Tweet
Today and tomorrow satellite operator SES is putting on its annual Industry Days gathering at its Luxembourg HQ. Each year striving to put some of the latest technology in front of its clients, and industry partners. This year it is a regular broadcast of 8K,10 Bits, 60 frames per second, HEVC ecoded video over one of its satellites, receiving it and decoding it live. Showing the video on Sharp/UMC 8K LCD Displays.
SES has transmitted 8K and higher spatial resolution signals on several occassions in the past, but all as part of Virtual Reality demo's. This is the first time SES has demonstrated regular video Broadcast. Though one segment consists of CGI material.
The 8K content, with a frame rate of 60 frames per second and 10-bit colour depth, features native 8K camera footage provided by PSNC (Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center) and an 8K animation (CGI) provided by Unigine Corp.
As with most Industry Day Demo's expect SES to repeat them more publicly at the Internationale Funk Ausstellung consumer electronics show in Berlin and the subsequent IBC, Broadcast technology tradeshow in Amsterdam at the end of the summer.
"Even though 8K remains challenging with the video codecs available today, and is several years away from introduction to consumer homes, this demonstration shows that satellites are now capable of carrying 8K signals. As we always strive to take the video experience to the next level, we are very proud to provide this exciting glimpse at the future of television", said Thomas Wrede, VP, New Technology & Standards at SES Video, and the executive responsible for the operator's Industry Days. "At the same time, we continue to be very much focused on supporting our customers and partners in bringing current technologies, such as 4K UHD and HDR, to consumer homes".
Relying on the new DVB-S2X standard that enables greater efficiency, the transmission will be carried out on a single 36 MHz transponder on ASTRA 3B. With a resolution of 7680x4320 pixels, the video will be encoded in HEVC and transmitted at a rate of 80 Mbit/s, which according to SES is appropriately four times higher than for a 4K signal. As SES usually carries two 4K channels per transponder, to balance video quality, signal quality, and economics. Though that compromise used to result in around 25 Mbit/s, not 20 Mbit/s quouted above. In addition, the test transmission will use a native IP formatted signal, providing some insights into the requirements of a future All-IP broadcast infrastructure for television.
SES partnered with Spin Digital, which developed the expertise to decode and playback 8K HEVC signals in real-time using a software solution, and also encoded the content using its HEVC encoder. The careful wording revealing the compression is not done in real time, just the de-compression. Sharp / UMC is providing the 8K screens.
SES has transmitted 8K and higher spatial resolution signals on several occassions in the past, but all as part of Virtual Reality demo's. This is the first time SES has demonstrated regular video Broadcast. Though one segment consists of CGI material.
The 8K content, with a frame rate of 60 frames per second and 10-bit colour depth, features native 8K camera footage provided by PSNC (Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center) and an 8K animation (CGI) provided by Unigine Corp.
As with most Industry Day Demo's expect SES to repeat them more publicly at the Internationale Funk Ausstellung consumer electronics show in Berlin and the subsequent IBC, Broadcast technology tradeshow in Amsterdam at the end of the summer.
"Even though 8K remains challenging with the video codecs available today, and is several years away from introduction to consumer homes, this demonstration shows that satellites are now capable of carrying 8K signals. As we always strive to take the video experience to the next level, we are very proud to provide this exciting glimpse at the future of television", said Thomas Wrede, VP, New Technology & Standards at SES Video, and the executive responsible for the operator's Industry Days. "At the same time, we continue to be very much focused on supporting our customers and partners in bringing current technologies, such as 4K UHD and HDR, to consumer homes".
Relying on the new DVB-S2X standard that enables greater efficiency, the transmission will be carried out on a single 36 MHz transponder on ASTRA 3B. With a resolution of 7680x4320 pixels, the video will be encoded in HEVC and transmitted at a rate of 80 Mbit/s, which according to SES is appropriately four times higher than for a 4K signal. As SES usually carries two 4K channels per transponder, to balance video quality, signal quality, and economics. Though that compromise used to result in around 25 Mbit/s, not 20 Mbit/s quouted above. In addition, the test transmission will use a native IP formatted signal, providing some insights into the requirements of a future All-IP broadcast infrastructure for television.
SES partnered with Spin Digital, which developed the expertise to decode and playback 8K HEVC signals in real-time using a software solution, and also encoded the content using its HEVC encoder. The careful wording revealing the compression is not done in real time, just the de-compression. Sharp / UMC is providing the 8K screens.
Comment