Neutrik | 4K Forum – Are you ready for the future?

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On October 17, 2013 the “Who is Who” of the entertainment industry met for the 4K Forum in the LANG ACADEMY in Lindar, Germany.

The technology symposium gave its attention to interfaces, signal chains, playback and future potential in terms of ultra high definition video (UHD). In addition to high-profile international speakers from different areas of the AV market, manufacturers showed their innovations in the field of UHD (4K) and offered workshops.

The workshop on 4K fiber optic transmission was led by Christian Ganahl, Product Manager at Neutrik AG. In this workshop the challenges of the transmission of huge data volumes over big distances, the future will bring inevitably, was discussed.

On a HD TV at home we can see a resolution of 1080i or 720p; a Blu-ray movie makes already HD 3G possible on a full HD TV which conforms to a resolution of 1080p. This resolution is currently state of the art in the area of events with projections or mobile LED screens. So far, it is only the cinema where we can enjoy a 4096 x 2160 resolution also known as 4K. But this is about to change and already in the next year the event industry expects first live transmissions in UHD. And this was not enough: the Japanese broadcaster NHK announced the broadcast of the Olympic Games in 8K 120p (12 bit) for 2020 which would be an incredible transfer rate of 96 Gbps. Even though this is still lying ahead, it already drives the industry.

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What does the future conscious event businessman need to equip well for the next few years? 4K will find its way into the live/rental area – especially when it comes to live sports broadcasts (public viewing). The company LANG AG demonstrated impressively on the 4K Forum that a live broadcast in 4K can be already implemented today and the industry has already announced specific solutions for next year that can keep up with this resolution step.

With increasing the resolution, the big images, the frame rate (HFT) will be increased to 100/120fps and the color depth (HDR) to 12 bit. This will raise the data transfer rate immensely. Today the 3G transmission mode can still be solved via copper, and 4K 50p in 10 bit can be made with 4 parallel copper lines (e.g. 4 BNC or DVI cables) if necessary. But with increasing transmission rates the transmission links in copper are getting shorter and there is no way around copper-fiber-combinations or pure fiber solutions in the future.

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It is expected that the transfer rate in 2014/15 will be in the area of 4 x 6 Gbps, will have reached 4 x 12 Gbps in 2017/18 and will even rise to 4 x 24 Gbps (i.e. 96 Gbps) after 2020. All this is predicted due to the constantly getting cheaper technology.

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However, a fiber solution for the live/rental sector must offer more than mere data transmission. Robustness, low maintenance, easy integration and cost-efficiency are almost as important as high transmission rates here. Neutrik meets the challenge and offers their fiber optic solution opticalCON to be well prepared for the future. Are you ready, too?