UK first for silicon decoding of 4k using HEVC

Tuesday, May 20th, 2014
DTG logo

LONDON — The DTG UK UHD Forum today hosted a UK first at the DTG Summit in London, demonstrating the live decoding and display of 10-bit 50Hz 2160p content compressed with HEVC. The successful display using HEVC, which is expected to be the new compression system for UHD content, was also the first example of decoding using silicon in real time.

“I couldn’t think of a better place to have this industry first demonstration of 4k 50Hz content at 10-bit than at the DTG Summit, which is looking at next generation TV and real future of the entire industry” said Simon Gauntlett, Chief Technology Officer, DTG.

The demonstration with full framerate (50p) sport in 4k using 10-bit was the first time it’s been seen in public with most film and natural history content currently shown at 25 frames per second and sporting content shown in 8-bit, which means viewers see a reduced colour definition.

The event was held in parallel to a corresponding demonstration using the latest Broadcom BCM7445 chipset with support for 60Hz progressive display at the ANGA COM trade fair in Cologne, Germany.

“Broadcom’s early entry in Ultra HD, beginning with the BCM7445 UltraHD video decoder at CES 2013, has allowed us to deliver multiple advanced SoCs with market specific features and price points today,” said Rich Nelson, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Broadband Communications Group, Broadcom Corporation. “Our continued commitment to developing industry protocols and working closely with our partners is helping to bring the clarity and brilliance of Ultra HD TV to the home, while delivering economics that work for service providers.”

The content shown used Sky Sports 50Hz progressive football content captured during recent BSkyB production trials and encoded using HEVC Main10 at 20 Mbps. This was displayed on a Panasonic TX- L65WT600 display using the HDMI 2.0 interface, maintaining the full 10-bit resolution at 2160p50.