[opendtv] TVTechnology: HPA 2015: OTT, HDR, 4K and Last Rites for 4:3

From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2015 19:41:14 -0500
Bert

Please pay attention to the information provided by Bob Seidel about the use of 
geolocation in the CBS All Access apps...

And it looks like SD and 4:3 are far from being dead...

Regards
Craig

http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/hpa--ott-hdr-k-and-last-rites-for-/274514

TVTechnology: HPA 2015: OTT, HDR, 4K and Last Rites for 4:3


“Now that there’s nearly 90 percent penetration of HD sets, when can we drop 
shoot-and-protect?” Mark Schubin asked the group. 

Bob Seidel of CBS said that while there are a lot of high-definition sets in 
homes, fewer actually get HD content through the set-top, and fewer still 
actually watch HD content. He said about 36 percent of the TV audience still 
watches standard-definition fare.

Mario Vecchi of PBS said the majority PBS viewers watch in standard def. 

“In addition to that, there’s the multicast aspect, and those are in standard 
definition,” he said. “We all would like to see everything in HD, but there’s 
still a long ways to go.”

Fox’s Richard Friedel said all of his network’s HD content is protected for 
4:3, the aspect ratio associated with standard-def. Dave Siegler of Cox 
volunteered that Cox stations stopped center-cut protecting news about a year 
ago, and they haven’t heard a word of complaint. 

With regard to over-the-top TV, Seidel offered an overview of CBS All Access. 
It starts with an app from iTunes or the Google Play Store that enables 
reception of local CBS stations signals on smartphones via Wi-Fi, then 4G, then 
3G, he said. 

“It will determine if you are in the coverage area of the station,” he said. 
“As you move from city to city, it will track you, change the local station 
that you’re watching and report back to Nielsen” with preview data.

“Underneath is SyncBack, which uses geolocation technology, cellphone 
triangulation, hotspots, etc., to determine where device is.

“We grant licenses to local affiliates,” who get a cut, he said. “If you’re 
between coverage areas—Baltimore and Washington for example—you’ll get both 
stations.”

If the geolocation function is punked in a jailbreak, the jailbreak itself is 
punked the next time a song is downloaded from iTunes, he said.

Seidel said users get everything they would get over the air, except NFL 
football, and they also have access to the 5,000-title CBS library.

In other acronym-related news, Maxime Caron of Radio Canada/CBC said UHD and 
HDR—ultra high-def or almost 4KTV and high dynamic range—could offer “a much 
better experience, but you also need to control that across different devices, 
particularly in the color space. On the handset, the color space changes. We 
need to control the experience as much as possible.” 

Mark Aitken of Sinclair said the key is to apply visual enhancements as needed. 
 

“All those acronyms are the marketplace of the future, but it comes down to bit 
allocation for me. If you’re doing ‘I Love Lucy,’ you probably don’t need 4K 
with all the letters involved.

“From a transitional point, there’s a large role for scalable video codecs,” he 
said. “It’s the notion of providing higher quality HD as a base layer and an 
enhancement layer that scales up to 4K, HDR, etc… It may be across multiple 
platforms.
 
“There’s no avoiding the fact that the consumer sees high dynamic range and 
wider color gamut, but the viewing environment may not provide the best 
circumstance to view 4K,” he said. “If you look at what’s happening with 
scalers and interpolation, you end up with great looking 4K display device 
presentation with high-quality.”

ATSC 3.0 sparked a wide-ranging conversation that covered what the goals of 
doing it, when it might be completed, and how it could be implemented. See more 
at “ATSC 3.0 Prototypes Expected in 2016.”


Regards
Craig
[opendtv] TVTechnology: HPA 2015: OTT, HDR, 4K and Last Rites for 4:3

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