According to a news item today on the Multichannel News site (»www.multichannel.com/art ··· HEVC.php), Motorola will be demonstrating the new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard at next week's Cable Show in Boston:
"Meanwhile, Motorola will stage a demo of HEVC video compression, also referred to as H.265 (»www.multichannel.com/art ··· eeze.php), which is designed to shave bandwidth as much as 50% compared with MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 at comparable quality. The vendor will have a side-by-side comparison of HEVC and MPEG4 AVC/H.264."
According to a news item today on the Multichannel News site (»www.multichannel.com/art ··· HEVC.php), Motorola will be demonstrating the new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard at next week's Cable Show in Boston:
"Meanwhile, Motorola will stage a demo of HEVC video compression, also referred to as H.265 (»www.multichannel.com/art ··· eeze.php), which is designed to shave bandwidth as much as 50% compared with MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 at comparable quality. The vendor will have a side-by-side comparison of HEVC and MPEG4 AVC/H.264."
The key here is their definition of "comparable", which usually seems to mean "obviously inferior, but we think it's good enough".
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has now announced its recommendations for UHDTV, with 2 "picture levels," a 4K one with 8 megapixels and an 8K one with 32 megapixels:
Ultra High Definition Television: Threshold of a new age ITU Recommendations on UHDTV standards agreed ITU Press Release - May 24, 2012 »www.itu.int/net/pressoff ··· /31.aspx
SDV is the only solution cable can do for making UHDTV even possible. By not requiring all the QAM channels to be open all the time they might get the bandwidth needed.
DirecTV is addicted to these weird not likely to ever happen technologies. They lost me to comcast when they added a bunch of 3d channels when they didn't even have basics like AMC in high def. (Really DirecTV, when Comcast has more channels in HD, you really need to think about it.)
SDV is the only solution cable can do for making UHDTV even possible. By not requiring all the QAM channels to be open all the time they might get the bandwidth needed.
No. SDV does not "provide bandwidth", it makes current usage more efficient up until saturation of the whole which is shrunk.
HEVC is one of many practical solutions. SDV at the home level is a white paper wet dream to grab quick capital; at the edge/node is where it is practical to shut down neighborhood head-ends in favor of large regional super head-ends to dramatically lower operating cost.
The pipeline between our middle-person supply companies (Comcast, Dish, Direct, Cox, TW, FiOS, etc) and the content providers (Disney, Universal, etc) is the first "bandwidth" hurdle. The wire coming into your home is not the stop gap yet. Uplink/downlink satellite distribution will first need solved years before home delivery. SDV is already employed in this space...
Over the past week, Comcast and NBC Universal have been hosting invitation-only demonstrations of 8K Ultra-HD versions of various Olympic events at their Washington, D.C. office (»www.multichannel.com/art ··· ence.php).
While 8K Ultra-HD will probably not be available at home until the end of this decade, on the Zatz Not Funny blog site, technology writer Mari Silbey described her viewing experience at a recent screening:
The real problem here is that most of the content they call " Programming" these days is not even worth watching let alone with the higher resolutions
Lots of people agree, not only is the cost of service too high as it is currently, the quality of the content is absolutely HORRIBLE!
97% of stuff on pay tv channels today is ABSOLUTE RUBBISH!
No wonder people are shedding traditional cable and satellite TV.
I can head over to Daily Motion, Vimeo. Metacafe, or YT, and actually get to see things that are worth watching for FREE, a lot of what I like is how to (automotive EricTheCarGuy, ScottyKilmer) and alternative information which can NEVER get aired on regular cable/sat channels. About the only worthwhile news channels on regular pay tv are LINK TV, RT, and Al Jezzera TV. Of course many providers don't carry most of them.
I'd be happy if they'd just have all the HD channels encoded in a way where there is no compression needed so it looks as good as blu ray, or even as good as it is in the studio straight from the camera.
I still wanna know if customer owned equipment will support this, especially current generation televisions because otherwise there would be no noticeable difference. This may not revolutionize the television industry like high definition and digital transmissions did.
I still wanna know if customer owned equipment will support this, especially current generation televisions because otherwise there would be no noticeable difference. This may not revolutionize the television industry like high definition and digital transmissions did.
No none of the current TV's or settop boxes support 4K HDTV. They are just now releasing 4K HDTV's and they will probably flop due to the huge price gaps between HDTV's and these new TVs not to mention a lot of people have just finished buying smart tv's or 3DTV's and are not going to want to spend thousands of dollars on a new one. As it is the U.S. is having a hard time getting 100 HD channels to all of the cable systems in the USA so I think 4K HDTV is a pipe dream. Also there are still headends that only offer 41 analog channels and that is it. So we are a long way off from 4K HDTV.
I'm going to guess the only use for 4k HDTV's would be for huge corporations using them for like Cisco TelePresence or niche uses like product advertisements such as what McDonalds does for their menu items. Other uses could be for NOAA or The Weather Channel to use them for tracking weather events with color radar imagery, or even TV and movie studios and editors. It's the same thing when it comes to LG's 84 inch Ultra-definition 3D HDTV »gizmodo.com/5874802/mass ··· anything or Panasonic's 152 inch 3D HDTV »news.cnet.com/8301-17938 ··· 3-1.html
Something else to consider is if we truly want to watch tv with such high resolution and clearity. I mean even if there is content at 4k, would it be worth it? Not everyone looks good enough for HDTV let alone 4k.
CEA Votes for Ultra High-Definition Group approves plan for naming and defining the next generation 4K HD displays By George Winslow, Broadcasting & Cable - October 18, 2012 »www.broadcastingcable.co ··· tion.php
Netflix Partner Tries UltraHD on the Internet By Jeff Baumgartner, Light Reading Cable - December 20, 2012
A video processing startup that counts Netflix Inc. as its marquee customer has launched a new version of encoding software that, it claims, is efficient enough to deliver UltraHD/4K video over the Internet (»www.canada.com/sports/ey ··· ory.html). EYE IO LLC says its new H.264 software encodes 45 percent faster and trims down bitrates 26 percent versus its first generation, which Netflix is using to help keep its customers stay under ISP usage caps by delivering more efficient video streams. Now, EYE IO is trying to expand its targets so high-quality video can be delivered over a broader range of networks and bandwidth qualities. "The goal is to provide HD to the world over the Internet," company CEO and CTO and former Microsoft Corp. exec Rodolfo Vargas tells Light Reading Cable.
Netflix, which just signed a deal to stream Walt Disney Co. content, is the company's only announced customer, and EYE IO won't say if or when Netflix will upgrade to its 4K-capable platform. But execs do note that the company has "commercial relationships" with about 70 companies worldwide, including cable operators, telcos, satellite TV companies and other OTT players.
I'll be happy when Comcast is able to get plain ole HDTV right, and deliver my local TV broadcast channels in HD.
While the cable providers in adjoining towns are able to deliver local channels in HD; Comcast, for some odd reason appears to be unable to do so.
The HSI side of Comcast seems to have its act together. The TV-delivery side of Comcast appears to be lost in the tall grass. I'd offer them a compass, but I fear they would not know what to do with it.
The ITU has now given its initial approval to the new HEVC/H.265 video coding standard, which needs just half the bitrate of the current MPEG-4/H.264 one, helping to ease the bandwidth requirements for Ultra-HDTV:
ITU OKs Next-Generation Video Codec Standard High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Promises to Use 50% Less Bandwidth Than MPEG-4 By Todd Spangler, Multichannel News - January 25, 2013 »www.multichannel.com/vid ··· d/141387
While Ultra-HD service is still a number of years away, it looks like DirecTV is continuing to prepare for it:
DirecTV files trademark applications for industry's first 4K network Satellite TV provider trademarks 4KN, 4KNET, 4KNetwork, 4K By Steve Donohue, FierceCable - February 27, 2013 »www.fiercecable.com/stor ··· 13-02-27
FYI - The European satellite operator SES has now demonstrated transmitting Ultra-HD video with a data rate of "only" 20 Mbps, using the new H.265/HEVC compression/coding standard:
SES, Harmonic, Broadcom run first Ultra HD transmission using HEVC By Steve Donohue, FierceCable - April 19, 2013 »www.fiercecable.com/stor ··· 13-04-19
Well, maybe if the cable MSOs can squeeze it down a little bit more, by doing a 2:1 variable-bit-rate stat-mux kind of thing, they could bundle 2 Ultra-HD streams into a single 256-QAM video carrier/channel (with a data throughput of 38.8 Mbps)?
FYI - Saw this line at the end of an article about Peabody, MA getting ready for the franchise license renewal process for Comcast's services there:
quote:[Comcast spokesman Marc Goodman] also says Comcast is ready to offer 4K television quality, accommodating new TV technology that provides a picture four times sharper than standard high definition.
If you're considering buying a 4K Ultra-HDTV set soon, you may want to wait until ones with an HDMI 2.0 input become available:
HDMI 2.0 explained: Does 4K Ultra HDs future hinge on a cable standard? By Ted Kritsonis, Digital Trends - May 28, 2013 »www.digitaltrends.com/ho ··· plained/