: you need the currently available spectrum because you must do simulcast for some time to come,” he said. The DVB-T2 demo is done at 64 QAM and the data rate is 26.56 Mbps. The key element of robust transmission for indoor and portable reception is as good as it was with the first generation system DVB-T. “HEVC refreshes the terrestrial platform with T2,” said Siebert. “We know it will happen.” 1.D81
optimise image performance for 4K, which will take place in camera — in realtime. Wildlife cinematographer Rolf Steinmann, who was nominated for an Emmy for his work with Alexa on the BBC’s Wild Arabia, is currently using his Amira on a movie for Disney Nature. “For cameramen like me who own their gear, the UHD upgrade is a great way to stay future proof. From now on when there’s pressure from the production side to deliver UHD, I can continue to work with Amira and won’t have to compromise on image quality or on the camera’s robustness and reliability,” he said. 11.F21
Broadcast routing migrates to IP Grass Valley
By David Fox
Many broadcasters now see their competition as not just other broadcasters, but also online offerings, such as Google or Netflix, which are completely IP-based, making it simpler for them to launch new services. To give broadcasters that same agility, Grass Valley is showing a new non-proprietary Software Defined Networks-based system for managing IP networks that offers a familiar, broadcast-centric control environment for both SDI and IP. “SDI is extremely low latency and uses determinism, which is great for live responsiveness, but difficult to scale in an economic way,” said Mike Cronk, SVP of strategic marketing, Grass Valley, who believes IP routing is the best way forward for video, particularly as Ethernet switches are progressing even faster than Moore’s law. “We’ve made a very big
investment in IP technology,”
Mike Cronk: “We’ve made a very big investment in IP technology”
and aim to offer the first live glass-to-glass IP video in the market, he added. The SDN control will embrace IP routing switchers from third parties using SMPTE 2022-6. “Our customers don’t want to be locked into proprietary switchers that are only controlled by a proprietary control system,” he said. SDN is an out-of-band
control, like SDI, with a separate signal path that talks to the switch, and delivers lower latency with high availability. It will also control traditional SDI routers, to enable easier migration, using the same control panels. 1.D11, 1.E02
New live caption platform Ericsson By Ian McMurray
Ericsson has unveiled its realtime platform that supports live captioning in various languages for broadcasters around the world using speech- to-text, newsroom integration, and rapid offline content preparation. The live platform makes its IBC debut this year, and is a key part of Ericsson’s Broadcast and Media Services portfolio following the acquisition of leading media services company Red Bee Media in July.
The schedule-driven software platform, which was developed in-house, uses the best possible speech recognition and
stenography technologies to power Ericsson’s live captioning services. It allows multiple captioners to prepare and deliver realtime services for clients while maximising re-use of the caption data after it has been broadcast. The platform is currently being used to deliver live captioning services for major broadcast clients, including the BBC. Simon Smith, head of
Broadcast & Publication Operations at BBC Television, said: “We are already seeing a step change in live subtitling accuracy as a result of using this platform, and we view its ongoing development as a vital tool in delivering ever-greater access to live programs for the BBC’s deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.” 1.D61
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