Euromedia November December 2013 | Page 5

flannel_flannel 28/11/2013 16:52 Page 1 EUROMEDIA DIGITAL MEDIA INTELLIGENCE PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Nick Snow [email protected] In this issue, we return to the low-profile but vital business of MANAGING EDITOR Colin Mann [email protected] screen world. The irony is that this enables more and better CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Chris Forrester [email protected] monetise subscribers in more and better ways – and yet these PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Nik Roseveare [email protected] efforts’. ART EDITOR Steve Overbury [email protected] even more variable capabilities in the unmanaged devices at COLUMNISTS Vivek Couto Larry Gerbrandt Steve Gold strenuous. But, however tough the road, the cargo had better CONTRIBUTORS Robert Briel - Amsterdam Dieter Brockmeyer - Frankfurt Gail Chiasson - Toronto David del Valle - Madrid Chris Dziadul Sotires Eleftheriou - Paris Philip Hunter Joe O’Halloran Farah Jifri Branislav Pekic - Rome one is fundamental to survival. SALES DIRECTOR Sanjeev Bhavnani [email protected] it to broadcasters and service providers what to do with it. PUBLISHED BY Advanced Television Limited Bondway Commercial Centre 4th Floor, Unit 4.01 71 Bondway London SW8 1SQ test and monitoring. We are all headed to an IP-driven multiservices – and therefore the opportunity for providers to services are delivered by a process that is intrinsically ‘best Because of variable bandwidths in the delivery paths, and the destination, those efforts can, perforce, be pretty arrive in apparently mint condition, otherwise the paying customer is going to try some other courier. And everyone knows that if winning a subscriber is vital to growth, keeping So, media industry technologists are committed One Directioners. That direction is compression; more bits (or the appearance of more bits) in less bandwidth. With this fundamental credo they have moved us from the basics of lossy digital compression with MPEG-1 through to – in about 20 years – H.265 or HEVC, representing another doubling of compression from MPEG-4. Having developed the compression the technologists leave The sexy thing to do is talk about 4K or Ultra-HD; the ability to use the same bandwidth as now used for HD, but supply a picture of double the quality; higher frame rates, deeper bit rate and all. If you’ve seen it demoed – in the ‘full fat’ version, of course – it is impressive; much greater field of vision, truly immersive. It’s like 3D but with a better picture, no glasses, and less headaches. Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] www.advanced-television.com U-HD will come along and get a decent early adopter crowd – the TV makers will see to that. And then will come UUHD(?): NHK are already piloting 8K. But for most PRINTED BY Headley Brothers Ltd The Invicta Press Queens Road Ashford Kent TN24 8HH, UK providers, HEVC will simply be a way to offer current serv ices Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] [email protected] content streams are adapted and formatted and checked off © Advanced Television Limited 2013. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. breakdowns and log jams before the recipient notices, and a more efficiently (SD and HD over mobile), and more of the same kind of services to their fixed line subs – up to twice as many. Either way, it won’t lighten the load on the servers and codecs in their frantic and constant game of digital tag as for delivery. The monitoring machinery planted at every point in the journey play an ever more important role in spotting system that was never really designed to deliver media goes on churning out its miracles. ISSN 1477-8092 EUROMEDIA 5