It look's like they found a new way to compress 4320p signal by using QSPK, and a brand new video codecs at 500 MBs and the bandwith at 300 MHz wide for KU and KA satellite TV bands.:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Hi-Vision

3-8-09

That Wikipedia article is a little bit muddled, or unclear.

I was at IBC 2008 in Amsterdam and saw SuperHiVision, and it was demo-ed with broadcasts from off-site via the following systems :

600Mbs MPEG2 via IP fibre from London - live camera pictures from the GLA building in association with SISLive/Cable and Wireless and the BBC. This uses 16 x MPEG2 1920x1080/60p encoders slaved together to create a single image

140Mbs H264 via Ku band satellite (2 AB3 transponders running at 70Mbs each using 8PSK FEC 5/6 DVB-S2) - recorded material from RAI Torino. I believe this also uses 16 H264 encoders (I'm guessing 8 per transponder at around 8.5Mbs each - which is quite a low bit rate for a 1920x1080/60p feed)

These, combined with local replays, were projected using a pair of projectors, whilst the same feeds, and others, were also visible on 2k LCDs outside the theatre.

There was also a separate demo of the BBC-designed Dirac codec (on a 2k screen I thinK) - but no bitrate was discussed for this, and it was being replayed locally. (Dirac is already being used to compress HD-SDI content to carry it via SDI circuits internally within the BBC - and is proving quite successful at it)

AIUI the main Super Hi Vision camera output is around 24Gbs (compared to around 1Gbs for 1080i/720p) so the compression to 140Mbs is pretty impressive!

I think the discussion in the Wikipedia article about the 250Mbs MPEG2 stream via the 300MHz wideband was not via satellite, but a technology demo over a short indoor path, to prove it could be done. The real stuff done at IBC using H264 via AB3 did this more effectively - but not using special codecs. (I think some work has been done in ensuring that the 16 encoders stay locked in sync though)

I thought the RAI H264 stuff did look a bit softer than the local playback - but I don't know how much compression was applied to the local replays (if any - though I'd imagine there must be some)