The Prado Passion is shown in Bit Broadcast 2014 as the “Spain brand” of the 4K

The documentary The Prado Passion It remains the great representative of the Spanish 4K production and, obviously, could not be missing in this International Audiovisual Technology Salon. The main ones involved in this project, RTVE, Abertis, Hispasat, Sony, Sappelapospo, have met at a round table to explain how the evolution of this project has been.

The main agents involved in this project have met in IFEMA To explain how the idea arose and how the project has been developing until it becomes an authentic 4K production with a great impact worldwide.

To explain to the attendees how the realization and evolution of the project has been, Juan Carlos González de RTVE, Xavier Redón of Abertis, Miguel Ángel Cristobal of Sapec, Inés Sanz of Hispasat, Turrent Paul of Sony and José María Aragonese of Apuntolapospo.

Para conocer sus orígenes hay que remontarse a la prueba piloto realizada en Barcelona hace ya dos años, iniciativa que dio paso al actual documental que se está exhibiendo. Se trataba de un corto que giraba en torno a la Ciudad Condal y mostraba el urbanismo, la arquitectura singular y sus entornos. Más tarde esta experiencia, se trasladó a las salas del Museo del Prado.

“We decided that the Prado Museum was the object of this first 4K project since art allows us to show everything that this technology can offer. It is a content that allows us to take advantage of the definition and color of the color of the ultra high definition. In addition, it is a way to carry the jewel of Spanish culture beyond our borders. 4K has come to stay. We have the technology, now we have to develop it and join the brand of Spain,” explains Juan Carlos González.

This has been the first production that TVE has made with this technology but other projects that will see the light throughout this year and the next year are planned. “The first we are doing around music, Jordi Savall. For summer we will have prepared a documentary about The Greco And for the end of the year we hope to have finished the Altamira, the first art cathedral, although the latter is being more complicated since it is a very ambitious production that raises great challenges. For 2015 and taking advantage of the fifth centenary of Santa Teresa de Jesús we have planned to make a production around this issue, titled God between pots ”.

Filming and production

To perform this documentary, a TVE team toured the rooms of the Prado Museum to bring the spectators closer the magic and light of 400 masterpieces of the more than 9,000 that the Prado Museum treasures. The objective of the documentary is to give a complete vision of the Madrid pinacoteca, showing the history and creation of the museum and the different collections that are exposed in it. The 4K allows a resolution that mimics reality and offers great quality in the perception of color and textures, fundamental in the reproduction of works of art.

Hispasat and Abertis, who have sponsored the production of the documentary, have provided the technical means necessary for the development of the project, together with the Producer Aporeolapospo, in charge of the edition and postproduction of the documentary, with the production resources, such as the Sony F65 Chamber, of the company Ovide, which captured the images in 4K. TVE has taken care of the organization, production, direction and realization of the entire recording process.

"The Sony F65 camera is equipped with 8K CMOS sensor with which we could do a job closer to the cinema than to television. It allowed us to get filming to be as simple as possible and, in addition, it facilitated the color graduation. In the production we are doing we tend to monitor in 4K and make the color correction from the camera itself," says Paul Turrents.

After carrying out the contents, the next phase was the production, ensure that all that work filmed in 4K could be visualized the same quality and characteristics that this technology provides. “With the latest advances that have been achieved we can work in a non -linear, random, multiformat and simultaneously From 1:85, ”says José María Aragonese.

Compresión de vídeo

Para Miguel Ángel Cristobal de Sapec el principal problema se encontraba en los sistemas de comprensión ya que “actualmente, hay muy pocas redes que permitan este tipo de transmisión y podíamos llegar a muy pocos usuarios. La solución la encontramos en el nuevo formato de comprensión, HEVC-ITU H.265”.

El formato HEVC mejora la eficiencia de comprensión en un 50% y permite soportar nuevos formatos de mayor resolución como UHDTV.

Since the first experience in Barcelona, to the current version that was exhibited in the last edition of Canmes, it has been possible to move from the 25 FPS to 50 fps, the H-264 coding system has been evolved to H.265 and “we have managed to take advantage of the current TDT and satellite infrastructures. In addition, we now also have new devices that allow 4K to be a reality”.

Abertis e Hispasat

The intervention of Xavier Redón has highlighted the great progress that the DTT has suffered “which has not stopped incorporating improvements and the last step has been 4K. The use of the contents is made in linear channels and to be able which allows us to reach 30/33 Mbps. ”

In the transmission that was made of the Prado Passion in this year's MWC, 50 fps was already made with HEVC compression and DVB-T2 modulation. For its part, the exhibition in the 2013 IBC was transmitted by satellite “and it meant the launch from Hispasat in 4K. From this moment, our goal was to create an open channel for the audiovisual collective that is developing in 4K. In NAB 2014 we have expanded our coverage to North America with Amazonas 3 and, now with Hispasat IC we have extended it even more to Latin America,” says Inés Sanz.