- UHD Forum updates guidelines
- UHD reaches “maturity”
- 8K: Further advances needed
NAB2019: A guide to end-to-end UHD workflows has been released by the UHD Forum in a bid to define best technological practice for the creation and delivery of UHD and HDR formats.
It is based on the organisation’s Phase A and Phase B guidelines.
The UHD Forum chair and LG Electronics senior advisor of technology and standards Madeleine Nolan said: “For the first time, we are releasing a unified guidelines document, illustrating UHD maturity.
”In it, we describe foundation UHD technologies, as well as enhancements that are backward compatible so they will add value to setups that support them, but still, look and sound great on foundation equipment.”
The Phase A guidelines describe end-to-end processes for creating linear ultra-high-definition (UHD) services using technology commercially available in 2016, when the guidelines were first published.
Its Phase B guidelines which were launched at NAB last year follow on from Phase A by “providing an evolutionary path to enhance the viewer experience.”
The guidelines have been accessed more than 2,000 times in the last year.
At NAB, the Forum will host multiple demonstrations including HDR to SDR content switching, 4K distribution and 8K production as well as new research findings from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Member companies participating in the UHD Forum demonstrations include: ATEME, BBright, b<>com, Dolby, Fairmile West, Fox, Harmonic, HiSilicon, Huawei, LGE, PBS, Sony and Technicolor.
UHD Forum events at NAB
- A universal high-dynamic-range (HDR) demo will show how foundation HDR technology and dynamic metadata coexist and work to improve content reproduction on enabled displays.
- SHVC will be shown in ATSC 3.0 supporting different displays.
- The effect of resolution and frame rate on HDR Content will be shown in a demo comparing HDR content in HD and 4K, and at Standard and High Frame Rates.
- A demo pod will show the effect of HDR-to-SDR content switching on TVs and STBs.
- Another demo pod presents UHD content from a wide variety of sources, including HDR → SDR → HDR conversions and 8K production for 4K distribution.
- EBU will present essential findings on HDR and its relative impact across different screen resolutions.
- Yoeri Geutskens of Ultra HD 4K News will present an exclusive preview of the latest update to his HDR ecosystem tracker, which will only be made public after the NAB Show closes.
The Forum was formed in 2015 as the industry migrated content to UHD and HDR formats with Netflix and Amazon leading the charge in commissioning content and supporting HDR and 4K UHD TV programmes including Amazon’s Homecoming and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.
The guidelines are set as an industry best practice to indicate what improvements can be made to video content as the demand and popularity of 4K content continues to increase.
The Forum acknowledges the development of 8K as a promising future technology and in a statement said it plans to work on its inclusion within future versions of the guidelines.
The UHD Forum president Thierry Fautier said: “8K is not at the same state of maturity as 4K and not widely deployable without further development and advances in the ecosystem.
“Our immediate interest is in 4K and HD resolution-based services and technologies, but the Forum continues to monitor the development of 8K video as it may relate to television production and distribution, including leveraging 8K production and display technologies within a 4K distribution system.”
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