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demonstrated the live delivery of full-frame
rate 4K 60P content. Live events in New York
City were captured with the Sony F55 4K
camera, and HEVC encoded using Cisco’s
Videoscape AnyRes – with enhanced support
for 4K and HEVC. The live stream was
transported from New York to Las Vegas
through a fibre optic network. The stream was
then delivered to the Las Vegas Convention
Center, where it was decoded with a Cisco settop box with 4K support, and
displayed on Sony XBR 4K
Ultra HD TVs.
LIVE. Also looking to a 4K
future were Intelsat, BT,
Ericsson, Newtec and Sony,
who demonstrated the next
iteration of a true 4K Ultra
High Definition Television. The
team conducted a live
transmission of sports
programming captured using
Sony’s PMW-F55 4K cameras,
4K production switcher and
SR-R1000 recorder. Replayed
pictures were encoded using
Ericsson AVP 2000
Contribution Encoders, capable
of 4K operations as well as standard- and highdefinition contribution. The Ericsson Encoders
encoded the four 3G-SDI feeds in real time. The
demonstration also took advantage of MPEG-4
AVC compression technology.
After the encoding process, the 4K signal
was transmitted as a 100 Mbps video stream
from BT Tower in London over the BT Global
Media Network to Intelsat, via the Intelsat
point of presence in New York. The signal was
carried on the IntelsatOne terrestrial network
to Intelsat’s teleport in Riverside, California,
where it was uplinked to Galaxy 17, Intelsat’s
premier regional and league sports
neighbourhood in the US, using Newtec
modulation equipment.
Ericsson’s Wilson said the combination of
the higher spatial resolution, 4:2:2, 10-bit
colour depth and higher frame rates at 60
frames per second was key to capturing a truly
immersive viewing experience and high quality
service that consumers expect and demand. “As
the living room moves towards a fully cinematic
experience, ‘true’ 4K UHDTV video will enable
a new premium tier of programming which will
permanently change the way we watch
content,” he predicted. “Canned 4K demos have
had their day,” added Mark Wilson-Dunn, vice
president of BT Media and Broadcast. “At
NAB, our team is demonstrating real content,
broadcast internationally over a real network,
using real technology.”
MAINSTAY. A mainstay of NAB Shows over
the years under various guises and ownerships,
April 2014 saw the public début of the New
Grass Valley, a new player in the broadcast
32 EUROMEDIA
technology industry, created by the merger of
two of the market’s most respected and
dynamic firms – Grass Valley and Miranda.
The new Grass Valley is the latest addition
to the Belden portfolio of communications
technology brands, and the result of Belden’s
investment of $800 million over the past three
years in the broadcast market. According to
Belden, the new Grass Valley is uniquely placed
to deliver the future of television, combining a
strong understanding and vision of the
workflows required for live and on-demand
video with an unrivalled heritage of pioneering
the way television is created, produced and
delivered.
Marco Lopez, president of Grass Valley,
said: “We are currently experiencing the most
exciting period in the broadcast and media
space. In the past five years, TV has moved
from being confined to the living room to a TVeverywhere environment. Today’s consumers
are watching live and on-demand video on
broadband connected second screens and
mobile devices. They are demanding higher
quality sound and vision, regardless of device
or location. ‘HD in the home’ is becoming ‘HD
in the hand’, and the living room is moving
towards a near-cinema experience,” he
observed.
AWARD. Ericsson’s support of 4K was
recognised by NAB with the bestowal of the
NAB Technology Innovation Award, for its
pioneering work in Ultra High Definition TV
(UHDTV) 4K. Gordon Smith, president and
CEO of NAB said the award marked the
importance of UHDTV and showed TV service
providers that now is the time to start building
the necessary ecosystems and libraries of
compelling UHDTV content. “Ericsson has
been instrumental in pushing forward this next
evolutionary step in television broadcasting
quality. Its technology and expertise has played
an integral role in enabling trials across the
globe such as the world’s first live full multicamera 4K UHDTV sports production and
delivery,” he declared.
Ericsson’s Wilson said that 4K UHDTV
technology had been the pre-eminent topic of
interest at NAB 2014 as innovative service
providers looked to deliver a new, stunning
dimension to the viewing experience ahead of a
number of major events this year. “As the
industry readies itself for the roll-out of
commercial 4K UHDTV services, we have had
very strong customer