The 2012 London Olympics are likely to be the event that spurs promotion – and perhaps even adoption – of 1080p HDTV transmission, according to an expert panel of speakers at Rapid TV News’ recent Round Table on HDTV.
“What we are seeing is a tremendous interest in 1080p,” says Winfried
Schultz, Market Development Manager for video test equipment supplier
Tektronix. “The video industry tends to be driven by specific events
and I tend to associate the London Olympics with the next jump to
1080p. It’s the most likely time when we might see [broadcasting
convention] IBC bringing a 1080p feed to delegates for the first time.
We will probably then see many test transmissions in 1080p as we saw at
the last soccer World Cup where the BBC did extensive trials so that
they fully understood the transmission chain and identified where there
could have been quality leakages along that broadcast chain, and to
establish their own production and transmission guidelines. So in my
view, events like the London Olympics will help drive this forward.”
However, Roger Bolton, SVP at Tandberg Television, issued a cautionary
note. “We’ll supply whatever the industry wants but if 1080p at 50 or
60 fps becomes a standard, then someone will need to find more
(transmission) bandwidth. As to the confusion overall, I think some
broadcasters debated in the early days whether to adopt 720p or 1080i
and argued constantly as to which was the better standard. 720, it was
said, was better for sport while 1080i was argued to be better for
movies. But from the consumer’s point of view, they just wanted HDTV
everywhere and once the technology was ubiquitous, they would embrace
it. But when HDTV is only on one platform, as it is in the UK, then
there isn’t much choice and perhaps consumers are reluctant to invest
the extra cash needed to get started with HDTV. Technology, meanwhile,
moves on in a lot of industries but should consumers always be waiting
for the next, the next, the next…? Look at the audio sector where a
new iPod comes out every year usually ahead of Christmas and people do
migrate from one model to the latest version. I think we’re seeing the
same happen with TV sets.”
Andrew Ward, VP/Sales at set-top box suppliers Pace, states the company
is already well advanced with developing 1080p boxes, and the Requests
for Proposals being received by Pace includes many from broadcasters
which specify 1080p/50 hz/fps. “The early adopters always drive a lot
of what we do. This means that some company has to go first in order
to develop these ideas and technologies. 1080p is also in our
requirements to the silicon vendors for next year, 2009. We are in
this development cycle now and are anticipating supplies in Q3 or Q4
2009.”
For the complete background to this topic, the full Round Table discussion on HDTV can be seen at here .
