Ultra HD is not another 3DTV, set to grab the headlines and then fade away, but is the next big consumer-facing development in television and one that will prompt a new arms race in the Pay TV industry and new infrastructure investments. That was the conclusion from a Videonet webcast last week that looked at what we learned from International CES 2014. On a panel featuring experts from Strategy Analytics, MTM London and Genovation Capital, it was argued that the early efforts of OTT service providers like Netflix to get UHD content in front of consumers will not give them any long-term advantage over the Pay TV industry.
Ultra HD and HEVC are two of the subjects that have dominated the International CES 2014 news announcements from the broadcast/Pay TV industry vendors. Here is a round-up of what we have not reported on elsewhere.
When vendors and industry executives go to a show like CES, none of them seem to be satisfied to talk about what they are doing now. Almost always, they want to talk about the future and something more exciting and for this year, it’s all about 4K. All week we’ve seen companies talking about the role HEVC plays with 4K, improved compression, higher-quality video and hardware devices that will be able to decode and playback 4K content. While it all sounds exciting, the reality is, no one is discussing the business models around 4K streaming and the fact that for most, the economics of delivering 4K content don’t work.
Representatives from Elemental spent a day at CES 2014 touring the show floor with a reporter new to the annual tech extravaganza. Seeing the exhibition through the eyes of an individual less familiar with the event was in itself a great experience for us. It led us through a good amount of questions and insights about the industry, some of which we’d like to share as we dive into 2014 and all it holds for the evolution of video over the next few years.
Meanwhile Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the consortium behind the cloud-based Digital HD service UltraViolet, is looking into adding support not just for 4K but for higher dynamic range and related features.
Blu-Ray Discs with 4K support could be a reality by the end of the year, according to the Blu-Ray Disc Association’s global promotions committee chair Victor Matsuda.
Talking to THR at CES, he noted that the BDA board recently approved work to extend Blu-Ray to include 4K and will be exploring the best possible technical blueprint.
Broadcom and Envivio are working together on 4K HEVC trials with several Tier 1 video service providers as part of Envivio's HEVC Early Access Program.
MStar decoder chipsets are embedded in connected TVs supporting HEVC and 4K from multiple manufacturers. "We are delighted about this new collaboration. We expect HEVC will take off at a very fast pace, and interoperability is the key for a smooth deployment," said Phillippe Notton, vice president, set-top-box business unit.
ST's Cannes and Monaco families of system-on-chip (SOC) solutions for set-top boxes support 4K HEVC decoding. "HEVC is a game changer and ST is embracing this change with its latest families of SoCs," said Andrew Cofler, system architecture director, unified platform division, STMicroelectronics. "With the increasing demands for higher resolutions and quality, the best possible compression technologies are mandatory."
At the 2014 CES, Thomson Video Networks and MStar Semiconductor will demonstrate advanced delivery of over-the-top (OTT) content to connected TVs via the emerging High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. The demonstration will highlight the interoperability of Thomson Video Networks’ award-winning ViBE(TM) VS7000 multi-screen encoding/transcoding platform with MStar’s 4K system-on-a-chip (SoC), which provides native HEVC decoding in next-generation connected television sets.
“As the worldwide market leader in controller SoCs for TV sets, MStar is the ideal partner with which to showcase a full 4K OTT broadcast chain based on the HEVC standard,” said Christophe Delahousse, president, Thomson Video Networks. “By collaborating with leading consumer technology providers like MStar, we’re able to show how perfectly our ViBE VS7000 HEVC video system facilitates end-to-end OTT delivery from headend to user device via emerging standards such as Hbbtv 2.0 and MPEG-DASH.”
MStar’s latest SoC is designed for high-end connected TV sets, and is currently being embedded in the products of major consumer display manufacturers to enable decoding of HEVC content streams in resolutions up to Ultra HD.
Key trends popping up at 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas are more mobile accessories, evolving 3D printers, and the fruition of 4K TV screens. While 4K screens are available, 4K video software and streaming is insignificant to drive consumers to grasp 4K models at premium prices to accelerate otherwise flat HDTV sales. It’s happening as a union of standards combine as 4K H2.65 enjoin. This union makes 4K TV and video a realization as the new products start release around Spring 2014. Retailers can anticipate enthusiastic interest as the 2014 holiday season approaches. That is really what CES is all about. Get set for 4K H.265.
NanoTech Entertainment has partnered with LumaForge LLC to provide consumers with a cost-effective pipeline for the delivery of VP9 compressed 4K content streamed through the Nuvola NP-1, the world's first streaming media player that supports 4K Ultra HD movies and videos.
The NP-1 is powered by a NVIDIA® Tegra® 4 Quad Core Mobile Processor with 2GB DDR3 RAM and incorporates 72 custom NVIDIA GeForce® GPU cores to deliver enormous processing power and realistic graphics. More than a 4K streaming media player, the Nuvola will work with any brand, any resolution of television and isn’t limited to just playing downloaded 4K content—it also streams 4K Ultra HD content.
YouTube demonstrating 4K video encoded with VP9 is all sizzle and no steak. Until hardware manufacturers and big names like Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft announce support, it's hard to take any of the noise too seriously.
The recent news that YouTube will demonstrate 4K video encoded with VP9 at CES with hardware support from a number of chip and TV vendors has all the earmarks of a made-for-press release event; all froth, no substance. That’s OK; press release writers have to eat too. But before you lose faith in H.265/HEVC, you should consider the following facts.
2014K Continues! When we last posted about the VP9 codec it was just beginning to threaten H.265 for dominance, but recent hardware partnerships with nVidia, ARM, Sony and many other tech giants solidifies VP9 as the next go-to HD and 4K streaming codec. Google’s previous VP8 codec failed to win out over H.264, which was already massively adopted by the time VP8 showed up. However, with this announcement Google looks poised to win this round of the knock-down drag out codec war. Will VP9 succeed where VP8 failed? Hit the jump to learn more.
Google boasts a 50% increase in bandwidth efficiency with VP9 over its predecessor, the VP8. Almost all major hardware vendors will begin to support VP9 natively within their products this year, as well as enable YouTube to stream up to 4k to computers and devices. The list of new hardware partners is exhaustive and includes: ARM, Intel, Nvidia, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Sigma, LG
“This may be the icing that makes the UHD cake work.”
The Dolby demo, showing a 1080p HD picture with pumped-up brightness and color, was a startling improvement over even the best TVs available today, including the early UHD models. Metallic surfaces gleam like mirrors. Colors glow, luminous and rich. Highlights and shadows alike keep their detail. What’s more, unlike 4K TV, that improvement is visible even at a distance from the screen.
John Batter, CEO of M-Go, the transactional VOD content service backed by DreamWorks Animation and Technicolor, had every reason to smile at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Standing in front of a 4K TV at the sprawling Samsung booth, Batter showed off an upgraded, more user-friendly interface for M-Go, which had just announced a new 4K streaming service exclusively through Samsung.
“We think it’s really visually [unique],” he said of the 4K service, which will offer a combination of native 4K and up-scaled 4K movies, from Fox, Paramount and other studios. “Our plan is to build it up aggressively. We’ve got discussions going on with everyone right now.”
He went on to mention that content that’s merely optimized for 4K — which denotes a video resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, or four times that of current high-def — would only require a 3 Mbps Internet connection, an easy entryway for early consumers of 4K technology.
However, for native 4K, a 15 Mbps connection would be required for streaming purposes, Batter mentioned. And that portends a major problem for 4K overall, according to Dan Rayburn, principal analyst with consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, and EVP of StreamingMedia.com. Despite all the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) compression solutions for 4K offered by numerous companies, despite the hardware push for 4K two years running now at CES, and despite the numerous 4K services announced at the 2014 CES — from Netflix, Amazon, Comcast and more — the content delivery model doesn’t make fiscal sense, in Rayburn’s estimation.
KALRAY, the designer and exclusive provider of the low power, high performance MPPA MANYCORE processor, today announced plans to demonstrate at CES 2014, the first low power live Ultra HD HEVC (4K) encoder running on the KALRAY MPPA MANYCORE processor. The demonstration is streaming DivX HEVC UltraHD (4K) video to a set top box.
Less than a year after it was first made available to the market, the MPPA-256 , KALRAY’s first MPPA® MANYCORE processor coming with 256 cores on a single chip, will be used for a world première demonstration at CES 2014, being held in Las Vegas (Jan 7-10). The MPPA-256 processor demonstrates a complete Ultra HD HEVC live encoding and decoding flow based on DivX HEVC UltraHD video.
The MainConcept HEVC SDK is used in the demo and is capable of encoding a high-qualityUltra HD HEVC video at 30 fps using four MPPA®-256 processors which consume less than 50 Watts altogether. Decoding and live display on a commercially available Ultra HD TV is being performed by a single MPPA based EMB01 embedded board, which was recently announced by KALRAY.
Almost lost in the sizeable Qualcomm booth in Central Hall of the 2014 International CES show is one of the more interesting demos of the year. Working together, Qualcomm, Elemental, and Akamai are showing a proof of concept of how 4K content can be encoded with HEVC to MPEG-DASH, and streamed to a big screen TV in the home.
The demo shows a vision of the near future using new and emergent technology for 4K streaming, says Kurt Michel, Akamai’s director of product marketing for media.
The video workflow goes like this: Elemental took 4K master files and encoded them at 4K MPEG-DASH using HEVC, outputting 30fps versions at 10-, 15-, and 20Mbps. Those renditions were uploaded to Akamai’s cloud-based storage network, where it’s streamed to the Qualcomm booth. The adaptive video is received by a tablet running Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 processor, which supports HEVC decoding in DASH. That image is then mirrored to a big-screen TV.
The Elemental and Akamai parts of the demo are production services available today. The exciting part is how the three players have been brought together to demonstrate HEVC and DASH 4K streaming. It might be a first.
Aiming to enhance the creation, delivery and multiscreen playback of next-generation video, Rovi has introduced new DivX technologies including technology designed to accelerate broad market adoption of the HEVC standard.
As well as demonstrating DivX HEVC technology such as DivX Live and DivX HEVC UltraHD/4K, Rovi launched updates to DivX 10 and its MainConcept HEVC SDK to reduce file sizes and create UltraHD/4K content experiences.
The HEVC 4K Streaming product comprises a live encoding and decoding flow of streaming DivX HEVC UltraHD (4K) video to a set-top box. DivX 10.1 supports the free creation, playback and streaming of high quality DivX HEVC video up to 4K. The latest update also adds new pre-defined encoding modes to DivX Converter, a DLNA Controller to DivX Player, and support for offline playback of DivX Plus Streaming content.
Harmonic today announced that it will power multiple end-to-end transmission demonstrations of 4K Ultra HD during the 2014 International CES, Jan. 7-10, in Las Vegas. Harmonic will showcase the amazing picture quality of the new format on Ultra HD TVs and set-top boxes (STBs) with its partners, industry leaders Broadcom Corporation, Sigma Designs, and Samsung Electronics.
Highlights include:
- The first standards-compliant live 4K Ultra HD 30-Hz broadcast workflow, powered by Harmonic ProMedia Xpress high-performance file-based transcoding software and decoded by Broadcom’s latest BCM7445-based STB.
- The first 4K Ultra HD 120-Hz broadcast workflow, also powered by Harmonic ProMedia Xpress transcoding software. The transcoded UHD 24/30/60 fps content will be played back on Sigma Designs’ 120-Hz Ultra HD Platform. Sigma’s Ultra HD TV Chipset uses only two chips, a SX6 UHD TV Application Processor and a FRCX Video Processor, to build a high performance and cost effective 120-Hz Ultra HD TV.
- In addition to these demos, ProMedia Xpress is undergoing interoperability testing with 4K 60-Hz Samsung UHD TVs.
Technicolor may no longer be recognizable as the company that introduced Dorothy to Oz, but it's still embedded in the movie business. In fact, the company's M-GO streaming movie service — a joint venture with DreamWorks Animation — could soon become a major source of 4K content for your new 4K television. Over the past year, the partnership has managed to convince Samsung, LG, Vizio, and Roku to load its service onto all their new smart televisions and set-top boxes, and now Samsung is taking that relationship to the next level. Today, Samsung is announcing that M-GO will stream both native and upscaled 4K movies to its latest ultra-high-definition TV sets starting in spring of this year.
According to M-GO, the service has lined up around 100 titles for launch, including "a wide selection of full-length 4K theatrical hits and popular TV shows from Hollywood's leading studios and networks." M-GO claims that customers will be able to watch movies upscaled to 4K with as little as 3Mbps of bandwidth, while native 4K content will require a steady 15mbps connection.
Big screens, bigger screens and little, tiny screens ... the 2014 International CES is sure to be all about screens - and the gadgets they're attached to - again this year.
In fact, Akamai has been working with our friends from Elemental Technologies andQualcomm Technologies, Inc. on a 4K demonstration.
Here's what it will look like:
- Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. will be demonstrating a development tablet, powered by the Snapdragon™ 805 processor, with the ability to decode H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and play back 4K content on an Ultra High Definition television.
- Elemental Technologies will encode the content using HEVC, compressing the video to require about half of the bandwidth of today's commonly used AVC/H.264 compression standard. Elemental will also apply MPEG-DASH formatting to the content. MPEG-DASH has been designed to serve as a single, open streaming format for all devices and players.
- That 4K/HEVC/DASH content will be hosted in Akamai's cloud-based NetStorage and streamed in real time over the Akamai Intelligent Platform's high-performance network at bitrates ranging from 10 to 20 megabits per second.
Elemental Technologies today announced it will power 4K video processing in high-efficiency video coding (HEVC / H.265) and MPEG-DASH formats for leading consumer electronics device and semiconductor manufacturers at the 2014 CES.
Elemental’s award-winning, software-based 4K HEVC video processing is showcased in multiple demonstrations on the show floor this week:
Delivering 4K content:
- streaming 4K HEVC and MPEG-DASH video to tablets and set-top boxes with Akamai.
- Qualifying UHD-ready hardware: demonstrating Elemental 4K HEVC compatibility with multiple hardware chipsets including STMicroelectronics and Broadcom.
- Streaming TV Everywhere: real-time encoding of MPEG-DASH-compatible DivX Live for streaming of HEVC-based content to an Android tablet
Youtube will show off its new VP9 codec at the upcoming CES show. The codec is an alternative to the current H.265 codec that has been used for 4K streaming until now. With interest from no less than 19 hardware makers, Youtube will likely have no trouble licensing the VP9.
For VP9, Google is getting its duck in a row ahead of the fact. YouTube recently released a list of 19 hardware partners that have vowed to support the new codec including ARM, Broadcom, Intel and Marvel. And at CES, YouTube will be demonstrating 4K streaming at the booths of LG, Panasonic and Sony.
LG Electronics is introducing 12 new Ultra HD television models, and all of them will be able to stream content in Ultra HD 4K format from Netflix later this year — providing four times the resolution of regular HD.
LG’s 2014 Ultra HD TVs include an HEVC codec chip, for decoding video signals in both MPEG-4 H.264 and HEVC H.265 formats, in either 30 or 60 frames per second. The company didn’t announce pricing or availability. Its current 4K TVs range from $5,200 for a 65-inch TV up to $20,000 for the 85-inch model.
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