Advanced Television

Broadcom, Elemental crack 4K SoC at Sochi

February 18, 2014

By Chris Forrester

winter-olympicsThe Sochi Winter Games are being transmitted live in 4K/Ultra-HD to selected public viewing sites by Russian pay-TV broadcaster NTV Plus, and using a system-on-a-chip video solution supplied by chipset manufacturer Broadcom and a video processor from Elemental.

The opening ceremony was captured live, for example, using the Broadcom-Elemental solution. Broadcom’s 28 nanometer Ultra HD video decoder was introduced at CES in January as the “world’s first Ultra HD home gateway chip”, and itself based on an ARM-designed BCM7445 decoder solution.

Elemental’s input was in the shape of their Elemental Live video encoders.

“Following an extensive period of testing throughout 2013, Broadcom, Elemental and NTV-PLUS designed and deployed an end-to-end 4K HEVC workflow leveraging Broadcom-enabled real-time decoders, Elemental Live video encoders, NTV-Plus satellite uplink and signal receiving systems and Sony PMW-F55 Cine Alta 4K Digital Cinema cameras for playback on Panasonic 65-inch 4K TVs. The special broadcast is the first to provide real-time Ultra HD TV via a satellite link on a single set-top box chip,” said a joint statement.

“NTV-Plus creates high quality television content accessible throughout the country, and we are proud to bring the excitement of this January’s events in Sochi,” said Oleg Kolesnikov, CTO at NTV-Plus. “Building on our broad sport programming and satellite offerings, broadcasting the Winter Olympics in 4K resolution shows what can be accomplished when operators and silicon vendors work together to deliver Ultra HD content.”

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Services, UHD, Ultra-HD/4K