Video: Intro to 4K Video & HDR

With all the talk of IP, you’d be wrong to think SDI is dead. 12G for 4K is alive and well in many places, so there’s plenty of appetite to understand how it works and how to diagnose problems.

In this double-header, Steve Holmes from Tektronix takes us through the ins and outs of HDR and also SDI for HDR at the SMPTE SF section.

Steve starts with his eye on the SMPTE standards for UHD SDI video looking at video resolutions and seeing that a UHD picture can be made up of 4 HD pictures which gives rise to two well-known formats ‘Quad split’ and ‘2SI’ (2 Sample Interleave).

Colour is the next focus and a discussion on the different colour spaces that UHD is delivered with (spoiler: they’re all in use), what these look like on the vectorscope and look at the different primaries. Finishing up with a roundup and a look at interlink timing, there’s a short break before hitting the next topic…HDR

High Dynamic Range is an important technology which is still gaining adoption and is often provided in 4K programmes. Steve defines the two places HDR is important; in the acquisition and the display of the video then provides a handy lookup table of terms such as HDR, WCG, PQ, HDR10, DMCVT and more.

Steve gives us a primer on what HDR is in terms of brightness ‘NITS’, how these relate to real life and how we talk about it with respect to the displays. We then look at HDR on the waveform monitor and look at features of waveform monitors which allow engineers to visualise and check HDR such as false colour.

The topic of gamma, EOTFs and colour spaces comes up next and is well-explained building on what came earlier. Before the final demo and Q&A, Steve talks about different ways to grade pictures when working in HDR.

A great intro to the topics at hand – just like Steve’s last one: Uncompressed Video over IP & PTP Timing

Watch now!

Speakers

Steve Holmes Steve Holmes
Former Senior Applications Engineer,
Tektronix

Video: 10 Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

A great way to end the week: From Channel Four’s Richard Davidson-Houston, 10 common mistakes made by online streaming services.

Richard’s advice covers a wide range of organisational biases and assumptions which may seem right at the time, but aren’t. The overall theme is to not understate the power and importance of online streaming, even within a traditional broadcaster and offers advice on how to fight your corner and ensure that the service you’re working for or are creating gets the attention it deserves.

From identifying irreversible decisions to not losing patience with intractable problems, Richard highlights the warning signs of going the wrong direction and provides some advice to help move forward.

Speakers

Richard Davidson-Houston Richard Davidson-Houston
Head of All Four,
Channel Four

Video: Blockchain-based Distributed Transcoding Model

It’s all very well talking about ‘blockchain’ but where’s the use case? This working transcoding and distribution platform is one example and LivePeer’s Philipp Angele steps onto the stage to explain how they have created this platform as a service using the under-utilised video encoding capability of GPUs used in crypto currency mining.

Whilst there is a lot of hype around blockchain, the fact remains that many blockchains are in constant use throughout the world and, unrelated to any currency aspect, they have a robust way of solving certain problems – the main one being ensuring exchanges of data are completed fairly and without any fraud. This can be applied to distribution of content as much as it can be to ‘smart contracts’ which, Philipp explains are like legal contracts in as much as they are a promise to do certain things. They are ‘smart’, because the blockchain network can verify that the contract has been completed.

Livepeer’s open source platform on which developers can build services works, we hear, by brokering interactions between ‘broadcasters’, ‘orchestrators’ and ‘transcoders’. Philipp details how these work together and also looks at the incentives miners have to participate by analysing their profits for different tasks.

To finish off, this talk then takes focusses on the other elements of online streaming services and examines what services are available to accomplish those tasks using distributed/blockchain technology.

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Free registration required
This talk was given at Streaming Tech Sweden which is an annual conference from Eyvinn Technology. Streamed on their own video platform, talks are initially available exclusively to all conference attendees, but are released free-to-view during the subsequent year. Free registration is required to watch the videos.

Speaker

Phillip Angele Philipp Angele
Head of Product,
Livepeer

Video: How to Identify Real-World Playout Options

There are so many ways to stream video, how can you find the one that suits you best? Weighing up the pros and cons in this talk is Robert Reindhardt from videoRx.

Taking each of the main protocols in turn, Robert explains the prevalence of each technology from HLS and DASH through to WebRTC and even Websockets. Commenting on each from his personal experience of implementing each with clients, we build up a picture of when the best situations to use each of them.

Speakers

Robert Reinhardt Robert Reinhardt
CTO,
videoRX