SMPTE delegates welcome a world of Ultra-HD

A healthy attendance suggested a return to health for the media industry at last weeks SMPTE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in Los Angeles. EBU speakers figured strongly.

About 2000 attendees gathered in Los Angeles last week for the SMPTE annual advanced technology conference and exhibition. The large participation underlined that the right topics were on the agenda and reflected the fact that the media industrys economic health is improving.

Starting with a symposium on the technological and business future - More, Faster, and Better Pixels - delegates discussed UHDTV in overfilled conference rooms. From EBU Technology and Innovation, Hans Hoffman, who is also SMPTE's Engineering VP, Yvonne Thomas who coordinates the BeyondHD strategic programme, and David Wood delivered a European viewpoint in their presentations.

EBU Members research results were presented by the BBCs Richard Salmon, reiterating the overall conclusion of the day that UHDTV must include more than just resolution increases. In fact polling the more than 350 session attendees resulted in the clear message that UHDTV quality should consist of Higher Dynamic Range, Higher Frame Rates, better colours, more pixels and an immersive audio system.

Other big developments Day two turned to new developments in the move to a complete IT-based facilities and networked media infrastructures. Here participants referred to the EBU, SMPTE and the VSF Task Force, which is scheduled to release results at the end of the year. New developments in digital cinema and multiview production and post-production matters were also discussed.

Topics covered on the final two days included immersive cinema sound systems, which also will impact broadcasters and distribution to the home, colours in production and in the whole chain, the tools that can be used to preserve quality headroom, and 3D in relation to other future technologies. Also, new HEVC coding technologies that will help to deliver more and higher quality content to the consumer via traditional broadcast or IP, and a look at the future of production interfaces, optics and processing for vision technologies including and beyond 4k.

The conference offered an outstanding exhibition of Ultra-HD displays, and the use of HEVC compression with UHDTV.

New Fellows The annual conference SMPTE also recognises individual contributions via awards. Among the 14 recipients of the SMPTE Fellowship this year were many individuals who are active in EBU projects. They included Friedrich Gierlinger from the IRT, for his outstanding contributions to SMPTE and EBU engineering committees. (See the complete list of new SMPTE Fellows.)

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