1080P, What Does this Mean for Broadcasters in the Short-Term?

The drive towards progressive High Definition delivery is well underway. Many broadcasters are already contemplating bridging the technology gap between existing interlaced services to deliver 1080p. Blu Ray has now established itself as a global production standard based around 1080 / 24p and set picture quality expectations amongst viewers eager to see the picture quality replicated in their Terrestrial, Satellite and IPTV services. There is no doubt consumer demand exists, with viewers eager to transfer from being HD ready to 1080p deployed. — This puts broadcasters and service providers under pressure to meet viewer's 1080p HD expectations. — What technical strategies are viable to allow existing High Definition Interlace services to co-exist alongside 1080p transmissions? Will Scalable Video Coding be able to cross the gap between interlace and progressive, to allow seamless delivery of the most deployed HD standard, 1080i, and the new 1080p challenger? — With 1080p production equipment being scarce, often not scheduled to be available until 2010, how do broadcasters factor for future 1080p demands with limited scope to put in place an evolution towards 1080p today? Does 720p represent a half-way house towards full 1080p? — 1080p offers the promise of greatly improved HD service quality, but the steps towards this improvement are key to offering commercial services that allow linear and non-broadcast content to be high quality and profitable ventures. — This paper will focus on the short-term technical decisions broadcasters need to be making to realize their 1080p ambitions.

Published

2008-10

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M001022

ISBN

978-1-61482-939-3