The past few years have seen the rise of many new industries – many of them recognising that “one size fits all” is no longer a workable marketing approach. Increasingly, we want those who supply us to recognise us as individuals with needs that are unique to us.
The ITU (International Telecommunications Union) has released its promised standard for High Dynamic Range (HDR), with separate versions for legacy and emerging workflows. The new HDR standard called ITU-R BT.2100 complements the existing BT.2020 recommendation for color gamut and bit depth.
Ultra HD (UHD) has gone through various iterations since it emerged from the shadow of 3D TV to become the broadcasting industry’s standard bearer for immersive or next generation TV. At first it was all about the higher resolution of 2160 x 3840, four times the pixel density even of 1080p “full HD”, but high frame rate (HFR) and Wide Color Gamut (WCG) at 10 bit sampling, rather than 8 bit as before, were also in the picture.
Since earliest days of professional audio, there has been a continuing argument about the quality of cables. Should users buy premium brands or very basic cable? What’s the real difference? Does audio sound better with premium cable? As with most everything these days, the answers vary widely. But there are clear answers.
The media and entertainment industry is moving toward 4K and UHD because of the beautiful resolution and increased depth and color these formats offer. With more information in every frame, editors and other artists are empowered to be more creative — and they are better able to use the latest technology and tools to manipulate media files and create richer content that compels audiences to consume it.
While there’s been a lot of talk about how large multi-channel video distributors—mostly cable and satellite TV—are using highly automated over-the-top (OTT) infrastructures and other forms of streaming methods to reach new customers with on-demand and live audio and video content, many independent TV station groups and individual stations themselves have also begun targeting the variety of mobile devices now in consumers’ hands; but for different reasons.
I was all set to write my next chapter on standards and terminology when the The Broadcast Bridge published an article quoting the Olympic Broadcast Service (OBS) that said, 4K is just a Bus Stop to 8K (along with 22.2 audio channels).
It has already been a big year for CDN launches with new entrants along with developments from the large existing players such as Akamai and Amazon. At least three somewhat overlapping themes can be identified, optimization for Ultra HD (UHD) content, CDNs specializing in delivery to mobile devices and moves into the field by satellite platform providers.
