The State of 4K and HDR 2017

Streaming Media

4K is making inroads, but it's the profound visual richness of high dynamic range video that will really revolutionize how people watch television. Streaming networks are leading the way.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/The-State-of-4K-and-HDR-2017-117304.aspx
Amazon and Netflix began delivering 4K/Ultra HD (UHD) content 2 years ago, but 2016 ushered in a series of 4K broadcast launches beginning in Canada. With the expertise of U.K. telco BT Sport—pioneer of live 4K broadcasts since fall 2015— Rogers Media’s Sportsnet and Bell Media’s TSN each debuted live 4K services starting with a Toronto Raptors versus Orlando Magic game from London’s O2 Arena in January. This was the first of more than 100 live 4K (including Toronto Blue Jays home games and NHL games) events produced by Rogers last year.
In April, AT&T launched DirecTV’s first dedicated 4K channel with broadcasts from the Masters Tournament at Augusta National and later that month began the first of regular live 4K baseball broadcasts via the MLB Network Showcase. Other events DirecTV delivered in UHD included NCAA Football, UFC fights, PGA tournaments, and the Country Music Awards.
CBS eschewed any UHD transmission of Super Bowl 50, opting for tried-and-trusted HD, although Japanese broadcaster NHK was in the Levi’s Stadium to test 8K Super Hi-Vision. NHK repeated its tests at Super Bowl LI, although Fox again only broadcast in 4K.
The Olympics provided a slightly wider UHD showcase. Customers of DirecTV, Dish Network, and Comcast were able to view certain events from Rio in 4K (provided they had 4K screens, of course).
NBC took the 4K feed of 83 hours (a fraction of the total games coverage of 6,700 hours) produced by the International Olympic Committee in partnership with NHK natively in 8K and downconverted. Because of this, none of the 4K coverage was live.
Comcast made UHD Olympics action available through broadband-connected UHD TVs from Samsung and LG, but only via its Xfinity Ultra High Definition app, not on a linear channel.
There were only around 70 channels globally outputting 4K/UHD content by year-end, according to  Futuresource Consulting. This consists of a mix of 24-hour and occasionally broadcast channels. Even fewer operators are picking these channels up and broadcasting them because, in most cases, the business case doesn’t add up.
A low penetration of TVs with UHD resolution is one factor. Globally, this stood at just 5 percent by the end of 2016. “While higher in developed countries such as the U.S. (15 percent), this is still a low addressable base,” says Futuresource marketing analyst Tristan Veale. “Bearing in mind that 4K/UHD costs more to produce (or acquire) and distribute, in order for pay TV operators to make a profit either the extra costs need to be low, or they are significantly improving the service enough to be able to charge a premium to cover the costs.”
There are only a few circumstances where either one or both of these are actually true. One is that a broadcaster/platform owner produces its own content, and as such gains some efficiencies by shooting and producing in 4K/UHD and then outputting from this a 4K and HD feed (as Dome Productions is doing for Rogers).. 
A second circumstance is where distribution costs are low. Since the addressable base is low, the most cost-effective solution is delivery via IP, and this is improved further if the consumer is upsold to a higher-value broadband package by taking a double-, triple-, or quad-play service from the operator. “Broadband has a much higher margin than TV, and therefore this offsets the cost of producing in 4K/UHD,” says Veale.
A third scenario is where the content being recorded is of sufficient quality that it is imperative for future-proofing or reselling that the content be produced in 4K UHD. Examples include BBC’s Planet Earth II, which is likely to have a 10-year resell cycle, and major sports events like the Olympics.
“If we take those three criteria for launching a 4K service, we find that BT Sport and Rogers has all three while DirecTV has high-quality content,” says Veale.
However, there are other elements to 4K UHD outside of resolution, notably High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide Color Gamut (WCG), which make a significant visual impact on the consumer. Therefore, when they are added into the mix, the business case becomes a lot more attractive.

Bright Future for High Dynamic Range

HDR addresses the difference between the darkest and brightest parts of a picture and is considered a more profound upgrade than resolution, as most people usually don’t notice a difference in pixel density when sitting away at 8' to 10'.
Because of the move to 10-bit coding needed for recording, distributing, and delivering HDR according to UHD specifications, color accuracy and precision is improved almost as a by-product but visually also makes a big difference.
“This is the main reason [we saw] limited activity from pay TV operators [in 2016],” suggests Veale. “They know that when they can distribute HDR to consumers, the visual impact is sufficient that they don’t need the best quality sports or similar content to be able to charge the consumer more.”
This piece of the puzzle is now in place. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ratified its standard for working with HDR in July in a move that will accelerate broadcaster UHD services globally.
Netflix and Amazon are ahead of the game. Most Amazon Prime and Netflix content is now produced in 4K, with Netflix adding 600 hours of 4K content by the end of 2016 and Amazon amassing over 175 hours of UHD plus HDR programming including car show The Grand Tour. Netflix recommends at least a 25Mbps connection for Premium subscribers to appreciate UHD HDR Originals like Marvel’s Iron Fist.
Hollywood studios have mastered around 100 titles in UHD HDR for SVOD and Blu-ray, a number predicted to triple in 2017 by Warner Bros. Worldwide Home Entertainment Distribution president Ronald J. Sanders. “There’s a concerted effort to match the growth and install base at home,” he said at the CES. He said Warner Bros. was “aggressively” going into its catalog to refresh titles with an HDR sheen.
While Hulu finally joined the major streamers in offering titles in UHD, including time-travel thriller 11.22.63, its library has no advertised HDR content. YouTube confirmed its support for HDR videos in November.
The lack of a broadcast standard for HDR, as well as complications in introducing it into workflows, prevented broadcasters from adding HDR to their UHD packages in 2016. Rogers announced its intention to do so and then withdrew.
Regionally, only Latin America’s biggest network, Globo, released a UHD and HDR project in 2016 when it offered flagship drama Dangerous Liaisons over its Globo Play VOD service.
If the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) is right, then 4K UHD TVs, “this time, arm in arm with High Dynamic Range,” according to Steve Koenig, its senior director of market research, remains one of the consumer electronics industry’s fastest-growing segments.
The CTA projects shipments of UHD displays to reach 15.6 million units in 2017 (up from 10 million in 2016) and earn $14.6 billion in revenue in the U.S. Global 4K UHD sales are expected to jump from 53 million units last year to 82 million in 2017.
“Growth of the 4K UHD market continues to dwarf the transition to high-definition television,” Koenig explains. “Just 3 years since introduction, cumulative sales of 4K UHD displays are forecast to hit 15.6 million units, while sales of HDTVs reached 4.2 million units in their first 3 years on the market.”
Display size is growing in tandem with resolution. In 2016, 73 percent of 55"+ TVs shipped were 4K-ready, according to IHS Markit TV, which predicts that penetration for sets 50" and higher will rise to 100 percent 4K by 2018. This year, some 78 million 4K TVs will sell, up 40 percent from 2016.
2017 will see a great deal more HDR activity as the addressable base of 4K UHD TV’s with HDR widens. In North America, the penetration of HDR TVs will be between 10 percent and 14 percent at year-end, reckons Futuresource.

Is Dolby Set for HDR Monopoly?

Innovation is never straightforward. Various HDR flavors are being implemented at various stages of the production to distribution chain, filtering into retail and risking consumer confusion about the product.
The baseline standard is HDR10, which is nonproprietary, defines a 10-bit video stream, and is included in the Blu-ray Disc Association’s specification for UHD Blu-rays. It also aligns with UHD Alliance certification.
Complementing and competing with HDR10 is Perceptual Quantizer (PQ), designed by Dolby and marketed as Dolby Vision (which includes surround sound format Atmos). The chief difference is that PQ can manage HDR from camera through post-processing, production, and on to final delivery. Dolby claims, with some justification, that it delivers superior contrast brightness and color. Dolby Vision delivers 12-bit color depth and is a future-proofed format that can play back on displays up to 10,000 candelas—which no consumer display currently offers.
In addition, rather than provide one value of brightness for the end display as HDR10 does, Dolby Vision performs this for every frame. This allows creators to have full control over the final image, a quality that is highly prized in Hollywood.
As a result, Dolby Vision has made considerable headway among U.S. studios. Lionsgate, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros. will be releasing Dolby Vision UHD Blu-ray Discs early in 2017.
A third variant, which has made more ground in Europe thanks to the prevalence of public service broadcasters, is Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG). Developed by the BBC and NHK, it enables backward compatibility with legacy 4K displays and is considered easier to introduce into a live broadcast workflow. Unlike Dolby and HDR10, HLG is less complicated for live production purposes since it works without the need for additional metadata encoded into the video source. In addition, HLG will display video in standard dynamic range if the receiving device isn’t compatible with HDR. Consequently, this form is more useful to PSBs.
On top of those options, Dolby rival Technicolor has its own capture-to-display system called Advanced HDR.
It’s early days though, and wary of heading toward a dead end, content owners and display vendors are hedging their bets. Amazon and Netflix content is compatible with both HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Any TV with a Dolby Vision decoder will also be able to play back HDR10.
Panasonic supports HDR10 and HLG, but not Dolby Vision in its flagship TX-65EZ1002B, a 65" OLED. Sony’s 4K HDR TVs now support Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG. Also on board with Dolby Vision are TCL and Roku.
LG has gone whole hog in support of all four HDR flavors, including Technicolor’s, in its new top-of-the-line model. In return, Technicolor says it will use LG OLEDs exclusively as reference monitors for colorists working in facilities it owns.
Devices capable of playing back HDR are multiplying. Google’s Chromecast Ultra, Sony’s PS4 Pro, and Nvidia’s Shield TV streaming box are among the latest.
In Europe, the feeling is that HLG will assume priority in sports broadcasts with PQ being more popular for drama. In any case, the ITU standard recognizes both HLG and PQ and, crucially, enshrines the ability to convert between them.
“So if a Hollywood movie is delivered to a broadcaster in PQ, it can be converted to HLG for delivery, easily, and without damaging the output,” says Andy Quested, chairman of the ITU group responsible for its HDR standard.
Consumers need to be aware that the HDR label on a device doesn’t necessarily mean the representation of the image is really HDR.
“Some have a maximum light output of 1,000 nits, and some have 400 nits, which isn’t sufficient for HDR,” says Florian Friedrich, managing director at HDR testing service AVTOP and Quality.TV at CES. “It’s important that the TV can represent colors with luminance that are saturated at high levels, not just low levels.”

The number of HDR formats will likely be whittled down. Retail marketing could become an issue. Vendors don’t want the added expense of incorporating more bits into their displays, and studios don’t want to have to keep mastering multiple versions, which they currently have to.

IP Production Comes of Age

Live sports continued to spearhead pay TV operator moves into 4K UHD with rapidly evolving IP and IT technology likely to prompt further investment.
“Probably the most significant shift in broadcast tech we’ve seen through 2016 has been the continued rise of the IP-enabled broadcast operations center,” says Rory McVicar, project manager of CDN EMEA at Level 3 Communications. “As this trend accelerates, Ethernet is increasingly being looked to as the common standard for broadcasters embracing OTT and multiscreen viewing.”
Vendors began the year aligned to different IP paths but gradually shifted behind the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) aided by endorsements from Sony, Evertz Microsystems, and vendor trade body IABM.
What AIMS managed to demonstrate successfully last year was interoperability, with a showpiece working studio in HD at Belgium’s VRT being the year’s prime example. The actual impact on broadcasting of IP/IT has, however, been minimal in real terms.
“Most companies are either still in the planning stages or are yet to start formally thinking about IP, but there is definite forward momentum,” reports Adam Cox, senior analyst at Futuresource Consulting.
According to Futuresource’s Video Server Market Overview report, only 9 percent of video server ports were IP by the end of 2016 (up from 5 percent in 2015). The next key stage is toward the true separation of audio, video, and data signals along with synchronization information. This has been encapsulated as TR-03, which is being built into new standard ST 2110 currently winding its way through SMPTE with ratification not likely before 2018.
TR-03 itself is composed of a number of existing standards: RFC 4175 for video, AES67 for uncompressed audio, and SMPTE 2059 for clock synchronization. RFC 4175 is important as a means of reducing the volume of data transported since it will recognize and carry only active pixels, or the visible part of the video.
The work of the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) is also significant in providing for the ability to plug in a device and make it known to the IP network and then have an open way for that device to describe all of the things it is capable of doing. AIMS has adopted AMWA’s Networked Media Open Specifications (NMOS) protocol, which will possibly be incorporated into SMPTE 2110.
Beyond even this, AMWA has begun exploring how NMOS will work in practice. Ultimately, this will lead to new specifications that will allow the industry to truly embrace data center and cloud technologies and feel confident relying on another company’s platform, hardware, and servers.
The question facing broadcasters is not whether to invest in IP—the move is inevitable, and the benefits from cost savings to greater editorial flexibility are compelling. The real question is whether or not to invest now.
“The economics of IP today make more sense at the enterprise level and probably do not yet stack up for smaller projects,” admits Tim Felstead, head of product marketing at SAM. “The industry has to make a case for IP beyond pure return on investment. IP is not swapping one technology for another. It offers a whole new approach to market.”
This also requires a shift in business model among vendors from selling expensive black boxes on premises (a capital expenditure for customers) toward a revenue-based model based on operating expenditures.
In other words, media organizations are being encouraged to rent or subscribe to services—playout, for example—running virtually in a data center.
“True adoption of IP will come when IP architectures are embraced to bring about all the benefits IP can provide,” says Futuresource senior analyst Adam Cox. “This is the next step, but we’re not there yet, and most of the industry won’t be there in 2017 either.”

4K Live Streaming

4K content still represents a lower percentage of streaming content compared with HD and even lower resolution video. For live, it’s still expensive from a computing standpoint especially if you want to support 4:2:2, HDR, and high frame rates, notes Telestream CTO Shawn Carnahan.
“Today’s 4K OTT levels are small but rapidly growing,” reports Ian Munford, EMEA director of product enablement and marketing, media services for Akamai. “Clearly there are a range of on-demand 4K movies available through various SVOD streaming services, but we are seeing many more live streaming events, particularly sports, taking advantage of online 4K delivery.”
While there are regional technology and infrastructure differences, in Q3 2016 Akamai reported that global adoption of broadband services over 15Mbps (capable of receiving 4K content) had increased 54 percent year on year to 22 percent.
The technical challenges to delivering live 4K OTT services center on improving the consistency and reliability of high bitrate 4K streams from ingest through to delivery—at scale. The challenge is multifaceted and requires different thinking throughout the workflow.
“If you can’t reliably ingest a live 4K video stream into a CDN, you can’t deliver a high-quality viewing experience,” explains Munford. “Likewise, if you can’t stream live 4K video consistently without buffering, then the viewer experience will be dreadful. Traditional streaming technologies use TCP as a transport protocol. This was designed to ensure reliability, but not deliver high-bitrate video, where bottlenecks in the internet may impact quality of experience.”
The combination of ingest acceleration and delivery acceleration has enabled the delivery of live 4K sporting events online. Munford believes we’ll see a maturing of live OTT technologies in 2017, “specifically ... in areas such as live origin services, live transcoding, and 4K delivery.”
Level 3 also thinks 2017 may herald the true beginning of the upward curve, with consumers expecting greater quality in their streamed media. “The actions of content providers will further stoke this growth,” says McVicar.
On Nov. 12, UFC.TV claimed the world’s first global delivery of an event live in 4K at 60 frames per second. The SVOD eticket cost $59.99.
“We were very excited to showcase this on such a big stage,” says Chris Wagner, EVP and co-founder at UFC digital partner NeuLion. “I don’t know any other service other than UFC that is global OTT with a digital ticket in 4K/60. I don’t know of anyone else who has done this.”
NeuLion delivered the 4K show from Madison Square Garden as an HEVC stream in MPEG-DASH encoded in H.265.
This article appears in the March 2017 issue of Streaming Media magazine.