Malateshgouda Karegoudar, Tektronix
ALEXANDRIA, VA. Significant change is on the way for the entire broadcast ecosystem. In order to accommodate 4K/UHD transmissions, the way in which video is compressed for transport must improve dramatically. The migration from MPEG-2 and AVC/H.264 to HEVC/H.265 will open up new opportunities, but will also come with risks and potential hidden costs that could neutralize the savings in transmission costs.
For many broadcasters, cable operators and other video service providers, the 4K/UHD transition offers a way to differentiate their offerings from the competitors and generate new revenue streams. However, getting to that point will require a dedicated focus to find the right compression encoding schemes, and potentially significant upgrades to Quality of Service and Quality of Experience monitoring, as well as many other infrastructure improvements.
High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC or H.265) is designed to deliver the same visual quality as Advanced Video Coding (AVC or H.264), while using about half the bandwidth. It supports all current resolutions including 4K and 8K, and will allow content distributors to deliver HD video to mobile devices over mobile data networks at reduced bandwidth costs, as well as enabling delivery of 4K and beyond video to the home. HEVC addresses essentially all existing applications adopting H.264/AVC, while offering higher video resolution and increased use of parallel processing architectures.
Cutting the cost of transport by squeezing the same data into fewer bits can offer savings, but that doesn't change the fact that 4K streams will raise costs in other areas. For instance, it costs more to ingest, encode, store, protect and transcode more densely compressed HEVC data flows. Although bandwidth is important, it is just a portion of the overall cost of any video workflow.
The big question then is whether making the move to 4K will make sense, not just from a technical perspective, but from a business perspective as well. Some question if 4K will capture the attention of consumers, while the move to HEVC will require that Apple and Android include HEVC support in their devices. Encoders and adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR) software providers, to name a few, need to be onboard as well.
However, there is also a good case to be made for 4K, most notably for its stunning video quality, which always seems to win consumers' hearts and minds. One organization that sees a first-mover opportunity is DirecTV, which became the first multichannel video provider to offer commercial 4K when it launched a new 4K video-on-demand service in December 2014. DirecTV plans to offer more than 30 UHD titles to its 32 million subscribers in the U.S. and Latin America. Netflix is also offering 4K streaming of some programming, notably its House of Cards series.
Other signs around 4K are positive as well. ABI Research, for instance, predicts that five percent of televisions in North American will be 4K capable by 2017. That percentage is expected to double by the end of the following year. The ultimate conclusion is that the industry must begin planning for an HEVC and 4K world.
Tektronix Sentry test system
When considering the move to HEVC and 4K, it's critical to invest in quality monitoring tools. Pretty good 4K misses the point: it's either awesome or not good enough. Consumers who pay a premium for 4K expect a premium product. If a subscriber is paying for 4K and what they receive is the same as HD in the past, there will customer satisfaction issues. As such, the QoE on 4K will be even more critical than it is today.
But the situation isn't as bad as it might seem. Upgrading systems to deliver UHD images can have benefits in other areas. A system that has been upgraded to monitor 4K quality is better equipped to monitor standard-definition and HD streams. Such system-wide improvements are likely to lead to happier subscribers overall, making the investment more easily justified.
GETTING A HANDLE ON HEVC
Video compression standards, such as HEVC, are complex and involve many elements vitally important to the efficiency and interoperability of compressed video in different applications. Therefore, it is critical to use an analyzer that provides verification of the compliance of the stream against the compression standard, detailed analysis and statistics of the video and audio streams, tools for editing and debugging the stream, fidelity comparison against the original uncompressed stream, and the ability to check for any video and audio delay. This allows video designers and engineers to test compliance, interoperability and performance of various compression products.
Efficient encoders are critical for achieving the projected bitrate reductions for HEVC while maintaining quality. When comparing video encoders, it's helpful to have statistics from different encoders for the same quality of video, for instance, to see if each of them is producing a compliant bit-stream or if there are buffer violations while decoding that can affect the decoder, among other factors.
HEVC is a block-based codec, consisting of bigger blocks of coding tree units (analogous to macroblock) that has their size selected by the encoder. The encoder decides to use larger coding units where there is little or no encoding needed (more compression) and picks smaller coding units where more encoding is needed. The size of coding units can vary from 16, 32 or 64 samples, with large size enabling better compression.
A video frame in HEVC consists of many coding tree units, which in turn is built up from coding units. Any coding tree unit or coding units will have different encoding parameters chosen by the encoder. Analysis tools can provide insight to how the encoder is operating.
For example, a CU-size distribution gr
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Malateshgouda Karegoudar, Tektronix 
