Free 8K Broadcasting

Perhaps over compressed 8k will have the visual acuity of actual 1920x1080 @60p.
At least that will be an improvement over today's half-assed 480i/576i SD shite.
 
androbot2084 said:
It's the public broadcasters like the Japanese NHK, British BBC and American PBS that champion 8K super high vision.
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What you are posting is utter nonsense. PBS and PBS affiliates struggle majorly with funding at the moment. There is no way PBS can fund any changes to their infrastructure- as the matter of fact they are letting people go due to shortages in funding. I know this, because I know several people working for KCTS9. Besides this, any changes in broadcast standard would have to go through FCC, which is the governing body for broadcast. This would require re-writing of the regulations, a whole hearing process, public comment period and final approval. Process like that would be at least 3 years long. What you are saying it's utter nonsense. To back up my statement you are providing ZERO evidence. 100% of your posts are total hearsay.
 
MaxThomas said:
I googled it. Here's Wikipedia's brief entry and a document from the ATSC.

Both mention only 4K up to 60fps, nothing about 8K or higher frame rates. And ATSC 3.0 is in very early stages– ATSC 2.0 isn't even close to implementation, and that's supposed to build on the current system before starting over some day with the 3.0 system.

This speculation is pretty pointless, though. Any advancements in video quality from here on out will happen first (and, I would wager, only) on the internet, as IP infrastructure allows it. YouTube supports 4K video today. Netflix will within a year or two. RED is pushing their upcoming 4K delivery marketplace. All IP-based. As the pipes get bigger, encoding gets better, and acquisition advances, you can bet YouTube will flip the switch and allow 8K uploads too, and others will follow.

And there's a growing chance that Aereo's existence will end most free TV broadcasts in the US, anyway. If Aereo's strategy is borne out in court, and the broadcasters can't get the laws changed in their favor, the networks stand to lose huge amounts of money from retransmission fees if they continue free OTA broadcasts. By 2015, those fees are estimated to be almost $3 billion in revenue for the networks and affiliates. The CEO of Time Warner Cable has already said they would explore Aereo's strategy if proven in court to avoid paying those fees. Add to that the fact that the FCC would likely pay the networks large sums to reclaim their spectrum rights, and it's not inconceivable that broadcast TV won't exist in the US by the time ATSC 3.0 is a real standard.

So your 4K/8K/120fps/whatever dream will happen, but I wouldn't look to broadcast to pave the way on that one.
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ATSC has ZERO regulatory power. I am sure they have some lobbying force, but I doubt they would be able to strong arm FCC to change current regulations. The last change from analogue to digital took about 12 years.
 
"it's there, it's the future and it's not going away"

I heard THAT line before.

3D, electric cars, flying cars, holographic projection, 3D without glasses andwhatnot


Point is, they are not even able to broadcast/stream 1920x1080 in the moment.

Only editors, working with uncompressed material are able to see real 1920x1080 - everything else, if compressed in camera or for delivery - than it is far from it, since the first thing, that every compression does, is throwing detail and information out of the window.

So.. 8k - really?
 
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Film buffs have always argued that until we have uncompressed delivery digital will never rival film. What the film buffs will not say is that whenever you make a copy of a copy of a copy that you will get unacceptable degradation.

What really holds us back is not so much the compression but rather that 1080i is interlaced. The problem with 1080p is that it is currently limited to 24 frames per second so it is useless for sports broadcasting.

720p is currently the best format for current over the air broadcasting. If 8k can rival the quality of 720p compression will not be a problem.
 
androbot2084 said:
Film buffs have always argued that until we have uncompressed delivery digital will never rival film. What the film buffs will not say is that whenever you make a copy of a copy of a copy that you will get unacceptable degradation.

What really holds us back is not so much the compression but rather that 1080i is interlaced. The problem with 1080p is that it is currently limited to 24 frames per second so it is useless for sports broadcasting.

720p is currently the best format for current over the air broadcasting. If 8k can rival the quality of 720p compression will not be a problem.
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Film buffs? We're not talking about cinema here, this is network TV. Video today is driven by value (desirable content per dollar), convenience (can I watch this on any device I want to), reliability, and then probably in fourthish place is image quality. The first two are critical, with image quality being as good as current technology and cost structure will allow. When more and more people are watching TV on <10" screens, what incentive is there to push for 4K, much less 8K delivery?
 
Now that film is dead network television is the new cinema. Instead of 65mm IMAX film we have 8K network television. Regular 65mm film is 4K network television. Instead of the grand IMAX theater we have one channel on network television dedicated to 8K broadcasting. Instead of 35mm film multiplexes we have 1080p channels. Instead of 16mm home movies we have 720p channels which is good for handheld devices.
 
As someone who is now exactly five months out from being laid off from a network TV station (oddly enough Snowblindfilm, just down the street and around the corner from KCTS9), I find the idea that there is going to be broadcasts in 8k, at least from normal TV stations, laughable. The economics just aren't there. We were shooting news in 480i... even though we had P2 DVCPro and AVC-Intra cameras. Two of the stations in town still shoot Betacam. And this is Seattle, not some dinky little 150+ market. Maybe it will be different for a select few premium cable channels. But there is no way anyone could afford 8k broadcasts... unless they do what they do now, which is shoot a lot of stuff at much lower resolution, and upres it for broadcast.
 
Did you ever think that maybe the reason why the economics are not there is because interlace 480i looks horrible on a progressive flat panel display. It is so horrible that an old analog television looks better because analog televisions can display 480i natively. So rather than watching a scrambled picture people simply turn the channel and watch the news on the competing network that offers the news in high definition.
 
androbot2084 said:
Then let us ban free high definition broadcasting altogether because if you can afford an HDTV you can afford to pay for cable and satellite.
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Are you trying to miss the point? The vouchers covered converters so that people wouldn't have to go out and buy new TVs once analog transmission was cut off due to government mandate. The purpose was so people wouldn't be cut off from news, information and possibly even emergency warnings. That type of critiera can easily be met with an SD signal even if you have an HD TV. If you want to live on the bleeding edge of tech then you are going to get burned every now and then by adapting early at the risk of your choice not making into mainstream acceptance. Growing up a friend's dad had an extensive collection of movies on LaserDisc and BetaMax. Thems the breaks.

MaxThomas said:
Film buffs? We're not talking about cinema here, this is network TV. Video today is driven by value (desirable content per dollar), convenience (can I watch this on any device I want to), reliability, and then probably in fourthish place is image quality. The first two are critical, with image quality being as good as current technology and cost structure will allow. When more and more people are watching TV on <10" screens, what incentive is there to push for 4K, much less 8K delivery?
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On the flip side, that 10" screen is going to be 10" from your face so resolution could be as critical, maybe enve more so, on a tablet than on a living room TV.
 
androbot2084 said:
Instead of 65mm IMAX film we have 8K network television.
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Nah, we don't we have 8K network television, we don't even have 8k cameras in the first place and we don't have 8k TVs.
(Yeah I know there are some prototypes, but as long as I can't walk into a WalMart and pick one up for 2000 bucks, we don't really)

Also they are not even able to broadcast/stream HD, let alone 8k.
Not gonna happen, the human eye, bandwith and compression are the limiting factors.

If someone tells me, he can see resolution way beyond the capabilities of human eye, than that's a religious thing and has nothing to do with technical specs.
It's like I would say I could hear ultrasonic sound and see infrared, and if someone doesn't believe me, he is just a progress heater.
 
androbot2084 said:
Did you ever think that maybe the reason why the economics are not there is because interlace 480i looks horrible on a progressive flat panel display. It is so horrible that an old analog television looks better because analog televisions can display 480i natively. So rather than watching a scrambled picture people simply turn the channel and watch the news on the competing network that offers the news in high definition.
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The whole issue is going right over your head. TV and radio in the US is a part of emergency broadcast system. It is also a subject of regulatory process of FCC. It doesn't matter who wants what and what a few techie heads propose, the whole thing HAS TO HAVE FCC approval. In order to happen so FCC has to go through the whole process. I gave you a link to FCC page, there is nothing there indicating the process. Your argument is nothing more then a rumor.
 
androbot2084 said:
So rather than watching a scrambled picture people simply turn the channel and watch the news on the competing network that offers the news in high definition.
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There is one station in town that does... they shoot 720p/60 on EX3's. They're in last place in the ratings.

I asked a few years ago why we weren't shooting news in HD when we had HD cameras. I was told it would have required over $1million dollars in infrastructure upgrades just to be able to handle the bandwidth of DVCProHD to edit and playback. They simply couldn't justify the expense when viewers didn't really care what resolution the footage of that late night gang shooting was in. Make no mistake, the studio cameras were 1080i, and we were broadcasting in 1080i... but no one cared that the flood/car wreck/fire/city counsel meeting/shooting/protest footage was widescreen 480i.

Postmaster said:
Not gonna happen, the human eye, bandwith and compression are the limiting factors.

If someone tells me, he can see resolution way beyond the capabilities of human eye, than that's a religious thing and has nothing to do with technical specs.
It's like I would say I could hear ultrasonic sound and see infrared, and if someone doesn't believe me, he is just a progress heater.
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Bingo, and this is why I have a hard time seeing 8k take off.

I was in Fry's the other day and they had a display of a 4k TV right as you walk in. I thought it looked good... but not even close to being good enough justify buying it to replace my 1080p DLP. But because I do this for a living, I see things others don't. There were a few folks standing around looking at it, and I heard a few of them comment that they can't see a difference. If they can't see the difference between 1080p and 4k, what makes you think they're going to see the difference when bumped to 8k?
 
David W. Jones said:
Now that is something to look forward to... The same bad TV shows, in 8K.
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Maybe more organizations will do what the Nrowegians did with Bergensbanen, the 7.5h documentary on a train ride, or the one on Firewood called "National Firewood Night", which was 1h of chopping wood, stacking, and talking about firewood, and then 8h of a fireplace, lol.
 
Postmaster said:
Nah, we don't we have 8K network television, we don't even have 8k cameras in the first place and we don't have 8k TVs.
(Yeah I know there are some prototypes, but as long as I can't walk into a WalMart and pick one up for 2000 bucks, we don't really)

Also they are not even able to broadcast/stream HD, let alone 8k.
Not gonna happen, the human eye, bandwith and compression are the limiting factors.

If someone tells me, he can see resolution way beyond the capabilities of human eye, than that's a religious thing and has nothing to do with technical specs.
It's like I would say I could hear ultrasonic sound and see infrared, and if someone doesn't believe me, he is just a progress heater.
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So what I'm seeing on my HD tv from the HD channel is not better than the SD signal that was there instead 4-5 years ago? It's just a trick of the mind?

Seriously, you guys have got to stop talking about technicalities and talk about what we simply see..... So what if the current HD signal is compressed, it still looks way better than the SD **** some years ago.

It's all about the end product... does the delivery look better than what is now? Then use it... Just like we chose to step up from SD to HD.
 
legrevedotcom said:
So what I'm seeing on my HD tv from the HD channel is not better than the SD signal that was there instead 4-5 years ago? It's just a trick of the mind?
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Given, that the SD signal was also compressed to death and far from the nominal SD resolution, you actually see more information now. Especially when that crappy compressed SD was blown up by a cheap uprezzer in your HD TV set, to fill a HD screen.

But that doesn't mean that you see 1920 x 1080 pixels worth of information in you HD image now.
Read some whitepapers on compression and how they manage to squeeze uncompressed HD to a fraction of the size.
Do you really think you can do that without throwing information out of the window?
 
I don't know if it's been pointed out on this thread but remember, the FCC mandating DIGITAL Television has absolutely NOTHING to do with HD.
I laugh when people say "the FCC is forcing broadcasters to go HD, and one day they will be pushing 4k or 8k". It's the electronic manufacturers that took avantage of the digital opportunity to push HD.
 
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