Advanced Television

8K TV will be the limit

April 27, 2015

By Chris Forrester

One event largely unreported at the recent NAB show was a presentation by Japan’s NHK public broadcaster that referred to NHK’s ‘road map’ for the deployment of its 8K Super HiVision technology.

NHK Executive Research Engineer Masayuki Sugawara, from NHK’s Science & Technology Research Laboratories, was explaining that NHK would start experimental transmissions of 8K/Super HiVision (7680 x 4320 pixels) and which would be “ultimate television”.

Sugawara, as reported by Large Display Monitor’s Chris Chinnock, in a response to a question from an audience member as to whether something bigger and better might follow on from 8K, said “No, it’s really the ultimate, there won’t be [anything] beyond that.”

Large Display Monitor added: “The 4K/8K UHDTV broadcast roadmap laid out by the Japanese government and the Next Generation Television & Broadcasting Promotion Forum (NexTV-F) includes conducting 8K test broadcasting via satellite in 2016, leading to commercial broadcasting services starting in 2018.The UHD standardization process has been underway at the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB), in cooperation with the Telecommunications Council, Japan.”

There will be 8K test transmissions next year from the Rio Olympics, and the 2018 World Cup from Russia, and all ahead of 2020 Tokyo Olympics by which time full-scale transmissions will be on air.

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