Key elements of HD infrastructure - EVS

TVBEU RO PE HD EUROPE 

Key elements of HD infrastructure 

High-Def broadcasting in context: The systems integration viewpoint 

HD Systems 

By Guy Elliott, 

managing director, 

ATG Broadcast 

The transition from SD into HD is 

currently progressing in many countries, 

part of the global switchover 

from analogue to digital transmission. 

Like many new technologies, 

HD was a classic case of the chickenand-the-egg: 

why broadcast in HD if 

no one is equipped to view the output? 

That has now turned on its 

head with 1080-line rapidly becoming 

the native display resolution for 

domestic television receivers. 

Given a respectable transmission 

bit rate, digitally delivered 

1080i viewed on a 1080-native 

screen is nothing short of breathtaking. 

Almost every broadcaster 

currently delivering an SD service is 

looking to upgrade to HD when 

market conditions are right. Market 

conditions are dictated not just by 

the availability of funding but by 

audience expectations and pressure 

from competitor channels. 

For ATG Broadcast, HD has 

effectively become the new SD. 

Most state broadcasters worldwide 

have made a firm commitment to 

HD both for new infrastructure and 

in their upgrade plans for existing 

studio, post production and playout 

facilities. High-quality HD camcorders 

are now compact and 

affordable, allowing programmemakers 

on even the tightest budgets 

to future-proof their productions. 

Technical issues 

It would be wrong to describe 

HD as a technical minefield but 

there are important issues to 

A 3D reality 

breakthrough 

Continued from page 1 

separated again by the glasses,” he 

explains. “This is no problem in 

a controlled environment like a 

cinema, but in the home viewers 

without glasses will be discriminated 

against since the double signal 

superimposed on the image renders 

a 3D polarised broadcast 

redundant for viewers in 2D.” 

He adds, “It was always clear to 

me that a successful 3D television 

system is one that doesn’t discriminate 

against any viewer which is 

why our system can be viewed with 

the Telcast 3D glasses in 3D or without 

glasses perfectly in 2D.” 

Instead of superimposing the 

two individual perspectives and 

broadcasting them at the same time, 

Telcast broadcasts with a delay of 

At TV4 Sweden, ATG installed a 3Gbps-native 576 x 576 Pro-Bel 

Cygnus high definition routing frame equipped as a 324 x 312 matrix 

keep in mind. I will tackle them 

in priority. 

Cabling: The superiority of optical 

fibre networking in comparison 

with traditional copper cabling was 

widely recognised even before the 

transition from analogue to digital 

SD. The high bit rates inherent with 

HD-SDI make copper a safe option 

only for cable runs of less than 80m. 

Optical fibre allows much longer 

lengths without need for mid-way 

reclocking and takes up less duct 

space than the copper equivalent. 

Space issues still arise at the router 

I/O ports where a large number of 

bulky copper cables have to be 

accommodated within the finite 

dimensions of rackroom cabinets. 

Data compression: No broadcasters 

yet transmit native uncompressed 

HD, nor do they need to if the 

source signal quality is high and 

intermediate post production is 

handled transparently. Severely compressed 

origination formats such as 

HDV should be used sparingly, 

preferably only where portability or 

operator-security are issues. 

Audio/video timing: Maintaining 

one field, exactly 1 /50th or 1 /60th of a 

second. Doing so means the double 

lines, which would blur a 3D stereo 

image viewed in 2D, are negligible. 

Telcast’s patented 3D glasses in connection 

with its 3D shooting 

method merge the two perspectives 

into a three-dimensional image in 

the brain of the viewer. 

It also means capturing at 50 

individual fields (50 or 60i, not 25p 

or 30p although 50p is possible). 

Telcast uses a single HD camera 

and standard lens, modified with 

the firm’s patented ‘special sauce’ 

contained in a black box attached 

to the camera, the detail of which 

Hohenacker isn’t revealing. 

Telcast doesn’t just license the 

technology but the camera operator 

as well, believing that the success 

of a 3D production is just 

as reliant on craft skills. Martin 

Winkler, the producer-cameraman 

for True Academy Fantasia has 15 

years experience under his belt and 

claims not to need a monitor (even 

though one is hooked to his 

synchronisation between audio and 

video signal feeds is essential in any 

system. HD requires particular care 

as the video processing durations 

can be relatively long. Lip-sync 

errors are even more visible when 

seen in HD than in SD unless the lip 

motion has itself been blurred by 

excessive compression. HD-SDI 

networking has the advantage of 

keeping audio and video together in 

terms of timing as well as distribution. 

Signal formats: SD embraced a 

tediously large number of variant 

native signal ‘standards’. HD has 

even more, including subsets of 

720p, 1080i and 1080p. Each has to 

be discussed at the start of any proposed 

new HD studio installation 

and usually accommodated at least 

as an ingest format. Signal storage is 

nowadays largely file-based, ingesting 

from HD digital video or from 

file-based capture devices such as 

Panasonic’s P2. 

Picture monitoring: Discrete 

CRT-screen monitors have largely 

disappeared from master control 

rooms and presentation suites, 

Steadicam) when shooting, but to 

judge the 3D effect by instinct. 

The signal output from the 

camera, or recorded to tape, is produced 

and transmitted normally. 

“No other equipment or post production 

intervention is required,” 

Hohenacker says. “That’s the big 

advantage for broadcasters who 

don’t have to change or invest in 

any hardware.” Edits will tend to 

be held a little longer and slowmotion, 

unless shot at 150fps, 

destroys the necessary frame ratio. 

The special 3D glasses, usually 

cardboard framed and distributed 

free with programme promotion 

(in this case with the 

cable customer’s magazine) contain 

patented film that “instead 

of filtering individual colours 

from the superimposed image like 

red-green anaglyph glasses, creates 

a time delay in perception.” 

For Winkler, the key to preparing 

the shoot is to look for scenarios 

with a foreground, mid-ground and 

background and if an element isn’t 

replaced by multiscreen LCD panels 

and the newer very high quality LED 

screens. HD-native monitoring is 

obviously important and we do not 

advocate reduced-resolution picture 

monitoring even by CRT devotees. 

Signal monitoring: Rasterisers 

are becoming increasingly popular 

for HD signal monitoring both in 

broadcast and post production 

environments. Compact instruments 

such as the Tektronix 

WVR7120 handle dual link, HD- 

SDI, and SD-SDI as well as 

embedded and discreet AES audio, 

Dolby Digital and Dolby E, in a 

single unit with a user-definable 

multiscreen display. 

HD projects 

One of the earliest HD projects 

we worked on was at National 

Geographic Channel, providing 

expanded HD resources at the network’s 

European post production 

centre in London. The project 

extends the capabilities of the HD 

post production and playout system 

installed by ATG Broadcast prior to 

the channel’s commencement of 

1080i transmissions last summer. It 

Guy Elliott: Almost every broadcaster 

currently delivering an SD service is 

looking to upgrade to HD when 

market conditions are right 

present, to shift his position or that 

of an object around accordingly. 

“It’s about the choreography of 

the camera, people or objects,” he 

says. “The opening sequence of this 

show will be straightforward since 

there are 12 contestants which 

we can frame at different distances. 

The concert stage has also been redesigned 

for 3D (in terms of placement 

of a band, the stage width has 

also been extended to allow Winkler 

more room to move) but some 

rooms of the house can look flat 

(such as a bedroom with row of 10 

beds) so I’ve shifted tables, plants or 

lambs to the foreground.” 

Telcast transported over a million 

3D glasses to Bangkok — 

weighing over 4,400 kg. A symbol 

appears on screen alerting viewers 

to wear them for the next scene. 

“Each 3D section, such as a song, is 

around 3-4 minutes long although 

we can go up to 45 minutes in 3D,” 

explains Winkler. “Much more 

than that and any 3D system starts 

to feel uncomfortable.” 

includes additional Sony HDCAM- 

SR multi-format recording and 

playback facilities in the audio post 

production suite. These are used in 

conjunction with an existing Avid 

Adrenaline video editing system. 

The Adrenaline itself was enhanced 

with Dolby Audio Tools, Avid 

ProTools LE audio editing software, 

additional Dolby E multichannel 

sound encoding, decoding 

and monitoring and Rosendahl 

MIDI timecode interfaces. 

At TV4, Sweden’s largest independent 

television channel, we 

installed an HD routing system. This 

included a 3Gbps-native 576 x 576 

Pro-Bel Cygnus HD routing frame 

equipped as a 324 x 312 matrix with 

dual redundant power supplies, dual 

redundant controllers and four monitoring 

outputs. It followed on from 

the addition of Harris NEO HD- 

SDI/SD-SDI video routing switchers. 

One of the first applications of 

the Cygnus was to process HD feeds 

from the 2008 UEFA European 

Football Championship hosted by 

Austria and Switzerland. 

We also equipped new edit suites 

for Red Bee Media, Britain’s largest 

playout and channel management 

service-provider. The largest of these 

facilities is an HD video edit suite 

centred on a Quantel eQ workstation 

with external FC Dylan disc storage 

attached to the existing server system. 

Content archives as well as 

broadcasters are upgrading to HD. 

We recently completed a technical 

upgrade commission for the Imperial 

War Museum. This contract involved 

expanded resources for the Video 

Room at the museum’s aviation 

branch in Duxford, Cambridge, 

including the supply and installation 

of a high definition video recorder 

with supporting infrastructure. 

Continued on page 10 

Telcast has signed a deal with 

Jordanian broadcaster ATV to 

produce a 10x5min series on the 

venues for the 2010 World Cup. 

Although it won’t be producing 

live action from South Africa, 

Telcast has done sports in the past 

including Sydney 2000 Olympics 

and French league soccer for TF1. 

“Polarised systems are great for 

the cinema where everyone has a 

pair of glasses but when you move 

to mass market broadcast our system 

is definitely the only way,” 

Hohenacker says. “There is no alternative 

without swapping out hardware 

for consumer and broadcaster. 

“We have a track record of 

increasing ratings of shows filmed 

in 3D by 50%,” he claims. Telcast 

holds the record for TF1 ratings for 

its 3D production of Miss World a 

decade ago. Perhaps that’s not so 

suprising, but the Thai example 

shows that even reality shows can 

benefit. “Even on long-running 

series where we’ve inserted 3D elements, 

ratings have gone up 80%.” 

8 www.tvbeurope.com AUGUST 2009


Pixel Power has provided Clarity for Sky promos. David Fox reports from West London 

Sky improves its promotion prospects 

With some 20 channels and a huge 

number of programmes to promote, 

Sky had a big problem delivering all 

the Now, Next, Later and other 

promos it wanted to. So it didn’t. It 

concentrated on just a few channels, 

or specific programmes, and its staff 

spent hours in edit suites creating 

lots of different versions. 

Now, much of this is automated, 

and staff have the ability to make 

changes just moments before a promo 

goes on air. This is largely due 

to a significant investment in Pixel 

Power’s Clarity 3000, which was 

used to deliver a re-brand of its 

main entertainment channels, Sky 

One, Two and Three last year, and 

a move its PixelPromo Live for 

automated promo creation, which 

is being used for stage two of its 

channel rebrand. 

Before the Pixel Power installation, 

Sky didn’t have the ability to 

air on-screen graphics for promos. 

“The infrastructure was more about 

Andy Purkiss: “Other systems we 

looked at seemed to be coming 

more from a gallery outlook” 

The DDP. 

Avid 

and others 

PC 

1 GbE 

2K, DPX/Cineon 

FinalCutPro 

Color, GlueTools 

10 GbE 

Avid 

and others 

PC 

DXP/Cineon 

applications 

PC 

channels than presentation,” says 

Andy Purkiss, Sky’s head of production 

and operations. “We were 

behind the competition. If we did 

want to do anything promotional 

on screen, it was labour-intensive 

and had to be hand edited.” 

It was able to do squeeze back or 

DVE moves only on certain (live) 

channels (Sky News, Sky Sports and 

Sky One), and needed to find a system 

to help. As the majority of rival 

channels were using Pixel Power’s 

Clarity, this was one of the systems 

it looked at, as well as seeking 

tenders from its existing suppliers of 

studio graphics systems. 

“We wanted more graphics on air, 

and wanted promos in programmes 

rather than just in breaks. But we didn’t 

want to use any more resources. 

We particularly needed to improve 

the effectiveness of on-screen branding 

on Sky One, Two and Three.” It 

helped that Pixel Power was already 

HD, and was developing its 3D 

graphics capability, something Sky 

also wanted to do (and has now 

become the first broadcaster to use 

the system for 3D). 

It was particularly interested in 

PixelPromo Live, because it could 

read the schedule and put up promos 

automatically, using templates. Now 

50-70% of promos on the various 

channels go through PixelPromo 

Live, including services like HD 

Anytime (which pushes selected 

programmes to the set-top boxes) 

and its download service, Sky Player. 

It mainly uses Clarity for more 

bespoke static promos, such as pro- 

1 Gb Ethernet switch 

1 GbE 

FinalCutPro 

Avid 

ProTools 

Logic 

Nuendo 

1 GbE 

1 All applications can simultaneously read and write from and to the same volumes 

2 The DDP: a SAN with built-in Metadatacontroller (AVFS) and SCSi over IP (iSCSi) 

3 All audio/video formats up to uncompressed HD via 1GbE. Up to 4K: 10 GbE 

4 The DDP: one system, one network (IP), one manufacturer: Ardis Technologies 

1 GbE 

FinalCutPro 

Avid 

ProTools 

Sequoia 

Pyramix 

Nuendo 

PC 

Creative differences: Clarity users have escaped hours of reversioning tedium 

gramme launches, with PixelPromo 

doing the dynamic promos. Some inprogramme 

promos include video 

from the database, and some are only 

graphics. It now has some 20 channels 

that benefit from this, with up to 

500 Clarity events per week, and up 

to 70% of those from PixelPromo. 

Sky uses a BSS scheduling system, 

and the IT department had 

to make sure it worked with 

PixelPromo. But once that was 

done “it was easy to add secondary 

events, such as promos, with a single 

line specifying now, next and later 

promos with video. We can also 

choose a graphic look with a four 

character code,” explains Purkiss. 

Key elements of 

HD infrastructure 

The IWM’s archived content 

is frequently used by television 

documentary producers, many 

“We used to do this in edit 

suites and audio suites, with extra 

problems for 5.1. Each DVE 

would take at least an hour to do 

due to 5.1.” Also, its creative people 

“found all the versioning 

tedious.” Having moved to 

PixelPromo, he calculates that the 

department has been able to 

release about 100 hours of edit 

time per month to other parts of 

Sky — which has been the biggest 

gain from the move. 

“The same people who used to 

do this manually on one channel are 

now doing this across 20 channels.” 

A day’s worth of promo events can 

be set up in minutes, and promos can 

of whom are now working in 

1080i HD. The film transfer 

operation was augmented with a 

high resolution 2k scanner 

which will produce files for 

ingest into a digital data store. 

These are then forwarded to mirrored 

servers in Imperial War 

Museum Duxford and Imperial 

War Museum London. 

Dynamic Drive Pool 

Superior Shared Storage Solutions. 

1 GbE 


IBC 

Stand # 7D12 

Project & File level based sharing 

SAN with NAS functionality 

Very high Data rates 

Easy to install, maintain & operate 

ARDIS TECHNOLOGIES 

Tromplaan 7 

6881 GG VELP 

The Netherlands 

Tel 0031 26 36 22 337 

jan@ardistech.com 

www.dynamicdrivepool.com 

be done “practically live”, if necessary. 

The system compiles a sequence 

seconds before going on air. 

“Clarity had been built from a 

TV presentation perspective, whereas 

the other systems we looked at 

seemed to be coming more from a 

gallery outlook. We didn’t need 

another high-end graphics device, 

and some of the other devices had 

more power but not playout capabilities,” 

he says. So far the move has 

been primarily visual-focused, “so 

we haven’t really explored the 

Clarity’s audio capabilities.” 

Purkiss is now looking at 

upgrades, including better automating 

of video clip ingest, so that it is 

quicker and easier to get clips from 

programmes to build the promos. 

He also wants smarter asset management, 

so that it will automatically 

delete files when they are no longer 

needed — as well as better quality 

control, so that anyone on any 

PC on the network can check 

spelling, graphic position and 

compliance. Sky now has some 35 

to 40 Clarity units, with about 25 of 

those used in the transmission and 

creative departments. 

On a much larger scale, we 

completed a comprehensive 

rebuild of Astro’s All Asia 

Broadcast Centre (AABC) in 

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, including 

HD infrastructure. A suite of 

operational areas was installed and 

the station architecture re-engineered 

to provide resilience plus 

easy future expansion capabilities. 

The new system architecture is 

built around GVG Trinix routers 

under Omnibus control. The entire 

project took place while the station 

was on-air, transmitting 100 directto-home 

channels to subscribers in 

Malaysia and Indonesia. 

Looking ahead 

The increasing popularity of 1080native 

displays and Blu-Ray high 

definition video discs will continue 

to motivate broadcasters into 

upgrading their services to HD, 

just surely as 405-line monochrome 

was succeeded by 625-line 

colour. An additional motivating 

factor is the need for mainstream 

broadcasters to stay ahead of 

internet-based channels. 

Competitive pressure is also 

encouraging broadcasters to 

explore 3D HD as a vehicle for 

premium channels though I cannot 

see the viewing public 

accepting anything short of perfect 

autostereoscopic (directview) 

display devices. Philips’ 

decision to pull out of its 

WOWvx lenticular-display project 

earlier this year looks puzzling 

given that the 3D display is 

a market which will be led by the 

digital signage sector. Philips’ 

competitors will appreciate the 

breathing space. 

10 www.tvbeurope.com AUGUST 2009 

D P D 

1 

2 

3 

4

Making high definition work 

Now an established fixture in the broadcast conference calendar, this year’s 

two-day HD Masters 2009 event seemed to generate more questions, 

answers, news and ideas than ever before. Richard Dean and David Fox sift through the HD highlights 

Danielle Nagler, Head of BBC 

HD, propelled this year’s conference 

off to a rousing start with a 

confident keynote appraisal of 

HDTV’s prospects. With sales of 

HD-ready TV sets booming, HD 

is poised to become the new 

mainstream. “HD is the way we 

need to make TV, because that’s 

the way viewers want it,” she 

declared, confirming the commitment 

that 70% of BBC programmes 

will be HD by 2012. 

In April the BBC started 

including HD content on BBC 

iPlayer, the internet-based catchup 

service that is also available 

on Virgin cable TV networks, and 

the UK now boasts some 33 HD 

channels via cable and satellite. 

However a “stratospheric growth” 

in both content and viewership 

was imminent with the launch of 

Sponsors who 

made HD Work 

The tag-line for this year’s HD 

Masters conference was ‘Making 

High Definition Work’; and we would 

like to take this opportunity to 

sincerely thank the sponsors who 

made the event work for all of us in 

2009. With thanks to Gold Sponsors 

Dolby, Hamlet, NTT Electronics, 

Panasonic and Phabrix; and Silver 

Sponsors Digital Rapids, Evertz, 

EVS, For-A, Harris Broadcast, Screen 

Subtitling Systems and Sony. Special 

mention also to David Ward and 

Kristy Weir of Chyron for supplying 

wonderful HD graphics throughout 

the event — and of course to our 

indefatigable Conference 

Programme Director John Ive. 

Thanks again to our supporting 

organisations, Digital TV Group, FKT 

and UK Screen. As ever, the event 

was organised by TVBEurope in 

partnership with SMPTE and BKSTS. 

– Fergal Ringrose 

There are many ways 

to let your 

on-demand services 

grow 

Daniella Nagler: “We decided against producing limited content or 

up-converting SD material, as this won’t adequately grow the market” 

Freeview HD by the end of this 

year, said Nagler, as it will give 

digital terrestrial television 

(DTT) viewers access to HD programming 

for the first time. 

Throughout this year the BBC 

will produce more than 300 hours 

of HD programming, taking care 

to cover a range of genres to 

create what she called “HD for 

everyone.” Given that this implies 

a range of production styles 

beyond the carefully controlled 

confines of a studio, the 

Corporation has been trialling 

small EX-1 and EX-3 cameras 

from Sony over the last two 

months, intercut with content 

from Sony HDCAM. Lightweight 

Panasonic shoulder 

mount cameras will also be put to 

the test later this year. 

“We decided against the easy 

options of producing limited 

content or up-converting SD 

material, as we don’t believe this 

will adequately grow the market,” 

she said, later hinting that the 

top-rated (and exports-earning) 

Top Gear could start producing in 

HD soon, perhaps in time for the 

new series next Spring. 

In Nagler’s view HD’s true 

‘coming of age’ will be marked 

by the 2012 London Olympics, 

combining as it does a major 

international sporting event with 

the near-completion of digital 

switchover (DSO) for UK DTT, 

although she added that ‘HDSO’ 

— in other words the corresponding 

switchover from SD to HD 

— was “probably still some way 

off.” — Richard Dean 

Industry status: 

Who’s doing what, where? 

Unique HD Masters insight into 

the status of introductions and 

market acceptance at interntional 

level, along with specific examples 

from France, Poland, Sweden and 

the US. 

Declaring that HDTV services 

were either in operation, being 

planned, or being trialled across 

most of the world, European 

Conference contents 

Industry status: Who’s doing what? Page 12 

Window of opportunity for 1080p/50 Page 19 

Audio: Overcoming challenges, complexities Page 20 

Production: New techniques, processes Page 22 

Regulation: Spectrum usage and strategies Page 25 

Special Feature: Super Hi-Vision Page 26 

Consumer perspective: New services and 3D Page 32 

HD Forum co-Chair David 

Wood opened the first session by 

pinpointed key developments 

for the future — scalable video 

coding (SVC), stereoscopic TV 

(also known as 3D TV), and 

hybrid broadcast-broadband TV 

(HBB TV). 

SVC uses segments to build 

picture quality according to the 

capabilities of the receiver, so 

avoiding the wasteful process of 

simulcasting. The concept has 

been successfully tested by transmitting 

SDTV plus a ‘top up’ 

signal to create HD, but the bit rate 

reduction compared to sending 

each separately was just 5%. 

However the tests used MPEG-2 

Adam Brodziak: Telewizja Polsat 

became the first to transmit HDTV 

with the 2008 World Cup football 

tournament in Germany and Austria 

Hall 3 

Booth C59 

pictures, and MPEG-4 may be able 

to do better. If so, SVC could be a 

nice idea for the painless evolution 

of 720p (progressive scan) or 1080i 

(interlace) to 1080p, he suggested. 

On the much-vaunted topic of 

3D TV, Wood pointed out that 

only the time-honoured anaglyph 

colour separation 3D TV is compatible 

with existing displays. 

Indeed time appeared to have 

stood still as he brandished a 

picture of a 1939 card viewer, 

followed by a virtually identical if 

marginally cleaner one manufactured 

some 60 years later. 

If 3D TV is to take off — and 

Wood didn’t sound desperately 

convinced that it would — other 

technologies would prevail, such 

as polarised glasses, active shuttered 

glasses or an autostereoscopic 

(no spectacles) lenticular 

screen. Popular for novelty cerealpacket 

animation cards in the late 

Fifties, lenticular screens have 

already been incorporated in 

digital signage displays from LG 

and others, using thousands of 

prismatic vertical strips to direct 

the correct image to the left and 

right eye. However the embryonic 

industry was presently mired in 

a multiplicity of systems and 

uncertainty over channel, STB and 

display compatibility, said Wood. 

Regarding HBB TV, Wood 

showed a slide of a Samsung TV 

in Japan where information from 


Scheduling & content lifecycle 

for linear & VOD broadcasters, 

Telco’s & Platform Operators 

MediaGeniX 


Making high 

definition work 


a custom website was rendered as 

an interactive menu alongside 

(or overlaid onto) an HD picture. 

With connections to both a 

broadcast feed and the internet 

(via wi-fi, mobile phone dongle or 

LAN), the set’s gallery offered a 

number of web-assisted selections 

including VoD. “Could this spell 

the end of interactive TV as we 

know it?” mused Wood. Others 

later told TVBEurope that openinternet 

spam and virus attacks 

remained a concern. 

Wood had his own ideas about 

inoculating broadcasts from 

unwanted effects, but applied 

to the more basic issue of HD 

picture integrity. Calling for 

‘Delivery Quality Immunisation’ 

(DQI), he urged broadcasters to 

provide higher quality pictures to 

overcome what he regarded as the 

“inevitably sub-optimal set-up” 

of substantial numbers of TV 

sets, whilst also future-proofing 

against new formats. Film had 

already proved the value of such 

added headroom, he said, as 

35mm footage from the 1960s is 

still suitable for today’s thenunimagined 

HD formats. 

“Audio is already capable of 

delivering more than the necessary 

15kHz or so threshold bandwidth, 

to make it difficult to mess 

Mediaset set on M-Tube 

By David Fox 

Mediaset has started work on a 

three-year backbone project, to 

take care of its HD production 

and distribution. It is installing 

more than 6,000km of dark fibre 

in one pipe (called M-Tube), to 

link all of its outposts throughout 

Italy. This will run at 

20Gbps between Milan and 

Rome, and 10Gbps elsewhere. It 

will be “the pivot of [Mediaset’s] 

future TV business development,” 

Marco Pellegrinato, Deputy 

Director, R&E, Videotime 

Mediaset Group, told the HD 

Masters conference. 

He predicts that the multimillion 

Euro investment will 

have “huge economic value, 

with a deep strategic impact 

for Mediaset” and “represent 

the infrastructural foundation 

for the modern multidelivering 

and multiplatform operation” 

that will be crucial for all of 

its production and broadcasting 

areas. 

There are many ways 

to maximise 

the performance 

of your schedule 

Sissela Andrén: “Whatever happened to 1080p/50? We should get 

high definition right, before getting distracted by 3D TV” 

It is currently building a 

Northern Loop, which should 

be finished by September and 

working a few months later. 

Production, corporate and engineering 

will have separate IP 

networks on M-Tube, in addition 

to the reserved space for contribution 

and distribution. “Each of 

the five parts of M-Tube is 

separate, so no one can override 

the bandwidth of the others,” 

explained Pellegrinato. It will link 

17 regional offices with three metropolitan 

fibre rings (one in Rome, 

two around Milan — one is 

already in place in each city) and 

three larger regional rings covering 

most of Italy. 

At the moment, Mediaset has 

four HD services, three upconverted 

free-to-air channels and 

one genuine, premium HD channel. 

It hopes to defend its analogue 

frequencies by replacing 

them with digital HD services 

rather than lose the frequencies 

during the analogue switch off 

up the sound,” said Wood. “Is 

there a case for video to do the 

same?” The ultimate answer was 

to produce and broadcast 

pictures in the 1080p format, he 

concluded, which offers a much 

more robust level of DQI than 

720p or 1080i. After broadcast 

compression, 1080p consumes 

25% more bandwidth and double 

(which already covers 30% of the 

population). It aims to have 35% 

of its service genuine HD by 2011 

(rather than upconverted), with 

60% genuine HD in primetime. 

“The changeover to HD is 

really a negative for broadcasters,” 

said Pellegrinato, especially 

as it is just one of several con- 

John Luff: A mobile TV service is due to start in the US on 

17 February next year using Qualcomm MediaFLO 

the set-top box (STB) memory of 

720p pictures, but uses the same 

bit rate as an equivalent 1080i 

sequence or perhaps less as interlace 

coding is not required, he 

claimed. “If STB costs are the 

same, it’s not a bad bargain to 

give viewers the world’s finest 

television quality with 1080p,” 

he exclaimed. 

Marco Pellegrinato: “The changeover to HD is a negative for broadcasters” 

current migrations (analogue to 

digital, 4:3 to 16:9, video to file, 

and broadcast to push VoD), all 

of which seem to be happening 

while trying to maintain previous 

systems and deal with all the 

variables (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, 

different production standards, 

and various audio choices). 

Hall 3 

Booth C59 

Ably fielding the traditional 

stats-fest conference segment was 

Vincent Létang, senior analyst at 

the Screen Digest consultancy. 

After three years, HD broadcasts 

are available everywhere in 

Europe, he said, and by the end of 

last year the number of unduplicated 

HD channels in western 

Europe was nearly 100 — a sharp 

rise from 35 the year before. 

Of 166 million TV households 

in Western Europe, 55 million have 

an HD-ready set, while 4.2 million 

are HD enabled, equating to just 

2.5%. However the average percentage 

of those actually watching 

HD is rather misleading, as a ‘Tale 

of Two Europes’ has emerged. 

France leads the pack with more 

than 6%, followed by Nordic countries 

with about 4.7% and the UK 

with just over 4%. States in southern 

Europe including Germany, 

Italy and especially Spain, are all 

lagging below the average. 

Spain and Germany are 

expected to start catching up as 

early as this year — Spanish public 

service broadcaster TVE is due 

to introduce HD DTT in 2009/10, 

and after digital switchover (DSO) 

in April next year, existing DTT 

channels will be given spectrum to 

go HD. There’ll also be a Frenchstyle 

HD tuner obligation for all 

TV sets with screens above 53cm. 

Thomson’s Dietrich Westerkamp, 

who is also HD TV Manager 

at DIGITALEUROPE (renamed 

from EICTA, the European 


Scheduling & content lifecycle 

for linear & VOD broadcasters, 

Telco’s & Platform Operators 

MediaGeniX 


Networking opportunity: Buffet lunch was sponsored by Sony and the evening drinks reception was hosted by IBC 

Making high 



Information & Communications 

Technology Industry Association 

in May) and Chairman of the 

German HDTV Working Group, 

later admitted that Germany’s 

current four HD channels offer 

limited choice, but confirmed that 

a major re-launch of HDTV will 

begin from the end of this year. 

RTL and Vox are due to 

launch HD simulcasts this 

autumn, with ARD/ZDF launching 

HD next February after a 

‘showcase’ service later this year. 

RTL has also signed up to satellite 

fleet operator Astra’s impending 

‘HD+’ platform using Nagra 

conditional access but free-to-air 

via the ‘no STB’ Common 

Interface Plus (CI+), while new 

Sky Deutschland (formerly 

Premiere) owner BSkyB has 

announced plans for five new HD 

channels. However debate on 

what to include on CI+ and even 

some details of the standard itself 

was not over, leading to ongoing 

uncertainty about HDTV on 

large cable networks. 

Meanwhile Adam Brodziak, 

technical director at Telewizja 

Polsat, told delegates that terrestrial 

TV viewing in Poland had 

seen a steady decline since 1996. 

Luk Overmeire: “We do think 

[1080p/50] is the best of both 

worlds and will become the standard” 

As Poland’s first commercial TV 

station, the company became the 

first to transmit HDTV with the 

2008 World Cup football tournament 

in Germany and Austria, 

and is currently the second largest 

broadcaster with 17% of the 

Polish TV market — now split 

fairly evenly between satellite, 

cable and terrestrial plus about 

1% telco IPTV. Most cable networks 

are still analogue with just 

500,000 on digital, but with 13 HD 

channels on satellite, Poland was 

punching above its weight in the 

European TV market, he claimed. 

By 2013 the number of HDenabled 

households in western 

Europe is predicted to grow 

more than tenfold to 45 million, 

said Létang, with Benelux countries 

boasting more than 45% of 

homes, closely followed by the 

Nordic region, while the UK 

and France will be level-pegging 

at about 37%, all above the new 

average of 27%. At this time 

more than half (52%) of all 

STBs sold will be HD-capable, 

compared to 30% last year. 

Interestingly, Létang claimed 

that while IPTV generated most 

of the initial demand for HD 

STBs, the market is becoming 

saturated. Consequently future 

growth in pay HD is expected to 

come from legacy satellite and 

cable subscribers upgrading. Pay 

TV will remain the principal 

driver of HDTV for the foreseeable 

future, dominated by satellite 

direct to home (DTH) delivery. 

However DTT is expected to start 

catching up after DSO. 

Not surprisingly in the light of 

its format victory over HD DVD, 

the Blu-ray Disc (BD) format is 

expected to gradually replace 

DVD, accounting for more than 

half of video disc sales in Western 

Europe by 2013. By this time 

some 16 million BD devices, half 

as standalone players, will exist in 

the UK alone. 

On the promising but uncertain 

question of 3D TV, Létang 

claimed that its success will 

depend on a unified delivery standard, 

which could see 401 million 

3D sets worldwide by 2015 (16%). 

However a prolonged and fragmented 

standardisation process 

could slash this expectation to 

85m, a mere 3% of all TV sets. 

Sissela Andrén, HD Coordinator, 

Swedish Television 

SVT, voiced concerns over maintaining 

quality. While pay TV 

must achieve high standards for 

obvious commercial reasons, 

there was a risk of a two-tier 

HDTV world emerging if public 

service broadcasters cut corners 

on cost grounds, either by using 

cheaper cameras, using lower bit 

rate archives to reduce storage 

costs, or up-converting SD. 

“Whatever happened to 

1080p/50? We should get HD 

right before getting distracted 

by 3D TV,” asserted Andrén, 

citing a ribald version of 

‘garbage in, garbage out’. She 

was not convinced by the Bluray 

Disc format in the long 

term, as the next generation 

wants to download — for which 

the industry must urgently 

develop new business models. 

While HDTV offers an ideal 

entertainment medium in terms of 

resolution and shape, conveying the 

‘film look’ is difficult for digital TV 

said Andrén, as coding random 

grain consumes valuable bandwidth. 

Later BBC Head of Technology 

Andy Quested confirmed this point 

with the definitive statement, “The 

BBC does not transmit grain.” If 

TV fails to deliver HD quality on 

dramas and sitcoms, HD may be 

reduced to a sports and concert 

format, she warned. 

NEW 

IBC 2009 

Stand 10.F28NEW 

Since Swedish HDTV broadcasts 

began in 2006, only 5% of 

viewers have taken it. However 

later this year will see a royal wedding 

in Sweden — the first to be 

shot and broadcast in HD — 

which seems likely to boost sales 

of HD iDTVs and STBs. 

According to Jean-Pierre 

Lacotte, chairman of the HD 

Forum in France, strong regulation 

had given the French market 

a firm direction while fostering 

healthy competition. From 1 December 

2008, the government 

mandated that all HD-ready sets 

must incorporate an HD tuner. 

From December, this will apply to 

all TV sets with a screen size 

above 66cm, and from December 

2012 to all TV sets and STBs. 

The average screen size is 

steadily rising, said Lacotte, 

predicting that the average projected 

size of 86cm this year will 

increase to 94cm by the end of 

2010. Within the ‘strategic segment’ 

of main household sets he 

expected corresponding average 

sizes of 101cm and 109cm 

respectively. Ten HD channels 

were already available on 

Canal+ satellite, 12 over cable, 

and five DTT simulcasts comprising 

three TF1 HD channels 

plus France 2 HD and M6 HD. 

Broadcasters have committed to 

75% HD content by 2010, while 

Lacotte also revealed that all 

six French internet service 

providers — who currently have 

6.2 million SD subscribers — 


Chris Johns: “If you can compress in a more efficient way, you can 

put more channels on a multiplex and recoup the costs” 


Making high 



plan to launch HD broadcast 

and VoD services over IPTV. 

On the technical front, all 

French DTT channels are compressed 

with the MPEG-4 AVC 

standard and already use statistical 

multiplexing (statmux) 

from 4-15Mbps within a total 

pool bit rate 21.9Mbps plus 64 

QAM modulation — both features 

destined for Freeview HD 

in the UK. Pictures are shown in 

both 1080i/25 x 1920 (16:9) and 

1080i/25 x 1440 (4:3), while the 

bit stream uses a dynamic and 

hierarchical Group of Pictures 

(GoP) structure of 32 frames in 

length, each containing four ‘P’ 

(predictive) images. The audio 

format for HD is either 5.1 

Dolby Digital Plus or 2.0 Dolby 

Digital Plus. 

Television Technology Consultant 

and SMPTE Fellow John 

Luff commented that while some 

may see HDTV promotion as 

being largely the duty of the 

consumer electronics supply 

chain, a huge impact had come 

from broadcasters competing for 

what he called ‘bragging rights’ 

about all the great HD programmes 

they were showing. This 

caused a virtuous circle, as the 

subsequent increase in viewer 

population then seeded genuine 

market growth. 

At the other end of the scale, 

Luff revealed that a mobile TV 

service is due to start in the US 

on 17 February next year using 

the Qualcomm MediaFLO 

system, with the contract due to 

be finalised in November. — 

Richard Dean 

Window of opportunity 

for 1080p/50 production 

Dream or reality? If broadcasters 

are to move to 1080p/50 production, 

they should start installing 

the necessary infrastructure now. 

EBU Project Manager Hans 

Hoffman believes that broadcasters 

need to invest now as “the 

window of opportunity is closing,” 

because once the current 

round of upgrades to HD are finished, 

investment cycles mean 

that it could be some time before 

there is an opportunity to 

upgrade further, particularly as 

the most important consideration 

is making the core infrastructure 

3Gbps-capable. 

As yet, very few European 

broadcasters have moved to 

all-HD production. In a survey 

last month by the EBU of 53 

broadcasters, just one of 37 who 

answered the question stated that 

it had migrated its production 

facility to HDTV. A further 20 

(54%) have partially migrated, 

while 12 (32%) plan to start in the 

next couple of years, and four 

(11%) currently have no plans, 

which means that there is still the 

opportunity to move direct to a 

1080p/50 infrastructure. 

Of the 29 that answered the 

question: “What production format 

do you use today for 

HDTV?”, only 1 uses 1080p/50 

for programme production; 22 

use 1080i/25, 12 use 720p/50 

and six use 1080p/24 or 25 for 

film-style production (obviously 

some broadcasters use more than 

one format). 

Two broadcasters are currently 

considering using 1080p/50 as 

their HD distribution format; 12 

use or plan to use 1080i/25, and 

16 use or plan to use 720p/50 (the 

format currently recommended as 

giving the best quality for the lowest 

bit rate by the EBU). 

“The production and emission 

formats do not have to be coupled,” 

said Hoffman. 1080p/50 

production works very well with 

720p/50 or 1080i/25 transmission. 

It will mean just one format to 

handle for production, and it can 

be easily down-converted to deliver 

multiple variations. If 1080p/50 

is used for transmission it “provides 

better quality at reasonable 

bit rates. You do not need higher 

bit rates than 1080i,” he stated. 

Indeed EBU testing has shown 

that you could get the same perceived 

quality at lower bit rates. 

BSkyB already has some 

1080p/50-ready infrastructure, 

but it is still complex technology, 

said Chris Johns, chief engineer, 

Broadcast Strategy, BSkyB and a 

member of the DTG group looking 

at 1080p/50. 

Besides the demands of higher 

data rates, there are “very few 

pieces of high-end kit that can 

be utilised now.” However, provided 

the costs of suitable 

equipment aren’t too high, he 

feels it might pay for itself. “If 

Karl Slavik: Surround sound is now accepted as ‘the prime sound at prime time’ 

© 2009 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved. 

Ellipse contribution encoders 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

Electra 8000 universal 

broadcast encoder 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

David Roth: Some 80% of all problems have been audio-related 

since the start of high definition broadcasting on 1 December 2007 

you can compress in a more efficient 

way, you can put more 

channels on a transponder or 

multiplex and recoup the costs 

that way.” Merely not having to 

produce in interlaced and then 

de-interlace and re-interlace will 

make it easier to deliver clean 

pictures to encoding. 

He wondered if companies 

will be willing to tear out their 

existing copper infrastructure 

and replace it with fibre. “I think 

not, until they have to.” Besides, 

“copper is still viable, but you 

have to look at reducing the number 

of interconnects and cable 

runs. In SD we can get 300m, with 

3G it is 140m.” Because cable 

lengths can be so critical, he 

recommends reducing the number 

of patch panels and going 

more directly between devices. 

However, “it starts to get a lot 

easier once you’ve done the acquisition”, 

thanks to being able to do 

non-realtime file transfers and the 

use of compression for contribution 

and distribution. 

“1080p/50 means there is no 

need for debate over which 

format is better for sport or drama. 

The tricky bit is how you 

make the business case for it,” 

said David Carr, Operations 

Director, Peel Media, which is 

currently building Media City 

UK in Manchester, where the 

BBC will have its main centre 

outside London. 

“We do think [1080p/50] is the 

best of both worlds and will 

become the standard, but it is 

not a priority yet,” said Luk 

Overmeire, Technology Expert, 

VRT MediaLab, which has 

chosen 720p/50 as its preferred 

format, but also uses 1080i/25. 

The main technological barriers 

to moving quickly to 1080p/50 

are the lack of suitable sensors on 

affordable cameras, issues with 


High Performance 

Contribution & Distribution 

Solutions 

ProView IRDs 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

�� 

IBC stand #1.C61 

www.harmonicinc.com 

www.tvbeurope.com AUGUST 2009 19

Making high 



Dolby E, switching, and synchronisation 

and timing (which a joint 

EBU/SMPTE taskforce has been 

set up to resolve). 

But, “the most worrying thing 

is the IT chain,” said Hoffman, 

where he believes that advancements 

like Panasonic’s AVC- 

Ultra could have a big impact, as 

there needs to be a 200+ Mbps Iframe 

codec in place to enable 

mainstream IT-based production. 

“We have too many compression 

formats, and we would like to see 

a limit,” maybe to two or three. 

There are also issues about the bit 

rate needed for contribution links 

and a need for suitable codecs. 

However, demand for 3G 

equipment is rising. About 30% 

of what Gennum sells now is 

already 3G. “All of our customers 

are very committed to 1080p/50 

and are making a 1080p version 

of everything they make,” said 

Nigel Seth-Smith, Gennum’s 

project definition specialist. 

Of course, there are also economic 

issues. “The price tag for 

any systems proposed has to be 

right,” said Hoffman, otherwise 

1080p/50 will have a negligible 

impact. Also, getting consumers 

to pay to upgrade for 1080p/50 

transmission might be a problem. 

“It has to look a lot better for the 

consumer to buy it,” said Johns. 

“If it is well made and if you 

have a big screen [at least 47 

inches diagonal], you can definitely 

show a difference, even at 

4H distance,” said Hoffman, but 

it will need a new set top box or 

receiver. He believes that the 

advent of 3-D TV services could 

also drive adoption of 1080p/50. 

— David Fox 

Audio: Overcoming 

challenges and complexities 

Insight into what makes for good 

programme audio and exploration 

of how well the industry is coping 

with the additional complexity of 

time constraints and limited budgets. 

Karl Slavik, Senior Consultant at 

Austrian audio consultancy 

Artecast and Dolby training partner, 

opened up the audio debate 

by declaring that surround sound 

is now accepted as the ‘prime 

sound at prime time’. For that 

matter he believed that the resolution 

of today’s HD pictures was 

about right. “The work on ultra 

high definition TV is very impressive, 

but perhaps the screens big 

In Daniella Nagler’s view HD’s true ‘coming of 

age’ will be marked by the 2012 London 

Olympics, combining a major international 

sporting event with the near-completion of 

digital switchover (DSO) for UK DTT 

enough for viewers to perceive 4k 

or 8k horizontal resolution may 

be too much in a 20sqm apartment,” 

he quipped. 

However some 88 years since 

film pioneers found a way to 

synchronise sound with moving 

pictures, the broadcasting industry 

had become all too adept at 

making one lag behind the other, 

leading to what he described as a 

“heavily disappointing experience 

at home.” Indeed along with 

Sara Hill of blue post: All the major genres discussed current installations 

and methods of maintaining production quality 

sudden jumps in loudness, asynchronous 

audio was the most 

common viewer complaint. The 

problem is of course due to the 

increasingly intensive — and in 

particular separate — processing 

of video and audio signals, but 

the first task was to define acceptable 

limits. 

According to EBU Technical 

Recommendation R37, the maximum 

deviation of audio during 

production is a mere 5ms ahead 

of video and 15ms behind, said 

Slavik, noting that nature has 

conditioned humans to more 

readily accept sound delay. For 

contribution, EBU Tech 3311 

specifies up to 40ms lead and 

60ms lag, while according to 

ITU-R BT.1359, the worst case 

for viewers at home should not 

exceed 90ms ahead or 185ms 

delay. Typical display latency 

when not driven in native format 

(matched pixel-to-pixel without 

image processing) is between 90 

to 180ms. 

The trick was to embed audio 

with video and/or match processing 

delays of one with the other. 

Special care must be taken when 

converting from 50Hz to 60Hz 

formats, he added, as both 

embedded AES/EBU audio and 

Dolby E are organised in units of 

one 40ms picture frame. Jason 

Power, director of Broadcast 

Systems at Dolby, later assured 

delegates that plug-ins were now 

available to simplify conversion. 

David Roth, engineering manager 

at HD Suisse, recalled when 

an announcement added to the 

centre channel at the start of a 

Dolby Digital 5.1 sequence was 

mysteriously missing from the 

broadcast at home, despite all the 

equipment apparently working 

perfectly. He then realised that the 

first two seconds after a transition 

from stereo are lost as the AV 

receiver switches on the additional 

speaker amplifiers. 

The moral of the story was 

don’t put anything important on 

surround channels just after the 

transition — or in the case of HD 

Suisse, start designing a new 

state-of-the-art digital audio control 

and automation system that 

allows 5.1 to be used all the time, 

even when the programme is 

stereo. This is not a trivial task, as 

at -18dB, the level of MPEG 

Audio is different from Dolby’s 

dialogue normalisation (dialnorm) 

reference level of -31dB — 

more than twice as loud in fact. 

The obligation to support 

the three main languages of 

Switzerland confronted HD 

Suisse with further audio complexity. 

Indeed perhaps unsurprisingly, 

Roth revealed that some 

80% of all problems had been 

audio-related since the start of 

HD broadcasting on 1 December 

2007. He described how Dolby E, 

the system for conveying multichannel 

audio across a stereo 

pair, can be used to carry multilingual 

stereo soundtracks with 

German on channels 1&2, French 

on 3&4, Italian on 5&6 and the 

original language (eg English) or 

ambience carried on 7&8. 

Running full 5.1 soundtracks 

for each language however 

requires at least 24 channels 

unless the ‘0.1’ LFE (low frequency 

effects) track is derived 

from others, while adding a stereo 

downmix brings the total to some 

32 channels of audio — all of 

which further justified investment 

in the company’s new digital 

audio system. 

Cross-fading two streams of 

Dolby E can also be problematic, 

as an unacceptable step change in 

volume occurs at the switchover 

between the two dialnorm levels. 

The new system at HD Suisse will 

prevent this by measuring the dialogue 

level at ingest, and centralising 

all Dolby metadata with a 

common reference of -31dB. 

Coupled with ‘brick wall’ limiters 

to suppress peaks, rigorous levelmatching 

and even the tailoring 

of dynamic range according to 

programme genre, Roth was convinced 

that the new system will 

deliver the sound worthy of HD 

with no nasty surprises for viewers, 

or indeed listeners. 



Making high 



Dolby’s Jason Power added 

that in the file-based world, 

metadata can be put aside during 

editing and then re-applied to a 

.wav file. Just as careful design of 

systems and workflows was essential 

to prevent loss of lip-sync, 

care must also be taken to keep 

metadata in step, as otherwise 

transitions to or from 5.1 and 2.0 

(stereo) could come early or late. 

“Broadcasters need to define 

default system behaviour if the 

metadata is lost,” said Power, later 

revealing that there’s actually a 

Bill before the US Congress to 

outlaw sudden level changes in 

TV audio. 

Candidly admitting that 

upgrading SD equipment could 

only be afforded within normal 

replacement cycles, Roth was 

nonetheless the first to put his 

head above the ‘HDSO’ parapet 

by declaring that the start of HD 

broadcasting for all main channels 

in 2012 will mark the end of 

the ‘HD Suisse’ brand, with the 

withdrawal of SD simulcasting 

likely in 2015. — Richard Dean 

Production: New techniques 

and processes 

The backdrop: Will there be any 

new SD installations or is HD now 

the only game in town? 

The HD Masters conference 

examined “where HD works and 

where HD works next,” as one of 

the organisers, Bob Sparks of the 

BKSTS put it in his introduction. 

Alongside current issues, such 

1080p50, the suitability of lowbudget 

HD cameras and spectrum 

availability, discussions 

ranged to include Super HD, 

Ultra HD, 3DHD and even cubic 

pixels. Garbage in, garbage out. It 

has always been an axiom in television 

that you need to start with 

the best pictures you can, because 

they are only going to get worse. 

“Headroom is vitally important. 

It’s the thing that allows programme 

makers to degrade their 

pictures before they send them to 

the public and still look very 

good,” said Andy Quested, Head 

of Technology, BBC HD. 

Unfortunately, “quality drops at 

each stage of post production.” 

BBC HD transmits using 

MPEG-4 at 16Mbps and some 

things are easy to encode, such as 

Emerging 

From The Storm 

In a sea of uncertainty... 

precision, innovation and 

execution are the difference 

between those who break up 

and those who break through. 

Winning teams are weathering 

these rough storms and emerging 

stronger, smarter and better 

positioned to harness the winds 

of change and accelerate 

�� 

Leading media and broadcast 

companies choose ScheduALL for its 

ability to maximise resource utilisation, 

�� 

greater top line growth than ever before. 

+44 207 636 0707 

www.scheduall.com/ibc.aspx 

Miami | London | Los Angeles 

IBC Stand 1.B39 

Walter Demonte: WDR did a side-by-side comparison of Super16 against Sony’s F23, the Arri D21 and the Red One 

drama, while others, such as sport 

are a lot more difficult. 

In tests, at 5Mbps, the progressive 

stuff still stands up to 

scrutiny, although it’s getting a bit 

noisy, he explained. “As speed 

changes, the effect of the codec 

changes.” Codecs work differently, 

so that Dirac may produce watchable 

pictures at rates that AVC 

doesn’t, and the various codecs 

are improving all the time. He 

believes that within ten years, 

viewable HD pictures at 2Mbps 

will be possible. 

Camera codecs also matter, 

although whether they are suitable 

for HD transmission can 

depend on how they are used. 

The BBC has done trials with 

Sony’s 35Mbps EX1, and found 

that if the scene is well lit it 

“stands up pretty well for transmission, 

but in darker shots it 

breaks up,” he said. 

“For factual programming we 

will need small cameras. 

Unfortunately, you get a good 

camera and you get a good 

recorder, but you never get them 

in the same box. It’s pointless 

building a camera with a low bit 

rate that you can’t grade.” 

Picking the best camera for 

HD has also been a concern for 

Germany’s WDR, although it 

wanted something at the other 

end of the scale. It recently did 

a lot of camera testing for HD 

production. Its drama producers 

wanted to stick with film, 

but it has found that 16mm is 

suitable only if everything is 

optimal, and you use the best 

technology, “otherwise you lose 

quality,” said Walter Demonte, 

head of WDR’s camera and 

sound department. 

It did a side-by-side comparison 

of Super16 (Kodak Vision 3 

stock), against Sony’s F23, the 

Arri D21 (recording to HDCAM 

SR) and the Red One (recording 

to Compact Flash storage). All 

the digital cameras exhibited a lot 

less noise than film, and had a lot 

of headroom for colour correction. 

It chose the D21, “because 

it’s a real 35mm film camera at the 

front,” giving the most film-like 

look (thanks to its 35mm depth of 

field) and had “no disadvantages 

in comparison to film”. WDR 

Jean-Pierre Lacotte revealed that all six French 

internet service providers – who currently have 

6.2m SD subscribers – plan to launch HD broadcast 

and VoD services over IPTV 

didn’t feel that lower-level 

cameras, such as the HDCAM 

HDW-750 (which it tested using 

Digi-Primes and the Pro 35 adaptor), 

had sufficient dynamic range 

or good enough picture quality 

for HD drama production. 

The F23 was dismissed, in 

part, because it was too big. The 

D21 is also large, which makes 

Steadicam operation difficult, 

especially recording to an 

HDCAM SR deck (which is used 

for a secure workflow — WDR is 

nervous of losing any media). 

He believes that the Red One is 

a better fit for independents, as it 

doesn’t fit easily into a broadcast 

workflow, although it did produce 

excellent pictures. 

However, Demonte did hold 

out hope for S16 production, 

thanks to Arri’s new “very 

good” film degraining technology. 

In production, with the 

D21, WDR created dailies on set 

using XDCAM media. However, 

this resulted in problems for 

grading, so in future it will produce 

dailies in post. Not having 

the cost of film processing 

helped offset the higher cost of 

the digital camera equipment. 

“Sensitivity is still a problem 

with single-chip cameras, but for 

drama you don’t want a high sensitivity 

camera that causes you to 

stop the lens down and therefore 

limit the depth of field.” WDR 

used the D21 up to 500 ISO. 

OBs were the first mainstream 

programmes to move to HD, 

but there were a lot of problems 

to overcome on the way, said 

Ronald Meyvisch, technical and 

operations manager, Outside 

Broadcast. The first problem with 

HD was that “none of the ways of 

monitoring were very good.” 



High definition environment: Freeview HD’s initial channel bit rate of 12Mbps will drop to 

around 9Mbps after DSO, as modulation switches from 16QAM to 64QAM 

Making high 



Watching the image on CRT 

Grade 1 monitors meant 20-inch 

models that were “heavy and 

expensive”, while 12-inch CRTs 

were not full HD resolution. 

Plasma screens and computer 

monitors also had problems. The 

simplest and cheapest way to view 

was on SD monitors, but the 

quality was poor. 

dolby.com/professional 

Dolby and the double-D symbol are registered trademarks of 

Dolby Laboratories. All other trademarks remain the property 

of their respective owners. © 2009 Dolby Laboratories, Inc. 

All rights reserved. W09/21634 

There were also problems 

with cabling: A limit of 80m on 

a coax cable run and the need to 

reclock signals; fibre was an 

improvement, but also had 

issues. For example, Dutch rolls 

don’t work with fibre. There was 

also a need to remain compatible 

with both 16:9 and 4:3 SD, 

which meant installing a lot of 

down-converters and aspect 

ratio converters. Lipsync was 

also a problem, and required 

embedded audio. Even today, 

Meyvisch advises always to 

perform an end-to-end test with 

a clapperboard. 

The need to simulcast 

required double the hardware 

and a complex set up, “which is 

something to keep in mind the 

moment we start talking about 

3D.” While most of the problems 

have been solved, at least 

partly, there are still some matters 

to watch out for, such as a 

lack of light, as gain can generate 

more noise in HD, causing 

problems for encoding. 

There is still a lack of small 

cameras capable of full HD. He 

recommends that they should 

have at least three 2MP sensors to 

provide full resolution pictures, 

and that HDV cameras should 

not be used in multicamera setups 

as their lack of quality will be 

too obvious. 

There are also problems with 

special purpose mini cameras, as 

most don’t have a monitor output 

so that someone can frame a shot 

on location. 

Beijing was the first Olympics 

to be covered entirely in HD, 

offering more than 5,000 hours of 

TV of 28 sports from 38 competition 

venues. The IOC has now 

established its own Olympics 

Host Broadcaster (OBS), which 

will cover the Winter Olympics in 

Vancouver in 2010 and the 

London games in 2012. 

While the games are on, the 

host broadcaster, and its international 

broadcasting centre, is 

the world’s biggest broadcaster. 

The Beijing games were shot in 

1080i/25, from which 16:9 and 

4:3 SD services were derived. 

There were also 5.1 and stereo 

audio mixes for TV and a separate 

mix for radio. 

The IBC covered some 

55,000sqm of floor space (and 

will be about the same again in 

London for 2012), with 807km of 

broadcast cables, and using some 

24MW of “utterly resilient” power. 

There were 91 host venue feeds 

(some venues needed multiple 

feeds), with more than 40 feeds 

Intriguingly, Greg Bensberg said that a fifth slot may become available under 

the current HD allocation scheme in 2013 after DSO has been completed 

The Next Step in Audio for HD Broadcast 

Dolby Digital Plus is the sound of high-definition broadcast, delivering a fuller, richer, 

more immersive entertainment experience. That’s because, within a single audio stream, 

Dolby Digital Plus can deliver full surround sound and stereo sound, while its industry standard 

metadata provides unparalleled control for the broadcaster or operator, ensuring consistent, 

reliable and scalable high-definition audio over terrestrial, satellite, cable, IP or online. 

To find out more, visit us at IBC 2009, September 11-15, RAI Convention Center, Amsterdam, Booth 2.B28 


distributed to clients. As an antipiracy 

measure, these feeds used 

video fingerprinting, and were 

also delivered at four different 

bitrates for new media. 

The video contribution network 

used one fibre per video 

stream, and was “highly resilient.” 

Except for the outlying venues, 

such as football from Hong Kong, 

all the feeds were delivered uncompressed 

to the IBC. 

The EBU had seven STM-4 

streams (at 620Mbps each) 

delivered to Europe. The BBC 

transmitted anything live with 

5.1 surround sound, but discarded 

the LFE signal for anything 

recorded, while any edited 

material went out in stereo 

“because, with eight audio 

channels, there was no room 

for commentary,” explained 

Paul Mason, Head, Olympic 

Broadcasting Services London 

(who was responsible for the 

BBC transmissions last year). 

There are currently 102 companies 

with 212 HD OB vans in 

Europe, and Reinhard Penzel, 

Principal, Jetzt, predicts that 

about 100 more HD OB trucks 

will arrive by the end of 2012. In 

his research into the European 

market, he also found that there 

are some 48 HD flyaway packs 

available, and these will be used 

extensively for the 2010 World 

Cup, as it would be more difficult 

to transport vans to South 

Africa, the HBS has opted to 

use flyaways. 

About 30 new HD trucks are 

being built every year in Europe. 

On average, OB companies are 

doing five live HD productions in 

Europe on any day, although this 

peaks at the weekend. 

There are currently 32 dedicated 

HD sports channels in 

Europe (out of 165 HD channels 

in total), although other HD 

channels sometimes cover sports 

too. The UK has the most HD 

channels (36), followed by the 

Nordic countries (20), France 

(18), Poland (17), Italy and 

Russia (10 each), and Portugal 

and the BeNeLux countries (9 

each), although no country has 

more than four dedicated HD 

sports channels. 

For specialist cameras, Penzel 

said that there is now a greater 

choice in HD than in SD, as the 

ultra-motion cameras were not 

used in SD. 

“The economics of our industry 

are particularly challenged 

this year. The broadcast industry 

worldwide is a $20-$40 billion 

industry, similar to the printer 

business for Hewlett-Packard, so 

it is a very small industry,” said 

John Luff, HD Consultant, and 

SMPTE Fellow 

“The merging of IT and conventional 

television approaches 

is the important dream behind 

the development of future 

technology. One of the most 

important drivers in our industry 

is using consumer electronic 

products as the basis for professional 

products.” 

Because broadcast products 

are now largely IT and consumer 

technology based, obsolescence 

happens more rapidly, prices 

are lowering significantly, but we 

are seeing an increased cost of 

maintenance (including replacement 

cycles) and the need to 

hire more IT engineers. There 

is also an increased need for 

training and education, he said. 

— David Fox 

Regulation: Spectrum 

usage and business 

strategies 

Understanding specifications for 

HD; DVB-T2 HD deployment; 

Transmission compression update; 

HD delivery options – what are the 

challenges ahead? 

Learning from the lessons of 

Freeview SD — now watched in 

17.7m UK homes — Simon 

Gauntlett, Technology Director 

at the Digital TV Group (DTG) 

said that all DTT HD receiving 

equipment will be subjected to a 

comprehensive test and conformance 

regime to rigorously 

enforce the ‘D-Book 6’ HD specifications 

published in March. 

“We are aiming to bring the high 

levels of compliance characterised 

by low volume proprietary 

vertical markets to the high 

volume open standard horizontal 

market in Freeview HD equipment,” 

he said. 

BBC Head of Distribution 

Technology Graham Plumb said 

that five major transmission sites 

— including the UK’s most powerful 

at Crystal Palace, London — 

have now been earmarked for 

early conversion to transmit the 


www.tvbeurope.com AUGUST 2009 25

Making high 



three HD channels scheduled for 

launch by the end of this year, 

comprising a ‘Best of’ channel 

from the BBC plus evening simulcasts 

from ITV and Channel 4, 

with the Welsh language S4C for 

viewers in Wales. 

Each mast will need to have 

new MPEG-4 AVC H.264 

compression and (currently 

unavailable) DVB-T2 transmission 

equipment installed, 

while existing MPEG-2/DVB-T 

channels will be moved from 

the HD-designated Multiplex B, 

one of the six granted to 

Freeview at launch in 1998. 

Viewers will need a new box to 

watch HD, and existing viewers 

in affected regions will have to 

re-tune. 

The upshot was that some 

40% to 50% of the population 

could have access to highlights 

from the FIFA World Cup in 

South Africa from 11 June to 

11 July 2010 on Freeview HD, 

claimed Plumb. The accelerated 

roll-out follows evidence that 

the new compression and transmission 

standards yield overall 

bandwidth savings of 50% 

compared to the 30% predicted, 

said Greg Bensberg, Principal 

Advisor for Broadcasting 

at Ofcom. 

According to Bensberg, the 

proposed evening HD simulcast 

from broadcaster Five — approved 

by Ofcom this February in favour 

of proposals for Film 4 HD in the 

evening and S4C kids’ programming 

in the morning — could now 

become available in some regions 

by the end of 2010 “at the latest”. 

Intriguingly Bensberg said that 

a fifth slot may become available 

under the current HD allocation 

scheme in 2013 after DSO has 

been completed, leading many to 

speculate that were BBC2 to make 

a successful bid, all of the traditional 

analogue stalwarts could 

soon be up on Freeview HD. 

Broadcasters would of course 

be able to apply for further HD 

bandwidth under the normal 

bidding process, Bensberg added, 

leaving many to wonder who 

would be able to afford it. 

However he saw “no objection” 

to MPEG-4 being used for other 

services such as night-time 

downloads of SD material to 

PVRs for example. 

Rainer Schaefer, Head of TV 

Production Systems at standards 

experts IRT, explained that 

exhaustive test sequences had 

been run on several codecs using 

MPEG-4 AVC H.264 — the 

compression standard being 

adopted for Freeview HD and 

most new HD services worldwide 

— to establish the bit rates 

at which pictures would appear 

indistinguishable from a reference 

HD MPEG-2 codec operating 

at some 24Mbps. MPEG-4 

picture quality was “generally 

better” even at half the bit rate, 

he observed. 

Averaged results revealed an 

optimum target bit rate of 

10.5Mbps for 720p/25 pictures 

(containing 720 lines scanned 

progressively at 25fps), 12.8Mbps 

for 1080i/25 (1080 lines with 

“The five point 3D plan: early clarity on Blu-ray 

3D format; showing of 3D movies on cable, 

satellite and online; sustained commitment to 

3D movie production; made-for-TV productions; 

and dual HD/3D-ready TV sets” — John Bird 

each frame containing two 

interlaced fields), and 12.1Mbps 

for 1080i/25 shown in a traditional 

4:3 aspect ratio rather than HD’s 

normal 16:9 widescreen format 

(1080 x 1440 pixels instead of 

1080 x 1920). 

1080i/25 is of course the format 

selected for Freeview HD 

picture format, and in wasn’t 

long before a question from the 

floor challenged the platform’s 

bit rate in the light of the IRT 

findings. Greg Bensberg admitted 

that Freeview HD’s initial 

channel bit rate of 12Mbps will 

drop to around 9Mbps after 

DSO, as modulation switches 

Vittoria Mignone, RAI Research Centre: “From a technical point 

of view, Super Hi-Vision would be suitable for direct to home” 

Dr Yoshiaki Shishikui: “Super Hi-Vision is not just a dream, 

but a real television system for the future” 

from 16QAM to 64QAM in the 

light of higher digital transmission 

power. 

However the introduction of 

statmux will make better use of 

the multiplex bandwidth, claimed 

Bensberg, while the increasing use 

of progressively-scanned material 

(1080p/25) for transmission — 

apparently already favoured by 

the BBC — will cut out the ‘interlacing 

overhead’ hence reducing 

each channel’s native bit rate. — 

Richard Dean 

Special Feature: 

Super Hi-Vision 

Mastering the future: Review of 

Super Hi-Vision demos from 

IBC2008 and NAB2009; satellite 

transmission tests for SHV; IP 

transmission tests for SHV. 

“Isn’t HD enough?”, asked David 

Wood, chair of the European HD 

Forum. Well, obviously not for 

NHK, the BBC, IRT, RAI and 

the EBU, who formed the 

Broadcast Technology Futures 

Group in 2007, and took part 

in last year’s test of Super 

Hi-Vision transmissions at IBC. 

The results of which were discussed 

in an interesting session at 

HD Masters. 

“Super Hi-Vision is not just a 

dream, but a real television system 

for the future,” said NHK’s 

Dr Yoshiaki Shishikui. With a 

resolution of 7680x4320, it is 16 

times the resolution of HDTV, 

and has a native data rate 

24Gbps. However, the experiment 

at IBC last year, and developments 

shown recently at 

NAB, demonstrate that the most 

optimistic prediction that it 

could be viable for transmission 

to the home in 15 years could 

come true. 

Last year’s London transmission 

was treated like a proper 

OB, explained Dr John 

Zubrzycki, Portfolio Manager, 

BBC Research and Development. 

Video was converted to 

16 HDTV streams, then a single 

640mbps IP stream for transmission 

(using MPEG-2). To aid 

co-ordination, there were also 

HD cameras and audio connections 

at each end, using a 

10Mbps link. There were also 

18 microphones to capture surround 

sound. 

The transmission used redundant 

paths (except for 1,500m 

in Amsterdam), but there were 

no failures. The demonstration 

also used Dirac SHV coding at 

128Mbps, but Zubrzycki hopes 

that it can be reduced to 

70Mbps, to get it onto a single 

transponder. 

For the satellite feed from 

Turin, RAI split the signal to 

two transponders at 70Mbps 

each, so it could be received 

by domestic dishes. It used 

MPEG-4 and DVB-S2, “because 

it is very efficient and makes best 

use of the satellite capacity. 

From a technical point of view, 

SHV would be suitable for direct 

to home,” said Vittoria 

Mignone, RAI Rearch Centre. 

RAI had about eight minutes 

of SHV video stored in Turin, 

which it transmitted via two 

36MHz Eutelsat transponders for 

the test. “SHV is very demanding 

for transmission, especially for 

broadcasting. The reception part 

must be very simplified and limited 

to 140Mbps,” she said. 

Because Ku band is almost 

completely occupied, it is necessary 

to move to Ka, where DVB- 

S2 allows multi-spot coverage. 

“For broadband, we have a large 

capacity available, but we need 

a large investment. Terrestrial 

DVB-T2 is now a reality, but 

that allows no more than 

40Mbps per channel, but we 

could get 4k TV (one quarter 

SHV) on a single channel.” 

SHV was displayed more 

recently at NAB, where a 

number of improvements were 

demonstrated. There is a new 

SHV camera, with higher sensitivity 

8.9 megapixel 1.25-inch 

sensors (four of them — R, G1, 

G2 and B), and two new lenses 

(a wide-angle and a 10x zoom). 

NHK and NTT have collaborated 

on new video coding based on 



Making high 



H.264, giving scalable encoding 

and decoding, that can deliver 

SHV, 4k, HDTV and to mobiles. 

The demonstration used new 

16-wavelength optical multiplex- 

ing transmission equipment to 

send the images from the Las 

Vegas Strip to NAB. 

In development there is a new 

33MP sensor, that can capture 

colour pictures at 60Hz progressive, 

and NHK Executive Research 

Engineer, Dr Yuji Nojiri, hopes to 

have a full-resolution prototype 

camera, with three such sensors, 

working by 2010. It will have an 

optical transmitter at 72gbps, 

which enables the camera to be 

more than 1km from the CCU 

using a single fibre cable. 

Build the solution you want. 

In a May survey by the EBU of 53 broadcasters, 

just one of 37 who answered the question stated 

that it had migrated its production facility to 

HDTV. A further 20 (54%) have partially migrated 

A new full-resolution projector, 

replacing the existing pair of 

stacked projectors, make it a lot 

easier to set up. There are also 

Flexible, scalable video processing and 

transport across any network. 

Format conversion, synchronizing, embedding and de-embedding routing, JPEG 2000 compression, multiplexing, 

signal aggregation. These are just a few of the Nevion building blocks supporting content acquisition, 

��. 

�� 

video transport for any network. 

That’s why the world’s leading broadcasters and service providers choose Nevion for customized, cost-effective 

�� 

creating new solutions that integrate multiple protocols. 

��—is controlled by a monitoring and management 

system that puts you in charge of your assets. 

Tell us what you have in mind. We’ll be building together in no time. +47 33 48 99 99 

�� 

Flashlink — Broadcast solutions � Ventura — �� VikinX — Routing solutions 

�� 

�� Europe and Africa � Middle East 

new high dynamic range projectors, 

with 8MP per signal. NHK 

hopes that 2010 will be the first 

year of full-resolution SHV, as it 

will be the 80th anniversary of its 

R&D Lab. 

Zubrzycki believes there will 

be a lot of use for SHV for special 

events over the next 10-15 

years, before services to home 

become practical. “We must 

think of it now if we want it in 

the future,” added Mignone. “If 

we start with 4k we may create 

the need for 8k.” 

NHK’s aim is to have an SHV 

broadcast service in 20-25 years, 

said Shishikui, who hoped it 

could be launched in time to 

mark the 100th anniversary of 

Japanese broadcasting in 2025. 

Nojiri would like to see SHV 

become a broadcast reality within 

15 years. 

Higher resolution won’t look 

as good without higher frame 

rates, Richard Salmon, Senior 

Research Engineer, BBC 

Research, told the conference, but 

since TV frame rates were chosen, 

some 70 years ago, nobody has 

thought much about them. That’s 

because 50Hz and 60Hz were 

good matches for SD pictures. 

However, in an era of much larger 

screens, flicker has become 

more apparent, with a loss of 

detail evident in moving objects. 

If you use a shorter shutter 

interval you introduce temporal 

aliasing, resulting in spoked 

wheels revolving backwards. 

In cinema, you use a slower 

pan to avoid motion problems, 

“but for sport you have to follow 

the ball at whatever speed it goes, 

which causes problems in HD. In 

HD, the dynamic image is blurred 

and, in fact, is no better than in 

standard definition.” 

Some years ago, the BBC proposed 

80fps for HD, because stationary 

HD pictures were so sharp 

compared to movement that the 

difference lead to a feeling of nausea. 

“That was solved by reducing 

aperture correction to reduce the 

difference between static and 

dynamic, and increasing the shutter 

rate,” explained Salmon. “The 

higher the static resolution, the 

higher the dynamic resolution 

must be for comfortable and lifelike 

images.” 

Today, there are 100Hz and 

120Hz upconverting displays, and 

higher rates are being introduced. 

It solves the problem of flickering 

and display smear. “It is done 

purely to mitigate the problems of 

LCD displays. It has nothing to 

do with improving the TV system 

as a whole, but it means displays 

could accommodate higher frame 

rates.” If SD is acceptable at 

50Hz, then full HDTV needs 

150Hz, and “as resolution 

increases, we probably want at 

least 300Hz.” 

However, moving to higher 

frame rate production is not an 

easy evolution. “It’s a revolution 

and something to be incorporated 



Making high 



in a future TV system. 300Hz 

would be a very good mastering 

format for the Olympics, for 

example, because it is easy to 

make 60 and 50Hz versions.” It 

is also compatible with mains 

frequencies. However, it would 

lead to shorter exposures for 

each frame (and sensitivity 

issues) and a loss of the film 

look. There are certainly 

improvements visible in a move 

to 100 or 120Hz production (as 

Salmon demonstrated in one of 

the exhibits at HD Masters). 

The good news is that “high 

frame rates should be easier to 

compress, because there are 

smaller differences between 

frames and each frame is sharper, 

so motion is easier to predict, and 

you get rid of temporal aliasing, 

so it is clearer. Compression can 

be more efficient if there are 150 

frames in a GoP. 

“As each frame is so similar 

to the next one, it is easier to 

remove noise, and the eye doesn’t 

notice random noise at 

higher frame rates. As you 

increase the sampling rate, you 

can go to lower bit rates.” 

A further advantage is that, in 

post, you can filter out flashes 

from flash photography. 

There is further work to do, 

especially regarding compression 

and the visibility of noise, and they 

don’t yet know how much more 

bandwidth will be needed. More 

details are available in a BBC 

Research white paper (WHP169 — 

available at bbc.co.uk/rd), and the 

Peter Angell (right): “There’s no way we can reduce the number of cameras if we want credible live 3D TV” 

BBC is doing some work with 

NHK Research on this. 

In the meantime, a quick 

improvement to HD would be “to 

ditch interlaced at the first opportunity,” 

said Salmon. “Interlace is 

just harder to compress, harder to 

do everything with. You can compress 

progressive so much more 

easily than interlaced. Interlace is 

a compression system for the analogue 

world.”— David Fox 

Consumer Perspective: 

New services and 3D 

Exclusive insight into BSkyB trials of 

3D in broadcasting; the co-existence 

of HD and 3D; The great 3D 

debate – is 3D the next HD? 

John Bird of the Future Source 

Consultancy reminded delegates 

that 3D is not a new idea. The 

first patent for 3D film processing 

was granted in 1898, with The 

Power of Love emerging as the 

first commercially released 3D 

movie in 1922. After years in the 

wilderness the concept was now 

quite literally back in the public 

eye, he insisted, with 41 million adult 

US cinemagoers (16% of the market) 

watching a 3D film last year. 

Some 30% of the 8,700 Dcinemas 

worldwide were 3D enabled, 

he claimed. However nearly half 

(48%) of the Hollywood studios’ 

income now comes from home 

video — could 3D TV versions 

attract a price premium? Research 

suggested that 50% of TV viewers 

would be prepared to pay more 

for a 3D set, said Bird, although 

how much and for what type of 

3D was not revealed. While 

today’s sub-US$20 polarising 

spectacles were a useful transitional 

tool that escaped the cost 

and complexity of shuttered 

glasses, he believed that these were 

not acceptable in the long term. 

The ultimate answer was an 

autostereoscopic technology, but 

he conceded that this could take at 

least five years to achieve the high 

quality and low costs required for 

a mass market. The obstacles were 

a lack of standards with competing 

distribution and display 

formats, compounded by the allpervading 

economic downturn. 

Route and Send Your DVI Farther . . . With Light Solutions from MultiDyne 

With the MultiDyne DVI-6000 fiber optic transport link, 

easily connect your video walls and control rooms with 

remote video processing equipment, while maintaining 

the highest video quality. 

Transporting DVI-I, RGB-HV and DVI-D signals up to 

WQXGA 2560 x 1600 over a single fiber, the MultiDyne 

DVI-6000 converts all formats to a 3.75Gb/s or optional 

SMPTE-compliant 3Gb/s optical and electrical data 

streams. The DVI-6000 supports high-quality distribution 

through a standard 3Gb/s router, including the MultiDyne 

EOS-4000 Series Electro-Optical Routing Switcher. 

MultiDyne offers you more ways to send your video 

farther. Learn more about the range of interoperable, 

future-proof light solutions from MultiDyne by calling 

+1.516.299.8880, or visiting www.multidyne.com/TVBE. 

See our latest solutions at IBC Stand #2.A54 

Fiber Optics � Routing Switchers � Distribution Amplifiers � Test & ID Generators 

Bird unveiled a five point 

plan for a successful 3D TV rollout 

– early clarity on a Blu-ray 

3D format, the showing of 3D 

movies on cable, satellite and 

online, sustained commitment to 

3D movie production and conversion 

of classics, made-for-TV 

productions from 2011, and dual 

HD/3D-ready TV sets. If all 

went well, and he admitted it 

was a big if, take-up in the UK 

could reach between 6-12% in 

the UK and up to 45% in the US 

by 2014. In any event 3D TV 

must be seen as a long term project, 

he cautioned. 

Bravely entering the lion’s 

den of 3D TV at HD Masters — 

which for anybody doubting the 

connection relies on HD to 

obtain sufficient resolution — 

was Chris Johns, Chief Engineer 

for Broadcast Strategy at BSkyB. 

A mixed programme of 16Mbps 

variable bit rate (VBR) content 

sent via a secure test channel from 

BSkyB in Osterley was on display 

at the conference, received via a 

standard Astra dish on the new 

£5,000 46-inch 3D TV set from 

JVC. Prior to transmission the 

left and right images were 

“For factual programming we will need small 

cameras. Unfortunately, you get a good camera 

and you get a good recorder, but you never get 

them in the same box” — Andy Quested, BBC 

anamorphically squeezed sideby-side 

into the same picture. In 

the set, images are expanded to 

full width and overlaid on the 

screen, with an opposing polarisation 

(matching the viewer’s 

polarised spectacle lenses) 

applied to each. 

Johns pointed out that the 

more than 1m Sky HD STBs 

currently deployed, and all the 

other links in the chain except 

the viewer’s existing TV, were 

compatible. Hollywood is pouring 

millions of dollars into 3D 

movies with more than 40 

currently in production, he said, 

while cinemagoers seem prepared 

to pay £3 to £4 more to 

watch them — so it was only 

right that options for 3D TV 

should be explored. 

Freely admitting that BSkyB 

was still learning about 3D TV 

production, Johns noted that 

current camera rigs were rather 

bulky. Whether using a teleprompter-style 

beam-splitting 

mirror with one camera mounted 

vertically, or two cameras mounted 

side-by-side, rigs could perhaps 

occupy five otherwise revenuegenerating 

seats at a sport stadium. 

However he suggested that the 

edit cut rate and hence the number 

of cameras could be reduced 

to enable the viewer to ‘linger 

longer’ and explore each scene, an 

argument reminiscent of that 

used for early HD coverage. It 

was also possible to fool the eye to 

thinking that narrow depth of 



Making high 



field 2D shots were 3D if skilfully 

intercut with ‘real’ 3D. 

However Peter Angell, who 

produced both the 2002 FIFA 

World Cup in Korea and Japan 

and the first all-HD 2006 FIFA 

World Cup in Germany and 

Austria, and is now Director of 

Production and Programming at 

Host Broadcast Services including 

its 3D production arm, could 

hardly disagree more. “For the 

World Cup in 2006 we used 18 

cameras per match,” he said, 

“but some 31 will be deployed for 

each game in 2010. There’s no 

way we can reduce the number of 

cameras if we want credible live 

3D TV.” 

It is estimated that 6% to 10% of 

the population cannot perceive 3D 

via mechanical means, while some 

question whether the brain will ever 

be capable of believing the presence 

of depth while being required to 

focus on a single plane for anything 

more than short periods. 

John Zubrzycki of BBC R&D 

(now back with its original name 

after a period as Research & 

Innovation) said that minimising 

the occurrence of objects out in 

front of the screen helps reduce 

eye strain. He also recalled the 

now-defunct ‘multiview’ project 

with Philips, in which parallax 

was added between overlaid displays 

to create genuine separation 

between front and back. 

Ex-Sony and Snell & Wilcox 

HD guru Peter Wilson, now 

Director at High Definition & 

Digital Cinema Ltd, said that 

while movie makers could spend 

time optimising images in post, 

live 3D TV events ran the risk of 

inducing nausea. “During live 3D 

production it’s likely that viewers 

will inadvertently be presented 

with images requiring their eyes 

to diverge, or for one to look up 

while the other looks down, neither 

of which is a comfortable 

experience,” he said. 

Another risk was ‘giantism’, 

caused by the use of long lenses 

converging at too high an angle. 

“The brain attempts to resolve 

pictures apparently viewed by a 

giant being, leading to the 

impression that a bunch of 

dwarves are running around 

the sports field,” said Wilson. 

“Given that long lenses are a 

staple of sports, a whole new 

grammar will need to be developed 

for 3D coverage.” 

A point of consensus was 

reached when the panel agreed 

that nobody expected all TV to be 

3D all of the time. However 3D 

TV’s position as a ‘new services’ 

A mixed programme of 16Mbps VBR content sent via secure test channel from BSkyB was on display at 

HD Masters, received via standard Astra dish on the new £5,000 JVC 46-inch 3D TV set 

topic — and its place on the HD 

Masters agenda — now seems 

assured. “There’s a bit of a bun 

fight currently going on between 

patent holders, who all believe 

they will be the next Dolby earning 

generous licence fees,” said 

Wilson. “But there’s no doubt 

that studios are now anxious to 

set proper 3D production standards 

via SMPTE.” Further 

investment was also needed from 

the consumer electronics industry, 

added Angell. 

Wrapping up the most successful 

HD Masters conference 

yet, John Luff concluded that 

viewers were voting with their 

feet on HDTV equipment, 

HD production had now 

reached a critical mass, and a 

commitment to HD broadcasting 

at some point was now 

almost ubiquitous worldwide. 

Television facilities are now 

installing 3Gbps (1080p) infrastructure 

as replacement cycles 

come around, paving the way for 

a transition to the file-based 

workflow of today’s SD. 

Tantalising developments lay 

on the horizon, with the SHV 

(Super Hi-Vision) format proposed 

by NHK of Japan, the BBC, 

and Italy’s RAI promising to give 

viewers a ‘clear window’ media 

experience with four times HD’s 

resolution and 22.2 audio channels. 

In the meanwhile, both 3D 

TV and Blu-ray offer important 

new avenues for today’s HDTV, he 

concluded. — Richard Dean 



3D: If we build it, will they come? 

HD and 3D 

IS 3D TV a realistic goal or will it be a tiny 

niche activity well into the future? Two 

recent reports shed significant light on the 

progress of 3D beyond the cinema screen, as 

Chris Forrester reports 

LG on June 18 unveiled a 3D (or we should 

say a stereoscopic) version of its popular 

50-inch LCD high-def TV unit. This 3D 

model is now added to other similar devices 

from Hyundai and most other major 

players. 3D, for the set-manufacturers, is 

undoubtedly their next major thrust as well 

as delivering better retail margins and a 

touch of consumer sparkle at trade shows 

and the like. 

Moreover, we are all aware of the considerable 

push towards 3D being made by 

BSkyB, NHK, Fox, NBC, Turner and other 

broadcasters. But is 3D more than a ‘Field 

of Dreams’? If it’s built, will the punters 

buy? Or will we get a ruinous ‘standards 

battle’ into the process? 

The world recognises that 3D in the 

cinema makes sound commercial sense, 

despite significant extra production costs. 

But will this enthusiasm transfer into 

broadcasting’s strictly 2D world? The 

3D production trials: Some broadcasters have focused on promoting 3D using existing displays 

question has been examined in a major 

study by Screen Digest’s Global Media 

Intelligence (GMI) division*, and the 

report pulls no punches. GMI’s most positive 

scenario makes somewhat depressing 

reading, stating that just over 15% of total 

TV sets installed worldwide could be 

3D-capable by 2015. The other end of the 

scale, its worst-case scenario, suggests the 

number could be nearer 3%, which is — at 

best — niche. 

The UK’s influential Digital Television 

Group (DTG) in its recent 3D study found 

two distinct camps: One informal grouping 

advocates a wait and see approach with 

common and agreed standards at its core. 

The other view, firmly backed by BSkyB, is 

to start transmissions as soon as possible, 

using established HD protocols, existing 

set-top boxes and well-understood camera 

and transmission standards. 

The DTG will host a seminar in London 

this September to discuss the options, and 

the topic will figure in a number of sessions 

at IBC. “Whoever goes first could set the 

standards not just for the UK but possibly 

the rest of Europe,” said DTG director 

general Richard Lindsay-Davies. “It is our 

job to try to create both a commercial and 

technical balance.” 

BskyB’s view, at least according to Brian 

Lenz, its head of new product and design, is 

to be more aggressive. “Harnessing existing 

capabilities clearly has the potential to lead 

to an earlier introduction of initial 3D services, 

which is good for both consumers and 

the industry alike. By validating the demand 

for 3D through this approach, you would 

have to assume that this would [also] serve 

to highlight the demand for free-to-air, non- 

HD propositions further down the line.” 

GMI’s study backs the adoption of consistent 

standards, saying 3D’s take-up could 

then be much better. “Cross-platform standardisation 

would drive rapid uptake, with 

the percentage of sets sold with 3D capability 

worldwide reaching 32% in 2015.” 

The GMI study also reminds us that 

several broadcasters have conducted 3D 

trials but developments in 3D TV programming 

are a long way behind 3D 

movies. Fox Sports and Turner Sports have 

utilised 3D cinema screens for special 

events. Fox showed a college football game 

in 3D at select cinemas in January 2009. 

Other broadcasters have focused on promoting 

3D using existing displays. NBC, 

for instance, has experimented with 

anaglyph 3D broadcasting. In February 

2009, the network transmitted a 90-second 

preview of DWA 3D movie Monsters vs. 

Aliens in Color-Code’s anaglyph format 

during a Super Bowl commercial break. 

According to NBC, 150 million pairs of the 

glasses required to view the ad in 3D were 

distributed free ahead of the event. NBC 

subsequently broadcast an episode of its 

TV series Chuck in the same format, encouraging 

viewers to re-use the 3D glasses. 

Perhaps the most enthusiastic current 3D 

broadcasting is in Japan where NHK, since 

2007, has used its BS-11 satellite system to 

transmit 20 or so minutes a day of sport and 

travel programming in stereoscopic 3D. 

3D ARPU 

But the TV industry already has its own 

Trojan Horse, in the shape of 3D games, 

stresses GMI: “The requirement for 3D 

glasses might be less of an issue for gamers, 

given their willingness to adopt peripherals, 

although the interactive nature of video 

games (as opposed to the passive experience 

of movie and TV viewing) presents 

some unique issues for 3D. Sony’s aforementioned 

demonstrations offered a compelling 

example of 3D versions of games 

with fixed-camera viewpoints, such as firstperson 

and driving experiences.” 

But what do we know of broadcaster’s 

strategies as far as 3D is concerned? It is 

recognised that Japan’s leading broadcasters 

see 3D as a methodology for pushing 

the creative envelope that bit further, which 

is no doubt why they are also backing 4k 

transmission. All agree that 3D could generate 

extra revenues, and there’s nobody 

“Whoever goes first could set the standards not just for 

the UK but possibly the rest of Europe. It is our job to 

try to create both a commercial and technical balance” 

— Richard Lindsay-Davies, DTG 

more focused on Average Revenue Per User 

(ARPU) than BSkyB. 

While BSkyB has hinted that it could 

replicate the top-up subscription fees it 

charges for its HD channels for 3D, Sky 

also noted that advertisers have declared an 

interest in potential for 3D commercials so 

this could represent another opportunity to 

generate incremental revenue. 

But the study warns that there is not 

yet a consensus in Hollywood around the 

potential for a mark-up on 3D content. 

“Lessons from format wars like HD DVD 

and BD, VHS and Betamax or transmission 

standardisation towards MPEG suggests 

that the market will not tolerate 

multiple 3D standards. Which format is 

chosen may ultimately preclude some of 

the technologies currently touted, while 

the process of standardising is likely to 

face a lengthy period of lobbying from 

proprietary technologies and their associated 

vendor groups to determine which, if 

any, get a major share of this market,” 

warns GMI. 

*Will 3D be the next big thing after 

HDTV?” Screen Digest 



State of the art for 3Gbps 

Future-proofing with a purchase of a router and distribution system that supports 3Gbps 

makes sense because any 270Mbps SD, 1.5/3Gbps high definition signal can pass through 

By Randy Conrod, 

product manager Digital 

Products, Harris Broadcast 

Communications 

This article reviews the state of the 

art for 3Gbps infrastructures today. 

Level A and Level B are discussed 

as pertaining to video and audio 

formats and the equipment that 

supports each format. 

The 3Gbps infrastructure has 

many possibilities, including singleprogramme 

content for 1080p; two 

programmes of SD, 720p or 1080p 

(can be differing programmes); 

or the left eye/right eye format for 

3D (three-dimensional) television. 

Given these numerous possibilities, 

identifying the signal type is important, 

and metadata is a solution 

for doing so. Other topics discussed 

include support for 32 channels of 

embedded audio, 3Gbps-capable 

equipment and 3D in the home. 

Level A and Level B 

There are two methods for organising 

the video essence, audio 

essence, data and metadata for the 

3Gbps serial digital signal — Level 

A and Level B. Level A follows the 

same data organisation as 1080i 

and 720p 1.5Gbps serial digital signals. 

The video is carried in two 

streams — Stream A and Stream B. 

Stream A contains the luminance 

information with its VANC 

(vertical ancillary data space) and 

HANC (horizontal ancillary data 

space), and Stream B contains the 

CbCr colour difference signals with 

its VANC and HANC. The YCbCr 

color space has been utilised by 

broadcasters since the inception of 

digital television in the early ’90s. 

The sampling structure is 4:2:2, 

where the luminance (4) is sampled 

twice as often as the color difference 

(2:2). 

A 10-bit digital word is 

utilised when sampling the signal. 

The only difference is that 

1080i and 720p take up 1.5Gbps 

when in the serial digital domain 

and 1080p takes up 3Gbps in the 

www.vivesta.com 

info@vivesta.com 

Workfl ow automation 

Visit Vivesta at 

IBC 2009 

Hall 2 

Booth A48 

serial digital domain because it 

has twice the data (ie, not interlaced, 

progressive). 

In Fig 1, the two-stream data 

organization is shown for 3Gbps 

1080p Level A. 

Level B supports the Dual 

Link (2 x 1.5Gbps) over one 

3Gbps serial digital connection. 

For several years, Dual Link has 

been utilised in production for 

many types of video formats. 

Link A is formatted in a similar 

way to 1.5Gbps, as there are two 

streams (A and B). Link B has a 

comparable formatting. This 

means there are four streams in a 

Dual Link Level B signal, each 

with its own VANC and HANC. 

The supported formats include 

YCbCr 4:2:2 10-bit (as in television 

signals). 

In Fig 2, the dual link data 

organisation is shown for 3Gbps 

1080p Level B. 

Other formats utilised in 

production are RGB/4:4:4/ 

12-bit, RGBA (A = Alpha or key 

channel)/4:2:2:4/10-bit, YCbCr/ 

4:4:4/12-bit, and YCbCrA/ 

4:2:2:4/10-bit. Frame rates typically 

supported are 23.98, 24, 25, 

29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60fps 

(frames per second). Television 

broadcasters do not utilise 

these additional formats — 

they utilise the YCbCR 4:2:2 

10-bit format. 

Level B also supports a 2x 

mode that will carry two SD 

(270Mbps) or two 1.5Gbps 720p 

or 1080i signals. Although these 

two signals might be carrying 

different content, they must be 

Media management 

Rights and license management t 

VOD product management 

Traffic & multi-channel scheduling 

Fig 1: The two-stream data organization is shown for 3Gbps 1080p Level A 

Delivery to multiple outlets 

the same format and phasealigned. 

This is the same format 

to carry 3D TV signals (3D) for 

the left eye and right eye stereoscopic 

image. 

In Fig 3, the Dual Link data 

organisation is shown for 3Gbps 2x 

1080i or 720p Level B. 

Since the 3Gbps serial digital 

interface supports so many formats 

or payloads for video, it is important 

to utilise the ‘payload identifier’ 

or ‘packet descriptor,’ which 

describes the signal. This metadata 

is placed in the VANC three lines 

after the vertical switching line and 

includes the following information: 

Level A; Level B; Frame rate; Bit 

depth; Interlace; Progressive; Color 

space; RGB; YCbCr. 

The packet descriptor is important 

going forward so that when 

interfacing equipment, it is easier 

to make things work. 

Embedded audio 

The 1.5Gbps serial digital interface 

supports 16 channels of 

embedded audio. Level A supports 

16 channels of embedded 

audio in a similar fashion as 

1.5Gbps. Level B supports up to 

32 channels of embedded audio. 

The question is why doesn’t Level 

A support 32 channels of embedded 

audio? The answer is that the 

standard has simply not evolved 

for 32-channel support for Level 

A at this time; however, it is quite 

possible that this may happen in 

the future. 

Despite the incurred cost, planning 

to build a lab to experiment 

with these new technologies may be 

in order for those interested in 

moving to 1080p and/or 3D television. 

With all of the formats that 

can be encountered, determining 

what equipment supports a particular 

format will be a daunting task, 

and testing devices before commissioning 

will be required. Today, test 

equipment is available for 3Gbps. 

Cameras and tape transports 

that support 1080p and 3D content 

are becoming available. It is very 

important to understand whether a 

Single Link 3Gbps or Dual Link 1.5 

interface is being used. Today, 

depending on the manufacturer, 

there may not be support for all of 

the formats mentioned in this article. 

For instance, Level B 3Gbps is supported 

for 1080p and 3D by only one 

manufacturer. In another case, 3D is 

supported by a Dual Link 1.5Gbps. 

Today’s routing switchers and 

distribution equipment support 

3Gbps, and due to their nature, 

allow for the carriage of all for- 

MediaFlow 3.0 

One content library, multi-channel 

broadcast and VOD services. 

mats. Conversion equipment may 

support some of the formats, but 

will most likely not support all. 

There is a movement toward supporting 

YCbCr 4:2:2 10-bit 

between Level A and Level B. 

For 3D processing, frame syncs, 

proc amps and conversion will need 

a dual-channel implementation with 

the capability of a control management 

system to affect both channels 

simultaneously. These products need 

to move from two-channel to singlechannel 

devices, dependent on the 

input signal encountered. 

Master control and distribution 

into the home will have to evolve to 

carry this additional information, 

whether it is 1080p or 3D TV. 

1080p and 3D in the 

home environment 

1080p is now available for the home 

via 1080p monitors and Blu-Ray 

technology. For 1080p broadcasts, 

as mentioned above, the distribution 

system needs to evolve to support 

this format. Regarding 3D, 

Fig 2: The dual link data organisation is shown for 3Gbps 1080p Level B 

Fig 3: The Dual Link data organisation is shown for 3Gbps 2x 1080i or 720p Level B 

there are four competing standards 

for 3D in the home environment. 

Each of these standards requires 

the use of 3D glasses by the viewer. 

Television sets with this capability 

will be available in 2010. However, 

it is too early to tell whether one 

standard will dominate or whether 

multiple standards will be used. 

It is still early in the move 

toward 3Gbps equipment purchases. 

Future-proofing with a purchase 

of a router and distribution 

system that supports 3Gbps makes 

sense because any 270Mbps SD, 

1.5/3Gbps HD signal can pass 

through it. Carrying two signals 

per link for higher density, 3D or 

1080p in the future is entirely 

possible. 3Gbps-capable capture, 

record/playback production and 

processing and master control 

equipment will continue to evolve 

as the market demands for production 

of 1080p and 3D ramp up. As 

for distribution, the standards will 

have to evolve for 1080p and 3D in 

the home environment. 

Vivesta Adv TVBE 181x60.indd 1 24-07-2009 14:19:41 



Why it’s not too expensive or too complicated to use! 

Optical fibre SDI: Next generation SDI 

HD over fibre 

By Grant Petty 

CEO, Blackmagic Design 

You might have heard about optical 

fibre but considered it too 

expensive and too complicated to 

use. This common perception of 

optical fibre is not necessarily correct. 

Consumers are now getting 

access to higher quality televisions 

and media sources that 

feature high bit depth and fast 

frame rate 1080p/50 and 1080p/60 

video. These media sources are 

not just from broadcasters, as customers 

are getting content online 

and on Blu-ray Disk as well. 

It’s vital the content production 

side of television can keep 

up with these high quality levels 

so customers get the best viewing 

experience. It’s likely that resolutions 

and frame rates will keep 

increasing, and this will put 

immense pressure on production 

technologies, such as SDI, to 

keep up. 

In this article I describe the 

current state of the art in SDI 

‘UltraScope is the first PC-based waveform monitoring that’s designed for editing and 

colour correction work, and that’s also technically accurate’ 

technology and describe some of 

its benefits and limitations as we 

move towards the future. I then 

explain how optical fibre SDI 

works, as well as its benefits and 

limitations. 

Optical fibre technology is the 

only viable technology that will 

allow television production to 

move into the future. This is 

because optical fibre is virtually 

future proof, runs incredibly long 

distances, is low cost, and it’s a 

mature technology which is available 

now. 

As video technology has progressed, 

resolutions have 

increased, frame rates have increased, 

and more production is 

being done in the full bandwidth 

4:4:4 RGB colour-space. These 

increases in quality have transformed 

video production and provide 

a fantastic viewing experience 

for consumers. In addition, 

these technologies have allowed 

realtime 2k editing using the same 

equipment used for SD and HD 

work. 2k film workflow has now 

become as easy as video. 

All these high resolution, high 

frame rate video standards have 

pushed the limits of the SDI video 

standard. One solution has been 

to use Dual Link SDI where two 

HD-SDI links were connected to 

allow a 4:4:4 RGB workflow. 

However this is extremely cumbersome, 

and doubles the cost of 

cabling and routing video. 


Grant Petty: ‘Optical fibre 

technology is the only viable 

technology that will allow television 

production to move into the future’ 

Introducing 3Gbps SDI 

Back in 2007, Blackmagic Design 

introduced the Multibridge Eclipse 

editing and HDLink Pro monitoring 

products. Both these products 

featured 3Gbps SDI that also 

switched to SD or HD-SDI. Then 

last year at NAB 2008, we introduced 

DeckLink HD Extreme editing, 

Videohub routers and Mini 

Converters, all featuring 3Gbps 

SDI. Introducing 3Gbps SDI eliminated 

the need to use dual cables 

just to get 4:4:4 video, and also 

allowed native 2k editing with a single 

BNC connection. 

These products looked the 

same to end-users, as we introduced 

them at the same cost as the 

product models they replaced. We 

felt this was the only way to really 

introduce 3Gbps SDI technology 

in any meaningful way. This 

increased the number of post production 

facilities and broadcasters 

that were 3Gbps SDI ready. 

Since that time more third party 

manufacturers have also introduced 

3Gbps SDI ready equipment. 

Many post production 

companies are now using 2k on 

3Gbps SDI-based products, and 

this is dramatically simplifying 

feature film workflows. 

Where is conventional SDI 

technology heading? At the time of 

writing, no semiconductor company 

has any new component 

roadmaps for SDI speeds faster 

than 3Gbps. They all seem to be 

working harder on breaking the 

300 foot limit of SDI’s cable 

length. This is nice but still limiting. 

This means there currently 

does not appear to be any major 

revolution coming to improve the 

performance of SDI cable interconnects 

in any way. So the answer 

to where conventional SDI technology 

is heading appears to be 

“nowhere any time soon”. 

What are the limits of conventional 

SDI? Overall the SDI standard 

is incredible. SDI is like a fire 

hose of pixels and is so simple to 

use. It’s the only true open standard 

to which any company can 

build products. This has resulted in 

hundreds of companies producing 

some extremely innovative products. 

It’s amazing to go to NAB 

each year and see the huge number 

of exciting new products released! 

SDI leaves every pixel 

untouched and clean, works in 

both RGB and YUV, works in 

both 4:2:2 and 4:4:4, can switch 

speeds between dozens of different 

SD, HD and 2k formats, and 

even includes a massive 16 channels 

of digital audio as well as 

time code and all kinds of other 

ancillary data. It can be converted, 

routed, and easily connected 

all over your building. It’s no wonder 

it was adopted so quickly, and 

has been able to keep pace with 

television production over the 

past two decades. 

However there are some limitations 

that are becoming apparent 

including: 

• 

SDI really only handles 300ft in 

length in HD. Broadcasters constantly 

struggle with this limitation. 

• 


SDI is speed limited. We are 

stuck at 3Gbps speeds currently, 

SDI cables need to be changed 

every time a new higher speed 

and there is no road map for any SDI is introduced. When SDI 

faster speeds in the future. 

• SDI uses BNC connectors that 

are no longer used in networking. 

was first introduced, cables 

previously used for composite 

were often not good enough 

BNC connecters are also very rare and needed to be replaced to 

on consumer equipment now. handle the data rates of SDI. 

BNC connectors are becoming When HD-SDI was introduced, 

expensive as cables need to be 

custom-made. 


www.tvbeurope.com AUGUST 2009 41 

•


Optical fibre SDI: 

Next generation SDI 


the same upgrades were 

required, and some cables 

have also required replacement 

to handle new 3Gbps 

SDI speeds. This constant 

upgrading of cabling is incredibly 

expensive. 

• SDI cables are big. The cables 

are quite thick, and need quite 

a lot of space when running 

many cables down racks, and 

through buildings. Anyone who 

has seen SDI cables running 

into equipment rooms will 

know how much space 

they require! 

How does optical fibre 

solve these problems? 

Optical fibre can solve these problems 

easily. It’s also worth noting 

that optical fibre SDI is the same bit 

stream as conventional SDI, but it’s 

just passed down an optical fibre 

instead of copper cable. This means 

optical fibre has all the benefits of 

conventional SDI but removes some 

of the limitations as outlined: 

• 

Optical fibre can run massive 

lengths. Blackmagic Design 

optical fibre products are rated 

to pass SDI pathological tests 

up to 45 KM in standard definition, 

and 25 KM at 3Gbps. You 

To create a masterpiece, 

sometimes it only takes a simple tool. 

mc²56 – Performance, pure and simple. A reduced 

control surface with maximum performance from the system core – 

these advantages of the latest mixing console from Lawo will really 

impress you. With the mc²56, not only do you benefit from the wellknown 

highlights of the mc² family – powerful HD core, absolute reliability 

and innovative features – you also benefit from the console’s intuitive user 

guidance system, which guarantees unprecedented ease of use. The 

worldwide success of mc² quality, paired with groundbreaking functionality 

– just two of the features that make an mc²56 the perfect 

tool for daily broadcasting. For further information visit www.lawo.de 

Visit Lawo at the IBC 2009 

Amsterdam, September 11 – 15, Hall 8, Booth C71 

Lawo AG | Rastatt/Germany 

really need to look at those 

numbers again to understand 

what this means. SDI handles 

300ft, but optical fibre can 

handle 147,000 ft. It’s quite 

an improvement! 

SDI is like a fire hose of pixels and is so simple 

to use. It’s the only true open standard to which 

any company can build products 

• 

There are virtually no speed limits 

on optical fibre cables. Copper 

based cable has bandwidth limits 

so, as data speeds increase, the 

cables cannot transfer the higher 

frequency data. Semiconductor 

companies have spent a lot of time 

cramming higher bandwidth down 

copper cables, a little like modem 

manufacturers did back in the 

1980’s. However there is only so 

much they can do. Optical fibre is 

like broadband, and there is virtually 

no speed limits. 

• Optical fibre SDI uses the same 

commonly available cables that 

high speed networking uses. Most 

optical fibre SDI products use 

standard LC type connectors and 

these cables are on the shelf at 

your local electrical wholesaler. 

The optical cables we purchased 

were about half the cost of the 

copper BNC cables we get custom 

made for us. Also the optical fibre 

cables we purchased are ‘duplex’ 

cables, which is an engineer’s way 

of saying they work in both directions. 

This simply means there are 

two cables moulded together. You 

can unclip the LC connectors and 

pull them apart to make two individual 

cables. That’s halved the 

cost again! 

• You can keep using the same 

cables even as new high quality 

video standards are released, 

requiring even higher SDI data 

speeds in the future. 3Gbps is easy 

for optical fibre, and much higher 

speeds can be run down exactly 

the same cables. This eliminates 

the very expensive need to constantly 

upgrade copper cables 

because you can plug the same 

optical fibre cables into higher 

speed equipment in the future. 

• Optical fibre cables are very 

thin and flexible with most of the 

thickness from the outer jacket 

that protects the fibre itself. You 

can get multi core optical cables 

with many individual fibres and 

the overall size is about the same 

as a single copper BNC cable. 

Limitations of 

optical fibre 

The main limitations of optical 

fibre are related to cost and lack 

of standardisation. Cost has been 

high because no equipment has 

optical fibre SDI built in, so converters 

are needed on every link. 

Only broadcasters who needed to 

beat the 300ft SDI length limitation 

have used optical fibre in the 

past, so the market was very 

small, and the converters on the 

market were expensive. 

You needed one converter for 

each end of the optical cable and 

the converters often cost thousands 


of dollars. So it’s the converters 

that cost all the money, not the 

optical fibre cable itself! 

The other problem is standardisation. 

There are different 

types of optical fibre cable, connectors, 

and light frequencies. 

These can be a bit confusing, 

however there is a SMPTE standard 

for optical fibre SDI which 

now solves this problem. The 

SMPTE standard features LC 

type optical fibre connectors, 

1310nm light frequency, laser 

driver and the optical fibre link 

must pass the SDI pathological 

test signal correctly. So this means 

the only real limitation of optical 

fibre is equipment cost. If this 

problem can be solved, then optical 

fibre can be adopted as easily 

as copper SDI cables. 

To make optical fibre truly 

competitive with traditional copper 

SDI cabling, the optical fibre 

connections need to be built into 

television equipment for no extra 

cost. Only with built in optical 

fibre SDI connections will the 

adoption cost of optical fibre be 

just the optical fibre cable itself. 

Built in optical fibre then totally 

eliminates the cost of converting 

to and from optical fibre, and 

because it’s on the connection 

panel of television equipment, it’s 

more likely to be used. 

Blackmagic Design launched 

four new products at NAB 2009 

that have built in optical fibre SDI 

connections — Mini Converter 

Optical Fiber, HDLink Optical 

Fibre, DeckLink Optical Fibre, 

and Ultrascope. Blackmagic 

UltraScope is the world’s first PCbased 

waveform monitoring that’s 

designed for editing and colour 

correction work, and that’s also 

technically accurate. It features 

both copper SDI and optical fibre 

SDI, and retails for only US$695. 

This is thousands of dollars less 

than other products, but also 

includes more scope views, a much 

nicer user interface, and optical 

fibre SDI or copper SDI inputs. 

With these new products, we 

believe that optical fibre technology 

will now be more accessible 

to small and growing television 

production studios. Users will 

now be able to afford to use optical 

fibre between equipment, and 

then get benefits in the future as 

video quality increases, and data 

speeds of SDI also increase. 

Users will no longer need to rip 

out old cables every time video 

quality increases. They can also 

use local electricians to run SDI 

video cables, because electricians 

understand and install optical 

fibre every day, so they are very 

familiar with it. 

Lastly I think it’s very romantic 

to think of video travelling all 

over a facility as pulses of light! 

Even putting aside all the technical, 

financial, and future proofing 

benefits of optical fibre, it is mind 

blowing to know that images, 

which are really just digitalised 

light, are now being transfered by 

light. It really feels like the right 

way to do it! 

Vutrix debuts 37-inch 10-bit LCD to display 3Gbps HDSDI 

Large new LCD monitor 

By Fergal Ringrose 

Vutrix has announced the launch of 

a new large screen, 37-inch, full HD, 

LCD-TFT 10-bit monitor capable 

of displaying 3Gbps HDSDI. With 

a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels it 

Top level menu 

Waveform 

Vectorscope 

® 

Sample screens 

Video generator 

Audio pair grouping menu 

Picture Monitor 

Audio channel status menu 

16 Channel Audio menu 

SDI fault logging menu 

is available as a single display or with 

integral processing to provide quad 

display of four separate sources. 

This 10-bit, 1920 x 1080 display 

is claimed to provide the clearest, 

sharpest and most detailed images 

PHABRIX 

PHABRIX SxA 

3G/HD/SD with AES 

COMBINED ANALYSER 

GENERATOR/MONITOR 

PHABRIX SxE 

3G/HD/SD eye and jitter 

COMBINED ANALYSER 

GENERATOR/MONITOR 

WORLD’S FIRST 

SDI status and payload menu 

Signal Data menu 

SxE Jitter menu 

SxE EYE menu 


If IBC is all about 

innovation, 

you won’t want to miss 

what’s on our stand 


® 

possible for multi-channel display 

applications in outside broadcast 

vehicles, TV studios, post production 

suites and other environments 

where quality of image is paramount. 

In addition to single and 

® 

dual link HDSDI, it also includes 

3Gbps input capability, to offer 

futureproof operation for the 

next generation of 3G professional 

TV installations. 

www.vutrix.com 

Hall 8 

E 23 

�� 

�� 

�� 

3G-SDI, HD-SDI, SD-SDI 

LABORATORY ACCURATE 

EYE AND JITTER 

MEASURMENT 

SHIPPING NOW 

PHABRIX® 

Phabrix® Limited 

Blindmans Gate Cottage Woolton Hill Newbury Hampshire RG20 9XB UK 

tel/fax + 44 (0)1635 255 494 email: info@phabrix.com www.phabrix.com


Considering fibre for the 

broadcast infrastructure 

Today’s broadcast engineer looking 

at any new or modernised 

infrastructure should be considering 

the possibility that, at some time in 

the future, there will be a need to 

run 1080p high definition signals. 

That means being prepared to 

tackle the tough challenge of data 

rates of 3Gbps. Some may even be 

looking beyond that, to 3D or Super 

Hi-Vision, which may call for even 

higher data rates. So, copper or 

fibre — which is it to be? Opinion 

from Mike Purnell, director, Argosy 

There may not yet be any equipment 

in the facility that is 3Gbps 

— or even HD — but it does make 

sense to establish the basics now, 

which means at the very least 

installing appropriate cables. 

Does this mean the time has come 

to ditch co-axial copper in favour 

of fibre? 

There are arguments on both 

sides. Sending 3Gbps signals 

down copper cable calls for a very 

high standard of cable and a new 

set of installation skills – it is all 

too easy to bend or crush co-ax 

which will dramatically alter its 

impedance performance and may 

well mean that the signal does not 

get through. Even with perfect 

wireman work, it is only now that 

products are emerging capable of 

driving 100m of co-ax at 3Gbps: 

experienced systems engineers 

will know that 100m is not too 

generous in typical installations. 

Fibre does not have this issue: 

distance is, to all intents and purposes, 

no object. Fibre is a little 

delicate so will have a minimum 

radius for curves, but provided 

you observe this then you can 

route fibre anywhere you want. 

Some see the clinching argument 

in the fact that fibre by the drum 

is now cheaper than copper, certainly 

the very high quality co-ax 

that you need for HD. 

On the other hand, there is as 

yet no fibre equipment. While it is 

possible to build a fibre router, 

using precision mirrors, at this time 

no-one offers such a finished product. 

So every time the signal goes 

into or out of a device, you need an 

optical/electrical interface. These 

cost money, draw power, and emit 

heat. So the economic argument is 

not so strong, and the environmental 

issues become a consideration. 

One of the key arguments in 

favour of copper remains the fact 

that there are plenty of wiremen 

out there who know how to fit a 

BNC connector, and they do it 

with tools that are extremely inex- 

pensive and readily available. 

What are the practicalities of 

installing fibre, and can it be as 

easy and affordable as copper? 

A single mode fibre optic cable 

is a strand of glass 9 microns in 

diameter. That is an order of magnitude 

narrower than a human 

hair. So the elimination of dust is 

clearly vital. Putting a termination 

onto a co-ax cable is a 30 second 

job on site; because of the 

need for a perfectly dust-free 

atmosphere, terminating a fibre 

has to be done in a clean room, 

which is a minimum investment of 

around 150k euros. 

One of the key arguments in favour of copper 

remains the fact that there are plenty of wiremen 

out there who know how to fit a BNC connector 

That is impractical, of course, 

so the solution is that connectors 

are sold ready fitted to short tails of 

fibre, which can be spliced on site. 

It is always good practice to adopt 

a systems approach to installing 

any cables – selecting connectors 

and conductors that are designed 

to match – and in the case of fibre 

this is absolutely essential. 

What you need on site is a tool 

called a core alignment splicer. This 

brings the two pieces of fibre – cable 

and terminator tail, in this case – 

together and aligns them perfectly. 

The fibre question: Fibre by the drum is now cheaper than copper, certainly 

the very high quality co-ax that you need for high definition 

It fuses the two together and performs 

a mechanical stress test. The 

results should be highly reliable. 

There are a number of splicing 

machines on the market. The 

good quality device that we would 

recommend is around 10k euros. 

In comparison with a set of strippers 

that seems like a lot of money, 

but it is a sensible investment 

and, over time, may not be seen to 

be a significant cost. 

One important point to 

remember is that, when performed 

properly by an accurately 

aligned machine, splices in fibre 

cause virtually no attenuation of 

the signal. Jointing co-ax midrun, 

because of cable damage, is 

generally considered to be bad 

practice because of the impact on 

the signal integrity, but should 

you break a fibre it can be spliced 

without problems. It is good practice 

to lay in some spare fibre so 

that you have slack if you ever do 

need to repair it. 

If your fibre infrastructure 

grows you may find it worth investing 

in an optical time domain 

reflectometer (OTDR), a device 

which looks at the performance of 

a fibre, either to identify how far 

down the cable a break has 

occurred, or to determine if multiple 

splices in a fibre are having any 

adverse impact on its transmission 

capabilities. OTDRs vary in price 

from around 5k euros for a basic 

device to over 20k euros for something 

with all the bells and whistles. 

Having read that fibre can be 

broken, you might reasonably 

point out that this fragility could 

be another argument against it for 

basic infrastructures. Patch cables, 

for example, are frequently subject 

to considerable rough handling. 

To overcome this issue, Argosy 

has a special fibre cable which is 

called BendBright-XS, which is 

designed to be very flexible for 

applications like patch cords. It is 

robust enough, and flexible enough, 

to be coiled around a pencil without 

breaking or losing signal, so it is certainly 

capable of standing up to the 

knocks of being in a patch panel. 

However at around a 10% premium 

over standard installation 

fibre, it may not be currently chosen 

for general purpose use. 

Furthermore, on large fibre count 

cables the cost difference is greater 

— up to 30% depending on cable 

size. Nonetheless production costs 

continue to tumble and as production 

of BendBright-XS begins to 

outstrip standard fibre, the price 

difference is expected to disappear. 

Although not suitable for all runs, 

but where there is the risk of rough 

handling, it is a sensible investment. 

In summary, then, fibre is a 

viable alternative to copper for 

broadcast infrastructures. To set 

an engineer up to be fully capable 

of installing and maintaining 

fibre, including tools, training and 

a big bag of connectors, is an 

investment of perhaps 20k to 30k 

euros: not insignificant, certainly, 

but probably a worthwhile investment. 

In the infrastructure of the 

future, fibre will play an increasingly 

important role. 


3D Opinion 

By Michel Proulx, 

chief technology officer, 

Miranda Technologies 

For the broadcast industry, a key question 

over recent months has been whether 3D 

(stereoscopic) television will be the next 

premium service offering, or just a gimmick 

that will not last? At last, the situation 

seems to be getting much clearer. For 

although 3D television is still very much in 

its formative stage, there’s now real momentum 

behind its rollout. 

In many respects, there are parallels 

between 3D television and the earlier 

deployment of high definition, in terms of 

an alignment of different influences that can 

drive much wider adoption. Similar to the 

HD rollout, it’s likely that a successful transition 

from HD to 3D television will be driven 

by four key factors. These are the availability 

of 3D content, consumer demand, 

broadcast technology for facilities and viewers, 

and impetus from specialty channel 

providers. Unless these elements are all in 

place, it’s likely that 3D television will fail to 

take off on a broad commercial scale. 

For instance, with the earlier HD television 

deployment, all these factors were not 

aligned in the early stages. In 1998, when the 

core delivery technology was in place, the 

HD content was both complicated and 

expensive to create. Additionally, there was 

no significant demand from cable and satellite 

companies to make HD a premium 

offering due to the high costs of the bandwidth 

to the consumer. The net result of this 

lack of synchronisation was that adoption 

did not gather pace for another 10 years. 

Fortunately, in the case of 3D television, 

it seems that multiple drivers are now starting 

to come together. There has been a big 

uptake in the creation of 3D content in 2009, 

with 20-30 3D movies to be released, as well 

as 3D sports coverage, and a growing popularity 

of 3D gaming. Importantly, this 

upsurge in 3D content production has shown 

that there is tangible interest amongst consumers 

in receiving 3D content. 

This recently produced 3D content is not 

much different conceptually from when 3D 

movies were first introduced 50 years ago. It 

still requires special equipment to capture the 

images, to display the content, and the viewer 

still needs 3D glasses to combine the display 

of two ‘spatially offset’ images into one 

three dimensional image. However, modern 

3D television technology makes this outcome 

much easier to achieve. Nevertheless, there are 

still some real challenges with both acquisition 

and production. 

Acquisition for 3D is more complicated 

because the final television output is created 

by combining two images, and this 

demands a special 3D camera rig for 

mounting two cameras. To improve alignment 

and spacing, one of the cameras must 

be mounted vertically, pointing down at a 

special mirror. Focus with a zoom now has 

to manage the distance between the two 

lenses, tracking the focal lengths correctly. 


Market drivers align 

behind 3D television 

3D wow factor: ‘The recent development of 3D 

multi-viewers, led by Miranda, will allow 

multiple 3D cameras to be monitored 

simultaneously in high quality 3D’ 

During 3D production, the director also 

faces the challenge of needing to carefully 

manage cuts between cameras pairs to avoid 

jarring changes in 3D perspective. Fortunately, 

the recent development of 3D multi-viewers, 

led by Miranda, will allow multiple 3D cameras 

to be monitored simultaneously in high 

quality 3D. This will enable the director to view 

the perspective of all the cameras before choosing 

the next shot, and thereby overcome the 

issue of mismatching perspective. 

Unsurprisingly, several consumer equipment 

manufacturers are responding to this interest in 

3D, and are starting to announce 3D ready televisions. 

These new stereoscopic televisions use 

existing LCD technology with a special twist. 

The solution is relatively simple, and requires a 

polarising filter and a few small changes to the 

internal electronics. The prices for these new televisions 

are still substantially higher than for regular 

1080p HD sets but they are now within the 

realms of affordability for more affluent viewers 

and for technology early adopters. Naturally, 

once the manufacturing process is perfected, the 

cost premium is likely to be less than 10% of 

existing HD displays of similar size. 

Another important technology enabler is 

the development of key television standards for 

3D. Most notably, the Society of Motion 

Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) 

announced their requirements for a stereoscopic 

3D Home Master standard in April 2009. 

Many successfully trials and demonstrations 

of 3D television have already been conducted. 

For example, BSkyB has demonstrated 

3D technology over an existing HD infrastructure, 

proving the production and distribution 

process is not that different from the current 

HD process. As originally conceived, 

twice the HD bandwidth is required for 3D 

HD but BSkyB has streamlined the process by 

using a clever coding scheme that allows existing 

HD encoders and existing HD set top boxes 

to deliver the signal to the viewers. Naturally, 

the fact that 3D television can be based on 

existing HD technology means that it won’t 

take nearly as long for the broadcast industry 

to roll out when compared to HD in 1998. 

With this clear interest from television 

service providers in making 3D the next 

premium offering, it appears that the key 

drivers are aligning for much wider deployment 

and adoption of 3D, high definition 

television. The time is now right, and you 

could be enjoying theatre quality 3D in 

your home by the end of this year! 

Making Light Work 

Photon Beard is a major provider of studio and portable lighting 

for the professional broadcast market worldwide, as a result of the 

proven build quality and reliability of our equipment. With our 

recent growth, we are now in a position where we are continually 

developing new innovative products, all designed and manufactured 

at our UK factory. 

Our most recent introduction is a range of compact Tungsten 

studio Fresnels, from 300W to 2kW, featuring our customary 

dependable design and construction, and incorporating an 

innovative application of lamp technology and optical design. 

Full details of our extensive range of fluorescent and tungsten 

lighting, and our studio design and installation service are 

available from our website. 

www.photonbeard.com 

See us at 

IBC - Hall 11 

Stand F51 

Unit K3, Cherry Court Way, Stanbridge Road, 

Leighton Buzzard,Bedfordshire, LU7 4UH, United Kingdom. 

Tel: +44 (0)1525 850911 Fax: +44 (0)1525 850922 

info@photonbeard.com 


NEW

Key elements of HD infrastructure - EVS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?