Key elements of HD infrastructure

Transcription

TVBE Aug P1, 3, 4, 8, 10 News v2
29/7/09
14:00
Page 8
TVBEU R O PE H D E U R O P E
Key elements of HD infrastructure
High-Def broadcasting in context: The systems integration viewpoint
HD Systems
By Guy Elliott,
managing director,
ATG Broadcast
The transition from SD into HD is
currently progressing in many countries, part of the global switchover
from analogue to digital transmission. Like many new technologies,
HD was a classic case of the chickenand-the-egg: why broadcast in HD if
no one is equipped to view the output? That has now turned on its
head with 1080-line rapidly becoming the native display resolution for
domestic television receivers.
Given a respectable transmission bit rate, digitally delivered
1080i viewed on a 1080-native
screen is nothing short of breathtaking. Almost every broadcaster
currently delivering an SD service is
looking to upgrade to HD when
market conditions are right. Market
conditions are dictated not just by
the availability of funding but by
audience expectations and pressure
from competitor channels.
For ATG Broadcast, HD has
effectively become the new SD.
Most state broadcasters worldwide
have made a firm commitment to
HD both for new infrastructure and
in their upgrade plans for existing
studio, post production and playout
facilities. High-quality HD camcorders are now compact and
affordable, allowing programmemakers on even the tightest budgets
to future-proof their productions.
Technical issues
It would be wrong to describe
HD as a technical minefield but
there are important issues to
A 3D reality
breakthrough
Continued from page 1
separated again by the glasses,” he
explains. “This is no problem in
a controlled environment like a
cinema, but in the home viewers
without glasses will be discriminated
against since the double signal
superimposed on the image renders a 3D polarised broadcast
redundant for viewers in 2D.”
He adds, “It was always clear to
me that a successful 3D television
system is one that doesn’t discriminate against any viewer which is
why our system can be viewed with
the Telcast 3D glasses in 3D or without glasses perfectly in 2D.”
Instead of superimposing the
two individual perspectives and
broadcasting them at the same time,
Telcast broadcasts with a delay of
8
At TV4 Sweden, ATG installed a 3Gbps-native 576 x 576 Pro-Bel
Cygnus high definition routing frame equipped as a 324 x 312 matrix
replaced by multiscreen LCD panels
and the newer very high quality LED
screens. HD-native monitoring is
obviously important and we do not
advocate reduced-resolution picture
monitoring even by CRT devotees.
Signal monitoring: Rasterisers
are becoming increasingly popular
for HD signal monitoring both in
broadcast and post production
environments. Compact instruments such as the Tektronix
WVR7120 handle dual link, HDSDI, and SD-SDI as well as
embedded and discreet AES audio,
Dolby Digital and Dolby E, in a
single unit with a user-definable
multiscreen display.
HD projects
keep in mind. I will tackle them
in priority.
Cabling: The superiority of optical fibre networking in comparison
with traditional copper cabling was
widely recognised even before the
transition from analogue to digital
SD. The high bit rates inherent with
HD-SDI make copper a safe option
only for cable runs of less than 80m.
Optical fibre allows much longer
lengths without need for mid-way
reclocking and takes up less duct
space than the copper equivalent.
Space issues still arise at the router
I/O ports where a large number of
bulky copper cables have to be
accommodated within the finite
dimensions of rackroom cabinets.
Data compression: No broadcasters yet transmit native uncompressed
HD, nor do they need to if the
source signal quality is high and
intermediate post production is
handled transparently. Severely compressed origination formats such as
HDV should be used sparingly,
preferably only where portability or
operator-security are issues.
Audio/video timing: Maintaining
synchronisation between audio and
video signal feeds is essential in any
system. HD requires particular care
as the video processing durations
can be relatively long. Lip-sync
errors are even more visible when
seen in HD than in SD unless the lip
motion has itself been blurred by
excessive compression. HD-SDI
networking has the advantage of
keeping audio and video together in
terms of timing as well as distribution.
Signal formats: SD embraced a
tediously large number of variant
native signal ‘standards’. HD has
even more, including subsets of
720p, 1080i and 1080p. Each has to
be discussed at the start of any proposed new HD studio installation
and usually accommodated at least
as an ingest format. Signal storage is
nowadays largely file-based, ingesting from HD digital video or from
file-based capture devices such as
Panasonic’s P2.
Picture monitoring: Discrete
CRT-screen monitors have largely
disappeared from master control
rooms and presentation suites,
One of the earliest HD projects
we worked on was at National
Geographic Channel, providing
expanded HD resources at the network’s European post production
centre in London. The project
extends the capabilities of the HD
post production and playout system
installed by ATG Broadcast prior to
the channel’s commencement of
1080i transmissions last summer. It
one field, exactly 1/50th or 1/60th of a
second. Doing so means the double
lines, which would blur a 3D stereo
image viewed in 2D, are negligible.
Telcast’s patented 3D glasses in connection with its 3D shooting
method merge the two perspectives
into a three-dimensional image in
the brain of the viewer.
It also means capturing at 50
individual fields (50 or 60i, not 25p
or 30p although 50p is possible).
Telcast uses a single HD camera
and standard lens, modified with
the firm’s patented ‘special sauce’
contained in a black box attached
to the camera, the detail of which
Hohenacker isn’t revealing.
Telcast doesn’t just license the
technology but the camera operator as well, believing that the success of a 3D production is just
as reliant on craft skills. Martin
Winkler, the producer-cameraman
for True Academy Fantasia has 15
years experience under his belt and
claims not to need a monitor (even
though one is hooked to his
Steadicam) when shooting, but to
judge the 3D effect by instinct.
The signal output from the
camera, or recorded to tape, is produced and transmitted normally.
“No other equipment or post production intervention is required,”
Hohenacker says. “That’s the big
advantage for broadcasters who
don’t have to change or invest in
any hardware.” Edits will tend to
be held a little longer and slowmotion, unless shot at 150fps,
destroys the necessary frame ratio.
The special 3D glasses, usually
cardboard framed and distributed free with programme promotion (in this case with the
cable customer’s magazine) contain patented film that “instead
of filtering individual colours
from the superimposed image like
red-green anaglyph glasses, creates a time delay in perception.”
For Winkler, the key to preparing the shoot is to look for scenarios
with a foreground, mid-ground and
background and if an element isn’t
present, to shift his position or that
of an object around accordingly.
“It’s about the choreography of
the camera, people or objects,” he
says. “The opening sequence of this
show will be straightforward since
there are 12 contestants which
we can frame at different distances.
The concert stage has also been redesigned for 3D (in terms of placement of a band, the stage width has
also been extended to allow Winkler
more room to move) but some
rooms of the house can look flat
(such as a bedroom with row of 10
beds) so I’ve shifted tables, plants or
lambs to the foreground.”
Telcast transported over a million 3D glasses to Bangkok —
weighing over 4,400 kg. A symbol
appears on screen alerting viewers
to wear them for the next scene.
“Each 3D section, such as a song, is
around 3-4 minutes long although
we can go up to 45 minutes in 3D,”
explains Winkler. “Much more
than that and any 3D system starts
to feel uncomfortable.”
Guy Elliott: Almost every broadcaster
currently delivering an SD service is
looking to upgrade to HD when
market conditions are right
includes additional Sony HDCAMSR multi-format recording and
playback facilities in the audio post
production suite. These are used in
conjunction with an existing Avid
Adrenaline video editing system.
The Adrenaline itself was enhanced
with Dolby Audio Tools, Avid
ProTools LE audio editing software, additional Dolby E multichannel sound encoding, decoding
and monitoring and Rosendahl
MIDI timecode interfaces.
At TV4, Sweden’s largest independent television channel, we
installed an HD routing system. This
included a 3Gbps-native 576 x 576
Pro-Bel Cygnus HD routing frame
equipped as a 324 x 312 matrix with
dual redundant power supplies, dual
redundant controllers and four monitoring outputs. It followed on from
the addition of Harris NEO HDSDI/SD-SDI video routing switchers. One of the first applications of
the Cygnus was to process HD feeds
from the 2008 UEFA European
Football Championship hosted by
Austria and Switzerland.
We also equipped new edit suites
for Red Bee Media, Britain’s largest
playout and channel management
service-provider. The largest of these
facilities is an HD video edit suite
centred on a Quantel eQ workstation
with external FC Dylan disc storage
attached to the existing server system.
Content archives as well as
broadcasters are upgrading to HD.
We recently completed a technical
upgrade commission for the Imperial
War Museum. This contract involved
expanded resources for the Video
Room at the museum’s aviation
branch in Duxford, Cambridge,
including the supply and installation
of a high definition video recorder
with supporting infrastructure.
Continued on page 10
Telcast has signed a deal with
Jordanian broadcaster ATV to
produce a 10x5min series on the
venues for the 2010 World Cup.
Although it won’t be producing
live action from South Africa,
Telcast has done sports in the past
including Sydney 2000 Olympics
and French league soccer for TF1.
“Polarised systems are great for
the cinema where everyone has a
pair of glasses but when you move
to mass market broadcast our system is definitely the only way,”
Hohenacker says. “There is no alternative without swapping out hardware for consumer and broadcaster.
“We have a track record of
increasing ratings of shows filmed
in 3D by 50%,” he claims. Telcast
holds the record for TF1 ratings for
its 3D production of Miss World a
decade ago. Perhaps that’s not so
suprising, but the Thai example
shows that even reality shows can
benefit. “Even on long-running
series where we’ve inserted 3D elements, ratings have gone up 80%.”
www.tvbeurope.com A U G U S T 2 0 0 9
TVBE Aug P1, 3, 4, 8, 10 News v2
29/7/09
15:24
Page 10
Pixel Power has provided Clarity for Sky promos. David Fox reports from West London
Sky improves its promotion prospects
With some 20 channels and a huge
number of programmes to promote,
Sky had a big problem delivering all
the Now, Next, Later and other
promos it wanted to. So it didn’t. It
concentrated on just a few channels,
or specific programmes, and its staff
spent hours in edit suites creating
lots of different versions.
Now, much of this is automated,
and staff have the ability to make
changes just moments before a promo goes on air. This is largely due
to a significant investment in Pixel
Power’s Clarity 3000, which was
used to deliver a re-brand of its
main entertainment channels, Sky
One, Two and Three last year, and
a move its PixelPromo Live for
automated promo creation, which
is being used for stage two of its
channel rebrand.
Before the Pixel Power installation, Sky didn’t have the ability to
air on-screen graphics for promos.
“The infrastructure was more about
Andy Purkiss: “Other systems we
looked at seemed to be coming
more from a gallery outlook”
channels than presentation,” says
Andy Purkiss, Sky’s head of production and operations. “We were
behind the competition. If we did
want to do anything promotional
on screen, it was labour-intensive
and had to be hand edited.”
It was able to do squeeze back or
DVE moves only on certain (live)
channels (Sky News, Sky Sports and
Sky One), and needed to find a system to help. As the majority of rival
channels were using Pixel Power’s
Clarity, this was one of the systems
it looked at, as well as seeking
tenders from its existing suppliers of
studio graphics systems.
“We wanted more graphics on air,
and wanted promos in programmes
rather than just in breaks. But we didn’t want to use any more resources.
We particularly needed to improve
the effectiveness of on-screen branding on Sky One, Two and Three.” It
helped that Pixel Power was already
HD, and was developing its 3D
graphics capability, something Sky
also wanted to do (and has now
become the first broadcaster to use
the system for 3D).
It was particularly interested in
PixelPromo Live, because it could
read the schedule and put up promos
automatically, using templates. Now
50-70% of promos on the various
channels go through PixelPromo
Live, including services like HD
Anytime (which pushes selected
programmes to the set-top boxes)
and its download service, Sky Player.
It mainly uses Clarity for more
bespoke static promos, such as pro-
Creative differences: Clarity users have escaped hours of reversioning tedium
gramme launches, with PixelPromo
doing the dynamic promos. Some inprogramme promos include video
from the database, and some are only
graphics. It now has some 20 channels that benefit from this, with up to
500 Clarity events per week, and up
to 70% of those from PixelPromo.
Sky uses a BSS scheduling system, and the IT department had
to make sure it worked with
PixelPromo. But once that was
done “it was easy to add secondary
events, such as promos, with a single
line specifying now, next and later
promos with video. We can also
choose a graphic look with a four
character code,” explains Purkiss.
“We used to do this in edit
suites and audio suites, with extra
problems for 5.1. Each DVE
would take at least an hour to do
due to 5.1.” Also, its creative people “found all the versioning
tedious.” Having moved to
PixelPromo, he calculates that the
department has been able to
release about 100 hours of edit
time per month to other parts of
Sky — which has been the biggest
gain from the move.
“The same people who used to
do this manually on one channel are
now doing this across 20 channels.”
A day’s worth of promo events can
be set up in minutes, and promos can
Key elements of
HDinfrastructure
of whom are now working in
1080i HD. The film transfer
operation was augmented with a
high resolution 2k scanner
which will produce files for
ingest into a digital data store.
These are then forwarded to mirrored servers in Imperial War
Museum Duxford and Imperial
War Museum London.
The IWM’s archived content
is frequently used by television
documentary producers, many
Dynamic Drive Pool
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Superior Shared Storage Solutions.
be done “practically live”, if necessary. The system compiles a sequence
seconds before going on air.
“Clarity had been built from a
TV presentation perspective, whereas the other systems we looked at
seemed to be coming more from a
gallery outlook. We didn’t need
another high-end graphics device,
and some of the other devices had
more power but not playout capabilities,” he says. So far the move has
been primarily visual-focused, “so
we haven’t really explored the
Clarity’s audio capabilities.”
Purkiss is now looking at
upgrades, including better automating of video clip ingest, so that it is
quicker and easier to get clips from
programmes to build the promos.
He also wants smarter asset management, so that it will automatically
delete files when they are no longer
needed — as well as better quality
control, so that anyone on any
PC on the network can check
spelling, graphic position and
compliance. Sky now has some 35
to 40 Clarity units, with about 25 of
those used in the transmission and
creative departments.
On a much larger scale, we
completed a comprehensive
rebuild of Astro’s All Asia
Broadcast Centre (AABC) in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, including HD infrastructure. A suite of
operational areas was installed and
the station architecture re-engineered to provide resilience plus
easy future expansion capabilities.
The new system architecture is
built around GVG Trinix routers
under Omnibus control. The entire
project took place while the station
was on-air, transmitting 100 directto-home channels to subscribers in
Malaysia and Indonesia.
Looking ahead
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The increasing popularity of 1080native displays and Blu-Ray high
definition video discs will continue
to motivate broadcasters into
upgrading their services to HD,
just surely as 405-line monochrome was succeeded by 625-line
colour. An additional motivating
factor is the need for mainstream
broadcasters to stay ahead of
internet-based channels.
Competitive pressure is also
encouraging broadcasters to
explore 3D HD as a vehicle for
premium channels though I cannot see the viewing public
accepting anything short of perfect autostereoscopic (directview) display devices. Philips’
decision to pull out of its
WOWvx lenticular-display project earlier this year looks puzzling given that the 3D display is
a market which will be led by the
digital signage sector. Philips’
competitors will appreciate the
breathing space.
TVBE Aug P12-34 HD v2
29/7/09
14:12
Page 12
Making high definition work
Now an established fixture in the broadcast conference calendar, this year’s
two-day HD Masters 2009 event seemed to generate more questions,
answers, news and ideas than ever before. Richard Dean and David Fox sift through the HD highlights
Danielle Nagler, Head of BBC
HD, propelled this year’s conference off to a rousing start with a
confident keynote appraisal of
HDTV’s prospects. With sales of
HD-ready TV sets booming, HD
is poised to become the new
mainstream. “HD is the way we
need to make TV, because that’s
the way viewers want it,” she
declared, confirming the commitment that 70% of BBC programmes will be HD by 2012.
In April the BBC started
including HD content on BBC
iPlayer, the internet-based catchup service that is also available
on Virgin cable TV networks, and
the UK now boasts some 33 HD
channels via cable and satellite.
However a “stratospheric growth”
in both content and viewership
was imminent with the launch of
Sponsors who
made HD Work
The tag-line for this year’s HD
Masters conference was ‘Making
High Definition Work’; and we would
like to take this opportunity to
sincerely thank the sponsors who
made the event work for all of us in
2009. With thanks to Gold Sponsors
Dolby, Hamlet, NTT Electronics,
Panasonic and Phabrix; and Silver
Sponsors Digital Rapids, Evertz,
EVS, For-A, Harris Broadcast, Screen
Subtitling Systems and Sony. Special
mention also to David Ward and
Kristy Weir of Chyron for supplying
wonderful HD graphics throughout
the event — and of course to our
indefatigable Conference
Programme Director John Ive.
Thanks again to our supporting
organisations, Digital TV Group, FKT
and UK Screen. As ever, the event
was organised by TVBEurope in
partnership with SMPTE and BKSTS.
– Fergal Ringrose
Conference contents
Industry status: Who’s doing what?
Window of opportunity for 1080p/50
Audio: Overcoming challenges, complexities
Production: New techniques, processes
Regulation: Spectrum usage and strategies
Special Feature: Super Hi-Vision
Consumer perspective: New services and 3D
Daniella Nagler: “We decided against producing limited content or
up-converting SD material, as this won’t adequately grow the market”
Freeview HD by the end of this
year, said Nagler, as it will give
digital terrestrial television
(DTT) viewers access to HD programming for the first time.
Throughout this year the BBC
will produce more than 300 hours
of HD programming, taking care
to cover a range of genres to
create what she called “HD for
everyone.” Given that this implies
a range of production styles
beyond the carefully controlled
confines of a studio, the
Corporation has been trialling
small EX-1 and EX-3 cameras
from Sony over the last two
months, intercut with content
from Sony HDCAM. Lightweight Panasonic shoulder
mount cameras will also be put to
the test later this year.
“We decided against the easy
options of producing limited
content or up-converting SD
material, as we don’t believe this
will adequately grow the market,”
she said, later hinting that the
top-rated (and exports-earning)
There are many ways
to let your
on-demand services
grow
Top Gear could start producing in
HD soon, perhaps in time for the
new series next Spring.
In Nagler’s view HD’s true
‘coming of age’ will be marked
by the 2012 London Olympics,
combining as it does a major
international sporting event with
the near-completion of digital
switchover (DSO) for UK DTT,
although she added that ‘HDSO’
— in other words the corresponding switchover from SD to HD
— was “probably still some way
off.” — Richard Dean
HD Forum co-Chair David
Wood opened the first session by
pinpointed key developments
for the future — scalable video
coding (SVC), stereoscopic TV
(also known as 3D TV), and
hybrid broadcast-broadband TV
(HBB TV).
SVC uses segments to build
picture quality according to the
capabilities of the receiver, so
avoiding the wasteful process of
simulcasting. The concept has
been successfully tested by transmitting SDTV plus a ‘top up’
signal to create HD, but the bit rate
reduction compared to sending
each separately was just 5%.
However the tests used MPEG-2
Industry status:
Who’s doing what, where?
Unique HD Masters insight into
the status of introductions and
market acceptance at interntional
level, along with specific examples
from France, Poland, Sweden and
the US.
Declaring that HDTV services
were either in operation, being
planned, or being trialled across
most of the world, European
Adam Brodziak: Telewizja Polsat
became the first to transmit HDTV
with the 2008 World Cup football
tournament in Germany and Austria
Page 12
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pictures, and MPEG-4 may be able
to do better. If so, SVC could be a
nice idea for the painless evolution
of 720p (progressive scan) or 1080i
(interlace) to 1080p, he suggested.
On the much-vaunted topic of
3D TV, Wood pointed out that
only the time-honoured anaglyph
colour separation 3D TV is compatible with existing displays.
Indeed time appeared to have
stood still as he brandished a
picture of a 1939 card viewer,
followed by a virtually identical if
marginally cleaner one manufactured some 60 years later.
If 3D TV is to take off — and
Wood didn’t sound desperately
convinced that it would — other
technologies would prevail, such
as polarised glasses, active shuttered glasses or an autostereoscopic (no spectacles) lenticular
screen. Popular for novelty cerealpacket animation cards in the late
Fifties, lenticular screens have
already been incorporated in
digital signage displays from LG
and others, using thousands of
prismatic vertical strips to direct
the correct image to the left and
right eye. However the embryonic
industry was presently mired in
a multiplicity of systems and
uncertainty over channel, STB and
display compatibility, said Wood.
Regarding HBB TV, Wood
showed a slide of a Samsung TV
in Japan where information from
Scheduling & content lifecycle
for linear & VOD broadcasters,
Telco’s & Platform Operators
3
Hall h C59
t
Boo
MediaGeniX
12
29/7/09
14:12
Page 14
Making high
definition work
a custom website was rendered as
an interactive menu alongside
(or overlaid onto) an HD picture.
With connections to both a
broadcast feed and the internet
(via wi-fi, mobile phone dongle or
LAN), the set’s gallery offered a
number of web-assisted selections
including VoD. “Could this spell
the end of interactive TV as we
know it?” mused Wood. Others
later told TVBEurope that openinternet spam and virus attacks
remained a concern.
Wood had his own ideas about
inoculating broadcasts from
unwanted effects, but applied
to the more basic issue of HD
picture integrity. Calling for
‘Delivery Quality Immunisation’
(DQI), he urged broadcasters to
provide higher quality pictures to
overcome what he regarded as the
“inevitably sub-optimal set-up”
of substantial numbers of TV
sets, whilst also future-proofing
Sissela Andrén: “Whatever happened to 1080p/50? We should get
high definition right, before getting distracted by 3D TV”
John Luff: A mobile TV service is due to start in the US on
17 February next year using Qualcomm MediaFLO
against new formats. Film had
already proved the value of such
added headroom, he said, as
35mm footage from the 1960s is
still suitable for today’s thenunimagined HD formats.
“Audio is already capable of
delivering more than the necessary 15kHz or so threshold bandwidth, to make it difficult to mess
the set-top box (STB) memory of
720p pictures, but uses the same
bit rate as an equivalent 1080i
sequence or perhaps less as interlace coding is not required, he
claimed. “If STB costs are the
same, it’s not a bad bargain to
give viewers the world’s finest
television quality with 1080p,”
he exclaimed.
up the sound,” said Wood. “Is
there a case for video to do the
same?” The ultimate answer was
to produce and broadcast
pictures in the 1080p format, he
concluded, which offers a much
more robust level of DQI than
720p or 1080i. After broadcast
compression, 1080p consumes
25% more bandwidth and double
Mediaset set on M-Tube
By David Fox
Mediaset has started work on a
three-year backbone project, to
take care of its HD production
and distribution. It is installing
more than 6,000km of dark fibre
in one pipe (called M-Tube), to
link all of its outposts throughout Italy. This will run at
20Gbps between Milan and
Rome, and 10Gbps elsewhere. It
will be “the pivot of [Mediaset’s]
future TV business development,”
Marco Pellegrinato, Deputy
Director,
R&E,
Videotime
Mediaset Group, told the HD
Masters conference.
He predicts that the multimillion Euro investment will
have “huge economic value,
with a deep strategic impact
for Mediaset” and “represent
the infrastructural foundation
for the modern multidelivering
and multiplatform operation”
that will be crucial for all of
its production and broadcasting areas.
It is currently building a
Northern Loop, which should
be finished by September and
working a few months later.
Production, corporate and engineering will have separate IP
networks on M-Tube, in addition
to the reserved space for contribution and distribution. “Each of
the five parts of M-Tube is
separate, so no one can override
the bandwidth of the others,”
explained Pellegrinato. It will link
17 regional offices with three metropolitan fibre rings (one in Rome,
two around Milan — one is
already in place in each city) and
three larger regional rings covering most of Italy.
At the moment, Mediaset has
four HD services, three upconverted free-to-air channels and
one genuine, premium HD channel. It hopes to defend its analogue frequencies by replacing
them with digital HD services
rather than lose the frequencies
during the analogue switch off
There are many ways
to maximise
the performance
of your schedule
Marco Pellegrinato: “The changeover to HD is a negative for broadcasters”
(which already covers 30% of the
population). It aims to have 35%
of its service genuine HD by 2011
(rather than upconverted), with
60% genuine HD in primetime.
“The changeover to HD is
really a negative for broadcasters,” said Pellegrinato, especially
as it is just one of several con-
current migrations (analogue to
digital, 4:3 to 16:9, video to file,
and broadcast to push VoD), all
of which seem to be happening
while trying to maintain previous systems and deal with all the
variables (MPEG-2, MPEG-4,
different production standards,
and various audio choices).
Ably fielding the traditional
stats-fest conference segment was
Vincent Létang, senior analyst at
the Screen Digest consultancy.
After three years, HD broadcasts
are available everywhere in
Europe, he said, and by the end of
last year the number of unduplicated HD channels in western
Europe was nearly 100 — a sharp
rise from 35 the year before.
Of 166 million TV households
in Western Europe, 55 million have
an HD-ready set, while 4.2 million
are HD enabled, equating to just
2.5%. However the average percentage of those actually watching
HD is rather misleading, as a ‘Tale
of Two Europes’ has emerged.
France leads the pack with more
than 6%, followed by Nordic countries with about 4.7% and the UK
with just over 4%. States in southern Europe including Germany,
Italy and especially Spain, are all
lagging below the average.
Spain and Germany are
expected to start catching up as
early as this year — Spanish public service broadcaster TVE is due
to introduce HD DTT in 2009/10,
and after digital switchover (DSO)
in April next year, existing DTT
channels will be given spectrum to
go HD. There’ll also be a Frenchstyle HD tuner obligation for all
TV sets with screens above 53cm.
Thomson’s Dietrich Westerkamp,
who is also HD TV Manager
at DIGITALEUROPE (renamed
from EICTA, the European
Scheduling & content lifecycle
for linear & VOD broadcasters,
Telco’s & Platform Operators
3
Hall h C59
t
Boo
MediaGeniX
14
29/7/09
14:13
Page 16
Networking opportunity: Buffet lunch was sponsored by Sony and the evening drinks reception was hosted by IBC
Making high
definition work
Information & Communications
Technology Industry Association
in May) and Chairman of the
German HDTV Working Group,
later admitted that Germany’s
current four HD channels offer
limited choice, but confirmed that
a major re-launch of HDTV will
begin from the end of this year.
RTL and Vox are due to
launch HD simulcasts this
autumn, with ARD/ZDF launching HD next February after a
‘showcase’ service later this year.
RTL has also signed up to satellite fleet operator Astra’s impending ‘HD+’ platform using Nagra
conditional access but free-to-air
via the ‘no STB’ Common
Interface Plus (CI+), while new
Sky Deutschland (formerly
Premiere) owner BSkyB has
announced plans for five new HD
channels. However debate on
what to include on CI+ and even
some details of the standard itself
was not over, leading to ongoing
uncertainty about HDTV on
large cable networks.
Meanwhile Adam Brodziak,
technical director at Telewizja
Polsat, told delegates that terrestrial TV viewing in Poland had
seen a steady decline since 1996.
Luk Overmeire: “We do think
[1080p/50] is the best of both
worlds and will become the standard”
As Poland’s first commercial TV
station, the company became the
first to transmit HDTV with the
2008 World Cup football tournament in Germany and Austria,
and is currently the second largest
broadcaster with 17% of the
Polish TV market — now split
fairly evenly between satellite,
cable and terrestrial plus about
1% telco IPTV. Most cable networks are still analogue with just
500,000 on digital, but with 13 HD
channels on satellite, Poland was
punching above its weight in the
European TV market, he claimed.
By 2013 the number of HDenabled households in western
IBC 2009
Stand 10.F28
16
Europe is predicted to grow
more than tenfold to 45 million,
said Létang, with Benelux countries boasting more than 45% of
homes, closely followed by the
Nordic region, while the UK
and France will be level-pegging
at about 37%, all above the new
average of 27%. At this time
more than half (52%) of all
STBs sold will be HD-capable,
compared to 30% last year.
Interestingly, Létang claimed
that while IPTV generated most
of the initial demand for HD
STBs, the market is becoming
saturated. Consequently future
growth in pay HD is expected to
come from legacy satellite and
cable subscribers upgrading. Pay
TV will remain the principal
driver of HDTV for the foreseeable future, dominated by satellite
direct to home (DTH) delivery.
However DTT is expected to start
catching up after DSO.
Not surprisingly in the light of
its format victory over HD DVD,
the Blu-ray Disc (BD) format is
expected to gradually replace
DVD, accounting for more than
half of video disc sales in Western
Europe by 2013. By this time
some 16 million BD devices, half
as standalone players, will exist in
the UK alone.
On the promising but uncertain question of 3D TV, Létang
claimed that its success will
depend on a unified delivery standard, which could see 401 million
3D sets worldwide by 2015 (16%).
However a prolonged and fragmented standardisation process
could slash this expectation to
85m, a mere 3% of all TV sets.
Sissela Andrén, HD Coordinator, Swedish Television
SVT, voiced concerns over maintaining quality. While pay TV
must achieve high standards for
obvious commercial reasons,
there was a risk of a two-tier
HDTV world emerging if public
service broadcasters cut corners
on cost grounds, either by using
cheaper cameras, using lower bit
rate archives to reduce storage
costs, or up-converting SD.
“Whatever happened to
1080p/50? We should get HD
right before getting distracted
by 3D TV,” asserted Andrén,
citing a ribald version of
‘garbage in, garbage out’. She
was not convinced by the Bluray Disc format in the long
term, as the next generation
wants to download — for which
the industry must urgently
develop new business models.
While HDTV offers an ideal
entertainment medium in terms of
resolution and shape, conveying the
‘film look’ is difficult for digital TV
said Andrén, as coding random
grain consumes valuable bandwidth.
Later BBC Head of Technology
Andy Quested confirmed this point
with the definitive statement, “The
BBC does not transmit grain.” If
TV fails to deliver HD quality on
dramas and sitcoms, HD may be
reduced to a sports and concert
format, she warned.
Since Swedish HDTV broadcasts began in 2006, only 5% of
viewers have taken it. However
later this year will see a royal wedding in Sweden — the first to be
shot and broadcast in HD —
which seems likely to boost sales
of HD iDTVs and STBs.
According to Jean-Pierre
Lacotte, chairman of the HD
Forum in France, strong regulation had given the French market
a firm direction while fostering
healthy competition. From 1 December 2008, the government
mandated that all HD-ready sets
must incorporate an HD tuner.
From December, this will apply to
all TV sets with a screen size
above 66cm, and from December
2012 to all TV sets and STBs.
The average screen size is
steadily rising, said Lacotte,
predicting that the average projected size of 86cm this year will
increase to 94cm by the end of
2010. Within the ‘strategic segment’ of main household sets he
expected corresponding average
sizes of 101cm and 109cm
respectively. Ten HD channels
were already available on
Canal+ satellite, 12 over cable,
and five DTT simulcasts comprising three TF1 HD channels
plus France 2 HD and M6 HD.
Broadcasters have committed to
75% HD content by 2010, while
Lacotte also revealed that all
six French internet service
providers — who currently have
6.2 million SD subscribers —
Chris Johns: “If you can compress in a more efficient way, you can
put more channels on a multiplex and recoup the costs”
NEW
29/7/09
Making high
definition work
plan to launch HD broadcast
and VoD services over IPTV.
On the technical front, all
French DTT channels are compressed with the MPEG-4 AVC
standard and already use statistical multiplexing (statmux)
from 4-15Mbps within a total
pool bit rate 21.9Mbps plus 64
QAM modulation — both features destined for Freeview HD
in the UK. Pictures are shown in
both 1080i/25 x 1920 (16:9) and
1080i/25 x 1440 (4:3), while the
bit stream uses a dynamic and
hierarchical Group of Pictures
(GoP) structure of 32 frames in
length, each containing four ‘P’
(predictive) images. The audio
format for HD is either 5.1
Dolby Digital Plus or 2.0 Dolby
Digital Plus.
Television Technology Consultant and SMPTE Fellow John
Luff commented that while some
may see HDTV promotion as
being largely the duty of the
consumer electronics supply
chain, a huge impact had come
from broadcasters competing for
what he called ‘bragging rights’
about all the great HD programmes they were showing. This
caused a virtuous circle, as the
subsequent increase in viewer
population then seeded genuine
market growth.
At the other end of the scale,
Luff revealed that a mobile TV
service is due to start in the US
on 17 February next year using
the Qualcomm MediaFLO
system, with the contract due to
be finalised in November. —
Richard Dean
14:14
Page 19
opportunity to move direct to a
1080p/50 infrastructure.
Of the 29 that answered the
question: “What production format do you use today for
HDTV?”, only 1 uses 1080p/50
for programme production; 22
use 1080i/25, 12 use 720p/50
and six use 1080p/24 or 25 for
film-style production (obviously
some broadcasters use more than
one format).
Two broadcasters are currently
considering using 1080p/50 as
their HD distribution format; 12
use or plan to use 1080i/25, and
16 use or plan to use 720p/50 (the
format currently recommended as
giving the best quality for the lowest bit rate by the EBU).
“The production and emission
formats do not have to be coupled,” said Hoffman. 1080p/50
production works very well with
720p/50 or 1080i/25 transmission.
It will mean just one format to
handle for production, and it can
be easily down-converted to deliver multiple variations. If 1080p/50
is used for transmission it “provides better quality at reasonable
bit rates. You do not need higher
bit rates than 1080i,” he stated.
Indeed EBU testing has shown
that you could get the same perceived quality at lower bit rates.
BSkyB already has some
1080p/50-ready infrastructure,
but it is still complex technology,
said Chris Johns, chief engineer,
Broadcast Strategy, BSkyB and a
member of the DTG group looking at 1080p/50.
Besides the demands of higher data rates, there are “very few
pieces of high-end kit that can
be utilised now.” However, provided the costs of suitable
equipment aren’t too high, he
feels it might pay for itself. “If
Karl Slavik: Surround sound is now accepted as ‘the prime sound at prime time’
Window of opportunity
for 1080p/50 production
you can compress in a more efficient way, you can put more
channels on a transponder or
multiplex and recoup the costs
that way.” Merely not having to
produce in interlaced and then
de-interlace and re-interlace will
make it easier to deliver clean
pictures to encoding.
He wondered if companies
will be willing to tear out their
existing copper infrastructure
and replace it with fibre. “I think
not, until they have to.” Besides,
“copper is still viable, but you
have to look at reducing the number of interconnects and cable
runs. In SD we can get 300m, with
3G it is 140m.” Because cable
lengths can be so critical, he
recommends reducing the number of patch panels and going
more directly between devices.
However, “it starts to get a lot
easier once you’ve done the acquisition”, thanks to being able to do
non-realtime file transfers and the
use of compression for contribution and distribution.
“1080p/50 means there is no
need for debate over which
format is better for sport or drama. The tricky bit is how you
make the business case for it,”
said David Carr, Operations
Director, Peel Media, which is
currently building Media City
UK in Manchester, where the
BBC will have its main centre
outside London.
“We do think [1080p/50] is the
best of both worlds and will
become the standard, but it is
not a priority yet,” said Luk
Overmeire, Technology Expert,
VRT MediaLab, which has
chosen 720p/50 as its preferred
format, but also uses 1080i/25.
The main technological barriers to moving quickly to 1080p/50
are the lack of suitable sensors on
affordable cameras, issues with
High Performance
Dream or reality? If broadcasters
are to move to 1080p/50 production, they should start installing
the necessary infrastructure now.
Contribution & Distribution
Solutions
Ellipse
contribution encoders
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EBU Project Manager Hans
Hoffman believes that broadcasters need to invest now as “the
window of opportunity is closing,” because once the current
round of upgrades to HD are finished, investment cycles mean
that it could be some time before
there is an opportunity to
upgrade further, particularly as
the most important consideration
is making the core infrastructure
3Gbps-capable.
As yet, very few European
broadcasters have moved to
all-HD production. In a survey
last month by the EBU of 53
broadcasters, just one of 37 who
answered the question stated that
it had migrated its production
facility to HDTV. A further 20
(54%) have partially migrated,
while 12 (32%) plan to start in the
next couple of years, and four
(11%) currently have no plans,
which means that there is still the
David Roth: Some 80% of all problems have been audio-related
since the start of high definition broadcasting on 1 December 2007
ProView
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19
29/7/09
Making high
definition work
Dolby E, switching, and synchronisation and timing (which a joint
EBU/SMPTE taskforce has been
set up to resolve).
But, “the most worrying thing
is the IT chain,” said Hoffman,
where he believes that advancements like Panasonic’s AVCUltra could have a big impact, as
there needs to be a 200+ Mbps Iframe codec in place to enable
mainstream IT-based production.
“We have too many compression
formats, and we would like to see
a limit,” maybe to two or three.
There are also issues about the bit
rate needed for contribution links
and a need for suitable codecs.
However, demand for 3G
equipment is rising. About 30%
of what Gennum sells now is
already 3G. “All of our customers
are very committed to 1080p/50
and are making a 1080p version
of everything they make,” said
Nigel Seth-Smith, Gennum’s
project definition specialist.
Of course, there are also economic issues. “The price tag for
any systems proposed has to be
right,” said Hoffman, otherwise
1080p/50 will have a negligible
impact. Also, getting consumers
to pay to upgrade for 1080p/50
transmission might be a problem.
“It has to look a lot better for the
consumer to buy it,” said Johns.
“If it is well made and if you
have a big screen [at least 47
inches diagonal], you can definitely show a difference, even at
4H distance,” said Hoffman, but
15:27
Page 20
it will need a new set top box or
receiver. He believes that the
advent of 3-D TV services could
also drive adoption of 1080p/50.
— David Fox
Audio: Overcoming
challenges and complexities
Insight into what makes for good
programme audio and exploration
of how well the industry is coping
with the additional complexity of
time constraints and limited budgets.
Karl Slavik, Senior Consultant at
Austrian audio consultancy
Artecast and Dolby training partner, opened up the audio debate
by declaring that surround sound
is now accepted as the ‘prime
sound at prime time’. For that
matter he believed that the resolution of today’s HD pictures was
about right. “The work on ultra
high definition TV is very impressive, but perhaps the screens big
Sara Hill of blue post: All the major genres discussed current installations
and methods of maintaining production quality
In Daniella Nagler’s view HD’s true ‘coming of
age’ will be marked by the 2012 London
Olympics, combining a major international
sporting event with the near-completion of
digital switchover (DSO) for UK DTT
enough for viewers to perceive 4k
or 8k horizontal resolution may
be too much in a 20sqm apartment,” he quipped.
However some 88 years since
film pioneers found a way to
synchronise sound with moving
pictures, the broadcasting industry had become all too adept at
making one lag behind the other,
leading to what he described as a
“heavily disappointing experience
at home.” Indeed along with
sudden jumps in loudness, asynchronous audio was the most
common viewer complaint. The
problem is of course due to the
increasingly intensive — and in
particular separate — processing
of video and audio signals, but
the first task was to define acceptable limits.
According to EBU Technical
Recommendation R37, the maximum deviation of audio during
production is a mere 5ms ahead
of video and 15ms behind, said
Slavik, noting that nature has
conditioned humans to more
readily accept sound delay. For
contribution, EBU Tech 3311
specifies up to 40ms lead and
60ms lag, while according to
ITU-R BT.1359, the worst case
for viewers at home should not
exceed 90ms ahead or 185ms
delay. Typical display latency
when not driven in native format
(matched pixel-to-pixel without
image processing) is between 90
to 180ms.
The trick was to embed audio
with video and/or match processing delays of one with the other.
Special care must be taken when
converting from 50Hz to 60Hz
formats, he added, as both
embedded AES/EBU audio and
Dolby E are organised in units of
one 40ms picture frame. Jason
Power, director of Broadcast
Systems at Dolby, later assured
delegates that plug-ins were now
available to simplify conversion.
David Roth, engineering manager at HD Suisse, recalled when
an announcement added to the
centre channel at the start of a
Dolby Digital 5.1 sequence was
mysteriously missing from the
broadcast at home, despite all the
equipment apparently working
perfectly. He then realised that the
first two seconds after a transition
from stereo are lost as the AV
receiver switches on the additional speaker amplifiers.
The moral of the story was
don’t put anything important on
surround channels just after the
transition — or in the case of HD
Suisse, start designing a new
state-of-the-art digital audio control and automation system that
allows 5.1 to be used all the time,
even when the programme is
stereo. This is not a trivial task, as
at -18dB, the level of MPEG
Audio is different from Dolby’s
dialogue normalisation (dialnorm) reference level of -31dB —
more than twice as loud in fact.
The obligation to support
the three main languages of
Switzerland confronted HD
Suisse with further audio complexity. Indeed perhaps unsurprisingly, Roth revealed that some
80% of all problems had been
audio-related since the start of
HD broadcasting on 1 December
2007. He described how Dolby E,
the system for conveying multichannel audio across a stereo
pair, can be used to carry multilingual stereo soundtracks with
German on channels 1&2, French
on 3&4, Italian on 5&6 and the
original language (eg English) or
ambience carried on 7&8.
Running full 5.1 soundtracks
for each language however
requires at least 24 channels
unless the ‘0.1’ LFE (low frequency effects) track is derived
from others, while adding a stereo
downmix brings the total to some
32 channels of audio — all of
which further justified investment
in the company’s new digital
audio system.
Cross-fading two streams of
Dolby E can also be problematic,
as an unacceptable step change in
volume occurs at the switchover
between the two dialnorm levels.
The new system at HD Suisse will
prevent this by measuring the dialogue level at ingest, and centralising all Dolby metadata with a
common reference of -31dB.
Coupled with ‘brick wall’ limiters
to suppress peaks, rigorous levelmatching and even the tailoring
of dynamic range according to
programme genre, Roth was convinced that the new system will
deliver the sound worthy of HD
with no nasty surprises for viewers, or indeed listeners.
20
29/7/09
14:14
Page 22
Making high
definition work
Dolby’s Jason Power added
that in the file-based world,
metadata can be put aside during
editing and then re-applied to a
.wav file. Just as careful design of
systems and workflows was essential to prevent loss of lip-sync,
care must also be taken to keep
metadata in step, as otherwise
transitions to or from 5.1 and 2.0
(stereo) could come early or late.
“Broadcasters need to define
default system behaviour if the
metadata is lost,” said Power, later revealing that there’s actually a
Bill before the US Congress to
outlaw sudden level changes in
TV audio.
Candidly admitting that
upgrading SD equipment could
only be afforded within normal
replacement cycles, Roth was
nonetheless the first to put his
head above the ‘HDSO’ parapet
by declaring that the start of HD
broadcasting for all main channels in 2012 will mark the end of
the ‘HD Suisse’ brand, with the
withdrawal of SD simulcasting
likely in 2015. — Richard Dean
Production: New techniques
and processes
The backdrop: Will there be any
new SD installations or is HD now
the only game in town?
The HD Masters conference
examined “where HD works and
where HD works next,” as one of
the organisers, Bob Sparks of the
BKSTS put it in his introduction.
Alongside current issues, such
Walter Demonte: WDR did a side-by-side comparison of Super16 against Sony’s F23, the Arri D21 and the Red One
1080p50, the suitability of lowbudget HD cameras and spectrum availability, discussions
ranged to include Super HD,
Ultra HD, 3DHD and even cubic
pixels. Garbage in, garbage out. It
has always been an axiom in television that you need to start with
the best pictures you can, because
they are only going to get worse.
“Headroom is vitally important. It’s the thing that allows programme makers to degrade their
pictures before they send them to
the public and still look very
good,” said Andy Quested, Head
of Technology, BBC HD.
Unfortunately, “quality drops at
each stage of post production.”
BBC HD transmits using
MPEG-4 at 16Mbps and some
things are easy to encode, such as
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drama, while others, such as sport
are a lot more difficult.
In tests, at 5Mbps, the progressive stuff still stands up to
scrutiny, although it’s getting a bit
noisy, he explained. “As speed
changes, the effect of the codec
changes.” Codecs work differently,
so that Dirac may produce watchable pictures at rates that AVC
doesn’t, and the various codecs
are improving all the time. He
believes that within ten years,
viewable HD pictures at 2Mbps
will be possible.
Camera codecs also matter,
although whether they are suitable for HD transmission can
depend on how they are used.
The BBC has done trials with
Sony’s 35Mbps EX1, and found
that if the scene is well lit it
end of the scale. It recently did
a lot of camera testing for HD
production. Its drama producers wanted to stick with film,
but it has found that 16mm is
suitable only if everything is
optimal, and you use the best
technology, “otherwise you lose
quality,” said Walter Demonte,
head of WDR’s camera and
sound department.
It did a side-by-side comparison of Super16 (Kodak Vision 3
stock), against Sony’s F23, the
Arri D21 (recording to HDCAM
SR) and the Red One (recording
to Compact Flash storage). All
the digital cameras exhibited a lot
less noise than film, and had a lot
of headroom for colour correction. It chose the D21, “because
it’s a real 35mm film camera at the
front,” giving the most film-like
look (thanks to its 35mm depth of
field) and had “no disadvantages
in comparison to film”. WDR
Jean-Pierre Lacotte revealed that all six French
internet service providers – who currently have
6.2m SD subscribers – plan to launch HD broadcast and VoD services over IPTV
“stands up pretty well for transmission, but in darker shots it
breaks up,” he said.
“For factual programming we
will need small cameras.
Unfortunately, you get a good
camera and you get a good
recorder, but you never get them
in the same box. It’s pointless
building a camera with a low bit
rate that you can’t grade.”
Picking the best camera for
HD has also been a concern for
Germany’s WDR, although it
wanted something at the other
didn’t feel that lower-level
cameras, such as the HDCAM
HDW-750 (which it tested using
Digi-Primes and the Pro 35 adaptor), had sufficient dynamic range
or good enough picture quality
for HD drama production.
The F23 was dismissed, in
part, because it was too big. The
D21 is also large, which makes
Steadicam operation difficult,
especially recording to an
HDCAM SR deck (which is used
for a secure workflow — WDR is
nervous of losing any media).
He believes that the Red One is
a better fit for independents, as it
doesn’t fit easily into a broadcast
workflow, although it did produce excellent pictures.
However, Demonte did hold
out hope for S16 production,
thanks to Arri’s new “very
good” film degraining technology. In production, with the
D21, WDR created dailies on set
using XDCAM media. However,
this resulted in problems for
grading, so in future it will produce dailies in post. Not having
the cost of film processing
helped offset the higher cost of
the digital camera equipment.
“Sensitivity is still a problem
with single-chip cameras, but for
drama you don’t want a high sensitivity camera that causes you to
stop the lens down and therefore
limit the depth of field.” WDR
used the D21 up to 500 ISO.
OBs were the first mainstream
programmes to move to HD,
but there were a lot of problems
to overcome on the way, said
Ronald Meyvisch, technical and
operations manager, Outside
Broadcast. The first problem with
HD was that “none of the ways of
monitoring were very good.”
22
29/7/09
14:15
Page 24
and that HDV cameras should
not be used in multicamera setups as their lack of quality will be
too obvious.
There are also problems with
special purpose mini cameras, as
most don’t have a monitor output
so that someone can frame a shot
on location.
Beijing was the first Olympics
to be covered entirely in HD,
offering more than 5,000 hours of
TV of 28 sports from 38 competition venues. The IOC has now
established its own Olympics
Host Broadcaster (OBS), which
will cover the Winter Olympics in
Vancouver in 2010 and the
London games in 2012.
While the games are on, the
host broadcaster, and its international broadcasting centre, is
the world’s biggest broadcaster.
The Beijing games were shot in
1080i/25, from which 16:9 and
4:3 SD services were derived.
There were also 5.1 and stereo
audio mixes for TV and a separate mix for radio.
The IBC covered some
55,000sqm of floor space (and
will be about the same again in
London for 2012), with 807km of
broadcast cables, and using some
24MW of “utterly resilient” power. There were 91 host venue feeds
(some venues needed multiple
feeds), with more than 40 feeds
High definition environment: Freeview HD’s initial channel bit rate of 12Mbps will drop to
around 9Mbps after DSO, as modulation switches from 16QAM to 64QAM
Making high
definition work
Watching the image on CRT
Grade 1 monitors meant 20-inch
models that were “heavy and
expensive”, while 12-inch CRTs
were not full HD resolution.
Plasma screens and computer
monitors also had problems. The
simplest and cheapest way to view
was on SD monitors, but the
quality was poor.
There were also problems
with cabling: A limit of 80m on
a coax cable run and the need to
reclock signals; fibre was an
improvement, but also had
issues. For example, Dutch rolls
don’t work with fibre. There was
also a need to remain compatible
with both 16:9 and 4:3 SD,
which meant installing a lot of
down-converters and aspect
ratio converters. Lipsync was
also a problem, and required
embedded audio. Even today,
Meyvisch advises always to
perform an end-to-end test with
a clapperboard.
The need to simulcast
required double the hardware
and a complex set up, “which is
something to keep in mind the
moment we start talking about
3D.” While most of the problems have been solved, at least
partly, there are still some matters to watch out for, such as a
lack of light, as gain can generate more noise in HD, causing
problems for encoding.
There is still a lack of small
cameras capable of full HD. He
recommends that they should
have at least three 2MP sensors to
provide full resolution pictures,
Intriguingly, Greg Bensberg said that a fifth slot may become available under
the current HD allocation scheme in 2013 after DSO has been completed
The Next Step in Audio for HD Broadcast
dolby.com/professional
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Dolby Laboratories. All other trademarks remain the property
of their respective owners. © 2009 Dolby Laboratories, Inc.
All rights reserved. W09/21634
24
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more immersive entertainment experience. That’s because, within a single audio stream,
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metadata provides unparalleled control for the broadcaster or operator, ensuring consistent,
reliable and scalable high-definition audio over terrestrial, satellite, cable, IP or online.
To find out more, visit us at IBC 2009, September 11-15, RAI Convention Center, Amsterdam, Booth 2.B28
30/7/09
distributed to clients. As an antipiracy measure, these feeds used
video fingerprinting, and were
also delivered at four different
bitrates for new media.
The video contribution network used one fibre per video
stream, and was “highly resilient.”
Except for the outlying venues,
such as football from Hong Kong,
all the feeds were delivered uncompressed to the IBC.
The EBU had seven STM-4
streams (at 620Mbps each)
delivered to Europe. The BBC
transmitted anything live with
5.1 surround sound, but discarded the LFE signal for anything
recorded, while any edited
material went out in stereo
“because, with eight audio
channels, there was no room
for commentary,” explained
Paul Mason, Head, Olympic
Broadcasting Services London
(who was responsible for the
BBC transmissions last year).
There are currently 102 companies with 212 HD OB vans in
Europe, and Reinhard Penzel,
Principal, Jetzt, predicts that
about 100 more HD OB trucks
will arrive by the end of 2012. In
his research into the European
market, he also found that there
are some 48 HD flyaway packs
available, and these will be used
extensively for the 2010 World
Cup, as it would be more difficult to transport vans to South
Africa, the HBS has opted to
use flyaways.
About 30 new HD trucks are
being built every year in Europe.
On average, OB companies are
doing five live HD productions in
Europe on any day, although this
peaks at the weekend.
There are currently 32 dedicated HD sports channels in
Europe (out of 165 HD channels
in total), although other HD
channels sometimes cover sports
too. The UK has the most HD
channels (36), followed by the
Nordic countries (20), France
(18), Poland (17), Italy and
Russia (10 each), and Portugal
and the BeNeLux countries (9
each), although no country has
more than four dedicated HD
sports channels.
For specialist cameras, Penzel
said that there is now a greater
choice in HD than in SD, as the
ultra-motion cameras were not
used in SD.
“The economics of our industry are particularly challenged
this year. The broadcast industry
worldwide is a $20-$40 billion
industry, similar to the printer
business for Hewlett-Packard, so
it is a very small industry,” said
John Luff, HD Consultant, and
SMPTE Fellow
“The merging of IT and conventional television approaches
is the important dream behind
the development of future
technology. One of the most
important drivers in our industry is using consumer electronic
products as the basis for professional products.”
15:08
Page 25
Because broadcast products
are now largely IT and consumer
technology based, obsolescence
happens more rapidly, prices
are lowering significantly, but we
are seeing an increased cost of
maintenance (including replacement cycles) and the need to
hire more IT engineers. There
is also an increased need for
training and education, he said.
— David Fox
Regulation: Spectrum
usage and business
strategies
Understanding specifications for
HD; DVB-T2 HD deployment;
Transmission compression update;
HD delivery options – what are the
challenges ahead?
Learning from the lessons of
Freeview SD — now watched in
17.7m UK homes — Simon
Gauntlett, Technology Director
at the Digital TV Group (DTG)
said that all DTT HD receiving
equipment will be subjected to a
comprehensive test and conformance regime to rigorously
enforce the ‘D-Book 6’ HD specifications published in March.
“We are aiming to bring the high
levels of compliance characterised by low volume proprietary vertical markets to the high
volume open standard horizontal
market in Freeview HD equipment,” he said.
BBC Head of Distribution
Technology Graham Plumb said
that five major transmission sites
— including the UK’s most powerful at Crystal Palace, London —
have now been earmarked for
early conversion to transmit the
25
29/7/09
Making high
definition work
three HD channels scheduled for
launch by the end of this year,
comprising a ‘Best of’ channel
from the BBC plus evening simulcasts from ITV and Channel 4,
with the Welsh language S4C for
viewers in Wales.
Each mast will need to have
new MPEG-4 AVC H.264
compression and (currently
unavailable) DVB-T2 transmission equipment installed,
while existing MPEG-2/DVB-T
channels will be moved from
the HD-designated Multiplex B,
one of the six granted to
Freeview at launch in 1998.
Viewers will need a new box to
watch HD, and existing viewers
in affected regions will have to
re-tune.
The upshot was that some
40% to 50% of the population
could have access to highlights
from the FIFA World Cup in
South Africa from 11 June to
11 July 2010 on Freeview HD,
claimed Plumb. The accelerated
roll-out follows evidence that
the new compression and transmission standards yield overall
bandwidth savings of 50%
14:15
Page 26
speculate that were BBC2 to make
a successful bid, all of the traditional analogue stalwarts could
soon be up on Freeview HD.
Broadcasters would of course
be able to apply for further HD
bandwidth under the normal
bidding process, Bensberg added,
leaving many to wonder who
would be able to afford it.
However he saw “no objection”
to MPEG-4 being used for other
services such as night-time
downloads of SD material to
PVRs for example.
Rainer Schaefer, Head of TV
Production Systems at standards
experts IRT, explained that
exhaustive test sequences had
been run on several codecs using
MPEG-4 AVC H.264 — the
compression standard being
adopted for Freeview HD and
most new HD services worldwide — to establish the bit rates
at which pictures would appear
indistinguishable from a reference HD MPEG-2 codec operating at some 24Mbps. MPEG-4
picture quality was “generally
better” even at half the bit rate,
he observed.
Averaged results revealed an
optimum target bit rate of
10.5Mbps for 720p/25 pictures
(containing 720 lines scanned
progressively at 25fps), 12.8Mbps
for 1080i/25 (1080 lines with
“The five point 3D plan: early clarity on Blu-ray
3D format; showing of 3D movies on cable,
satellite and online; sustained commitment to
3D movie production; made-for-TV productions;
and dual HD/3D-ready TV sets” — John Bird
compared to the 30% predicted,
said Greg Bensberg, Principal
Advisor
for
Broadcasting
at Ofcom.
According to Bensberg, the
proposed evening HD simulcast
from broadcaster Five — approved
by Ofcom this February in favour
of proposals for Film 4 HD in the
evening and S4C kids’ programming in the morning — could now
become available in some regions
by the end of 2010 “at the latest”.
Intriguingly Bensberg said that
a fifth slot may become available
under the current HD allocation
scheme in 2013 after DSO has
been completed, leading many to
26
each frame containing two
interlaced fields), and 12.1Mbps
for 1080i/25 shown in a traditional
4:3 aspect ratio rather than HD’s
normal 16:9 widescreen format
(1080 x 1440 pixels instead of
1080 x 1920).
1080i/25 is of course the format selected for Freeview HD
picture format, and in wasn’t
long before a question from the
floor challenged the platform’s
bit rate in the light of the IRT
findings. Greg Bensberg admitted that Freeview HD’s initial
channel bit rate of 12Mbps will
drop to around 9Mbps after
DSO, as modulation switches
Vittoria Mignone, RAI Research Centre: “From a technical point
of view, Super Hi-Vision would be suitable for direct to home”
Dr Yoshiaki Shishikui: “Super Hi-Vision is not just a dream,
but a real television system for the future”
from 16QAM to 64QAM in the
light of higher digital transmission power.
However the introduction of
statmux will make better use of
the multiplex bandwidth, claimed
Bensberg, while the increasing use
of progressively-scanned material
(1080p/25) for transmission —
apparently already favoured by
the BBC — will cut out the ‘interlacing overhead’ hence reducing
each channel’s native bit rate. —
Richard Dean
Special Feature:
Super Hi-Vision
Mastering the future: Review of
Super Hi-Vision demos from
IBC2008 and NAB2009; satellite
transmission tests for SHV; IP
transmission tests for SHV.
“Isn’t HD enough?”, asked David
Wood, chair of the European HD
Forum. Well, obviously not for
NHK, the BBC, IRT, RAI and
the EBU, who formed the
Broadcast Technology Futures
Group in 2007, and took part
in last year’s test of Super
Hi-Vision transmissions at IBC.
The results of which were discussed in an interesting session at
HD Masters.
“Super Hi-Vision is not just a
dream, but a real television system for the future,” said NHK’s
Dr Yoshiaki Shishikui. With a
resolution of 7680x4320, it is 16
times the resolution of HDTV,
and has a native data rate
24Gbps. However, the experiment at IBC last year, and developments shown recently at
NAB, demonstrate that the most
optimistic prediction that it
could be viable for transmission
to the home in 15 years could
come true.
Last year’s London transmission was treated like a proper
OB,
explained
Dr
John
Zubrzycki, Portfolio Manager,
BBC Research and Development. Video was converted to
16 HDTV streams, then a single
640mbps IP stream for transmission (using MPEG-2). To aid
co-ordination, there were also
HD cameras and audio connections at each end, using a
10Mbps link. There were also
18 microphones to capture surround sound.
The transmission used redundant paths (except for 1,500m
in Amsterdam), but there were
no failures. The demonstration
also used Dirac SHV coding at
128Mbps, but Zubrzycki hopes
that it can be reduced to
70Mbps, to get it onto a single
transponder.
For the satellite feed from
Turin, RAI split the signal to
two transponders at 70Mbps
each, so it could be received
by domestic dishes. It used
MPEG-4 and DVB-S2, “because
it is very efficient and makes best
use of the satellite capacity.
From a technical point of view,
SHV would be suitable for direct
to
home,” said
Vittoria
Mignone, RAI Rearch Centre.
RAI had about eight minutes
of SHV video stored in Turin,
which it transmitted via two
36MHz Eutelsat transponders for
the test. “SHV is very demanding
for transmission, especially for
broadcasting. The reception part
must be very simplified and limited to 140Mbps,” she said.
Because Ku band is almost
completely occupied, it is necessary to move to Ka, where DVBS2 allows multi-spot coverage.
“For broadband, we have a large
capacity available, but we need
a large investment. Terrestrial
DVB-T2 is now a reality, but
that allows no more than
40Mbps per channel, but we
could get 4k TV (one quarter
SHV) on a single channel.”
SHV was displayed more
recently at NAB, where a
number of improvements were
demonstrated. There is a new
SHV camera, with higher sensitivity 8.9 megapixel 1.25-inch
sensors (four of them — R, G1,
G2 and B), and two new lenses
(a wide-angle and a 10x zoom).
NHK and NTT have collaborated on new video coding based on
30/7/09
Making high
definition work
H.264, giving scalable encoding
and decoding, that can deliver
SHV, 4k, HDTV and to mobiles.
The demonstration used new
16-wavelength optical multiplex-
10:16
Page 28
ing transmission equipment to
send the images from the Las
Vegas Strip to NAB.
In development there is a new
33MP sensor, that can capture
colour pictures at 60Hz progressive, and NHK Executive Research
Engineer, Dr Yuji Nojiri, hopes to
have a full-resolution prototype
camera, with three such sensors,
working by 2010. It will have an
In a May survey by the EBU of 53 broadcasters,
just one of 37 who answered the question stated
that it had migrated its production facility to
HDTV. A further 20 (54%) have partially migrated
optical transmitter at 72gbps,
which enables the camera to be
more than 1km from the CCU
using a single fibre cable.
A new full-resolution projector, replacing the existing pair of
stacked projectors, make it a lot
easier to set up. There are also
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Europe and Africa Middle East
new high dynamic range projectors, with 8MP per signal. NHK
hopes that 2010 will be the first
year of full-resolution SHV, as it
will be the 80th anniversary of its
R&D Lab.
Zubrzycki believes there will
be a lot of use for SHV for special events over the next 10-15
years, before services to home
become practical. “We must
think of it now if we want it in
the future,” added Mignone. “If
we start with 4k we may create
the need for 8k.”
NHK’s aim is to have an SHV
broadcast service in 20-25 years,
said Shishikui, who hoped it
could be launched in time to
mark the 100th anniversary of
Japanese broadcasting in 2025.
Nojiri would like to see SHV
become a broadcast reality within 15 years.
Higher resolution won’t look
as good without higher frame
rates, Richard Salmon, Senior
Research
Engineer,
BBC
Research, told the conference, but
since TV frame rates were chosen,
some 70 years ago, nobody has
thought much about them. That’s
because 50Hz and 60Hz were
good matches for SD pictures.
However, in an era of much larger screens, flicker has become
more apparent, with a loss of
detail evident in moving objects.
If you use a shorter shutter
interval you introduce temporal
aliasing, resulting in spoked
wheels revolving backwards.
In cinema, you use a slower
pan to avoid motion problems,
“but for sport you have to follow
the ball at whatever speed it goes,
which causes problems in HD. In
HD, the dynamic image is blurred
and, in fact, is no better than in
standard definition.”
Some years ago, the BBC proposed 80fps for HD, because stationary HD pictures were so sharp
compared to movement that the
difference lead to a feeling of nausea. “That was solved by reducing
aperture correction to reduce the
difference between static and
dynamic, and increasing the shutter rate,” explained Salmon. “The
higher the static resolution, the
higher the dynamic resolution
must be for comfortable and lifelike images.”
Today, there are 100Hz and
120Hz upconverting displays, and
higher rates are being introduced.
It solves the problem of flickering
and display smear. “It is done
purely to mitigate the problems of
LCD displays. It has nothing to
do with improving the TV system
as a whole, but it means displays
could accommodate higher frame
rates.” If SD is acceptable at
50Hz, then full HDTV needs
150Hz, and “as resolution
increases, we probably want at
least 300Hz.”
However, moving to higher
frame rate production is not an
easy evolution. “It’s a revolution
and something to be incorporated
28
29/7/09
14:16
Page 32
Making high
definition work
in a future TV system. 300Hz
would be a very good mastering
format for the Olympics, for
example, because it is easy to
make 60 and 50Hz versions.” It
is also compatible with mains
frequencies. However, it would
lead to shorter exposures for
each frame (and sensitivity
issues) and a loss of the film
look. There are certainly
improvements visible in a move
to 100 or 120Hz production (as
Salmon demonstrated in one of
the exhibits at HD Masters).
The good news is that “high
frame rates should be easier to
compress, because there are
smaller differences between
frames and each frame is sharper,
so motion is easier to predict, and
you get rid of temporal aliasing,
so it is clearer. Compression can
be more efficient if there are 150
frames in a GoP.
“As each frame is so similar
to the next one, it is easier to
remove noise, and the eye doesn’t notice random noise at
higher frame rates. As you
increase the sampling rate, you
can go to lower bit rates.”
A further advantage is that, in
post, you can filter out flashes
from flash photography.
There is further work to do,
especially regarding compression
and the visibility of noise, and they
don’t yet know how much more
bandwidth will be needed. More
details are available in a BBC
Research white paper (WHP169 —
available at bbc.co.uk/rd), and the
Peter Angell (right): “There’s no way we can reduce the number of cameras if we want credible live 3D TV”
BBC is doing some work with
NHK Research on this.
In the meantime, a quick
improvement to HD would be “to
ditch interlaced at the first opportunity,” said Salmon. “Interlace is
just harder to compress, harder to
do everything with. You can compress progressive so much more
easily than interlaced. Interlace is
a compression system for the analogue world.”— David Fox
Consumer Perspective:
New services and 3D
Exclusive insight into BSkyB trials of
3D in broadcasting; the co-existence
of HD and 3D; The great 3D
debate – is 3D the next HD?
John Bird of the Future Source
Consultancy reminded delegates
that 3D is not a new idea. The
first patent for 3D film processing
was granted in 1898, with The
Power of Love emerging as the
first commercially released 3D
movie in 1922. After years in the
wilderness the concept was now
quite literally back in the public
eye, he insisted, with 41 million adult
US cinemagoers (16% of the market)
watching a 3D film last year.
Some 30% of the 8,700 Dcinemas worldwide were 3D enabled,
he claimed. However nearly half
(48%) of the Hollywood studios’
income now comes from home
video — could 3D TV versions
attract a price premium? Research
suggested that 50% of TV viewers
would be prepared to pay more
for a 3D set, said Bird, although
how much and for what type of
3D was not revealed. While
today’s sub-US$20 polarising
spectacles were a useful transitional tool that escaped the cost
and complexity of shuttered
glasses, he believed that these were
not acceptable in the long term.
The ultimate answer was an
autostereoscopic technology, but
“For factual programming we will need small
cameras. Unfortunately, you get a good camera
and you get a good recorder, but you never get
them in the same box” — Andy Quested, BBC
he conceded that this could take at
least five years to achieve the high
quality and low costs required for
a mass market. The obstacles were
a lack of standards with competing distribution and display
formats, compounded by the allpervading economic downturn.
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Bird unveiled a five point
plan for a successful 3D TV rollout – early clarity on a Blu-ray
3D format, the showing of 3D
movies on cable, satellite and
online, sustained commitment to
3D movie production and conversion of classics, made-for-TV
productions from 2011, and dual
HD/3D-ready TV sets. If all
went well, and he admitted it
was a big if, take-up in the UK
could reach between 6-12% in
the UK and up to 45% in the US
by 2014. In any event 3D TV
must be seen as a long term project, he cautioned.
Bravely entering the lion’s
den of 3D TV at HD Masters —
which for anybody doubting the
connection relies on HD to
obtain sufficient resolution —
was Chris Johns, Chief Engineer
for Broadcast Strategy at BSkyB.
A mixed programme of 16Mbps
variable bit rate (VBR) content
sent via a secure test channel from
BSkyB in Osterley was on display
at the conference, received via a
standard Astra dish on the new
£5,000 46-inch 3D TV set from
JVC. Prior to transmission the
left and right images were
Test & ID Generators
anamorphically squeezed sideby-side into the same picture. In
the set, images are expanded to
full width and overlaid on the
screen, with an opposing polarisation (matching the viewer’s
polarised
spectacle
lenses)
applied to each.
Johns pointed out that the
more than 1m Sky HD STBs
currently deployed, and all the
other links in the chain except
the viewer’s existing TV, were
compatible. Hollywood is pouring millions of dollars into 3D
movies with more than 40
currently in production, he said,
while cinemagoers seem prepared to pay £3 to £4 more to
watch them — so it was only
right that options for 3D TV
should be explored.
Freely admitting that BSkyB
was still learning about 3D TV
production, Johns noted that
current camera rigs were rather
bulky. Whether using a teleprompter-style beam-splitting
mirror with one camera mounted
vertically, or two cameras mounted side-by-side, rigs could perhaps
occupy five otherwise revenuegenerating seats at a sport stadium.
However he suggested that the
edit cut rate and hence the number of cameras could be reduced
to enable the viewer to ‘linger
longer’ and explore each scene, an
argument reminiscent of that
used for early HD coverage. It
was also possible to fool the eye to
thinking that narrow depth of
32
29/7/09
Making high
definition work
field 2D shots were 3D if skilfully
intercut with ‘real’ 3D.
However Peter Angell, who
produced both the 2002 FIFA
World Cup in Korea and Japan
and the first all-HD 2006 FIFA
World Cup in Germany and
Austria, and is now Director of
Production and Programming at
Host Broadcast Services including its 3D production arm, could
hardly disagree more. “For the
World Cup in 2006 we used 18
cameras per match,” he said,
“but some 31 will be deployed for
each game in 2010. There’s no
way we can reduce the number of
cameras if we want credible live
3D TV.”
It is estimated that 6% to 10% of
the population cannot perceive 3D
via mechanical means, while some
question whether the brain will ever
be capable of believing the presence
of depth while being required to
focus on a single plane for anything
more than short periods.
John Zubrzycki of BBC R&D
(now back with its original name
after a period as Research &
Innovation) said that minimising
the occurrence of objects out in
front of the screen helps reduce
34
14:16
Page 34
eye strain. He also recalled the
now-defunct ‘multiview’ project
with Philips, in which parallax
was added between overlaid displays to create genuine separation
between front and back.
Ex-Sony and Snell & Wilcox
HD guru Peter Wilson, now
Director at High Definition &
Digital Cinema Ltd, said that
while movie makers could spend
time optimising images in post,
live 3D TV events ran the risk of
inducing nausea. “During live 3D
production it’s likely that viewers
will inadvertently be presented
with images requiring their eyes
to diverge, or for one to look up
while the other looks down, neither of which is a comfortable
experience,” he said.
Another risk was ‘giantism’,
caused by the use of long lenses
converging at too high an angle.
“The brain attempts to resolve
pictures apparently viewed by a
giant being, leading to the
impression that a bunch of
dwarves are running around
the sports field,” said Wilson.
“Given that long lenses are a
staple of sports, a whole new
grammar will need to be developed for 3D coverage.”
A point of consensus was
reached when the panel agreed
that nobody expected all TV to be
3D all of the time. However 3D
TV’s position as a ‘new services’
A mixed programme of 16Mbps VBR content sent via secure test channel from BSkyB was on display at
HD Masters, received via standard Astra dish on the new £5,000 JVC 46-inch 3D TV set
topic — and its place on the HD
Masters agenda — now seems
assured. “There’s a bit of a bun
fight currently going on between
patent holders, who all believe
they will be the next Dolby earning generous licence fees,” said
Wilson. “But there’s no doubt
that studios are now anxious to
set proper 3D production standards via SMPTE.” Further
investment was also needed from
the consumer electronics industry, added Angell.
Wrapping up the most successful HD Masters conference
yet, John Luff concluded that
viewers were voting with their
feet on HDTV equipment,
HD production had now
reached a critical mass, and a
commitment to HD broadcasting at some point was now
almost ubiquitous worldwide.
Television facilities are now
installing 3Gbps (1080p) infrastructure as replacement cycles
come around, paving the way for
a transition to the file-based
workflow of today’s SD.
Tantalising developments lay
on the horizon, with the SHV
(Super Hi-Vision) format proposed by NHK of Japan, the BBC,
and Italy’s RAI promising to give
viewers a ‘clear window’ media
experience with four times HD’s
resolution and 22.2 audio channels. In the meanwhile, both 3D
TV and Blu-ray offer important
new avenues for today’s HDTV, he
concluded. — Richard Dean
TVBE Aug P35-43 HD V2
29/7/09
15:35
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3D: If we build it, will they come?
in 3D at select cinemas in January 2009.
Other broadcasters have focused on promoting 3D using existing displays. NBC,
for instance, has experimented with
anaglyph 3D broadcasting. In February
2009, the network transmitted a 90-second
preview of DWA 3D movie Monsters vs.
Aliens in Color-Code’s anaglyph format
during a Super Bowl commercial break.
According to NBC, 150 million pairs of the
glasses required to view the ad in 3D were
distributed free ahead of the event. NBC
subsequently broadcast an episode of its
TV series Chuck in the same format, encouraging viewers to re-use the 3D glasses.
Perhaps the most enthusiastic current 3D
broadcasting is in Japan where NHK, since
2007, has used its BS-11 satellite system to
transmit 20 or so minutes a day of sport and
travel programming in stereoscopic 3D.
HD and 3D
IS 3D TV a realistic goal or will it be a tiny
niche activity well into the future? Two
recent reports shed significant light on the
progress of 3D beyond the cinema screen, as
Chris Forrester reports
LG on June 18 unveiled a 3D (or we should
say a stereoscopic) version of its popular
50-inch LCD high-def TV unit. This 3D
model is now added to other similar devices
from Hyundai and most other major
players. 3D, for the set-manufacturers, is
undoubtedly their next major thrust as well
as delivering better retail margins and a
touch of consumer sparkle at trade shows
and the like.
Moreover, we are all aware of the considerable push towards 3D being made by
BSkyB, NHK, Fox, NBC, Turner and other
broadcasters. But is 3D more than a ‘Field
of Dreams’? If it’s built, will the punters
buy? Or will we get a ruinous ‘standards
battle’ into the process?
The world recognises that 3D in the
cinema makes sound commercial sense,
despite significant extra production costs.
But will this enthusiasm transfer into
broadcasting’s strictly 2D world? The
3D ARPU
3D production trials: Some broadcasters have focused on promoting 3D using existing displays
question has been examined in a major
study by Screen Digest’s Global Media
Intelligence (GMI) division*, and the
report pulls no punches. GMI’s most positive scenario makes somewhat depressing
reading, stating that just over 15% of total
TV sets installed worldwide could be
3D-capable by 2015. The other end of the
scale, its worst-case scenario, suggests the
number could be nearer 3%, which is — at
best — niche.
The UK’s influential Digital Television
Group (DTG) in its recent 3D study found
two distinct camps: One informal grouping
advocates a wait and see approach with
common and agreed standards at its core.
The other view, firmly backed by BSkyB, is
to start transmissions as soon as possible,
using established HD protocols, existing
set-top boxes and well-understood camera
and transmission standards.
The DTG will host a seminar in London
this September to discuss the options, and
the topic will figure in a number of sessions
at IBC. “Whoever goes first could set the
standards not just for the UK but possibly
But the TV industry already has its own
Trojan Horse, in the shape of 3D games,
stresses GMI: “The requirement for 3D
glasses might be less of an issue for gamers,
given their willingness to adopt peripherals,
although the interactive nature of video
games (as opposed to the passive experience of movie and TV viewing) presents
some unique issues for 3D. Sony’s aforementioned demonstrations offered a compelling example of 3D versions of games
with fixed-camera viewpoints, such as firstperson and driving experiences.”
But what do we know of broadcaster’s
strategies as far as 3D is concerned? It is
recognised that Japan’s leading broadcasters see 3D as a methodology for pushing
the creative envelope that bit further, which
is no doubt why they are also backing 4k
transmission. All agree that 3D could generate extra revenues, and there’s nobody
“Whoever goes first could set the standards not just for
the UK but possibly the rest of Europe. It is our job to
try to create both a commercial and technical balance”
— Richard Lindsay-Davies, DTG
the rest of Europe,” said DTG director
general Richard Lindsay-Davies. “It is our
job to try to create both a commercial and
technical balance.”
BskyB’s view, at least according to Brian
Lenz, its head of new product and design, is
to be more aggressive. “Harnessing existing
capabilities clearly has the potential to lead
to an earlier introduction of initial 3D services, which is good for both consumers and
the industry alike. By validating the demand
for 3D through this approach, you would
have to assume that this would [also] serve
to highlight the demand for free-to-air, nonHD propositions further down the line.”
GMI’s study backs the adoption of consistent standards, saying 3D’s take-up could
then be much better. “Cross-platform standardisation would drive rapid uptake, with
the percentage of sets sold with 3D capability worldwide reaching 32% in 2015.”
The GMI study also reminds us that
several broadcasters have conducted 3D
trials but developments in 3D TV programming are a long way behind 3D
movies. Fox Sports and Turner Sports have
utilised 3D cinema screens for special
events. Fox showed a college football game
36
more focused on Average Revenue Per User
(ARPU) than BSkyB.
While BSkyB has hinted that it could
replicate the top-up subscription fees it
charges for its HD channels for 3D, Sky
also noted that advertisers have declared an
interest in potential for 3D commercials so
this could represent another opportunity to
generate incremental revenue.
But the study warns that there is not
yet a consensus in Hollywood around the
potential for a mark-up on 3D content.
“Lessons from format wars like HD DVD
and BD, VHS and Betamax or transmission standardisation towards MPEG suggests that the market will not tolerate
multiple 3D standards. Which format is
chosen may ultimately preclude some of
the technologies currently touted, while
the process of standardising is likely to
face a lengthy period of lobbying from
proprietary technologies and their associated vendor groups to determine which, if
any, get a major share of this market,”
warns GMI.
*Will 3D be the next big thing after
HDTV?” Screen Digest
29/7/09
14:28
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State of the art for 3Gbps
Future-proofing with a purchase of a router and distribution system that supports 3Gbps
makes sense because any 270Mbps SD, 1.5/3Gbps high definition signal can pass through
By Randy Conrod,
product manager Digital
Products, Harris Broadcast
Communications
This article reviews the state of the
art for 3Gbps infrastructures today.
Level A and Level B are discussed
as pertaining to video and audio
formats and the equipment that
supports each format.
The 3Gbps infrastructure has
many possibilities, including singleprogramme content for 1080p; two
programmes of SD, 720p or 1080p
(can be differing programmes);
or the left eye/right eye format for
3D (three-dimensional) television.
Given these numerous possibilities,
identifying the signal type is important, and metadata is a solution
for doing so. Other topics discussed
include support for 32 channels of
embedded audio, 3Gbps-capable
equipment and 3D in the home.
Level A and Level B
There are two methods for organising the video essence, audio
essence, data and metadata for the
3Gbps serial digital signal — Level
A and Level B. Level A follows the
same data organisation as 1080i
and 720p 1.5Gbps serial digital signals. The video is carried in two
streams — Stream A and Stream B.
Stream A contains the luminance information with its VANC
(vertical ancillary data space) and
HANC (horizontal ancillary data
space), and Stream B contains the
CbCr colour difference signals with
its VANC and HANC. The YCbCr
color space has been utilised by
broadcasters since the inception of
digital television in the early ’90s.
The sampling structure is 4:2:2,
where the luminance (4) is sampled
twice as often as the color difference (2:2).
A 10-bit digital word is
utilised when sampling the signal. The only difference is that
1080i and 720p take up 1.5Gbps
when in the serial digital domain
and 1080p takes up 3Gbps in the
www.vivesta.com
info@vivesta.com
Fig 1: The two-stream data organization is shown for 3Gbps 1080p Level A
serial digital domain because it
has twice the data (ie, not interlaced, progressive).
In Fig 1, the two-stream data
organization is shown for 3Gbps
1080p Level A.
Level B supports the Dual
Link (2 x 1.5Gbps) over one
3Gbps serial digital connection.
For several years, Dual Link has
been utilised in production for
many types of video formats.
Link A is formatted in a similar
way to 1.5Gbps, as there are two
streams (A and B). Link B has a
comparable formatting. This
means there are four streams in a
Dual Link Level B signal, each
with its own VANC and HANC.
The supported formats include
YCbCr 4:2:2 10-bit (as in television signals).
In Fig 2, the dual link data
organisation is shown for 3Gbps
1080p Level B.
Other formats utilised in
production are RGB/4:4:4/
12-bit, RGBA (A = Alpha or key
channel)/4:2:2:4/10-bit, YCbCr/
4:4:4/12-bit, and YCbCrA/
4:2:2:4/10-bit. Frame rates typically supported are 23.98, 24, 25,
29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60fps
(frames per second). Television
broadcasters do not utilise
these additional formats —
they utilise the YCbCR 4:2:2
10-bit format.
Level B also supports a 2x
mode that will carry two SD
(270Mbps) or two 1.5Gbps 720p
or 1080i signals. Although these
two signals might be carrying
different content, they must be
the same format and phasealigned. This is the same format
to carry 3D TV signals (3D) for
the left eye and right eye stereoscopic image.
In Fig 3, the Dual Link data
organisation is shown for 3Gbps 2x
1080i or 720p Level B.
Since the 3Gbps serial digital
interface supports so many formats
or payloads for video, it is important to utilise the ‘payload identifier’ or ‘packet descriptor,’ which
describes the signal. This metadata
is placed in the VANC three lines
after the vertical switching line and
includes the following information:
Level A; Level B; Frame rate; Bit
depth; Interlace; Progressive; Color
space; RGB; YCbCr.
The packet descriptor is important going forward so that when
interfacing equipment, it is easier
to make things work.
in order for those interested in
moving to 1080p and/or 3D television. With all of the formats that
can be encountered, determining
what equipment supports a particular format will be a daunting task,
and testing devices before commissioning will be required. Today, test
equipment is available for 3Gbps.
Cameras and tape transports
that support 1080p and 3D content
are becoming available. It is very
important to understand whether a
Single Link 3Gbps or Dual Link 1.5
interface is being used. Today,
depending on the manufacturer,
there may not be support for all of
The 1.5Gbps serial digital interface supports 16 channels of
embedded audio. Level A supports 16 channels of embedded
audio in a similar fashion as
1.5Gbps. Level B supports up to
32 channels of embedded audio.
The question is why doesn’t Level
A support 32 channels of embedded audio? The answer is that the
standard has simply not evolved
for 32-channel support for Level
A at this time; however, it is quite
possible that this may happen in
the future.
Despite the incurred cost, planning to build a lab to experiment
with these new technologies may be
Fig 3: The Dual Link data organisation is shown for 3Gbps 2x 1080i or 720p Level B
the formats mentioned in this article.
For instance, Level B 3Gbps is supported for 1080p and 3D by only one
manufacturer. In another case, 3D is
supported by a Dual Link 1.5Gbps.
Today’s routing switchers and
distribution equipment support
3Gbps, and due to their nature,
allow for the carriage of all for-
MediaFlow 3.0
IBC 2009
One content library, multi-channel
broadcast and VOD services.
Media management
Rights and license managementt
VOD product management
Traffic & multi-channel scheduling
Delivery to multiple outlets
Vivesta Adv TVBE 181x60.indd 1
1080p is now available for the home
via 1080p monitors and Blu-Ray
technology. For 1080p broadcasts,
as mentioned above, the distribution system needs to evolve to support this format. Regarding 3D,
Embedded audio
Workflow automation
38
1080p and 3D in the
home environment
Fig 2: The dual link data organisation is shown for 3Gbps 1080p Level B
Visit Vivesta at
Hall 2
Booth A48
mats. Conversion equipment may
support some of the formats, but
will most likely not support all.
There is a movement toward supporting YCbCr 4:2:2 10-bit
between Level A and Level B.
For 3D processing, frame syncs,
proc amps and conversion will need
a dual-channel implementation with
the capability of a control management system to affect both channels
simultaneously. These products need
to move from two-channel to singlechannel devices, dependent on the
input signal encountered.
Master control and distribution
into the home will have to evolve to
carry this additional information,
whether it is 1080p or 3D TV.
there are four competing standards
for 3D in the home environment.
Each of these standards requires
the use of 3D glasses by the viewer.
Television sets with this capability
will be available in 2010. However,
it is too early to tell whether one
standard will dominate or whether
multiple standards will be used.
It is still early in the move
toward 3Gbps equipment purchases. Future-proofing with a purchase of a router and distribution
system that supports 3Gbps makes
sense because any 270Mbps SD,
1.5/3Gbps HD signal can pass
through it. Carrying two signals
per link for higher density, 3D or
1080p in the future is entirely
possible. 3Gbps-capable capture,
record/playback production and
processing and master control
equipment will continue to evolve
as the market demands for production of 1080p and 3D ramp up. As
for distribution, the standards will
have to evolve for 1080p and 3D in
the home environment.
24-07-2009 14:19:41
29/7/09
15:51
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Why it’s not too expensive or too complicated to use!
Optical fibre SDI: Next generation SDI
HD over fibre
By Grant Petty
CEO, Blackmagic Design
You might have heard about optical fibre but considered it too
expensive and too complicated to
use. This common perception of
optical fibre is not necessarily correct. Consumers are now getting
access to higher quality televisions and media sources that
feature high bit depth and fast
frame rate 1080p/50 and 1080p/60
video. These media sources are
not just from broadcasters, as customers are getting content online
and on Blu-ray Disk as well.
It’s vital the content production side of television can keep
up with these high quality levels
so customers get the best viewing
experience. It’s likely that resolutions and frame rates will keep
increasing, and this will put
immense pressure on production
technologies, such as SDI, to
keep up.
In this article I describe the
current state of the art in SDI
40
‘UltraScope is the first PC-based waveform monitoring that’s designed for editing and
colour correction work, and that’s also technically accurate’
technology and describe some of
its benefits and limitations as we
move towards the future. I then
explain how optical fibre SDI
works, as well as its benefits and
limitations.
Optical fibre technology is the
only viable technology that will
allow television production to
move into the future. This is
because optical fibre is virtually
future proof, runs incredibly long
distances, is low cost, and it’s a
mature technology which is available now.
As video technology has progressed,
resolutions
have
increased, frame rates have increased, and more production is
being done in the full bandwidth
4:4:4 RGB colour-space. These
increases in quality have transformed video production and provide a fantastic viewing experience for consumers. In addition,
these technologies have allowed
realtime 2k editing using the same
equipment used for SD and HD
work. 2k film workflow has now
become as easy as video.
All these high resolution, high
frame rate video standards have
pushed the limits of the SDI video
standard. One solution has been
to use Dual Link SDI where two
HD-SDI links were connected to
allow a 4:4:4 RGB workflow.
However this is extremely cumbersome, and doubles the cost of
cabling and routing video.
29/7/09
14:28
Page 41
SDI leaves every pixel
untouched and clean, works in
both RGB and YUV, works in
both 4:2:2 and 4:4:4, can switch
speeds between dozens of different SD, HD and 2k formats, and
even includes a massive 16 channels of digital audio as well as
time code and all kinds of other
ancillary data. It can be converted, routed, and easily connected
all over your building. It’s no wonder it was adopted so quickly, and
has been able to keep pace with
television production over the
past two decades.
However there are some limitations that are becoming apparent including:
SDI really only handles 300ft in
length in HD. Broadcasters constantly struggle with this limitation.
•
•
SDI is speed limited. We are
stuck at 3Gbps speeds currently,
and there is no road map for any
faster speeds in the future.
SDI uses BNC connectors that
are no longer used in networking.
BNC connecters are also very rare
on consumer equipment now.
BNC connectors are becoming
expensive as cables need to be
custom-made.
•
•
SDI cables need to be changed
every time a new higher speed
SDI is introduced. When SDI
was first introduced, cables
previously used for composite
were often not good enough
and needed to be replaced to
handle the data rates of SDI.
When HD-SDI was introduced,
Grant Petty: ‘Optical fibre
technology is the only viable
technology that will allow television
production to move into the future’
Introducing 3Gbps SDI
Back in 2007, Blackmagic Design
introduced the Multibridge Eclipse
editing and HDLink Pro monitoring products. Both these products
featured 3Gbps SDI that also
switched to SD or HD-SDI. Then
last year at NAB 2008, we introduced DeckLink HD Extreme editing, Videohub routers and Mini
Converters, all featuring 3Gbps
SDI. Introducing 3Gbps SDI eliminated the need to use dual cables
just to get 4:4:4 video, and also
allowed native 2k editing with a single BNC connection.
These products looked the
same to end-users, as we introduced them at the same cost as the
product models they replaced. We
felt this was the only way to really
introduce 3Gbps SDI technology
in any meaningful way. This
increased the number of post production facilities and broadcasters that were 3Gbps SDI ready.
Since that time more third party
manufacturers have also introduced 3Gbps SDI ready equipment. Many post production
companies are now using 2k on
3Gbps SDI-based products, and
this is dramatically simplifying
feature film workflows.
Where is conventional SDI
technology heading? At the time of
writing, no semiconductor company has any new component
roadmaps for SDI speeds faster
than 3Gbps. They all seem to be
working harder on breaking the
300 foot limit of SDI’s cable
length. This is nice but still limiting. This means there currently
does not appear to be any major
revolution coming to improve the
performance of SDI cable interconnects in any way. So the answer
to where conventional SDI technology is heading appears to be
“nowhere any time soon”.
What are the limits of conventional SDI? Overall the SDI standard is incredible. SDI is like a fire
hose of pixels and is so simple to
use. It’s the only true open standard to which any company can
build products. This has resulted in
hundreds of companies producing
some extremely innovative products. It’s amazing to go to NAB
each year and see the huge number
of exciting new products released!
41
29/7/09
14:28
Page 42
upgrading of cabling is incrediOptical fibre SDI:
bly expensive.
are big. The cables
Next generation SDI are
• SDIquitecables
thick, and need quite
the same upgrades were
required, and some cables
have also required replacement
to
handle
new
3Gbps
SDI speeds. This constant
a lot of space when running
many cables down racks, and
through buildings. Anyone who
has seen SDI cables running
into equipment rooms will
know
how
much
space
they require!
How does optical fibre
solve these problems?
Optical fibre can solve these problems easily. It’s also worth noting
that optical fibre SDI is the same bit
stream as conventional SDI, but it’s
just passed down an optical fibre
instead of copper cable. This means
optical fibre has all the benefits of
conventional SDI but removes some
of the limitations as outlined:
•
Optical fibre can run massive
lengths. Blackmagic Design
optical fibre products are rated
to pass SDI pathological tests
up to 45 KM in standard definition, and 25 KM at 3Gbps. You
really need to look at those
numbers again to understand
what this means. SDI handles
300ft, but optical fibre can
handle 147,000 ft. It’s quite
an improvement!
SDI is like a fire hose of pixels and is so simple
to use. It’s the only true open standard to which
any company can build products
Lawo AG | Rastatt / Germany
•
There are virtually no speed limits on optical fibre cables. Copper
based cable has bandwidth limits
so, as data speeds increase, the
cables cannot transfer the higher
frequency data. Semiconductor
companies have spent a lot of time
cramming higher bandwidth down
copper cables, a little like modem
manufacturers did back in the
1980’s. However there is only so
much they can do. Optical fibre is
like broadband, and there is virtually no speed limits.
Optical fibre SDI uses the same
commonly available cables that
high speed networking uses. Most
optical fibre SDI products use
standard LC type connectors and
these cables are on the shelf at
your local electrical wholesaler.
The optical cables we purchased
were about half the cost of the
copper BNC cables we get custom
made for us. Also the optical fibre
cables we purchased are ‘duplex’
cables, which is an engineer’s way
of saying they work in both directions. This simply means there are
two cables moulded together. You
can unclip the LC connectors and
pull them apart to make two individual cables. That’s halved the
cost again!
You can keep using the same
cables even as new high quality
video standards are released,
requiring even higher SDI data
speeds in the future. 3Gbps is easy
for optical fibre, and much higher
speeds can be run down exactly
the same cables. This eliminates
the very expensive need to constantly upgrade copper cables
because you can plug the same
optical fibre cables into higher
speed equipment in the future.
Optical fibre cables are very
thin and flexible with most of the
thickness from the outer jacket
that protects the fibre itself. You
can get multi core optical cables
with many individual fibres and
the overall size is about the same
as a single copper BNC cable.
•
•
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42
•
Limitations of
optical fibre
The main limitations of optical
fibre are related to cost and lack
of standardisation. Cost has been
high because no equipment has
optical fibre SDI built in, so converters are needed on every link.
Only broadcasters who needed to
beat the 300ft SDI length limitation have used optical fibre in the
past, so the market was very
small, and the converters on the
market were expensive.
You needed one converter for
each end of the optical cable and
the converters often cost thousands
29/7/09
14:29
Page 43
of dollars. So it’s the converters
that cost all the money, not the
optical fibre cable itself!
The other problem is standardisation. There are different
types of optical fibre cable, connectors, and light frequencies.
These can be a bit confusing,
however there is a SMPTE standard for optical fibre SDI which
now solves this problem. The
SMPTE standard features LC
type optical fibre connectors,
1310nm light frequency, laser
driver and the optical fibre link
must pass the SDI pathological
test signal correctly. So this means
the only real limitation of optical
fibre is equipment cost. If this
problem can be solved, then optical fibre can be adopted as easily
as copper SDI cables.
To make optical fibre truly
competitive with traditional copper SDI cabling, the optical fibre
connections need to be built into
television equipment for no extra
cost. Only with built in optical
fibre SDI connections will the
adoption cost of optical fibre be
just the optical fibre cable itself.
Built in optical fibre then totally
eliminates the cost of converting
to and from optical fibre, and
because it’s on the connection
panel of television equipment, it’s
more likely to be used.
Blackmagic Design launched
four new products at NAB 2009
that have built in optical fibre SDI
connections — Mini Converter
Optical Fiber, HDLink Optical
Fibre, DeckLink Optical Fibre,
and Ultrascope. Blackmagic
UltraScope is the world’s first PCbased waveform monitoring that’s
designed for editing and colour
correction work, and that’s also
technically accurate. It features
both copper SDI and optical fibre
SDI, and retails for only US$695.
This is thousands of dollars less
than other products, but also
includes more scope views, a much
nicer user interface, and optical
fibre SDI or copper SDI inputs.
With these new products, we
believe that optical fibre technology will now be more accessible
to small and growing television
production studios. Users will
now be able to afford to use optical fibre between equipment, and
then get benefits in the future as
video quality increases, and data
speeds of SDI also increase.
Users will no longer need to rip
out old cables every time video
quality increases. They can also
use local electricians to run SDI
video cables, because electricians
understand and install optical
fibre every day, so they are very
familiar with it.
Lastly I think it’s very romantic to think of video travelling all
over a facility as pulses of light!
Even putting aside all the technical, financial, and future proofing
benefits of optical fibre, it is mind
blowing to know that images,
which are really just digitalised
light, are now being transfered by
light. It really feels like the right
way to do it!
Vutrix debuts 37-inch 10-bit LCD to display 3Gbps HDSDI
Large new LCD monitor
By Fergal Ringrose
Vutrix has announced the launch of
a new large screen, 37-inch, full HD,
LCD-TFT 10-bit monitor capable
of displaying 3Gbps HDSDI. With
a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels it
is available as a single display or with
integral processing to provide quad
display of four separate sources.
This 10-bit, 1920 x 1080 display
is claimed to provide the clearest,
sharpest and most detailed images
possible for multi-channel display
applications in outside broadcast
vehicles, TV studios, post production suites and other environments
where quality of image is paramount. In addition to single and
dual link HDSDI, it also includes
3Gbps input capability, to offer
futureproof operation for the
next generation of 3G professional
TV installations.
www.vutrix.com
®
PHABRIX®
Sample screens
Top level menu
Video generator
PHABRIX SxA
3G/HD/SD with AES
COMBINED ANALYSER
GENERATOR/MONITOR
C:L
:N:
?>II:G
Waveform
Vectorscope
Audio pair grouping menu
PHABRIX SxE
3G/HD/SD eye and jitter
COMBINED ANALYSER
GENERATOR/MONITOR
WORLD’S FIRST
Picture Monitor
SDI status and payload menu
Audio channel status menu
Signal Data menu
16 Channel Audio menu
SxE Jitter menu
If IBC is all about
innovation,
you won’t want to miss
what’s on our stand
Hall 8
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3G-SDI, HD-SDI, SD-SDI
LABORATORY ACCURATE
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SDI fault logging menu
SxE EYE menu
Blindmans Gate Cottage Woolton Hill Newbury Hampshire RG20 9XB UK
tel/fax + 44 (0)1635 255 494 email: info@phabrix.com www.phabrix.com
43
TVBE Aug P56-58 HD
29/7/09
16:05
Page 56
Considering fibre for the
broadcast infrastructure
Today’s broadcast engineer looking
at any new or modernised
infrastructure should be considering
the possibility that, at some time in
the future, there will be a need to
run 1080p high definition signals.
That means being prepared to
tackle the tough challenge of data
rates of 3Gbps. Some may even be
looking beyond that, to 3D or Super
Hi-Vision, which may call for even
higher data rates. So, copper or
fibre — which is it to be? Opinion
from Mike Purnell, director, Argosy
There may not yet be any equipment in the facility that is 3Gbps
— or even HD — but it does make
sense to establish the basics now,
which means at the very least
installing appropriate cables.
Does this mean the time has come
to ditch co-axial copper in favour
of fibre?
There are arguments on both
sides. Sending 3Gbps signals
down copper cable calls for a very
high standard of cable and a new
set of installation skills – it is all
too easy to bend or crush co-ax
which will dramatically alter its
impedance performance and may
well mean that the signal does not
get through. Even with perfect
wireman work, it is only now that
products are emerging capable of
driving 100m of co-ax at 3Gbps:
experienced systems engineers
56
will know that 100m is not too
generous in typical installations.
Fibre does not have this issue:
distance is, to all intents and purposes, no object. Fibre is a little
delicate so will have a minimum
radius for curves, but provided
you observe this then you can
route fibre anywhere you want.
Some see the clinching argument
in the fact that fibre by the drum
is now cheaper than copper, certainly the very high quality co-ax
that you need for HD.
On the other hand, there is as
yet no fibre equipment. While it is
possible to build a fibre router,
pensive and readily available.
What are the practicalities of
installing fibre, and can it be as
easy and affordable as copper?
A single mode fibre optic cable
is a strand of glass 9 microns in
diameter. That is an order of magnitude narrower than a human
hair. So the elimination of dust is
clearly vital. Putting a termination onto a co-ax cable is a 30 second job on site; because of the
need for a perfectly dust-free
atmosphere, terminating a fibre
has to be done in a clean room,
which is a minimum investment of
around 150k euros.
One of the key arguments in favour of copper
remains the fact that there are plenty of wiremen
out there who know how to fit a BNC connector
using precision mirrors, at this time
no-one offers such a finished product. So every time the signal goes
into or out of a device, you need an
optical/electrical interface. These
cost money, draw power, and emit
heat. So the economic argument is
not so strong, and the environmental issues become a consideration.
One of the key arguments in
favour of copper remains the fact
that there are plenty of wiremen
out there who know how to fit a
BNC connector, and they do it
with tools that are extremely inex-
That is impractical, of course,
so the solution is that connectors
are sold ready fitted to short tails of
fibre, which can be spliced on site.
It is always good practice to adopt
a systems approach to installing
any cables – selecting connectors
and conductors that are designed
to match – and in the case of fibre
this is absolutely essential.
What you need on site is a tool
called a core alignment splicer. This
brings the two pieces of fibre – cable
and terminator tail, in this case –
together and aligns them perfectly.
The fibre question: Fibre by the drum is now cheaper than copper, certainly
the very high quality co-ax that you need for high definition
It fuses the two together and performs a mechanical stress test. The
results should be highly reliable.
There are a number of splicing
machines on the market. The
good quality device that we would
recommend is around 10k euros.
In comparison with a set of strippers that seems like a lot of money, but it is a sensible investment
and, over time, may not be seen to
be a significant cost.
One important point to
remember is that, when performed properly by an accurately
aligned machine, splices in fibre
cause virtually no attenuation of
the signal. Jointing co-ax midrun, because of cable damage, is
generally considered to be bad
practice because of the impact on
the signal integrity, but should
you break a fibre it can be spliced
without problems. It is good practice to lay in some spare fibre so
that you have slack if you ever do
need to repair it.
If your fibre infrastructure
grows you may find it worth investing in an optical time domain
reflectometer (OTDR), a device
which looks at the performance of
a fibre, either to identify how far
down the cable a break has
occurred, or to determine if multiple splices in a fibre are having any
adverse impact on its transmission
capabilities. OTDRs vary in price
from around 5k euros for a basic
device to over 20k euros for something with all the bells and whistles.
Having read that fibre can be
broken, you might reasonably
point out that this fragility could
be another argument against it for
basic infrastructures. Patch cables,
for example, are frequently subject
to considerable rough handling.
To overcome this issue, Argosy
has a special fibre cable which is
called BendBright-XS, which is
designed to be very flexible for
applications like patch cords. It is
robust enough, and flexible enough,
to be coiled around a pencil without
breaking or losing signal, so it is certainly capable of standing up to the
knocks of being in a patch panel.
However at around a 10% premium over standard installation
fibre, it may not be currently chosen
for
general
purpose
use.
Furthermore, on large fibre count
cables the cost difference is greater
— up to 30% depending on cable
size. Nonetheless production costs
continue to tumble and as production of BendBright-XS begins to
outstrip standard fibre, the price
difference is expected to disappear.
Although not suitable for all runs,
but where there is the risk of rough
handling, it is a sensible investment.
In summary, then, fibre is a
viable alternative to copper for
broadcast infrastructures. To set
an engineer up to be fully capable
of installing and maintaining
fibre, including tools, training and
a big bag of connectors, is an
investment of perhaps 20k to 30k
euros: not insignificant, certainly,
but probably a worthwhile investment. In the infrastructure of the
future, fibre will play an increasingly important role.
TVBE Aug P56-58 HD
29/7/09
15:45
Page 57
Market drivers align
behind 3D television
3D Opinion
By Michel Proulx,
chief technology officer,
Miranda Technologies
Making Light Work
During 3D production, the director also
faces the challenge of needing to carefully
manage cuts between cameras pairs to avoid
jarring changes in 3D perspective. Fortunately,
the recent development of 3D multi-viewers,
led by Miranda, will allow multiple 3D cameras to be monitored simultaneously in high
quality 3D. This will enable the director to view
the perspective of all the cameras before choosing the next shot, and thereby overcome the
issue of mismatching perspective.
Unsurprisingly, several consumer equipment
manufacturers are responding to this interest in
3D, and are starting to announce 3D ready televisions. These new stereoscopic televisions use
existing LCD technology with a special twist.
The solution is relatively simple, and requires a
polarising filter and a few small changes to the
internal electronics. The prices for these new televisions are still substantially higher than for regular 1080p HD sets but they are now within the
realms of affordability for more affluent viewers
and for technology early adopters. Naturally,
once the manufacturing process is perfected, the
cost premium is likely to be less than 10% of
existing HD displays of similar size.
Another important technology enabler is
the development of key television standards for
3D. Most notably, the Society of Motion
Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE)
announced their requirements for a stereoscopic 3D Home Master standard in April 2009.
Many successfully trials and demonstrations of 3D television have already been conducted. For example, BSkyB has demonstrated 3D technology over an existing HD infrastructure, proving the production and distribution process is not that different from the current HD process. As originally conceived,
twice the HD bandwidth is required for 3D
HD but BSkyB has streamlined the process by
using a clever coding scheme that allows existing HD encoders and existing HD set top boxes to deliver the signal to the viewers. Naturally,
the fact that 3D television can be based on
existing HD technology means that it won’t
take nearly as long for the broadcast industry
to roll out when compared to HD in 1998.
With this clear interest from television
service providers in making 3D the next
premium offering, it appears that the key
drivers are aligning for much wider deployment and adoption of 3D, high definition
television. The time is now right, and you
could be enjoying theatre quality 3D in
your home by the end of this year!
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Our most recent introduction is a range of compact Tungsten
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EW
3D wow factor: ‘The recent development of 3D
multi-viewers, led by Miranda, will allow
multiple 3D cameras to be monitored
simultaneously in high quality 3D’
N
For the broadcast industry, a key question
over recent months has been whether 3D
(stereoscopic) television will be the next
premium service offering, or just a gimmick
that will not last? At last, the situation
seems to be getting much clearer. For
although 3D television is still very much in
its formative stage, there’s now real momentum behind its rollout.
In many respects, there are parallels
between 3D television and the earlier
deployment of high definition, in terms of
an alignment of different influences that can
drive much wider adoption. Similar to the
HD rollout, it’s likely that a successful transition from HD to 3D television will be driven by four key factors. These are the availability of 3D content, consumer demand,
broadcast technology for facilities and viewers, and impetus from specialty channel
providers. Unless these elements are all in
place, it’s likely that 3D television will fail to
take off on a broad commercial scale.
For instance, with the earlier HD television deployment, all these factors were not
aligned in the early stages. In 1998, when the
core delivery technology was in place, the
HD content was both complicated and
expensive to create. Additionally, there was
no significant demand from cable and satellite companies to make HD a premium
offering due to the high costs of the bandwidth to the consumer. The net result of this
lack of synchronisation was that adoption
did not gather pace for another 10 years.
Fortunately, in the case of 3D television,
it seems that multiple drivers are now starting to come together. There has been a big
uptake in the creation of 3D content in 2009,
with 20-30 3D movies to be released, as well
as 3D sports coverage, and a growing popularity of 3D gaming. Importantly, this
upsurge in 3D content production has shown
that there is tangible interest amongst consumers in receiving 3D content.
This recently produced 3D content is not
much different conceptually from when 3D
movies were first introduced 50 years ago. It
still requires special equipment to capture the
images, to display the content, and the viewer still needs 3D glasses to combine the display of two ‘spatially offset’ images into one
three dimensional image. However, modern
3D television technology makes this outcome
much easier to achieve. Nevertheless, there are
still some real challenges with both acquisition and production.
Acquisition for 3D is more complicated
because the final television output is created by combining two images, and this
demands a special 3D camera rig for
mounting two cameras. To improve alignment and spacing, one of the cameras must
be mounted vertically, pointing down at a
special mirror. Focus with a zoom now has
to manage the distance between the two
lenses, tracking the focal lengths correctly.
www.photonbeard.com
S
IBC ee us at
Stan Hall 11
d F5
1
Unit K3, Cherry Court Way, Stanbridge Road,
Leighton Buzzard,Bedfordshire, LU7 4UH, United Kingdom.
Tel: +44 (0)1525 850911 Fax: +44 (0)1525 850922
info@photonbeard.com
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