Video Age International February-March 2016

16 March 2016 V I D E O A G E F rom Hollywood, ACI’s George Shamieh explained that in 2015 they shot four films in 4K. However, “the primary network delivery for these titles was 1080p. We have not distributed any films in 4K,” he added. “Since 2014 Blue Ant Media has been producing 300 hours of 4K wildlife and nature content for Canada’s LoveNature linearTVnetwork,” reported the company’s Vanessa Case from Toronto. From Hilversum, in the Netherlands, Natalie Boot of 4K powerhouse Insight, said that they produce 200 hours per year in 4K. From Los Angeles, Hugo Mayorga of Japan’s Toei Animation, reported that there is some interest in Japanese 4K productions. “A lot of people are asking about it. We are at a stage where we don’t know where it’s going to go, but we don’t want to get left behind. It’s really about the balance between 4K and content — we don’t want to spend too much on 4K and have nothing for content,” he said. From Tokyo, NHK’s Mayumi Akane said, “From the distribution side, it’s good to have 4K. Maybe the style or genres are difficult to penetrate, but 4Kmakes the products more attractive, especially for VoD services.” Akane noted that NHK’s 4K product focuses on fine details and works for nature, fashion and drama programming. Istanbul and Ankara-based Meltem Tumturk Aykol of TRT explained, “We started to broadcast in 4K this year and are converting our HD channel to 4K.” Any challenges? “For now, its too early to say.” Aykol mentioned that the channel will mostly feature documentaries, but in terms of how this will play out, only time will tell. For ACI’s Shamieh, “The only major challenge is the amount of data. Shooting in 4Kmeans more data, which means more time and work required to manage the data, leading to higher costs. Much of what we shoot is actually shot in 5K for use in 4K,” he said. Similarly, Insight’s Boot said, “Storage is one of the challenges. Also shooting aspects like focus becomes even more critical than before; UHD is far less forgiving than HD.” She added: “Standards for aspects like the color gamut and HDR have been a challenge, but this has now changed. The UHD Alliance recently announced the UHD Premium specifications, which covers the previously convoluted areas well. We will adapt our productions to conform to UHD Premium. “[Plus,] the limiting factor at this point is the availability of UHD STBs and content. All major operators are now in the process of deploying UHDcapableSTBsand thedemand for compelling content is rising. Asia is definitely leading the pack with UHD services already deployed to hundreds of thousands of subscribers,” she said. Blue Ant Media’s Case also noticed, “great demand for 4K content in North America and Europe, [and] Brazil and India are up-and- coming territories in the 4K market.” As for storage, Boot reported, “Our producers transfer camera footage to LTO on location. Both, archiving and DR is done on LTO. Our post, promo and other interim handling environments have significant ultra-fast nearline storage. When dealing with such large files, speed becomes a real factor. We transfer files between locations using [IBM’s software] Aspera, and also have extensive storage in our playout environment.” For Case, “[4K] files are four times larger than HD, so managing these large files in the field can be challenging. The length of time it takes to clear memory cards for the next day of shooting takes up valuable time on location. Plus, shooting 4K footage requires a more cinematic model because the resolution is so incredibly massive compared to HD footage. The cameras and support gear are bigger and heavier compared to HD cameras, which requires more management on location.” Shamieh further explained, “Although we currently do not master in 4K, we store in LTO to be able tomaster in 4K for the future. This method will save costs when 4K masters become the norm. [In addition] TV and theatrical DCP have different color spaces. The color grading session and online edit are stored on LTO tape so that if we decided to output the film in 4K we could use those settings in going back to the 4K footage rather re-grading or re-doing them online.” Going into the more technical aspects of 4K, Shamieh said, “The specs and standards would depend on whether the project will be mastered for theatrical or television,” while Boot reported: “Currentlywe shoot and produce inUHDat 50 fps. Our initial productions were only Rec.709 color gamut, but subsequently we started using DCI-P3 since newer TV sets like OLED [organic light- emitting diodes] and Quantum Dot [LED-backlit LCD TV] have a wider range. Standards for HDR have been a challenge to date and therefore we have not yet produced in HDR, however we are currently taking steps to also incorporate HDR in the next wave of productions.” Blue Ant Media’s Case said that they “Implemented UHD at 3840 x 2160 pixels. This is slightly smaller than true 4K, but it’s the format that home consumers are viewing on their devices. We are currently shooting in HDR and working with industry experts on developing technical specs for post-production.” Producing, Selling, Airing, Storing, Scaling UHD 4K Content Ain’t Easy, But It’s Doable View of 4K Worldwide Productions (HD) video format sources can be upscaled by tripling every pixel horizontally and vertically. Down conversion — Converting a video master to a lower resolution format. One example would be going from 1080 Full HD to standard definition. Master —Any finished, completed original videotape or source file. Mastered in 4K — A Sony term to denote a Full HD film that has been “remastered” (or downscaled) from a UHD source. A “mastered in 4K”, therefore, is not true 4K (2160 p). But a “Mastered in 4K” film is optimized to be upscaled for playback on a 4K TV set using the 4K TV’s mathematical upscaling algorithm and it will work on standard HDTVs as well. While the majority of movies are mastered in 2K resolutionmoreandmoreare starting tobe mastered in 4K resolution. These latter films are displayed in the 4K (2160p) resolution on 4K TV sets without upscaling. Mastered in 4K vs. true 4K — True 4K (or Native 4K) content is mastered and stored in 4K resolution. Unlike “Mastered in 4K,” it is not upscaled by a mathematical algorithm from a lower 1080p resolution. True 4K content requires much more data storage, with an average feature film to be at least 100 gigabytes. Linear Tape-Open (LTO) — A magnetic tape data storage technology developed in the late 1990s as an open standards alternative to the proprietary magnetic tape formats that were available at the time. Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Quantum control the LTO Consortium. Insight’s Arun Maljaars, Natalie Boot ACI’s George Shamieh Blue Ant Media’s Vanessa Case (Continued from Page 14)