Ultra HD Distribution Demo Tests Existing Satellite Delivery Chain
Intelsat and Ericsson demonstrated a 4K Ultra HD, end-to-end video transmission over satellite to Turner Broadcasting’s Atlanta facilities. It was the first transmission of a UHD signal over satellite in North America and showed that the satellite delivery chain can accommodate the next-generation signals for broadcasters, Intelsat said in a news release Wednesday. “The whole point of the demonstration was to prove that satellite transponders as they are today are ready to accommodate the bandwidth necessary to transmit 4K over the satellite,” said Peter Ostapiuk, Intelsat’s media product management vice president. “We wanted to prove that the current generation of satellites can support the 4K transmission,” he said in an interview.
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Intelsat’s Galaxy 13 satellite delivered the signal and Ericsson encoded and decoded the feed in real time. The content featured a street scene, a sunset and other scenes, said Ostapiuk. The 4K viewing experience is more “immersive,” he said. With 4K, the “pixelization” that can be seen currently on an HD screen disappears and the colors are richer and deeper, he said. The demo was done in “P60” format, or 60 frames per second, “which really smooths out any motion blurriness that sometimes you can see” while watching sports or other fast-motion content, he added.
The demonstration shows that the technology and broadcast content industries will learn from the challenges from the HD transition to meet the challenges of rolling out 4K broadcasts, said Steve Koenig, CEA director-industry analysis. “As the industry did 10 years ago, this demonstration proves both literally and figuratively, that we can innovate and solve some of the engineering and technical challenges and ultimately will result in a better video quality and products for consumers.” Video transmission, consumer uptake and other factors “were big question marks for HD signals,” he said: “We were able to solve those and scale them, and that’s why we're enjoying the wealth of HD content that we have today."
The 4K rollout will likely not be as widespread as the DTV transition, said Ostapiuk. “We don’t think HD to 4K is going to be en masse like SD to HD.” The 4K format will likely be “a new premium tier of programming” that will be purchased by a select number of customers, he said. It’s compelling for sports and movie channels, “but not every channel that is in HD today will have a 4K version in the short term,” he said. Some content, like news, won’t really work well with 4K, he added.
NAB members are very excited about 4K, said an association spokesman. The NAB Show featured demonstrations of UHD (CD April 10 p17). The 4K transition probably won’t take as long as the digital TV transition, said the spokesman. “There have been so many technological advancements with compression technology, and the science and the engineering seems to have advanced a little faster."
System requirements of the new “ATSC 3.0” broadcast standard that is pending at the Advanced Television Systems Committee will include 4K, said Jim Kutzner, PBS senior director-advanced technology. The ATSC’s “Technology Group 3” is close to ratifying the requirements, said Kutzner, who also chairs that group. Responses to a request for proposals on ATSC 3.0’s “physical layer” are due Sept. 27, he said.
There are hurdles that must be overcome to achieve the UHD rollout, said Ostapiuk. Most broadcast studios and content owners will have to retrofit and upgrade their existing LAN networks to move the uncompressed HD to 4K, he said. There are no existing set-top boxes “that could decode the 4K signal to be distributed over a DTH platform or a cable platform,” he said. The price of 4K TVs aren’t economical for a majority of customers, he added.
The issue is “you need spectrum for 4K and 8K and that’s why the FCC incentive auctions are of immense importance to broadcasters,” the NAB spokesman said. The content and satellite industries must ensure that content is available in a large quantity for consumers to watch on 4K screens “before we promote this technology widely to the customers,” Ostapiuk said: Also, “everybody in the industry needs to be realistic about the timelines” for rollout.