Walking with a firm step towards Ultra High Definition

Executives from Sony, Hispasat, SES Astra, Dolby and the RTVE-UPM Chair debate at BIT Experience about the present and future of Ultra High Definition.

This Thursday, BIT Experience 2017 addressed the current situation of Ultra High Definition and its future prospects in a round table in which José Manuel Menéndez, director of the RTVE-UPM Chair, participated; Miguel Pingarrón, business development director of SES Astra in Iberia; José Antonio Bolós, Country Sales Manager at Sony Professionals Solutions Europe; Guillermo Niño, senior director of operations and broadcast for Europe at Dolby Laboratories; and Jorge Rodríguez, marketing director at Hispasat. Antonio Castillo, director of Panorama Audiovisual, has been in charge of moderating this panel of experts.

José Antonio Bolós has highlighted that for the development of 4K it is necessary to have dynamic business models and has stressed that currently fifty companies around the world already work in Ultra High Definition, Netflix being one of the most paradigmatic cases. Bolós has also reviewed the first experiences carried out in UHD with high dynamic range HDR.

Jorge Rodríguez has admitted that "we are still in an emerging phase of this technology. The majority of emerging services are premium sports content" and has anticipated that over time there will be a standardization of the 4K offering, generating a commercial reality.

For his part, Miguel Pingarrón sees many similarities between the development of HD and that of UHD and recalled that already 10% of the screens sold in the distribution channel are 4K. He has also highlighted that to have quality UHD, between 20-25 Mbps are necessary, which gives satellite a great competitive advantage over other options such as DTT or broadband.

Regarding Dolby, Guillermo Niño has commented that his company is focused on color optimization with its own proposal compared to others such as the one promoted by the public NHK and BBC. He has also pointed out the need to optimize the way in which 4K is distributed since players like Netflix offer 4K content without infrastructure difficulties. Regarding audio, he stated that it would be a mistake to talk about UHD in reference to stereo audio. “It is important to elevate the user experience with Next Generation Audio (NGA).

BIT Experience está organizado por IFEMA y Comunicare Digital, con Panorama Audiovisual como main media partner, y el patrocinio de Aicox, Etiqmedia, Harmonic, SES y Sony (diamante); Akamai, Aspera, Cellnex, Hispasat, Intinor, Riedel, Rohde&Schwarz y TMediaT (oro); Axión, Ebantic, Tedial, VHD y VSN (plata).

More information and registration (free for professionals), here.

Access to the SPECIAL BIT EXPERIENCE 2017 in Panorama