At the 2019 NAB Show in Las Vegas, the Ultra HD Forum introduced an update to its guidelines for the high-resolution video technology.
Madeleine Noland, senior advisor, technology and standards for LG Electronics, and UHDF Guidelines chair, said: "For the first time, we are releasing a unified guidelines document, illustrating UHD maturity. In it, we describe 'foundation' UHD technologies, as well as 'enhancements' that are backward compatible so they will add value to setups that support them, but still, look and sound great on foundation equipment."
At the show, the Forum hosted a number of technology demonstrations, including:
- A universal HDR demo to show how foundation HDR technology and dynamic metadata coexist and work to improve content reproduction on enabled displays
- SHVC in ATSC 3.0 supporting different displays
- The effect of resolution and frame rate on HDR content, comparing HDR content in HD and 4K, and at standard and high frame rates
- The effect of HDR-to-SDR content switching on TVs and set-top boxes
- UltraHD content from a variety of sources, including HDR-SDR-HDR conversions and 8K production for 4K distribution
The Forum sees 8K development as a promising future technology and plans to work on its inclusion within future versions of the Guidelines. UHDF President Thierry Fautier said: "8K is not at the same state of maturity as 4K, and not widely deployable without further development and advances in the ecosystem. Our immediate interest is in 4K and HD resolution-based services and technologies, but the Forum continues to monitor the development of 8K video as it may relate to television production and distribution, including leveraging 8K production and display technologies within a 4K distribution system."