Despite all the fuss about 4K UHD television, producers of live sports and entertainment productions in the U.S. are finding that a 1080p at 59.94 fps HD signal delivered with high dynamic range (HDR) is more pleasing to the consumer’s eye. When compared to a 4K SDR picture, HD HDR images consume less bandwidth, are less expensive to produce and generally include darker blacks, brighter highlights, and richer, more vivid color. What’s not to like?
Automated sports production could be the next big thing in sports broadcasting. Combined with OTT distribution, it could open the flood gates for around 200 million sporting events that are not broadcasted due to limited resources. To hit mainstream adoption, automated production technology needs to meet the quality thresholds spectators expect.
_460_259_70.jpg "Insight TV is one of the few but growing number of UHD channels.")
UHD rollout has been average rather than stellar to date. Matthew Goldman, Senior Vice President, Technology, Media Solutions, Ericsson provides an insightful explanation about why this might be and what issues might tip the scale.
Today, as video crews get smaller and are often only one-person, audio inevitably suffers. Many times no one even monitors sound on a location shoot. For proof of this, watch any local newscast and listen to the sound. Of course, bad sound is usually preventable if the videographer takes minimum steps to prevent it.
I will say it again and again until someone actually listens. This business of capturing high-quality video for broadcast should not be about capturing ever-higher resolution images. At NAB 2018, many of us will be looking at the latest and greatest 8K cameras, which almost assuredly will become (next year maybe?) the latest and greatest 12K and 16K cameras. So what exactly is the point, to capture images with ever more clarity and crispness that will then be subject to the bands, contours, and other artifacts in a still dominant 8-bit distribution system? Does this fixation with camera resolution really make sense when what’s important to viewers, and is readily apparent to everyone, is greater bit-depth? The truth is, for all the increases in resolution demanded of broadcasters in cameras over the last decade, the foibles of 8-bit video are still very much with us. Indeed, HDR makes ultimate sense to broadcasters and viewers because it delivers expanded dynamic range at 10 bits with smooth gradients, eliminating much of the 8-bit ugliness that have plagued SDR broadcasts for decades.
For years, I have written about the problems associated with trying to be a one-man band television reporter. Now, shooting alone has become the reality for many journalists. How does one balance so many disciplines at once and still do a good job? Here are our thoughts.
When you turn up the gain on virtually any microphone preamplifier, it sounds noisy. Why is this? Before you blame the amplifier, let’s look more closely at this common phenomenon.
The core of any camera is the sensor, and along with the lens, they define and constrain the performance of the camera more so than the downstream processing. There have been many advances in sensors, with the move from vacuum tube devices to semiconductors being one of the great leaps. Although early solid-state cameras used charge-coupled devices (CCD), the favored technology today is complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS). New developments from Panasonic and Sony show that developments continue apace as we head for 8K, HDR and 120P. Panasonic has developed further their organic photoconductive film which separates the function of photon capture from exposure charge accumulation, plus introduces an in-sensor ND filter and global shutter. Sony has developed a sensor with new global shutter design.
