theibcdaily
To UHD or not to UHD Opinion
Management of the move to 4K is the most pressing decision facing broadcast manufacturers this year says Roger Fawcett, MD, OmniTek
Upgrading products and infrastructure requires a big R&D investment at a time when many broadcast manufacturers are tightening their belts. Moving to 4K means risking this spend to create products which may have little market in the next few years. What about competing and complementary technologies such as high dynamic range, faster frame rates and 8K? Avoiding 4K means risking being left behind. So what is the right decision? The answer to this is driven by a combination of technology and consumer demand. On a positive side for technology, we now (belatedly) have all the necessary consumer and
professional interconnect standards for 4K60, along with H.265 compression technology. On a negative side the viewing distance required to resolve 4K means that for some the viewer benefit is questionable. However, this is not how consumers see things. The key propellant for 4K is that the consumer message is very simple and is already being widely marketed. Everyone understands that higher resolution means better quality. For example, high-end smartphones all feature 4K resolution cameras and this is clearly driving sales. When compared to the brief 3D 'revolution', there is no
downside to 4K. For 3D, the depth effect is not perfect, requires glasses and can give you a headache to watch. In contrast, there is no downside to 4K and no one could claim an inferior viewing experience. For these reasons, OmniTek believe that 4K represents an important opportunity that all broadcast equipment manufacturers should embrace. To this end, we have been working hard for the last two years putting together a range of technologies to enable equipment designers to get products to market rapidly. The Ultra 4K Toolbox is a complete solution for 4K test and measurement. At IBC2014 we are announcing full support for SD/HD/3G/6G and now 12G SDI, in addition to DisplayPort and HDMI. The product features a full motion generator, analyser and standards convertor for all I/O. For example we can convert between quad 3GB in quadrants and 12G SDI or
DisplayPort 1.2 at 4K60. A major worry for design engineers for the new SDI standards is signal integrity. Ultra supports full eye and jitter analysis for these new standards along with jitter insertion to test receiver robustness and compliance with the SMPTE recommendations.
In addition to our T&M
products, OmniTek offer a range of FPGA IP cores, reference designs and a bespoke design consultancy service. The majority of our business in this area is in 4K adoption and we have already designed a number of 4K products. 6.A18
theibcdaily 33
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 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132