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Ultra HD group outlines next generation of 4K TV broadcasts
The concept of 4K TV broadcasting is only just getting off the ground, but its overseers are already planning for what comes next. The Ultra HD Forum has published its first "Phase B" guidelines detailing what companies should aim for with future 4K broadcast tech. Not surprisingly, high frame rates should play a major role -- the group is hoping for 100FPS and 120FPS video (depending on the region) with a fallback for 60FPS. It's also pushing for dynamic HDR video through formats like Dolby Vision and SL-HDR, while Dolby AC-4 and MPEG-H would provide audio that could adapt from elaborate 3D sound setups to a plain set of headphones.
PDF for Revision 1.0 of the Ultra HD Forum Phase B Guidelines:
The Phase B technologies were carefully selected to help service operators plan for next generation UHD services. In August 2017, the Ultra HD Forum conducted a Service Operator Survey with the goal of learning about up-and-coming UHD technologies that have captured the interest of service operators. The survey results served as a guide to the Ultra HD Forum in drafting this document.
This version of the UHD Phase B Guidelines is a preliminary look at these important UHD technologies. The goal of this version is to introduce and de-mystify the technologies and provide information to operators that are considering incorporating one or more of these advanced features into their UHD services.
Also at MyBroadband.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @12:48AM (5 children)
I haven't watched a TV broadcast in 10 years. And I watch a lot of TV. I make a habit to follow at least five shows regularly. I get all of my TV content in pirated streams.
I know one person who still watches broadcast TV. Her brain was rotted away by the idiot box. All she can do now is sing the J G Wentworth jingle. Cast out Satan. Don't watch broadcast.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @02:40AM (2 children)
I too am coming up on 10 years.
I turned it off because of the commercials. The endless commercials. The content was no longer there. Take for example a classic star trek episode. 53-54 minutes. Current 1 hour TV shows clock in at 47. Half Hour at 22. Then the sponsored bits buried inside.
For example this scene from a blockbuster movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCFa0NR83H8 [youtube.com] watch the coke cans. Notice how they are always in frame and properly orientated to show the name. That sort of thing is common. They have people whos job it is to make that happen.
I can still quote you the TV guide showtimes for shows for any year before 2010. I watched that much TV. Now I watch 0. I watch movies now. I am that 'guy' who still buys DVDs. Why? Because Netflix never has the shows I want to watch on streaming. So I just buy everything rip them and put them on a giant NAS. I can pick and choose what I watch with ease. For what cable was charging me I can buy a *large* amount of TV shows, movies, books, and music. I did just that. I also get the hindsight of buying 'the good stuff'. Because I know well after the fact what is junk and what is good. Because other people have filtered it out by the time I get to it now. I no longer have to sample everything. I can be choosy. It is most awesome.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by FatPhil on Monday April 09 2018, @10:33AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday April 09 2018, @04:14PM
I remember watching the series Burn Notice (it was fun for the first few seasons then got old) and there was such a blatant product placement that left me dumbfounded. The character Sam played by Bruce Campbell is drinking a miller beer and puts it down. But as he does so, it cuts to a shot of the beer hitting the table with the label in full view like a typical beer commercial. But this was in the middle of a TV show episode. That was during the decline of the show and I stopped watching shortly after. The show also doubled as a big Dodge car commercial too.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday April 09 2018, @07:38AM
I think we have to separate out some things here:
- Do you watch your programmes only on the schedule of the TV networks? No, why would you, that's just stupid. We have tech that killed that, everything from the VCR up.
- Do you watch programmes that are chosen by you?
Because a lot of people just leave the TV on and let it tell them what to watch. This is still true of YouTube (next video?), etc. if you let it happen. This is the cause of the "brain-drain" of TV, I think.
However, I would also factor in:
- Have you ever cut out your favourite programme because it gets silly, or an episode is boring, or the series went downhill?
Do you cherry pick just the bits you want to watch, watch them when convenient to you, and switch off when it's not interesting? Then you won't have much of a problem with TV or life.
Do you watch what's scheduled and advertised, specifically wait for it to come on, while watching whatever precedes, follows or interrupts it, and only change channels as a last resort, while watching everything because of the name (soap operas are particularly bad for this - just because it's "this week's episode" you have to watch it?)? Then TV is the least of your problems and merely a symptom of a brainlessness inside yourself.
When the older generations complain about TV ruining kid's brains, I bring out questions like this and discover that they are often the worst. Whereas a kid with a tablet will likely consume only their favourite program, only for as long as the episode, will detest adverts and straying off that onto something else, and quickly get bored of the same episodes over and over again. And they will have been taught how to pause on demand when there's something that needs doing.
I was brought up in such a household - TV on every evening, soap operas fed down each night, kids babysat through the use of the TV, etc. But as an adult I spent about 5 years without any TV at all and I didn't suffer for it, and I don't have a TV now. I don't think my parents could manage that, they'd go insane*. Now I do cherry-pick from catch-up, am often years behind on TV series that everyone else has watched, but though I have a projector, I don't have a TV. If I watch things it's via Chromecast and on demand only (and the Chromecast / projector is off if I'm not watching something specific). I could watch my month's TV in a day, and most of that is just something to cut the silence while sitting down to a meal.
TV usage is a choice.
*I hate to generalise, but my brother and I both got university degrees, my parents don't have a single qualification between them. They raised us right, if you look at it like that, but there's a stark contrast in our intellectual needs as regards TV vs books (my mother has probably read one book in her adult life, my dad can manage a Pratchett if he's in the mood), entertainment vs discourse, etc. and I think that TV usage stems from more than just "everyone does it". It comes from being the brain-filler when nothing else is filling your brain. I'm not sure that if such TV wasn't available that we'd be any better off... those people would just be out doing something else mindless instead, or just bored (which is probably more dangerous!).
In prior generations to any that live at the moment, the day was spent with chores, work and only a brief respite before darkness. There wasn't time for something like TV except maybe a short news programme on the wireless before bed. Now that we have the time because of modern technology - everything from the lightbulb to the washing machine to the microwave - we have nothing to fill it with if our brains aren't occupied. If TV didn't exist, someone would have to invent something like it for the masses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @01:19PM
I don't see why watching the same show should have a different effect when seeing on TV versus when seeing on the computer screen. Indeed, I'd say TV requires more thought, as you have to look up the times, coordinate your activities to meet that time table, program your recorder whenever you cannot watch at that time, have to remember to check the time, and you usually cannot spend a full afternoon binge-watching a series.
It's not the medium, it's how you use it.
But then, I'm also almost exclusively watching stuff without ad breaks (fortunately in German public TV, ad breaks are restricted to the two main channels, and there to a narrow time window that's easily avoided). Indeed, a few times I saw something announced on private TV that interested me, started watching it, and then when the first ad break came, it annoyed me so much that I turned the TV off.