At IBC2013, Sony and FIFA made waves by announcing that next year's World Cup Final will be broadcast in 4K. And, with January's Consumer Electronics Show sure to show quite a few 4K consumer sets, both ends of the 4K workflow are maturing. It's connecting those ends that's the problem.
This month's CCW show in New York City hosted an afternoon session highlighting the challenges of distributing Ultra HD 4K content to the home.
The broader question, for a broadcaster, is about, first, the distribution to our facilities and then how we redistribute that, said Mark Aitken, VP of advanced technology, Sinclair Broadcast Group. As a broadcaster, we're certainly looking at the future of what broadcasting needs to be, and so this becomes a piece of what we certainly need to be able to offer but currently are just dreaming about.
Currently, content distributors are experimenting with 4K distribution to the home; however, these tests largely focus on the lower frame rates used for movies.
Said Mark Francisco, fellow, Office of the CTO, Comcast, 24-frames-per-second [4K] material is very much possible today. There's a number of devices out there that can do it with conventional encoding, but what we haven't yet seen is the advent of IP streaming of Ultra HD. I really think that's going to start opening new avenues of possibilities of delivering Ultra HD out there.
Because of the higher frame rates of live sports, the current broadcasting workflow cannot support 4K sports without impairing the visual experience. Set-top-box technology is not there yet, and, while the HEVC compression standard and recently announced HDMI 2.0 hold the potential to deliver 4K content to the home, neither technology is fully mature. Nor will they be in time for next year's World Cup.
You will not be experiencing what true Ultra High Definition in sports should look like for the World Cup, said Matthew Goldman, SVP, TV compression technology, Ericsson Television. With sports, it's not about looking at something that's surreal. It's about looking through a window and pretending or hoping that your experience will be like it is at the venue, and to do that, we have this higher resolution.
Interestingly, because of the relative maturity of consumer-grade 1080p sets and broadcast 4K workflows on this year's trade-show floors, the 1080p content often looks more appealing. Given that 4K is best viewed on a larger screen - which most consumers cannot afford or do not have space for - broadcasters are not driven to broadcast in a format that the majority of the audience cannot yet experience.
Broadcasting is really a mass-market experience, said Aitken. There certainly are the out-of-the-norms,' but squarely in the middle of that 85 percent who consume content from local television are people who, for a long time, will not be able to afford nor will have [access to] the technological riches to properly give them that immersive environment.
As technology vendors from all points in the 4K ecosystem attempt to avoid HD's early market woes, they are careful to distance themselves from failure of 3D.
The old expression: once bitten, twice shy, said Goldman. I think the recent rollout of 3D is exactly the type of rollout that we want to see prevented when it comes to Ultra High Definition. I'm not saying that's the path we're going down, because 3D in and of itself should not be compared to Ultra High Definition for one basic reason: [Ultra HD is] not an alternative viewing experience. Ultra High Definition is very natural. 3D, particularly stereoscopic 3D, was not natural. [There] is none of that with Ultra HD, but it doesn't mean we can't mess up the rollout.
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...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
12/07/2025
As the death toll continues to mount, with at least 120 killed and more than 170 people still missing on July 10 from devastating Texas floods, a number of broa...
12/07/2025
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., and MIAMI -DirecTV and TelevisaUnivision have signed a deal that will make the ad-supported premium subscription tier of ViX, ViX Premium wi...
11/07/2025
PARK CITY, UTAH, July 11, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 11 producers chosen for its annual Producers Labs, returning to Ucross Fou...
11/07/2025
If you've ever wondered what might be playing in Clark Kent's headphones...
11/07/2025
L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert and General Manager of L3Harris Waco facility Sean Ling held a ce...
11/07/2025
ARLINGTON, Va. WETA, the flagship public media station in the national capital area, has launched WETA+, a new streaming service tailored for the local Washingt...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission has emerged as one of the central players in the broadcast TV landscape in 2025, with its deregulatory policies sparking h...
11/07/2025
Calrec will introduce usability, customization and system enhancements across its entire range of Argo consoles during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Amsterda...
11/07/2025
LONDON Encompass Digital Media said it will support live and on-demand viewing of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup across multiple global regions for sports enterta...
11/07/2025
Two-thirds of broadcast engineers reaped the benefits of a pay raise within the last year....
11/07/2025
CARY, N.C. SmallHD has launched the Quantum 27, a new 26.5-inch Quantum-Dot OLED monitor designed to deliver postproduction image quality in a compact, set-frie...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau and Tegna have entered into a consent decree that will settle an investigation into the accidenta...
11/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following news in early July that Paramount had settled President Donald Trump's lawsuit, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luj n (D-N...
11/07/2025
Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbe...
11/07/2025
Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...
11/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...
11/07/2025
2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...
11/07/2025
A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff
Friday, July 1...
11/07/2025
CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Too Hot to Handle: Italy Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalItaly
Link copied to clipboard
July 11, 20...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Will Release Death Inc. Seasons 1, 2 and 3
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Season 1
Season 2
Se...
11/07/2025
AI and Multimedia Authenticity Standards Collaboration launches two papers to guide the future of AI integration, today at the AI for Good Global Summit
The...
11/07/2025
Ceramics - the humble mix of earth, fire and artistry - have been part of a global conversation for millennia.
From Tang Dynasty trade routes to Renaissance pa...
10/07/2025
The current holder of the prestigious Thomson Foundation Young Journalist of the Year Award has been forced to stop reporting over fears for her safety in Afgha...
10/07/2025
Spotify is turning up the volume on Australian music with a multipronged initiative designed to highlight the dominance of Australian artists on the global stag...
10/07/2025
This is not a drill: Oasis is back on the road-marking its first live performanc...
10/07/2025
The music industry depends on fresh ideas, bold voices, and emerging talent. Yet across the U.K., too many young musicians lack the space to develop their craft...
10/07/2025
NEW YORK - July 10, 2025 - Nielsen, the global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, today announced that it appointed Richard Pacheco as head of ...
10/07/2025
Local newscasts don't exist in a vacuum. News directors and station management constantly evaluate what's working, what isn't and perhaps most impor...
10/07/2025
Lawo has announced that Stuttgart Media University (Hochschule der Medien, HdM) has comprehensively modernized its central recording studio after selecting an I...
10/07/2025
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has opened early-bird registration for the Media Technology Summit, which will take place in a ne...
10/07/2025
NASHVILLE, Tenn. TNDV Television has launched Aspiration 35, a new version of its 40-foot Aspiration truck reimagined for cinematic multicamera productions....
10/07/2025
BURBANK, Calif. Key Code Education, a provider of instructor-led postproduction training, is growing its curriculum with new programs for beginner and intermedi...
10/07/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. Actus Digital will demonstrate how broadcasters can transform compliance monitoring from a necessary expense into a strategic revenue driver at...
10/07/2025
The Federal Register has published a summary of the Federal Communications Commission's Public Notice seeking comments on its ownership rules that lists a d...
10/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Presents the Official Trailer for SuperestarPlay Video
Play Video
Entertainment
10 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard...
10/07/2025
In the race to understand our planet's changing climate, speed and accuracy are everything. But today's most widely used climate simulators often strugg...
10/07/2025
As one of the world's largest emerging markets, Indonesia is making strides toward its Golden 2045 Vision - an initiative tapping digital technologies and...
10/07/2025
10 Jul 2025
VEON and Cohen Circle Secure Investor Commitments for Kyivstar Listing Kyiv, New York, Dubai, and Philadelphia - July 10, 2025 - VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq:...
10/07/2025
5G for all? What the DFL's use of Easy5G and RefCam could mean for events in...
10/07/2025
Save the Date: PGA TOUR Studios Welcomes SVG Remote Production Summit on Oct 14-...
10/07/2025
Cloud on the Road: How Remote-Production-Service Providers Are Adapting to a New...
10/07/2025
Seattle Kraken's Ryan Schaber on the NHL Team Taking Live Game Productions I...
10/07/2025
FOX Sports Reboots Small Control Room in Los Angeles as Hub for Vertical-First P...
10/07/2025
SVG Sit-Down: MSE's Zach Leonsis, ViewLift's Rick Allen Go Deep on Joint...
At IBC2013, Sony and FIFA made waves by announcing that next year's World Cup Final will be broadcast in 4K. And, with January's Consumer Electronics Show sure to show quite a few 4K consumer sets, both ends of the 4K workflow are maturing. It's connecting those ends that's the problem.
