At IBC 2012, James Cameron (“Avatar”) predicted a battle between 3D and Ultra HD. “We have a bandwidth bottleneck, and if we start going to higher spatial resolution it will be at the sacrifice of 3D rollout,” Cameron said. “So I see it as a little bit of an arms race right now.”
Well, the arms race is over. While 3D services have either been cancelled (ESPN) or suspended (BBC), Ultra HD – and 4K in particular – have been catching on, or at least garnering headlines.
So what do vendors have in store for 4K at IBC 2013? Most are keeping mum about their product plans. We do know that EVS Sports will have a 4K version of the XT3 production server, Grass Valley will add multilayer 4K to its Edius 7 NLE, and Gefen will be launching numerous 4K glue products at the show.
The real 4K highlight at IBC 2013 could take place during the conference, where a session titled 'The Great Quality Debate: Do We Really Need to Go Beyond HD?' (Saturday 14, 11.00) could stir things up. Meanwhile, Ultra HD 8K in the guise of NHK's Super Hi-Vision is lurking in the wings and expecting to start broadcasting as soon as 2016.
Get the latest news on IBC 2013 at www.ibc.org.
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