World’s first 8K TV broadcasts begin for Rio Olympics

Unless you have an 8K TV (£120,000) you'll have to attend a special viewing theatre.

Read the whole story

 

[evefavretto]

Btw, NHK did an experimental 8K broadcast in Brazil on the 2014 World Cup, but they used fiber to transmit. In fact, it was over the RNP network(brazilian equivalent to the Internet2): (link in portuguese) https://www.rnp.br/destaques/rnp-viabil ... copa-mundo

Also, they transmitted to Japan too, over some routes that include the Internet2: http://idgnow.com.br/blog/circuito/2014 ... em-8k-uhd/ (also in portuguese)

The details on the uncompressed footage are quite amazing: http://www.techtudo.com.br/noticias/not ... ao-hd.html
(sorry, also portuguese)

The Internet2 blog has some details, in English https://www.internet2.edu/blogs/detail/6608

 

[deadaccountwalking]

Abhi Beckert[/url]":34uelfhf]Never mind the extra resolution, it looks like this might be 120Hz and also wide colour gamut.

Perhaps someone at Ars can contact NHK to confirm the frame rate and exact colour space? I couldn't find reliable details in a quick search.

as far as UHD2 is concerned it is the generic up to 120Hz and also wide colour gamut as standard...

BT.2100 rec 2020 and several others state
Frame frequency (Hz) 120, 120/1.001,100, 60, 60/1.001, 50, 30, 30/1.001, 25, 24, 24/1.001
notice the fractional frame rates stated as whatever/1.001, and it's all progressive wide screen from now on OC...

its also true that the UHD-1 Phase 2 kit should be also capable of 100 and 120 fps but that's not true ATM ,so be aware when buying if you want that extra fps capability...

 

[deadaccountwalking]

mrseb[/url]":1mwii5i1]

deadaccountwalking[/url]":1mwii5i1]

mrseb[/url]":1mwii5i1]

circle.breaker[/url]":1mwii5i1]I believe 8K actually will be the highest resolution reached for screens in the home. It just doesn't seem plausible that their will be a higher resolution. 8K is the end of the road.

I bet you £10 that there will be a home TV with higher-than-8K resolution. Actually, £100!

But yes, whether you can actually see the difference between 8K and 16K... that's another question entirely.

My guess is that the other pixels will be used for something else, rather than just adding more detail.

"With a resolution of 7680×4320, "Super Hi-Vision" as the company calls it—don't worry, the name won't catch on"

remember seb, the bbc R&D and NHK also call it 'UHD-2' as do the IBU and the other ITU, SMPTE, MPEG and DVB international standards committees and working with other broadcasters through the EBU

remember the rec2020/BT.2020 standard is basically UHD1/UHD2 although as i said before they did do an interim UHD1 part 2 as the world's vendors tried to settle on the lower spec but as NHK said in the beginning when the original name was "Super Hi-Vision" , they where setting the standard for best quality improved sound and 12bit vision etc...

The standard defines two UHDTV profiles – what's commonly called UHD-1 at 3840x2160 pixels and UHD-2 at 7680x4320 pixels. The UHD-2 being the standard for the 2020 games that then got brought forward to 2016/2017 as i also said before as xcore, cant seem to use that anymore....

still if there's spare pixels then Prof. Harald Haas's Li-Fi could be fun to integrate into the UHD spec for Light Fidelity or Li-Fi is a Visible Light Communications (VLC) system running wireless communications in the far larger visible spectrum for LAN's

Aye, I was reporting on 8K back when it was called UHDTV! And then 4K came along and also wanted to be called UHDTV... and that messed with everyone's naming schemes... and now here we are.

But yeah, I maintain that it won't be called Super Hi-Vision (Maybe in Japan. Do they call 1080p Hi-Vision over there? I wonder.)

yeah, the ITU (ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies – ICTs) screwed it up, as NHK where happy to just have the real UHD2 7680×4320, "Super Hi-Vision", but the itu wanted to do it on the cheap (lower spec encoders/decoders etc) and maximise profits by insisting on the UHD1 spec first...

(Maybe in Japan. Do they call 1080p Hi-Vision over there? I wonder.)

perhaps this newer 1080p 'Advanced' 2 with the UHD benefits will be called that, although the japanese are far to advanced to even consider a new 1080p even for their android TV boxes and mobile arm cortex kit, as UHD1 decode capable devices are widespread already.

 

[Fritzr]

desenfoque[/url]":cef89wsf]How many DECADES with NTSC (480i) and now the top resolution can't keep the throne for 5 years...

This development has had plenty of advance notice

When NHK started work on Hi-Vision (the original name for UHD) they defined both the 4K and 8K standards. They brought 4K to market first with over the air test broadcasts in Japan and they are now bringing the 8K (Super Hi-Vision) version along with 8K over the air broadcast (OTA) planned to be available for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The odds are good they will make that target. They have already used Super Hi-Vision for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. They will have 8K video feeds from the 2016 Olympics in Rio and plan to start OTA 8K in 2018

The only surprise is how quickly the 4K technology went from cutting edge demonstrator at the 2012 Olympics to mainstream consumer TV. If NHK follows through on 8K as well as they did with the "lo-res" 4K UHD, 8K sets will be mainstream by 2024.

The testing is almost over. 4K and 8K satellite channels are now being used for final testing, with commercial broadcasting planned to begin in 2018.
If that sounds fast, then it helps to remember that NHK started work on Super Hi-Vision (8K UHD) in 1995. That's 21 years of work so far...

There are other HiRes standards out there, like the Cinema 4K (4096x2160), but the NHK Hi-Vision standards are the ones that went mainstream. Largely due to NHK developing every part of the system from cameras to display along with Hi-Vision/Super Hi-Vision recorders & players allowing other companies to pick and choose the parts of the system they want to be involved in.

4K consumer displays will continue to be a major part of the product lineup just as 720 HD was not eliminated by the 1080 HD alternative.

 

[Fritzr]

Coriolanus[/url]":3ghqixwz]Wasn't there a special demonstration theatre at the 2012 London Olympics that demonstrated 8K footage of the games? I seem to recall that the specialized cabling used to transfer 8K footage to the very experimental 8K display were immense.

Yes it was the 2012 Olympics. The news coverage makes a point of the fact that only 3 8K cameras were in existence that year and the video recorders needed did not exist yet. For recording a bank of synchronized HD recorders was used.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/116499- ... -broadcast
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchandd ... isio.shtml
https://www.engadget.com/2012/07/31/sup ... n-eyes-on/

 

[Chmilz]

At this point I could care less about more resolution. It's colour, blacks, etc. coming in the form of HDR and such that excites me.

 

[Fritzr]

randomletters1[/url]":12h0n96u]With 4K HDR already eating about 11.25GB/hour, 8K would utterly destroy the ridiculous data caps that internet providers have in place. 45GB/hr, roughly, means your Terabyte allowance (if you're lucky enough to have that much, which very few are) would allow for about 45 minutes of streaming video per day. That is, of course, assuming that you have the bandwidth to support it, which most do not.

Uncompressed 8K will blow the data caps so quickly it will be ridiculous. The compression used is why 4K NetFlix is only a little better than HD NetFlix.

This quote from a 2012 EnGadget piece on the 2012 Olympics 8K video feed explains why streaming of high quality 8K just ain't happening soon.

Unlike HDTV and even 4K, there wasn't even the merest hint of pixelation or compression in the 500Mb/s IP feed, and even the tiniest figures in the scene were totally vivid and sharp; and, with 60 progressive frames per second of clean digital footage, there were none of flickers, artefacts or low-frame rate issues that come with trying to replicate 'reality' on 35mm celluloid.

Thats 1800GBs per hour with an uncompressed 8K stream. NetFlix will reduce that rate by quite a bit, but the cost will be loss of the "being there" experience.

 

[CircleBreaker]

jihadjoe[/url]":19v6m8q8]

circle.breaker[/url]":19v6m8q8]I believe 8K actually will be the highest resolution reached for screens in the home. It just doesn't seem plausible that their will be a higher resolution. 8K is the end of the road.

A lot of downvotes on your post, but what you said actually makes sense. The lead BBC researcher on the team the broadcast the 2012 Olympics in SHV actually agrees with your assertion that 8k is about as good as it gets, and even suggested we might as well skip 4k and go straight to 8k. Reason being here is that 8k is effectively 'retina resolution' for the eye.

To quote engadget's report on it:

Ultimately, there's plenty of reason to believe the BBC's project head, Tim Plyming, when he says that "8K is the maximum the human eye can understand" and that "it's the end of the resolution story." As far as he's concerned, anyone investing in 4K may as well go right to the end of the track and put their money in 8K instead, because that's the technology that "puts people at the event."

Source

The math adds up too:
PPD = 2dr tan(0.5°)
where
d = distance to the screen
r = resolution in pixels per unit

So for a 100" screen (roughly 90" wide) at 8 feet away (pretty close viewing distance for a home theater), 8k resolution yields:
2 (8*12) (8192/90) tan(0.00872665)
= 152.5PPD

That's way more than retina and in fact you can sit three feet away from that 100" screen and just about stay within 'retina's' 57 PPD. I dunno about others, but that's 'enough' resolution for me!

Thanks a lot for backing me up. I didn't have the time or maths to get into the specifics when I posted.

As I expected someone quoted the 640k of memory thing at me completely missing the point that image resolution is bottlenecked by the human eye while computer memory has no such human limitation. Not to mention the massive technical hurdles in storing and transmitting video that big. The technical hurdles will prevent the marketing departments from ordering something bigger than 8k be made.

I disagree that you should hold out for 8k though, it could be decades before its viable and even then it will only be a tiny improvement over 4k.

I think the final screen will be 16-bit (per channel), 200fps and 8k (although I'm not totally sure on the colour depth).

 

[CircleBreaker]

Fritzr[/url]":1mw3dyln]

mrseb[/url]":1mw3dyln]

circle.breaker[/url]":1mw3dyln]I believe 8K actually will be the highest resolution reached for screens in the home. It just doesn't seem plausible that their will be a higher resolution. 8K is the end of the road.

I bet you £10 that there will be a home TV with higher-than-8K resolution. Actually, £100!

But yes, whether you can actually see the difference between 8K and 16K... that's another question entirely.

My guess is that the other pixels will be used for something else, rather than just adding more detail.

One concept of what "something extra" is
http://www.patentsfactory.eu/Gigapixel_television.html

I haven't heard of this company before or seen any mention of their HD3 compression scheme, but their writeup is definitely an interesting concept.

Interesting, but it doesn't mean anything with respect to screens/VDUs. The viewable area would still be 8k or less.

 

[CircleBreaker]

mrseb[/url]":221apkf2]

circle.breaker[/url]":221apkf2]I believe 8K actually will be the highest resolution reached for screens in the home. It just doesn't seem plausible that their will be a higher resolution. 8K is the end of the road.

I bet you £10 that there will be a home TV with higher-than-8K resolution. Actually, £100!

But yes, whether you can actually see the difference between 8K and 16K... that's another question entirely.

My guess is that the other pixels will be used for something else, rather than just adding more detail.

You could put extra sub-pixels in but it would still technically be 8k.

 

[Hyoubu]

Fritzr[/url]":2tiwb8o8]

mrseb[/url]":2tiwb8o8]

circle.breaker[/url]":2tiwb8o8]I believe 8K actually will be the highest resolution reached for screens in the home. It just doesn't seem plausible that their will be a higher resolution. 8K is the end of the road.

I bet you £10 that there will be a home TV with higher-than-8K resolution. Actually, £100!

But yes, whether you can actually see the difference between 8K and 16K... that's another question entirely.

My guess is that the other pixels will be used for something else, rather than just adding more detail.

One concept of what "something extra" is
http://www.patentsfactory.eu/Gigapixel_television.html

I haven't heard of this company before or seen any mention of their HD3 compression scheme, but their writeup is definitely an interesting concept.

I seem to recall a similar company recently also making outlandish and unproven claims about a new breakthrough that would change everything. That company also recently had its CEO lose its ability to operate labs. I think its safe to say we shouldn't trust that compression standard until its been shown being used.

 

[beyondtool]

circle.breaker[/url]":2u0nbhvu]I believe 8K actually will be the highest resolution reached for screens in the home. It just doesn't seem plausible that their will be a higher resolution. 8K is the end of the road.

VR, VR will change everything. You will be looking at at least 20K before most people will be satisfied with the resolution...

 

[Glenn Calafati]

It’s exciting watching another large-scale test for broadcasting sports events in 8K, especially during the lead up to Japan’s Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. However, the most important consideration in the widespread deployment of 8K TV will be the huge demand for data storage and network bandwidth. All of these advanced video capabilities put added strain on the network. The network needs to be much more powerful, delivering millions of megapixels in high clarity and with ultra-low latency. Instantly transmitting a live ultra HD signal poses significant challenges, from the need for more advanced cameras to transporting these huge video streams in real-time back to broadcast centers and around the globe. While NHK’s test represents a significant advancement, we still need to make sure we’re making the appropriate network investments to keep up. - Ciena

 

[NPPraxis]

Am I the only one far more interested in a 120 Hz 4K TV? (Plus HDR)

I feel like 120 Hz 4K would look better than 8K, and still be half the bandwidth.

Also, don't forget that right now, we barely even have a port that can handle 8K. DisplayPort 1.4 just came out.

 

[fallenartist]

It would be advisable to check if you will see all these pixels before shelling out that kind of crazy money, so based on my research and blog post about resolution in print I made this handy tool. You're welcome

 

[CircleBreaker]

beyondtool[/url]":1aeo3l0z]

circle.breaker[/url]":1aeo3l0z]I believe 8K actually will be the highest resolution reached for screens in the home. It just doesn't seem plausible that their will be a higher resolution. 8K is the end of the road.

VR, VR will change everything. You will be looking at at least 20K before most people will be satisfied with the resolution...

VR is a 5" screen or smaller if its closer. At 8K that's ~1750 pixels per inch.

 

[Wickwick]

circle.breaker[/url]":kr0l90o7]

beyondtool[/url]":kr0l90o7]

circle.breaker[/url]":kr0l90o7]I believe 8K actually will be the highest resolution reached for screens in the home. It just doesn't seem plausible that their will be a higher resolution. 8K is the end of the road.

VR, VR will change everything. You will be looking at at least 20K before most people will be satisfied with the resolution...

VR is a 5" screen or smaller if its closer. At 8K that's ~1750 pixels per inch.

8k is also a broadcast standard so you might consider each eye gets 4320 rows x 3840 columns.

VR uses a flat screen because the technology is more mature than curved, but the optics wrap the image around your field of view. You eye can see about 110 deg. left-to-right and 120 up-down so that works out to about 2 arcminutes per pixel in both directions. 20/20 vision is the ability to resolve 1 arcminute in your center of vision so that's not out of the question. You'd probably distort the image so you have more pixels near the center and fewer on the outsides but it appears that 8k would be very appropriate for VR.

 

[CrashOverride]

NoiseBoy[/url]":1pf72lqx]I have a 4K TV and honestly, in a double blind trial I doubt I could tell the difference between up scaled 1080 and true 4K. Plus I'd rather have high bitrate 4K than heavily compressed 8K. I just don't see this technology being necessary in the home, even on an 85" screen.

Completely agree.

When I work in home theater, we would have a client buy a 100K surround sound theater system and we would spec it out with $10-15K speakers. I even asked my boss, "What's really the difference?" and his reply was basically the same thing, "95% of the people will never be able to tell the difference between a $3K set of speakers, an $8K set of speakers and a $12-15K set of speakers. Our job? It's just marketing and sales. They want the flashy shit, then that's what we sell them."

Its the same thing with a TV. If it looks good to you, regardless of 1080, 4K or 8K, then buy it. 95% of the people won't be able to tell the difference anyways.