8K by 4K or Octo HD - the real SUHDTV technology - Page 14

What i meant was: HEVC (H265) 4K will use as much bandwidth as 1080i H264 and because of that HEVC will get us 4Kblu-ray and 4K broadcast.

For broadcast it is since they use the least they can, but for Blu-ray it will usually be higher (1080i is more pixels per second than 1080p24).

From what i've read HEVC 4K is 20/30 Mb/s.

There are research groups looking for ways to reduce bandwidth even more. In Europe for instance there is research consortium 4EVER which announced last year a three year, multi million Euro plan ''to facilitate the delivery of an enhanced HD television experience to viewers in a practical and inexpensive way.'' Part of the research is to look for ways to reduce bandtwidth needed to deliver UHDTV using HEVC.

In a few year from now we will know what HEVC 4K Mb/s ACTUALLY will be used. My wild guess is 15Mb/s

The NHK has made mistakes before (analog HDTV) and in my opinion they are aiming far too high with Super Hi-Vision. In my opinion 8K UHDTV at 120 fps with 22.2 channel audio is unlikely to happen in the near future even for high end movie theaters.

ATEME had a demonstration in which 4K at 60 fps was shown at 15 Mbps with HEVC.

Couldn't agree more. The fact that NHK is doing it doesn't make it logical or inevitable. I totally forgot about their analog HD approach. That would have been another mistake. Good point!

That's not exactly how I recall it. I recall NHK trying very hard to push the analog approach to HD here in the U.S. The U.S. resisted, preferring an all digital approach. Everything NHK does is not gold. If they go 8K, it doesn't mean the rest of the world will fall in line. I'm not saying that 8K isn't possible here in the U.S., but I am saying it makes no sense IMO and because Japan is doing it doesn't mean the rest of the world falls in lock step.

It's also a big difference when the Govt subsidizes this kind of thing. Here the broadcasters are on their own. Big difference.

I don't think you can lay that at NHKs door anymore than all the other standards that was fighting for acceptance at the time, and delayed HDTV launch.
In addition there where some problems with massproduction of CRT HD TVs at the time.
1981- NHK demonstrates HDTV with 1,125 lines of resolution.

1996 - The FCC approves ATSC's HDTV standard. (US)

There where also problems with the fact that the first HDTV systems where analog.

What I want to point out with this, is that most of the technology for UHD-1 and UHD-2 is in place. UHD-1 is being transmitted over existing satellite regularly today with the old compression codecs.
With new compression codecs, 8K can fit in the same "space" that fill 4K now.

There are also a consortium of worldwide Broadcasters lead by China at the moment that want to make a new global terrestial standard to get rid of all the NTSC, PAL and Secam standards.

The moment the decisions are made and tests are finished the broadcasters must decide between; Will you upgrade your equipment for 4K and then again upgrade to 8K, or will you upgrade straight to 8K?
The broadcasters have no economical reason to "milk the market" like the manufacturers do. For the broadcasters it is only expenses.
Pay once or pay twice?
Satellite owners are in the same situation.
Equipment for 8K broadcast are not significant more expensive than equipment for 4K broadcasts when we count in mass-production.
To measure the cost, we can use the cost of digital processor power as measure, and if we see five to ten years forward when this upgrade will start to happen globally, the processor power needed for a 8K pipeline will cost less than the processor power costed when HD broadcast started.

For people that don't understand the value of 8K TV, just don't understand how to "see" image quality. And because we all sit and get used to our 2 megapixel screens it is hard for many to understand what 33 megapixel resolution will contribute.

Believe me that when you one day get to see proper 8K you will understand that HD was more like a mistake and 4K more like a band-aid.

Images in TV and film is not supposed to only be able to recreate reality, something it doesn't do yet, but also be able to show a enhanced reality.

NHK is working with EBU, and have BBC and RAI as direct broadcast partners, to achieve this.
Notice that almost all the testing and demonstrations of 4K(previously) and 8K now outside of Japan have been happening in Europe with European partners.
And that 4K satellite broadcast are by two European satellite owners.

I know for a fact that there still is a lot of 4:3 stuff going on at RAI Italy. There was a BBC HD Quality Campaign Group formed after the the BBC cut the broadcast bitrate by 40%, down from 16mb/s to 9.7mb/s. So these two government subsidized broadcasters are gonna bring us 8K

bringing the WOW factor back to BBC HD...
http://hdcampaign.kk5.org/

Coolscan, if you are correct, then U.S. broadcasters will never go to 4K for the reasons you cited (primarily the cost of then having to switch again to 8K). It will be that simple. Of course if they do, it might also mean they have no intention of switching to 8K...at least not for a very long time. I'm betting you're wrong and we will see the inevitable trend to 4K in the U.S. It won't take that long to find out.

BTW, many of us DO see what happens when you race up the megapixel scale. We've seen that with digital cameras and many of us that actually use this stuff have rapidly come to the conclusion that it does not do what the PR would like to make us think it does. In fact many of the better cameras throttle back on the megapixels and concentrate on other areas that actually improve the picture. True, this may not a perfect correlation, but it does hold some merit.

I also don't subscribe as some do, to the inevitability of 'what happens there will happen here'. It doesn't always work that way. It also pays to keep in mind that there is considerable 4K material available now. Hell, consumers will have a choice between at least two 4K camcorders to shoot their own 4K this year. Such is not the case for 8K.

Coincidentally, just came across this...nothing really new, but relevant to the discussion. The wheels have been and are in motion:

http://advanced-television.com/2013/02/01/sony-re-masters-content-in-4k/

I read a book called "Defining Vision" and it describes MUSE which is the system that the NHK promoted as a global standard. MUSE was expensive, it was based on analog video compression, it sold poorly, was never adopted outside of Japan, and lasted less than a decade before a digital system replaced it. The NHK may never admit that they made a mistake with MUSE but based on everything I have read it was a very expensive mistake.

That sounds to me like the Japanese government is willing to give 4K UHDTV a chance.

I doubt that 8K UHDTV and 22.2 channel audio are national goals in Japan.

Once again, that's nice when you have deep pockets and the Government foots the bill. This is the U.S. and that's not how it works here. Japan's 'official goal' is not our official goal. They may see it as a 'great future', but I doubt you'll find that kind of enthusiasm here...especially when you won't be able to demonstrate why it's a 'great future' relative to 4K.

Here we operate on a costs/benefits formula. We are moving toward 4K and without the ability to demonstrate the clear advantage of 8K over 4K in screen sizes under 150" or searing distances greater than 2' for screen sizes that are actually used in homes, not stadiums, it just makes no sense.

Add to that the fact that significant 4K content actually exists today and such is not the case with 8K, I don't see any rationale for broadcasters to shell out for 8K, particularly when consumers will see zero benefits. Without seeing the benefits, consumers certainly won't 'upgrade' their hardware to 8K from 4K. It's a tough enough sell to get them to 4K.

MUSE was promoted as a global standard and yet it was never adopted outside of Japan. MUSE lasted less than a decade since it was expensive and it seems to me that the NHK sometimes ignores the issue of cost.

ATSC has lasted for 15 years and is used in several countries so it has done a lot better than MUSE. Also when a standard lasts a long time many would consider that a success.

I doubt that the NHK wanted 4K UHDTV broadcasts in Japan. Also it doesn't say that 4K UHDTV broadcasts will end in 2016 it only says that test broadcasts for 8K UHDTV will begin in 2016.

If the NHK was as powerful as you say than the Japanese government would not have announced 4K UHDTV broadcasts for next year. It seems to me that the NHK is just one organization in Japan and what they are planning might not be successful even in Japan. Also there are several non-government broadcasters in Japan so the NHK isn't the only broadcaster.

I'm not so sure of that. Who knows if 4K is not the 'tolerance limit' here in the U.S., especially when you can't demonstrate to the buying public that 8K is better than 4K for use in the home? The attitude of 'we can't afford to be behind' might exist if you could demonstrate that the public could see a significant difference between 4K and 8K. You simply can't and you know that. Without that kind of demonstrable difference, both broadcasters & the buying public will have no appetite for yet another costly transition.

Well I'm glad you're finally on board by acknowledging that we wouldn't judge 8K 'based on standard PQ'. Of course I sit here and scratch my head and think 'then what are we going to judge 8K by?'. You think because it's a bigger number that's all we need to sell? Sometimes when cash outlays are relatively minimal (digital cameras) that works, but in the case of 8K and the huge cost of yet again revamping infrastructure, going from zero content to considerable content and, most importantly, convincing the public there's a rationale for this switch, good luck!

I also think you're wrong about there being no significant content today. There are plenty of movies that have already been mastered in 4K with more coming, camcorders arriving this year that shoot in 4K and TV series beginning to be shot in 4K. How much of this exists in 8K? Zero?

There is no way 8K is happening anytime soon. 2025 at the earliest if ever. The only reason 4K is going to happen is because at volume, the added cost to the displays will be minimal. With the new h.265 codec it can be transmitted in the same bandwidth is one current HD channel, so no added burden. You will need new decoder chips and again the cost should be minimal as most TV, cable and sat boxes have advanced CPU because of all the widgets they run. You add in the fact that at larger sizes there is an obvious difference, at smaller sizes you will have the new 6MP passive 3D, that might breath life into the stagnate 3D market. Throw in future proofing and marketing hype and 4K is almost a certainty in 5 years.

I believe people her are a little uninformed how governmental owned Broadcasters like NHK function and are organized.

In Europe the governmental owned public broadcasters are organized in much the same way as NHK, modeled after BBC.
They are often the largest broadcast companies in their country based on viewers. They are commercial free and is only partly financed by the government, but are receiver of a License Fee from each household billed separately from the general Taxation from everybody that buy a TV or Radio receiving device including DVR and Satellite receivers.
Sweden has even recently introduced a law where the license fee/ sales tax that must be paid by all buyers of Hard drives and PCs.

They are the main members of the EBU, where also NHK is a large contributing member.
All these Broadcasters have like NHK a R&D department that not only solve in-house technical problems but contribute to the future development of Broadcasting.
And their R&D department then becomes the EBUs Technical department for development of future broadcast systems.

EBU has its own administration and Headquarters in Geneva.
They are not solely a administration body, but also often function as mutual buyer of rights for their member stations to big live events (much sports), where the EBU are the Technical producer where all the members contribute people and equipment for production.
In that way EBU also functions like a TV production and Broadcast company.

When Japan announced that they would start 4K Satellite broadcast in 2014, it was not the CEO of NHK that announced this but the owner of NHK, represented by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
So this has nothing to do with how much power NHK has vs. the Japanese government.

To me the message from the Japanese government to the Japanese TV manufacturers was loud and clear;

"We, The Japanese government will use our TV Broadcaster and our own specially-made communications satellites that can handle full 4KHD-quality transmissions and later 4K terrestrial transmissions to transmit 4K/UHD-1 content from 2014 to support the Japanese TV manufacturers.

It is up to you (the TV manufacturers) to utilize this market opportunity to sell as many 4K TVs you can.

But we expect you in return to support us from 2016 by having 8K TVs available to the public to receive 8K/UHD-2 TV signals from our test transmissions."

Without a step_by_step development of TV systems, the TV manufacturers will need to downsize radically because there are no new incentives for the public to buy new TVs.

Note that the Year/Dates are not randomly chosen.
The 4K transmission will start with the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
The 8K transmissions testing will start with the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil.

The 4K transmissions that starts in 2014 will of course give NHK and their EBU partners valuable experience towards 8K.

It does also not mean that there will be 24/7 broadcast in 4K from 2014 and 24/7 8K broadcast from 2016.
UHDTV is defined as UHD-1 and UHD-2. There will be mixed transmission that will need to be up-converted or down-converted in the 4K and 8K TVs.
4K and 8K content will live side by side for many decades, together with HD.

The economical question here is; Do the main largest Broadcasters just upgrade to 4K production and transmission equipment or do they upgrade to 8K and save a upgrade cycle.

For a big broadcaster, the expenses to upgrade to 8K directly rather than via 4K is not more expensive than what some European Commercial Broadcasters have used on 3D TV equipment.

But why state such things as "That you can't demonstrate the difference to the public" when you have absolutely no idea that it is even close to any reality.?
That you are unable to imagine and comprehend a image resolution of 8K in moving images, doesn't mean that it doesn't have remarkable qualities.

Give 8K ten years in practical use to develop from now to 2022.
But you can't wait to 2022 and launch a 8K system that is developed to its limits. It does need practical develop time.

Most people will not go from 4K to 8K.
Some people that want/can only afford small screens will go from HD to 4K. People with larger screens will go from HD to 8K. The only way that will induce Broadcasters to even upgrade from HD, is that the transition happens so fast that the public at large will not have time enough to upgrade to 4K before the 8K offers are present.
By going directly to 8K, the manufacturers can use the next several decades to develop and sell all kind of screen technology.

8K Broadcasting is like "one size fits all". It is up to the display manufacturers to use that opportunity and spread it over very many years.

The best results when creating quality images is to have an abundance of resolution and Down-Sample. That's why your megapixel photos look so good on a 2 megapixel screen.
That is also why 2K/HD/2 megapixel doesn't look so good as still photos on a 2K/HD screen.

This is the principle when all quality graphics are made. Start with a very large image and then reduce it for presentation. This gives a sharp and detailed image.

Same principle how quality print graphics where created before computer graphics. Make a large drawing, or enlarge a small one. Draw and do touch-ups on the large paper. Then reduce the size via photo process to the size you will print.

The principle should be easy to understand when used on high resolution imagery.

In most countries in Europe, state broadcasters are funded through a mix of advertising and public finance, either through a licence fee or directly from the government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting


There must be lots of broadcasters in Japan. NHK seems to own two TV stations. I have seen some NHK broadcasts on satellite. Lots of news, lots of replays. Not much going on there. So 4K/8K broadcast tests/broadcasting on those NHK stations doesn't impress me much...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHK

I'm sure you'll need new decoder boxes. Most sat feeds and cable that I know of are still mpeg-2 which is very light on CPU compared to h264. From what I have read, h265 will require a pretty significant bump in CPU (or GPU) compared to h264. Add to that manufacturers are pretty cheap and don't provide a lot of excess CPU in cable boxes etc. So even if your cable box says it can do h264, I expect that is about the limit of its ability.

None of which means I think 8k is not going to happen. It is inevitable, but much like others here, including you, I don't expect it to become mainstream in the next 10 years.

A lot of satellite and cable feeds are, in fact, H.264, not MPEG-2. For example, nearly 100% (actually 100%?) of DirecTV's HD is in H.264. But you are correct about something, you'll need new decoder boxes for H.265. It will require purpose-built silicon which doesn't even exist yet. Software decoding hasn't been done in the HD era. Even MPEG-2 is decoded with an ASIC (which might be embedded in a larger chip, but it's still an ASIC).

So to be clear, an H.264 cable box -- of which I'm fairly certain there are many as DirecTV can't be the only provider doing this -- will never decode an H.265 stream. It's not even a little possible. And that means the 200+ million odd decoders out there in the U.S. alone are 100% incompatible with H.265.

If most people have difficulty discerning the difference with 4K displays showing 4K content from typical 2K at a 10' viewing distances from an 84" screen (and I've witnessed this myself with shoppers on several occasions), then please explain to me how this phenomena will not logically extend to 8K? IOW, if most people simply can't see the 4K difference at 10' from an 84" screen, how are they going to see the difference between 4K and 8K at similar screen sizes and distances? The perceived difference will be even smaller. Your logic eludes me. I fully understand your oversampling argument, but even so, people still can't see the 4K advantage from where they'd typically sit. I don't think your oversampling scenario will change much.

10 ft from a 84"(diag?) screen is almost 3 PH (picture heights).    There's NO WAY one could see any benefit of 4K, much less 8K

http://www.av-products.com/ScreenCalculator.htm

From that site for fully resolved 1920x1080 for an 84" diag TV, based on visual acuity the max distance is 11 foot (my calc is 10.98 foot).

So if you were closer than that (eg. 10 foot), there would be a benefit in 4K over 1080p.
Edited by Joe Bloggs - 2/3/13 at 4:08pm

Correct, and therein lies the problem with 8K and to a lesser degree 4K. We need to sit real close to typical screen sizes or invest in really large screens where we can sit a bit further back. This is why 8K is such a tough sell with 4K being not a whole lot easier, but still a bit easier to demonstrate.

MUSE was launched in 1991, the NHK announced the digital replacement for it in 1997, and the digital replacement was launched in 2000. Analog HDTV was never adopted outside of Japan because it was expensive. Also while MPEG-1 was released in 1992 the development of the standard started in 1988. The NHK had sunk so much money into analog HDTV that they ignored the development of digital video compression. The NHK has made mistakes in the past and personally I am skeptical about the future of Super Hi-Vision.

ATSC is 15 years old and counting and is used in several countries. Better delivery methods and video standards have been released since it came out but from what I can see ATSC has done a lot better than MUSE.

The NHK is only a single organization and it doesn't represent all of Japan. My guess is that the Japanese government simply cares a lot more about the Japanese CE companies than they care about the opinion of the people running the R&D department at the NHK.

That is based on the assumption that 4K UHDTV isn't sufficient for the average consumer home. If 4K UHDTV is sufficient for the next 20 years, or more, than there is no reason to use anything higher than 4K UHDTV. The NHK thinks otherwise but the NHK is also promoting 22.2 channel audio.