CBS to use 8K cameras in the Super Bowl

[Steve Timko]

They used 4k cameras for the first time in the last Super Bowl. Hollywood is currently using the 8K Red cameras for film making.

No one's TV will get a 4k signal, of course. But it will allow for better zooming in on plays.

LINK

This is interesting because a couple of weeks ago a guy I know just bought a 75-inch 4K TV to replace his 75-inch ultra high definition TV in his man cave, which is being demoted to the family room. He had them on side-by-side and the UHD TV clearly had the better picture with both DISH Network and the over-the-air signal. Neither signal is broadcast in anything higher than 1080p. You wonder how long until it makes a difference.

For networks, it probably will make a good investment in the long term. Look how awful standard definition TV news video looks now on high def TV.

[Kevin M.]

Narrator: It’ll never make a difference 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[M-D November]

Aren’t “UHD” and “4K” effectively interchangeable terms?

And even if a cableco did start offering a 4K signal, it’ll probably be compressed to begeezus and back, so yeah...it’ll make no difference.

[Steve Timko]

Close but not the same.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/174221-no-tv-makers-4k-and-uhd-are-not-the-same-thing

Not sent from an iPhone

[Doug Eastick]

Agreed on the compression.

I happened to be quite close to my tv during a football game this afternoon (I think 1080) and wow those Eagles got blurry in motion.

On Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 10:45 PM M-D November, <mdnov...@gmail.com> wrote:

Aren’t “UHD” and “4K” effectively interchangeable terms?

And even if a cableco did start offering a 4K signal, it’ll probably be compressed to begeezus and back, so yeah...it’ll make no difference.

[Adam Bowie]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 3:49 AM Steve Timko <steve...@gmail.com> wrote:

Close but not the same.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/174221-no-tv-makers-4k-and-uhd-are-not-the-same-thing

UHD is very slightly below 4K. But from a consumer perspective, there's no real reason to get rid of a "UHD" TV because a 4K TV is available. Nobody is going to notice a practical difference between the two. Things like an OLED screen or HDR might make a difference, however.

On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 4:44 AM Doug Eastick <eas...@mcd.on.ca> wrote:

Agreed on the compression.

I happened to be quite close to my tv during a football game this afternoon (I think 1080) and wow those Eagles got blurry in motion.

 I must confess that I like a bit of motion blur in sports coverage - or indeed anything. Motion smoothing settings on TV sets is the work of the devil. 

But yes, it's all about compression really. 4K is all very well, but if the compression is low for bandwidth reasons or whatever, then the picture is inferior. It's why a Blu Ray will just about always look better than the same material on Netflix (unless they've tried to squeeze too many episodes onto one disc or whatever). 

It's also worth saying that it's technically very challenging doing high resolution broadcasting live. With pre-recorded material, computers can compress the picture in such a way as to retain quality. But that takes time. In a live environment, it's much harder. There's a great technical blog that the BBC's R&D published about its broadcasting of the World Cup last summer in 4K: https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2018-07-ultra-high-definition-uhd-viewing

Adam

[Doug Eastick]

Thanks Adam. That's a great BBC article.

[Tom Wolper]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 7:19 AM Doug Eastick <eas...@mcd.on.ca> wrote:

Thanks Adam. That's a great BBC article.

Going back to the original post, CBS could well be using 8K cameras for archival purposes. Obviously all Super Bowls from the pre-HD era are in SD and there is no format for better resolution. Maybe 8K will be the industry standard and CBS will be able to stream a recording of the game in that format.

[Jim Ellwanger]

A lot of the footage you see of old Super Bowls is NFL Films footage, which is effectively HD.

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Re: [TV orNotTV] CBS to use 8K cameras in the Super Bowl

On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 7:19 AM Doug Eastick <eas...@mcd.on.ca> wrote:

Thanks Adam. That's a great BBC article.

Going back to the original post, CBS could well be using 8K cameras for archival purposes. Obviously all Super Bowls from the pre-HD era are in SD and there is no format for better resolution. Maybe 8K will be the industry standard and CBS will be able to stream a recording of the game in that format.

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[Doug Eastick]

just a ramble.....  But Tom suggested CBS using 8K for archival purposes.  I'm sure they are using them to 'keep up with the curve and figure out how to use them and the associated data they produce'.

I was having a work discussion on Friday night with one of our technology managers.  I work at an engineering company and we design and manage the construction of mineral processing facilities, hydroelectric plants, and other such things.  Engineering usually takes 2-3 years and construction and commissioning takes 5 years (partly overlapping the engineering).   At the end of commissioning when we 'handover' the facility to the owner, we also hand over the engineering data (drawings, specification documents, and manuals in the 'old' days, but now models and other electronic data).  It is growing to a crapload of data this days.

I find this SD/HD/UHD/4k/8k topic to be very interesting and parallel.   Someone (with the deep pockets) has to use the bleeding-edge technology to capture the data and store it the best they can.   BBC obviously tried to learn about streaming it as well at 4k -- a great exercise to learn.   who knows what video formats will 'rule' in 5 years.   Do we all remember DIVX?  my DVD player does.

other parallel topics:  financial systems programmed in COBOL.   Science software programmed in FORTRAN.    1990/2000 stuff in Java.

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[Kevin M.]

Semi-related, I was just watching a YouTube video featuring an interview with one of the pilots of the SR-71 Blackbird, undeniably the coolest aircraft ever built. Anyway, when the nose was outfitted with the camera, they shot on film... a 2 mile long, 5 foot wide roll of film. And while there are several reasons the Blackbird doesn’t fly anymore, chief among them is the effort it took to load and unload the film, then develop the film. The film would have to be unrolled by hand and cut into shorter lengths, all done without any debris or scratches on the film. Still, coolest aircraft ever! I’ll take one of those over a drone any day 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Doug Eastick]

my father ran a photofinishing plant up until ~1980.  And all I can say to a '2 mile long, 5 foot wide roll of film' is Holy F*ck.

although I was too young to see them, apparently some his employees kept a copy of 'homemade couple personal pics' as they came across the drying drum.

[Adam Bowie]

It's pretty clear to me that, like the Olympics or the World Cup, the Superbowl is always going to be a test-bed for new technologies. Next year in Tokyo, NHK will be broadcasting in 8K, and have recently launched an 8K channel (they got Warners to rescan 2001 in 8K for their launch). 

Some of these technologies will stick - others will go in an expensive dustbin alongside 3D TV. See also 360 degree cameras of dubious value. And is anyone still using "Eyevision" - aka bullet time from The Matrix? (To answer my own question, there are techniques with 3D modelling that allow you to switch from one camera angle to another that these days don't need about 100 in between cameras to get the effect).

Since each network only gets the Super Bowl once every four years, they obviously want to make the most of it technically, and so throwing in a few 8K cameras is worth doing. But it's worth noting that not every camera is in 4K either. I know that in the UK, the two broadcasters who regularly use 4K for Premier League football (Sky and BT), only do some games, and don't have as many camera angles - or they have to upscale HD for some shots. The same was true for 4K at the World Cup last summer - many fewer camera positions.

For what it's worth, I tend to think that investing in a decent sound system is the best way to up the quality and really envelop you, rather than work out if you can even get a 100" TV into your home!

Adam

[Tom Wolper]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 5:13 AM Adam Bowie <ad...@adambowie.co.uk> wrote:

For what it's worth, I tend to think that investing in a decent sound system is the best way to up the quality and really envelop you, rather than work out if you can even get a 100" TV into your home!

If people here don't know this, decent quality speakers need physical depth which is not provided in thin flat screen TVs. Our local TV critic publishes Q&As and one frequent question has to do with people having trouble hearing dialogue over background music. After years of telling people it had to be due to them growing older he figured out that the problem could well be the crappy quality of the speakers in today's sets. I invested in a sound bar and it made a tremendous difference.

[Steve Timko]

Industry article says 8K is on its way.

LINK

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[Kevin M.]

How well do these folks think the human eye can see? How much detail do viewers really want? As a one-eyed guy, I’m grateful the rest of you rejected 3D media. As a guy with average vision in my one good eye, can we all stand together by rejecting the expense of a level of image quality which benefits nobody? 

I swear, inside the offices of network executives, some toady getting his ass handed to him over declining ratings panicked and, instead of arguing that the lack of quality in the content of the programming is leading to the decline, blurted out that viewers were tuning out because the picture wasn’t clear enough, and the executives were stupid enough to believe him. To believe 8k is wanted or needed, you have to ignore all the data which shows the ever increasing amount of people of all ages who watch media on their phones.

Law and Order in 8k is still going to be as bland and formulaic as it was when it was in standard definition in a 4:3 ratio.

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Adam Bowie]

Hope you've got a solid 50 mbps internet connection! That's the kind of bandwidth we'll need for it. 

[Steve Timko]

Doesn't seem that long ago that dual ISDN with a 128k digital connection was the cat's meow. Okay, but not a *real* long time ago.

[Adam Bowie]

For the foreseeable future, I think 8k is just something for people to put on display on trade stands and in large department stores with unfeasible price tags just to say, "Aren't we clever?"

You probably need close to 100" screens to make 8k in anyway sensible. And in an increasingly urbanised world, that's an entire wall for many people. I don't think any broadcaster is doing this for ratings reasons - it's the R&D teams seeing what they can do and the company being able to press release it. 

For consumers, improved screen technology like OLED, HDR and improved audio systems are of far greater near-term impact. 

I think it's perfectly fine for broadcasters to shoot crown jewel events in things like 8k or 3D. They've always done that. But in no way does it really mean that consumers are going to watch it in any significant number.

Adam

[Adam Bowie]

It's all about 16K now...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47867038

[Steve Timko]

It's worth noting Canon will release an 8K dslr in the next few months. We seem to be moving towards more 8k video.

https://petapixel.com/2020/04/20/canon-unveils-key-eos-r5-specs-dual-is-4k-120fps-no-crop-8k-and-more/