I just got back from NAB in Las Vegas. There were over 100 thousand people there. I spoke to several prominent IPTV vendors there. There were a couple of interesting new things that I saw that I will write about separately. The established IPTV companies are continuing to make good progress and to evolve their products.
The most interesting exhibit I saw was made by NHK. They showed 3D HD that is actually available from a satellite provider in Japan. The demo included an arrow being shot at the camera, a classic. It looked quite real and would be great to have. They also showed great shots from a Japanese probe with an HD camera orbiting 100 km above the surface of the moon.
The most interesting thing that NHK showed was its ultra high def technology that provides a 7680x4320 image. It showed a six minute demo displayed on an array of four 56 inch HD screens. There are not 7680x4320 monitors available today. It also provides 22 channel audio. The experience was spectacular. An aerial shot of Mount Fuji made felt like I was flying in a helicopter over it. Shots of a football game also gave the experience of being at the stadium, but at better seats than I have ever had. You could see the whole field and yet follow the play.
NHK was compressing the Ultra HD image using MPEG-4 AVC technology by segmenting the image from an Ultra HD camera into 16 parts, compressing each part with one of 16 encoders, and recombining it. It needs 128 Mbps to transmit the compressed image.
NHK said that it expects Ultra HD to be commercially available in 2025.
Ultra HD is clearly a huge step up from HD and should have a reception that is as strong as the reception for HD. The bandwidth required to transmit Ultra HD over an IPTV network will be very high. My guess is that it should get down to the 50 to 75 Mbps range at least by the time that it is introduced. Ultra HD will be viable only on fiber based access technologies, VDSL and cable modems will not be able to cut it. Ultra HD will be a primary driver for a gigabit connection to every home.
Showing posts with label NHK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NHK. Show all posts
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Friday, June 8, 2007
Ultra HD - An Overwhelming Prospect
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.
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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