8K live underlines BT Sport’s ambition

CSI

An 8K TV commercial launch is not imminent but BT Sport’s showcase of a 8K broadcast of a rugby sevens match in the UK does more than just cement its position as Europe’s, if not the world’s, most technically progressive broadcaster.
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“We want to produce at the highest quality. We have tested 8K and when the kit rolls out we will be ready,” said COO Jamie Hindhaugh at IBC.
BT Sport has already gone live with a 4K HDR (PQ) and Dolby Atmos for new premium service BT Sport Ultimate.

“That will be standard for every sports broadcaster in a few years. It is standard for us already,” said Hindhaugh.

BT Sport is in fact deriving three other versions of the same broadcast including in SDR and HD from the full fat 4K HDR Dolby master.

It’s logical to assume an 8K production master will follow.
“We would always look at the quality of capture. We are already trialling 8K around 360-degrees allowing user to pinch and zoom into the picture on their mobile device. 8K will be rolling out really fast.”

The rugby sevens match at Northampton’s ground was covered by a single Ikegami 8K camera in the main camera one position fitted with a Fugi 8K PL mount lens. The signal was fed through a Blackmagic Design 8K mixer to key custom graphics developed by Moov – allowing BT Sport to claim the world’s first live 8K CG. The picture was encoded in Appear encoders encapsulated in IP and transported over a normal BT network into the Netherlands before decoding in Appear on site at IBC. Astro boxes converted the raw quad SDI signal into HDMI 2.1 for display on a Samsung Qled 8K 75-inch display (costing about £3000).

The only thing preventing the picture from being augmented with HDR was conversion into HDMI 2.1.

Any 8K channel, even a pop-up one around a major live event, would require sufficient 8K device penetration in the market. Even by 2023, 8K TV shipments are predicted, by Futuresource Consulting, to reach just 5.6m globally of which North America will have 1.4m and China 2.1m.

“Machine learning upscaling is developing rapidly and this has the capability of vastly improving the speed and quality of upscaling as the market explores 8K, so the two will likely develop side by side,” says Futuresource market analyst Simon Forrest.

Another benefit to BT Sport of an 8K demo is to underline its image of leading tech development. BT were well ahead of Sky in bringing 4K broadcasts to consumers and have continued to push the envelope in trialling 5G outside broadcasts, Atmos, and delivery of HD HDR to mobile.

“This does fit well into portraying an image of a company with development which rivals, or even exceeds, that of competition from either the broadcast world or the OTT world and positions BT very well internationally as experts in the roll out of live 4K and, ultimately, 8K infrastructure,” says Forrest.

There’s another reason too. The highest margin product which BT has within its portfolio is broadband – an asset tricky to upsell since many consumers treat it as a utility.

“Telcos are finding fibre is a difficult upsell: once consumers have 50-70 Mbps to the home over copper then there is presently only a limited need to upgrade,” says Forrest.

“However, if you are to introduce 8K - which requires full end to end fibre or fixed wireless 5G - then this becomes a reason to sell the higher cost bundle. So, telcos will be looking towards new video and smart home technology that supports the infrastructure investment.”

Moreover, 4K was delivered via broadband ahead of broadcast, so operators including BT will be seeking to repeat this trick with 8K services.

Further out, when 8K does become a commercial reality, broadcast technology will likely be competing within a very different marketplace to today, given the move towards full fibre networks along with the expected challenge from 5G Broadcast high-power high-tower installations.

“BT and [mobile arm] EE, are in an optimum position to capitalise on this, whichever develops first,” Forrest adds.

BT Sport executives including Andy Beale, Hindhaugh and Matt Stagg recently argued that HD HDR is best for mobile today and that HDR with Dolby Atmos offers far more for viewer immersion than resolution alone.

“From a consumer experience point of view there are diminishing returns to providing higher resolution, notably in mobile,” agrees Forrest. “As a caveat, when Apple launched the ‘Retina’ display it said that the human eye couldn’t see any more detail than this and therefore higher resolution is unnecessary. Despite this, Apple have continued to increase the resolution, dynamic range and colour gamut of its screens every generation, but we are beyond the point of consumers seeing the benefits.”

Although its IBC demo is all about the variety of formats it can output, Hindhaugh says the broadcaster is trying to move away from formats in its marketing.

“If we don’t understand what they mean then we can’t expect an audience to. Our proposition is to deliver them the ultimate live viewing experience super-served and personalised depending on their device.”