Ateme, a French MPEG-4 encoding company, is participating in a demonstration of Ultra HD, with NHK, the Japanese broadcaster. This Ultra HD demonstration will be at a resolution of 7680 x 4320, which is four times the resolution of HD of 1920 by 1080 in both directions. This demonstration will use prototype super-fast cameras that can capture data at a rate of 4,000 frames per second and capture 22.2 audio (as compared to today’s 5.1 surround sound).
Ateme expects that the Ultra HD standards will be complete in 2009. NHK estimates that satellite transmission tests will begin in 2011, and that by 2020, Ultra HD will be ready for broadcast to households.
Ateme is using 16 MPEG-4 AVC encoders in tandem for this demonstration in order to provide a very high level of quality, consequently the demonstration will require 128 Mbps to encode the Ultra HD stream. Ateme state that this bandwidth can be reduced first by allocating bandwidth more intelligently between the 16 encoders. Finally, bandwidth can be reduced with a single Ultra HD specific encoder that can encode an entire frame at one time.
It is not clear how much the bandwidth to provide Ultra HD encoding can be reduced, but if it follows the pattern between SD and HD, I would estimate about 75 Mbps will be required. Of course, it could be less if resolution or quality standards are reduced.
What this does mean is that Ultra HD will require a fiber to the home service and one that provides something around 500 Mbps per subscriber. This is in the ball park for GPON depending on splitter levels. Gigabit point-to-point Ethernet will also work. It is out of the question for VDSL, even with bonding.
Ultra HD will also be tough for the cable, satellite, and digital terrestrial broadcasters. They will have to provide very high amounts of bandwidth as well. Getting rid of analog channels will help the cable companies, but it will be a major strain for all of them.
The difficulties in delivering Ultra HD for all of these media calls into question NHK's estimate of a 2020 service introduction. It seems likely that only the youngest among us will regularly receive Ultra HD service.
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