The SMPTE 4K/UHD Symposium is set for October 21 in Hollywood, California. The event will feature industry leader talks and discussion, plus demonstrations of Ultra High Definition / 4K ecosystem products.
Visit www.smpte.org for registration information.
Monday, October 21 – Business Track – Salon 2
08:30 - 08:40
Welcoming Remarks
Chris Chinnock (Insight Media, USA)
08:40 - 10:00
4K/UHD TV - Will it be a Hit with Consumers?
Chair: Chris Chinnock (Insight Media, USA)
Paul Gagnon (NPD DisplaySearch, USA); Dan Schinasi (Samsung, USA); Steve Venuti (HDMI Licensing, USA), TBA (Sony, USA)
What is the consumer value proposition?, Will consumers buy a UHD TV if they don't have access to UHD content? Is upconversion good enough to start the market? What 4K content will be available? How should UHD TVs and UHD content be marketed to consumers? How will consumer get native 4K content? What investments are needed at content creation and in distribution to deliver 4K content? Will those investments be made? What will drive adoption - gaming, sports, movies, something else? How will UHD TV makers differentiate themselves? What is the market forecast? Do lessons learned in HD roll out apply to 4K/UHD? What are other adoption hurdles and solutions?
10:00 - 10:30
BREAK
10:30 - 11:30
4K Delivery - Who Will Step Up?
Chair: Peter H Putman (Kramer Electronics USA, USA)
Matthew S. Goldman (Ericsson, USA); Rodolfo Vargas (eyeIO, USA), Chris Johns (BskyB, UK)
Are HEVC and DASH the key to efficient distribution to consumers? Is greater Internet bandwidth required? Will Netflix, Roku, TiVo, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others dominate 4K/UHD consumer delivery? Can over the air, cable and satellite distribution compete? Will it take 10 years to reach critical mass with these technologies? What is the business case for making distribution investments? If there is consumer pull for 4K content, who will invest and what is the ROI?
11:40 - 12:45
4K in Movie and TV Production - Where Does it Make Sense?
Chair: Peter Ludé (Consultant, USA)
Laurence J Thorpe (Canon USA Inc, USA); Steve Weinstein (Deluxe, USA); Jerry Steinberg (Fox, USA)
What genres are best suited for 4K capture? Where in the workflow process does 4K processing end? What investments are needed? How will these be paid for and is it worth it? When will the cost of special effects for 4K become affordable? What is the value proposition for shooting and producing in 4K for archival purposes? Where does deriving a 2K output from a 4K shot make sense?
12:45 - 14:00
LUNCH
14:00 - 15:15
4K in Professional Markets - Is This Where 4K Really Shines?
Chair: Chris Chinnock (Insight Media, USA)
Jeff Hastings (Brightsign, USA); Alan Brawn (Brawn Consulting, USA)
Session will look at other markets where 4K can gain acceptance like theatrical, digital signage, rental and staging, visualization and simulation, graphics design, medical, and more. What is the value proposition? Is there a clear ROI? How do you market 4K in cinemas? Does it make sense to show 4K content in theatrical? Will applications that see close interaction with a 4K display drive adoption?
15:45 - 16:45
Who Will Make Money in the 4K Ecosystem?
Chair: Marty Shindler (Marty Shindler, USA)
Bryan Burns (Forward Direction Group, USA); Michael Pachter (WedBush Securities, USA); Tom Adams (IHS & IHS Screen Digest, USA); Peter Keith (Piper Jaffray, USA); Peter McGuinness (Imagination Technologies, USA)
Who wins as 4K is adopted in various applications? Chip makers? Connectivity providers? Content creators? Display makers? Infrastructure providers? This session will explore this from a pure investment perspective.
16:55 - 18:00
3D, More Colors, High Frame Rates, Greater Dynamic Range - What Best Augments a 4K/UHD Display?
Chair: Geoff Tully (Tully Consulting, USA)
Michael Zink (VP Entertainment Technology Strategy & Technicolor, USA); Roland Vlaicu (Dolby Laboratories, Inc., USA); Chris Cookson (Sony Pictures Entertainment, USA); Dean Lyon (Splinter Studios, USA)
This session explores the value proposition of adding 3D, wide color gamut, high frame rate or wide dynamic range to a 4K/UHD display. Can TVs add all these features? Can broadcast and film production support it? What do content creators, exhibitors, broadcasters, distribution partners, TV makers, and consumers want? What will each constituency pay for?
Monday, October 21 – Technical Track – Salon 1
08:30 - 08:45
Welcoming Remarks
Skip Pizzi (NAB, USA); Barbara Lange (SMPTE, USA); Patrick D. Griffis (Dolby Laboratories, USA); Wendy Aylsworth (Warner Bros., USA)
Attendees welcome and an overview of the Symposium's Agenda.
08:45 - 09:30
Introduction: UHD: More, Better, and Faster Pixels!
Patrick D. Griffis (Dolby Laboratories, USA); Masayuki Sugawara (NHK, Japan); Hans Hoffmann (European Broadcasting Union, European Union)
A tutorial overview of Next-generation image formats, including brief descriptions of proposals for higher resolution rasters, higher frame rates, increased luminance dynamic range, increased color resolution, wider color gamut, and other improvements. Topics to cover include color space and color volume, human visual system capabilities, real world luminance values, human resolution limits, frame rate versus blur.
09:30 - 10:00
Perception: How UHD Relates to the Human Visual Sense
Sean McCarthy (Arris, USA)
Great consumer experiences are created by a convergence of sight, sound, and story. This presentation will provide an in-depth, quantitative analysis of the neurobiology and optics of sight, including the psychophysical concepts of simple acuity, hyperacuity and Snellen acuity. More specifically, the presentation will examine how principles of vision science can be used to predict the bit rates and video quality needed to make ultrahigh-definition television a success
10:30 - 11:00
Ultra Good Parameter Values
David Wood (European Broadcasting Union, European Union)
In 2012, the administrations of the ITU-R agreed the major parameters for a two level UHDTV standard, UHD-1 and UHD-2, in BT. 2020, and the DVB Project set about developing a broadcast profile based on BT. 2020. The paper will describe the elements of the ITU-R standard and the current direction of discussions in the DVB Project on parameter values for broadcasting. The first development will be UHD-1 ('4k'). A critical issue is the choice of frame rate where a difficult trade off is involved between motion portrayal and manageable decoder complexity. A solution is needed that will neither close the doors to higher frame rates when practical, nor later to the UHDTV upper level, UHD-2 ('8k'). Delegates will be invited to consider whether the current plan is workable.
11:00 - 12:00
Basics of Better Pixels
Lars Borg (Adobe, USA)
This tutorial will begin with a report from the ITU-R working group evaluating extensions to its BT. 2020 document on the topics of peak luminance and "human perception-based" (rather than gamma-based) EOTFs. The session will then review the basics of colorimetry and the importance of absolute intensity range of each color, including white, to define a "color volume" that is a complete palette of all colors and their intensities used to render artistic intent. A perceptually based EOTF and its benefits will be explained. Trade-offs in bit-depth representations versus quantization errors will also be described, as well as the challenges of mapping between different color volumes, including XYZ, Rec. 2020 and Rec. 709.
12:00 - 12:30
Results of Subjective Tests on Higher Frame Rate TV material
Richard Salmon (BBC R&D, United Kingdom)
In August 2013, members of the BTF from the BBC, RAI, IRT and EBU, with assistance from NHK, collaborated to conduct tests to explore the visible effects of higher frame rates (up to 240 frames per second), using both uncompressed and compressed material. The results of these tests will be presented, and the implications for broadcasters and their approach to the priorities for the technical improvements offered by the various different aspects of UHDTV will be discussed.
12:30 - 14:00
LUNCH
14:00 - 14:30
Up and Downconversion in the UHDTV and 4K era
Paul Briscoe (Harris, Canada)
In the transition from SD to HD, up-, down- and cross-conversion have become commonplace. Technologies such as AFD combined with evolved conversion algorithms have made inter-format conversions straightforward and high quality. The advent of 4K and UHDTV brings new challenges. Upconversion of HD material will become common, and deinterlacing and very high-quality spatial filtering will be required. Framerate conversion up to High Frame Rate will require care to offer optimal quality, and downconversion from HFR will require care to provide a naturally flowing image. This paper discusses the issues surrounding format conversion in the evolution to the 4K/UHD world. Specific issues around deinterlacing, scaling, colorspace conversion, gamut management, audio processing and the handling of cinema content are discussed in detail. Practical examples of each type of processing are shown, and the reader is provided with an in-depth overview of the technical challenges involved and how they may be solved.
14:30 - 15:15
UHD Hollywood Update
Wendy Aylsworth (Warner Bros., USA); Annie Chang (The Walt Disney Studios, USA)
With the improvements of more, better, and faster pixels, MovieLabs and its Hollywood member studios have developed a proposed feature set for UHD formats. In this session, representatives from Fox, Warner, Disney, and Paramount will present their thoughts on the important technical features for next generation video formats and how they will impact mastering and distribution.
15:15 - 15:45
BREAK
15:45 - 16:30
UHD Broadcast Update
Masayuki Sugawara (NHK, Japan); James Kutzner (Public Broadcasting Service, USA); Robert Seidel (CBS, USA)
Broadcasters from around the world provide reports on the current status and near-future plans for deployment of UHD systems and services. Challenges facing their efforts and proposals to overcome them will be highlighted.
16:30 - 17:00
UHD Consumer Update
Peter H Putman (Kramer Electronics USA, USA)
Ultra high-definition TV is here. While most of the push for 4K displays is coming from the world of consumer electronics, there are enough commercial applications for UHDTV to ensure that it is a viable platform for next- generation TV viewing and not just another "gimmick" to sell televisions. But stepping up from 2K to 4K displays isn't just a simple exercise in adding pixels. Which direct-view and projection technologies can support 4K now? How will we switch and distribute the massive amounts of data needed to drive a 4K display? This paper will provide an overview of the current UHDTV display marketplace; highlight new 4K reference and commercial displays for acquisition and post that were introduced at the 2013 CES, NAB, and InfoComm trade shows, and detail the challenges of interfacing 4K through HDMI and DisplayPort connection
17:00 - 17:45
Putting it All Together
Hans Hoffmann (European Broadcasting Union, European Union)
Having learned about core contributions of more, better, and faster pixels to UHD, what about the interactions between them? And what other technical issues need to be addressed before these improvements can be brought to the market? Hear a summary of the issues and prognostications on the answers to remaining questions from this panel.
17:45 - 18:00
Closing Remarks
Skip Pizzi (NAB, USA)
