Trade Bodies Set The Agenda For A Hot Technology Year, Pt II

This article is continued from Part One.

The DVB element is working on three fronts
The DVB, with us now for 21 years, is a key player on several fronts, and it has a new Technical Module chairman (Kevin Murray).

First up DVB-CSS – the underlying spec for inter-device synchronisation in HBBTV V2.0, and much more besides potentially – is now under the leadership of Matt Hammond, senior research engineer at the BBC. At IBC we saw synchronisation in time for the delivery of frame accurate content, and live content detection.

Essentially, the prototype could show direct communication between a personal device and your home TV through the home network. Next up could be an identifier or locator, which would introduce consumer content sharing.

Extending work it has done with profiles of MPEG-Dash, the DVB has added hugely to the potential impact of IP Live with its proposed standard for distributing UHDTV content over IP networks – using Unicast and Multicast protocols. The key areas are adaptive bit rates and the multicast potential in the areas of capacity and costs when considering the delivery of popular live sports over IP networks.

Thierry Fautier, VP of video strategy with Harmonic, heads up both the MPEG-DASH and UHD over IP projects for the DVB and he said: "The next step will be either when the spec for UHD over IP is finalised or we have a commercial deployment. We expect to demonstrate UHD over IP at DVB World (March)."

The big news concerns UHD-1 Phase 2 and what it adds to the original ITU-R spec BT.2020. With the technical work in progress to give consumers' higher dynamic range (HDR) and next generation audio (NGA) – along with the contenders for dynamic metadata to add to SMPTE 2086, NGA will be another battle between four vendors – consumer set sales will easily beat the 20% growth predicted for 2016 when HDR hits in 2017. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is expected to ratify UHD-1 Phase 2 by IBC in September. The new chip sets required for higher frame rates (HFR) will not be developed until a commercial value is proven, so 2019 is the probable final year for putting fully envisioned UHDTV out to consumers as Phase 3.

Marshalling the forces of the ITU to get an HDR standard through has been frustrating. The hope with ITU-R RG 24 is that its work (on HDR) will result in at least a single proposal with one or two applications. If all disagreements have been resolved by the next meeting and the small details can be dealt with quickly, the industry will rejoice. Dolby is competing in all of the key standards shootouts, and might end up holding a full house.

By the time of NAB, the industry should see a path forward towards consumer distribution - OETF (Opto-Electronic Transfer Function), EOTF (Electro-Optic Transfer Function), and the metadata – emerging.

SMPTE hopes HPA people will help set standards
One relationship sure to develop significantly in 2016 is that between the merging SMPTE and Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA). The complicated issues of parent status, and legal and financial understandings have seen neither party rush the marriage.

"It has been a long, very well thought out alignment process," said Howard Lukk. "On the human and the non-administrative sides we have done very well to get the parties together.

"The problem we have is that in the standards element of SMPTE it is rare to get people from the actual user community to join the standards effort," he added. "It runs under parliamentary rules, things that creative types just shun away from. We see a lot of HPA people in the education area and at section meetings, but one of my goals as standards director is to get creative people involved and motivate them to speak up."

Prior to NAB SMPTE plans to launch HPA users groups that feed suggestions to its standard community of consultants and vendors.

The HPA will repeat its traditional Palm Springs technology retreat (February) in London in the early summer.

Lukk produced his short film Emma partly as a test for HDR. "Personally is has affected me quite a bit. The whole goal around EMMA was to take a dark scary thriller and really be able to see the bottom end details. The trend is starting to move from lets just show you flashy, bright airplanes, sunsets and sky shots to using the blacks. Creative people are finally getting a handle on it," he said. "We really have to standardise. Yes, you can have closed eco systems but that means you are going to have to have every end display device support multiple closed eco systems.

"Our wheel house at SMPTE is production standards. It is more painful for the postproduction community to take this on versus the big consumer device vendors, who make billions of dollars. I went to a Hollywood conference and I heard, well you can use this metadata to support Technicolor, this metadata for the PQ format, and this metadata for the other systems. At the moment it feels like a bit of a nightmare for filmmakers," he added.

HbbTV 2.0 is a powerful option
Simon Fell, the EBU's director of technology and innovation nominated IP live at the studio end of things, and HbbTV 2.0 at the home, as two of the big things to track in 2016.

"HbbTV 2.0 is going to be quite powerful. For once we have the UK on board and it is coming into line with the rest of Europe. Some pretty interesting applications are appearing if you look around the satellite channels. France TV is already doing a catch up service where you can rewind the show you are watching. You can only do it in peak time, but that is still quite powerful," he said. "As for advertising – another feature that HbbTV 2.0 supports – the majority of EBU members are not driven by advertising. I hope ITV would make good use of that on its new Preview Plus type service, which is based on HBBTV 2.0."

What about delivering 4K and UHDTV? "We will start to see the first experiments in doing that although it will not be mass market because you need about 25 megabits to sustain the signal," said Fell.

"But still it looks very impressive, and that is one way of reaching 4K consumer TV sets before transmissions begin," he added.

The EBU is involved with AMWA for the Incubator, and with Belgian broadcaster VRT for the Sandbox+ project. "It is interesting to see that people are actually trying to make the IP technologies all work now, and really deliver something of value," said Fell. "The work the EBU did with VRT on its live IP studio initiative has been very powerful."

When it comes to the most important thing in 2016, he highlights consumer services. "We are going to see many more Pay-TV channels delivering UHD services, so people need to get serious now about the roadmap for delivering 4K and UHD to consumers," he said. "The most important thing is to sort out the European broadcaster roadmap. Nobody wants to admit they are going to do it because it is going to be seen as costing them money. They will have to do it to compete."

The way forward may be producing specials delivered by HbbTV 2.0, or test transmissions. "The spectrum is secured for a while, and whether you can do it digitally terrestrially we do not know. We have transmitted that way for a trial we did at the ITU last month, and it worked very well. The technology can do it, so it is just a matter of how many channels you might want to put out."

This article is also available to read at BFV online.

(JP/MH)