industry news

HDTV MOVES FORWARD IN EUROPE

The growing penetration of home cinema systems and DVD is driving the growth of HDTV in Europe, according to NAB Conference panelists Bernhard Baumgartner of Harris (Rankweil-Brederis, Austria) (www.harris.com) and David Wood of the EBU (Geneva, Switzerland) (www.ebu.ch). HDTV is increasingly being seen as a good medium for production, in order to capture and archive a good master. Various industries are now using HD as the ultimate video promotion vehicle.

Euro1080 (www.euro1080.tv) initiated HDTV satellite broadcasts last year through Alfacam (Hove, Belgium) ( www.alfacam.be), a company providing TV facilities and services to broadcasters and production houses. HDTV is now deployed over the Belgian satellite system, which has recently added MPEG-4 encoding to its transmissions. Sky UK, Premiere World (Germany), and TPS France will soon deploy HDTV services as well.

Wood said that the industry needs to hit what economists call the “tipping point” to make the HD business model work. Among the necessary factors are affordable flat-panel HD displays, economical HD optical storage, accessible CE products, and sufficient content. He noted that, currently, half of all displays sold in Switzerland are flat panels. In addition, starting with pay satellite services presents the lowest risk, with associated lowest-cost delivery; big sports events are the best driver. HD satellite services will start in 2005/2006, along with HD DSL IPTV in France, and possibly HD cable on NTL in the UK. Terrestrially, HD is expected in 8-12 years, following an analog shutoff, and the BBC plans to have all production done in HD by 2010.

So far, a unified HDTV source format has not been defined, with 720p and 1080i camps evoking the similar US debates. Subjective tests using a Panasonic PDP at 768 ´ 1366 have shown that 720p looks better than 1080i source material, perhaps not surprisingly, due to the downconversion process. Consequently, the EBU is recommending 720p as a “starting point.” While the EBU assumes that HD flat panels will be mostly WXGA (1366 ´ 768) at 720p50, “HDReady” displays will be defined as 1080i/720p50/60, with HDMI/HDCP. In order to use existing bandwidth efficiently, MPEG-4/H.264 or VC1 will be needed for HD.

The evolution of formats starts with a first generation of 720p/1080i, using MPEG-2. This is expected to be followed in two-five years by 720p/1080i, using MPEG-4/AVC and VC1. Six to twelve years from now, expect 1080p and some future form of MPEG to become prevalent.

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