IBC 2017: Ultra HD Forum Masterclass sheds light on Future of UHD

[DCI forum]

The Ultra HD Forum will be hosting its annual UHD masterclass on 4K deployment and best practices.

“Our masterclass will focus mainly on what’s still to come with UHD, reporting on major field trials and early launches of Next-Gen Audio and HDR. We’ll also dive deeper into the Next-Gen Audio technologies with the industry’s three key technology providers,” said Ben Schwarz, who chairs the Forum’s Communications Working Group.

Open to all IBC attendees on Monday September 18, from noon until 2 p.m., in the RAI’s Emerald Room, the masterclass will share insights from in-depth research on over 50 TV operators, for technologies needed to deliver the next generation of entertainment based on UHD standards. This in-depth information on the industry’s true priorities will help the Forum plan its future work on what it calls “Phase B,” the next generation of UHD technologies, expected to be deployed beyond 2018.

[DCI forum]

The Ultra HD Forum will present member-company demonstrations, including for the first time live high dynamic range (HDR) content distributed over IPTV, as well as HDR for the mass market on both high-end and mid-range UHD TVs, various conversion techniques between standard dynamic range (SDR) and HDR, and high frame-rate (HFR) content, all on EBU booth 10.F20 at IBC 2017.

“This is the first time we are bringing demos to IBC, and we are excited to show what HDR can look like on the TV sets of general consumers, not just high-end, early adopters’ TVs”, said Ian Nock, co-chair of the Forum’s Interoperability Working Group.

During the conference, the Forum will release the fourth public version of its Phase A Guidelines, containing new “how-to” information on PQ10, HDR10 and HLG10 formats, based on deployment feedback from member operators. The Guidelines also include the first exhaustive backwards-compatibility matrix, showing which UHD services can be made available to which TVs in the field.

“If the devil is in the details, we’ve added a lot of devilish details here, and with each release our guidelines are more representative of what’s truly happening in the field. With version 1.4, operators can now benefit from the learnings of the trailblazer operators deploying HDR in the field”, explains Madeleine Noland, who chairs the Forum’s Guidelines Working Group.