This article was originally published at Display Central.
As you might have suspected, the Winter Olympics in Sochi are being captured in 4K, but the display of this content in its native resolution is basically limited to special invitation viewing parties. I did not get one of those invites, but I can tell you a little more about who is doing what in the US and Russia.
In the US, Comcast and NBC held three invite-only screenings in Washington D.C. (Feb. 7), San Francisco (Feb. 12) and Philadelphia (Feb. 13). Only a few representatives from the media, elected officials, employees and other guests were allowed to attend. According to a report in Multichannel News, NBC Sports has been producing portions of the Olympics events in 4K, and then shipping 25-minute segments to the Comcast Media Center in Centennial, Colo., which, in turn, has been cutting them down to five-to-ten-minute looped segments and distributing those files to via Comcast’s production network for use at the 4K viewing parties. These are most likely 30 fps clips.
At the Philadelphia event for example, Comcast showed two examples of 4K/Ultra HD video-on-demand clips running on its QAM video network to a curved, 55-inch Samsung 4K TV that’s expected to debut this spring, and an IP version running over its DOCSIS 3.0 network to a 20-inch Panasonic tablet.
Both VOD streams were encoded in HEVC. According to Multichannel News, Comcast said the QAM VOD 4K feed absorbed about the same space required for a regular HD channel. The IP version was delivered to a new D3 gateway (internally referred to as the “XB3”) that’s capable of bonding 16 downstream channels and is outfitted with a dual-band (2.4GHz and 5.0GHz) 802.11n router. Comcast estimated that the 4K IP video stream was coming in at between 18 Mbps to 22 Mbps.
The infrastructure to deliver 4K content to homes will require Comcast to upgrade its X1 set top boxes, which it plans to do in the second half of 2014. This presumably will include HEVC (and maybe VP9) decoding.
In addition, Comcast plans to launch an app for Xfinity TV customers that own Samsung UHD TVs that will allow them to stream 4K on-demand content from the Internet. How this will work is a bit unclear, but it may mean that the HEVC and VP9 decoding will be done in the TV so the App will unlock this functionality and provide access to 4K content.
In Russia, there were also a number of private viewing parties for the delivery of native 4K content. These were organized by NTV Plus, one of the biggest pay TV providers. In a conversation with Elemental Technologies’ Vice President Marketing, Keith Wymbs, we were able to gather more details on this solution.
Acquisition starts with a Sony Cine Alta F55 camera, which presumably then goes through Sony’s control box to provide a live feed. What is delivered is UHD resolution content at 8 bits and 25 fps as a quadrant signal over four HD SDI cables.
The final signal is simply the direct camera feed with ambient audio. There is no 4K production. This signal then goes to Elemental’s live encoder where the quadrant image is reassembled to do the encoding. This is output at 22 Mbps for the video, or 24 Mbps for audio and video as a constant bit rate stream encoded using HEVC. The next step is modulation by NTV Plus for the satellite uplink and demodulation at the receiving venues. The signal is HEVC decoded by a set top box with a Broadcom chip set that is now fully compliant with the HEVC standard and sent over HDMI to a Panasonic UHD TV.
“This demo is a good proof of the end to end solution for 4K as well as interoperability of components,” noted Wymbs.
Elemental has had some other firsts in 4K encoding such as the Osaka Marathon in October 2013 which was the world’s first real-time 4K30p HEVC live transmission. In London in December 2013, it demonstrated the world’s first real-time 4K60p live transmission, while at CES in January 2014, it showed real-time 4K60p transmission to multiple devices. The Sochi February 2014 represents the world’s first real-time UHD transmission via a satellite link on a single set top box chip.
Elemental also shared the results of some new survey data with us. This was a poll that garnered 262 responses from a cross section of movie studios, broadcasters, sports programmers and pay TV providers. The results of two questions are shown in the charts below.