30 May 2016

MEASAT, ATEME, BBright, MStar Semiconductor and Newtec announced today a live-over-satellite demonstration of Ultra High Definition (“UHD”) with High Dynamic Range (“HDR”). The pioneering showcase, on display at the MEASAT’s booth, 1T3-01, CommunicAsia 2016 from 31 May to 3 June, will provide viewers with an up-close view of next-generation UHD TV.

HDR dramatically improves picture quality with a wider range of richer colours, brighter whites and deeper darker blacks, giving the picture a more exciting ‘dynamic’ look.

“MEASAT, and our technical partners, are on the cutting-edge of broadcast distribution technology,” said Yau Chyong Lim, Chief Commercial Officer, MEASAT. “Customers interested in distributing UHD HDR are now assured of a viable distribution model via satellite with the expertise of MEASAT and our technical partners,” Yau added.

The demonstration will be HEVC-encoded at 50fps with 10-bit colour depth broadcasted with DVB-S2X at 25 Mbps. The feed is delivered via the MEASAT-3a satellite located at the 91.5°E orbital slot. “ATEME is pleased to support this innovative live UHD-HDR demonstration over satellite with its TITAN solutions”, said Rémi Beaudouin, Vice President of Marketing, ATEME. “TITAN Live is a pure-software encoder-transcoder that supports resolutions from mobile devices to 4K with the highest video quality at minimum bitrate. It also supports all HDR flavours with the recent integration of HDR10, HLG, Technicolor, and Dolby Vision technologies.”

“HDR offers a significant visual advantage in perceived user experience for UHD TV, and BBright’s production playout solutions are now ready to deliver the best UHD HDR content in 24/7 operations. This technical achievement between several technical ecosystem partners and MEASAT demonstrates that linear UHD channels are now more attractive than ever and ready to be widely adopted for satellite delivery to consumer homes,” said Guillaume Arthuis, Chief Executive Officer, BBright.
“MStar is excited to be part of this innovative technical demonstration” said Dennis Lai, Sales Vice President, MStar. “The successful live broadcast of HEVC 4K HDR content over satellite affirms MStar as the leader in Application Specific IC (ASIC) used in the latest STB. Our products are compatible, stable and able to meet our partner’s business goal as we are able to produce 4K HDR receivers at a much lower cost”.

“As a real-life application of UHD with HDR, this will be a must-see demo. It shows that satellite networks are ready for this new broadcasting format while we also have the equipment available to enable the service. DVB-S2X channel bonding and Wideband HTS transponder support are key enablers of large scale 4K UHD deployments. The refresh of DTH set-top boxes required for 4K HDR reception allows integration of DVBS2X SoC which are available on the market today.” said Hans Massart, Broadcast Market Director, Newtec.