Red has published a picture of an unusual rig - a V-RAPTOR RHINO 8K S35 camera, combined with a Fujinon 25-1000 (!) broadcast camera box lens and connected it via fiber.

We reported a while ago on the variation of the Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro 12K camera which includes an optical low pass filter (OLPF). The aim was to reduce the moiré effects that can sometimes be seen in virtual production. Now a review has been published that backs up the claim to improve the issue.

8K Association, MainConcept GmbH, has released the latest version (3.4) of its Live Encoder software, which includes support for the live encoding of LCEVC and VVC/H.266. Encoding is supported for resolutions up to 8K.

8K Association Comment
This development is a significant step towards wider distribution of 8K content. 8K live encoding with VVC has been demonstrated before, but now it is available in released software.

We interviewed MainConcept in September.

After a number of rumours and leaks, Mediatek has officially released its Dimensity 9300 which is offering a real challenge to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Both chips are capable of supporting 8K video capture at 30fps. The Qualcomm chip can also support 8K external displays at 30Hz.

Most application processors use a mixture of small, medium and high power cores, with Qualcomm adopting a 1 + 5 + 2 architecture. Mediatek on the other hand, has chosen to miss out an efficiency core, but support a 0 + 4 + 4 configuration. Specialists believe that this could give Qualcomm an edge in battery life while Mediatek should have more power. The first smartphone to use the Qualcomm chip is the Xiaomi 14 series (in China) and the first to use the Dimensity will be the vivo X100 series, due for launch in mid-November in China. Once they are both out, there will be a better chance to compare the performance.

Petapixel has published a deep dive, based on an intriguing technical paper that outlines the technology and manufacturing processes used. We are in touch with Sphere following the Cedia Expo panel and plan a follow up article.

DEG Entech announced its nominations for its 3rd Annual Technology awards and highlighted two groups working in 8K.

In the Technology Leadership Award category, it identified Intel, NBCU and COSM based on work creating "The World’s first Immersive 8K VR Livestream for XXIV Olympic Winter Games Team"

In the Emerging Technology Award, it highlighted the work by Ravindra Velhal (Intel), Mauricio Mesa (Spin Digital) and team in "Pioneering 8K/60FPS/HDR VVC (Versatile Video Codec/H.266) Live Streaming"

Congratulations to both groups for their nominations.

A start-up by scientists from Imperial College, London and other universities, has claimed that it can improve the compression efficiency of current codecs by 5X using AI-based techniques, but believes that it can achieve 'up to' 50X reductions in file size eventually. The firm's software-based codec is said to be very flexible and 'fine-grained'.

Of course, better codecs always help higher resolution and higher quality content such as 8K, but it's unclear from the firm at the moment whether there is a big overhead in the computational power needed for each of the pipeline (the typical trade-off in more sophisticated codecs). It is also not clear to what extent the processes can be implemented in optimized hardware. If they need large general purpose processors for decompression, that could be a barrier to widespread use.

The company earlier this year raised $9 million in funding and has received EU grants.

At the Cedia Expo in Denver. Colorado, the 8K Association sponsored a panel on the Smart Stage that talked about 'Understanding the Content Perspective' for 8K.

The panel was moderated by Des Carey, Global Head of Cinematic Innovation, Samsung who talked to:

• Greg Ciaccio, Senior Director, Post Production Original Content & Image Capture, IMAX
• Dominic Glynn, Senior Scientist, Pixar
• Paul Breen, Senior Director, Playback, Sphere Entertainment Company

Topics included the changes post-Covid and the chance that gave to re-think how to tell stories more effectively and the change in immersion with bigger displays, enabled in part by the boost to 8K resolution.

A couple of years ago, the writer had to install a new cable in a wall. Finding an HDMI cable that would fit through the ducting needed for electrical safety regulations in the UK was a real challenge. So I was impressed when I saw a new modular concept cable from Pure Fi that was launched at the Cedia 2023 event. The cable uses a 0.2" (5mm) optical (HDMI 2.1 Actice Optical Cable - AOC) cable that can be fitted with different connectors. The architecture means that if HDMI is superseded by another standard in the future there is the possibility of fitting different receivers and transmitters without the need to change the optical cable.

The Nofilmschool.com website tested the new Fujifilm GFX100 II and one of its conclusions was that the output in Prores "... graded and edited like butter on a M1 Mac. Even the 8K footage". That's good news for those thinking of using the camera for 8K capture!

The Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) has announced that nominations for its third annual awards include a nomination for "Pioneering 8K/60FPS/HDR VVC (Versatile Video Codec/H.266) Live Streaming / Ravindra Velhal (Intel), Mauricio Mesa (Spin Digital) and team" in its Emerging Technology category. Congratulations to them!

Allegro DVT of France announced at IBC that it has new video encoder IP built upon a higher performance architecture with support for resolutions from 4K60 up to 8K120. The cores support multiple video formats by sharing resources between H.264, HEVC, VP9, AV1 and JPEG compression standards to minimize power consumption and silicon area. The firm said that the E300 series also includes many features to meet the requirements of a wide range of applications such as professional and consumer video surveillance applications, automotive, application processors and cloud video transcoding and gaming.

Canon has released a range of new prime lenses that are intended to support both 4K and 8K content capture. They support the RF mount and range from 14mm to 135mm. There's a video from Canon here.

Sony has added a new 8K camera in its Cine Alta professional range, the Burano. It follows on from the successful Venice product but is intended to be lighter and smaller. The camera has a 41.9 megapixel full frame 35mm sensor and can store video data in Sony's XAVC H format which uses the H.265 HEVC codec.

Aurora Multimedia attended Cedia and the Commercial Integrator Expo and explained how its TPG-8K Test Pattern Generator/Analyzer which allows the latency and frame drops of AV over IP. RAVE Pubs were there to capture the explanation on video.

Chris Chinnock of Insight Media went to IFA and spoke to Hisense of China about their 8K video processing chip. He recorded a YouTube video about the discussion.

Video compression specialist, Bitmovin, has published a guide to codecs. If you are new to the subject, it is a handy round up of the field.

TCL CSOT, the Chinese panel maker, has shown what it calls an 8K Light Field Display* at the recent IFA trade show in Berlin. the firm said that the panel allows the human eye to directly perceive a realistic 3D image with more than 60° of viewing angle and 120 viewing points, without the need for any additional auxiliary equipment.

The application is perfect for 8K displays which can provide the high number of pixels to support multiple different images on the display at the same time.

• Display purists would not describe this as a light field display, but as an autostereoscopic display.

Gpixel of China has developed a 43 megapixel APS-C style sensor that is aimed at cinematography, drones, production video, astronomy, and scientific imaging. The new sensor sports a backside-illuminated (BSI) design. It can support 8K with 60fps and HDR.

Hisense showed its 8K Tri Laser TV at the recent IFA trade show in Berlin. The company is looking at starting to sell the TV in the US and Europe following the launch in China. Chris Chinnock of Insight Media saw the image quality from a 4K native chip with 'wobbulation' to create 8K and was impressed with the visual quality.

Samsung said that it was bringing support for Auracast to its wireless earbuds and its 8K TVs. This reinforces the view held by, among others, the 8K Association, that brands often put their highest specifications and functions into their flagship TVs.

Auracast has been described as "... a clever way of turning Bluetooth devices like phones and TVs into mini radio stations that are able to broadcast audio over Bluetooth to an unlimited number of nearby wireless headphones, speakers, etc — without the hassle of Bluetooth pairing".

ViewSonic has released a new 8K IPS monitor with USB-C and the ability to charge a host notebook in China. The ViewSonic VG3281 is a 31.5-inch 8K model and uses an IPS LCD. There are details of the specification in the linked article.

CE Pro talked to industry specialists including Mike Fidler from the 8K Association about the support of 8K in high end AV installations.

Atomos has been one of the companies that has helped to democratize high quality content creation and its latest Ninja Ultra monitor/recorder has added support for up to 8K30p ProRes RAW for high quality capture from 8K cameras. Check for more details here.

8K Association member, Spin Digital, released news that it has new versions of its HEVC and VVC codecs and now  the VVC/H.266 encoder has been optimized to enable 8Kp60 10-bit HDR compression in real-time. It also has reduced the bitrate needed for 8K video in VVC by 12% from its previous version.

(the graphic shows bitrate savings in percentage for the same quality of the new version of the VVC encoder (SDK 6.1) relative to the previous version (SDK 6.0).)

At the 8K Association we often reference the work that was done to show that 8K is needed to get close to the look of reality. Now a firm, LiquidView, in San Francisco is creating 24/7 image reels displayed as artificial 'windows' for residents that have unsightly views outside their real windows. There's an article here (subscription required), but you can also see details on the firm's website. The technology uses dedicated media servers and special content mirroring the changing light and weather over the day.

Digital photography blog Petapixel interviewed executives from Fujifilm about (among other things), the place of 8K in video capture. Fujifilm is the only supplier of APS-C cameras with 8K support at publication time. After the discussion, the three factors for the use and support of 8K identified were:

• Futureproofing
• Capturing in 8K to downsample for better 4K
• Capturing in 8K to crop for 4K without resolution loss.

There is also a link to a nice video made in 8K by Yusuke Suzuki.

Sammobile reported that Samsung has installed a huge video wall in the Samsung store in Gangnam, Seoul. The wall is 600" diagonal (15.2m) with resolution of 8640 x 2700. As we highlighted in our Outernet – A New Display-Centric Experience in London article, large displays really need the level of detail that 8K can bring.

A video appeared on the App formerly known as Twitter from China that showed a demonstration of a TCL CSOT foldable 8K OLED TV panel produced using inkjet printing. The TV is very much a prototype. TCL CSOT's CEO told us at Display Week in May that early production of inkjet OLEDs would focus just on mid-range monitor sized panels. To be competitive in making TV panels it needs a new fab that is some years away.

At one time, Google allowed news sources to apply to be recognized as news publications on its news.google.com search page. Then it moved to making its own decisions on who should qualify. We are pleased that Google has now recognized that the 8K Association news feed is a legitimate source of news. 8K developments and articles from the 8K Association will now be visible at this feed. The feed can be followed to stay updated with 8K Association news and comments.

Advanced Television published an article quoting David Hsieh, a noted display industry analyst with Omdia, who highlighted that consumers are continuing to buy bigger and bigger TV displays. Consumers like these displays which are being made more and more economically in China by major LCD makers such as BOE, TCL/CSOT and CHOT as well as by LG Display and Sharp.

Of course, the bigger the display, the more the higher pixel count of 8K makes a difference.

(Image - at the Display Week Business Conference, DSCC's Bob O'Brien pointed out that the market for 75"+ sets will move to 8K with miniLED backlights).

The latest "Oppenheimer" movie was shot mainly on IMAX and Panavision 65mm cameras according to an article in IndieWire. The film versions were printed onto 70mm film for display, but in digital theaters, the film was scanned at 8K and then downscaled for display to match the 4K digital projectors that are currently installed.

(Image:The 70mm IMAX print of “Oppenheimer”David Keighley/IMAX)

The Sphere entertainment venue in Las Vegas has started operation and gathered comment from news providers around the world. The first major event at the Sphere will feature rock band, U2, in September. Additionally, the company says it's the world's largest spherical structure at 516 feet wide and 366 feet tall. It seats 17,600 people, with a 20,000-person standing capacity. There's a video here of the images shown.

Plans to build a similar Sphere in London have been fiercely opposed by local groups and still needs approval from the Mayor of London. It could also be blocked by UK government minister, Michael Gove.

Uprise RI, based in Rhode Island in the US, has adopted native 8K resolution for its YouTube channel and started its coverage with a video of the Fourth of July fireworks in Cumberland, RI. The organisation previously used FullHD recording.

NHK has previously confirmed to us that 8K editing is possible with older MacBooks, but now Apple has updated its Mac Pro high end workstation with its M2 Ultra chip which can support 22 streams of 8K ProRes playback. The performance is said to be dramatically higher than the previous Intel-based Apple Pro. Apple added this note:

Testing conducted by Apple in April and May 2023 using pre-production Mac Pro systems with Apple M2 Ultra, 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU, 192GB of RAM, and 8TB SSD. Prerelease Final Cut Pro 10.6.6 tested using a 1-minute picture-in-picture project with 22 streams of Apple ProRes 422 video at 8192x4320 resolution and 30 frames per second. Mac Pro systems tested with an attached 5K display. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro can support up to three 8K 60Hz displays.

The Mac Studio was also updated with two versions:

• M2 Max chip with support for two displays with 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with 8K resolution at 60Hz. The M2 Max-based model supports 10 streams of 8K ProRes 4:2:2 60Hz playback
• M2 Ultra chip with three displays with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz and the same 22 streams as the Mac Pro

In an interesting interview with a team from Canon's imaging business, PetaPixel asked about the firm's support of 8K video capture. Canon confirmed that helping its customers 'future proof' their content by enabling capture and display in 8K. The firm also highlighted that the processors and displays needed for 8K will become more affordable and accessible. In addition, capture at 8K can provide content that can be cropped or downscaled to 4K for more quality and flexibility.

TCL, the most successful Chinese TV brand outside its home country, announced more details of its 2023 range of sets, Dealerscope in the US reported. There is one model with a MiniLED backlight, and another QLED version with Quantum Dot technology for better color and with support for Dolby Vision HDR.

Spin Digital of Germany has released a new version of its Spin Player software that can playback 4K and 8K content with support for:

• 8K distribution: File and live playback of 8Kp60 4:2:0 10-bit HDR videos encoded in HEVC or VVC at distribution bitrates up to 80 Mbps.
• 8K contribution: File and live playback 8Kp60 4:2:2 10-bit streams encoded in HEVC at broadcast contribution bitrates up to 250 Mbps.
• High-fidelity 8K: Visually-lossless playback of 8Kp60 HEVC content in master-file quality with 4:4:4 12-bit format at very high bitrates from up to 600 Mbps.
• 8K with High Frame Rate (HFR): HEVC, VVC, and uncompressed playback of 8K 10-bit HDR content with HFR up to 120 fps to drive high-quality applications to the next level of visual experience.

Spin Player is able to perform real-time 8Kp60 HDR playback on a compact PC with an Intel Core i9-13900K CPU, used for 8K VVC decoding, and an Intel ARC A770 GPU used for video rendering and  connected to the 8K TV using an HDMI 2.1 interface. The VVC player running on an Intel NUC 13 Extreme Platform was shown in action at the NAB 2023 Exhibition.

For more information look here.

Wohler Technologies has introduced vMON, a new line of 4K and 8K video monitors that includes SDI and HDMI inputs. The monitors use native UltraHD (3840 x 2160) panels, but can accept 8K signals for monitor purposes. The monitors are available in 17.3", 27" and 32" sizes.

We posted the news about the widely rumored launch of the Nikon Z8 mirrorless hybrid camera, which brings many of the features and much of the performance of the flagship Z9 to a lower price point. We spotted this detailed article about the camera which supports 8K60p using 4:2:0 H.265 or 8K30P with 4:2:2 H265. It can record up to 125 Minutes of UHD 8K (7680 x 4320) at 29.97p (4:2:2 10-Bit). It also supports 10 bit ProRes 4:2:2 HQ (but only up to 4K) and 12-Bit RAW internal recording. It uses a 45.7 MP Sony sensor.

Techradar and others reported that Apple is releasing its Final Cut Pro app for recent high end iPads. The app will allow editing of 8K ProRes video if you have an iPad Pro with the most recent M2 chip from Apple. The app will be available on a monthly ($4.99) or annual ($49) subscription from May 23rd. The company is also releasing its Logic Pro audio app. Competitor, davinci Resolve is already available on the iPad along with iPad-led apps such as Lumafusion.

There has been widespread confusion online about the resolution of B&O's new and very expensive 97" TV. Although it has been widely reported as having an 8K OLED panel, it is in fact just 4K. The smaller 88" version does have an 8K panel, but LG Display, which makes most of the large OLEDs for TV, does not make an 8K version of the 97" panel.

The China Daily reported that the Chinese government is considering a new set of measures to develop the support for high quality video in the country, according to Zhao Zhiguo, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. He made the remarks at the World Ultra-high-definition Video Industrial conference 2023 in Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

The report clarifies that the government wishes to boost UltraHD and 8K technology and distribution. Another report lists the value of the UltraHD industry in China at $431 billion by the end of 2022 and highlighted the eight broadcast 4K channels and two 8K channels. China has also developed and industrialized key products including 8K cameras, 8K monitors and 8K image sensors.

(Image credit - China Daily)

Interdigital released a white paper, authored by market research consultancy Futuresource, that looked at the the state of play in the developments of video codecs. It highlights that the internet is now a 'video first' technology and the critical nature of codecs in allowing that. It also looks at each of the major video codecs and summarizes their performance and licensing aspects.

The white paper also looks ahead to future codec technologies that can use synthetic media and the use of AI. The white paper is free to download (with registration) here.

Circana (formerly IRI and the NPD group) published a report that points out that the age of installed TVs in the US is gradually increasing with the average age now being 5.2 years. The average TV is replaced in the US is 6.6 years old. TVs were replaced during the pandemic as buyers stayed at home. The researchers believe that this increasing age of sets will mean an uptick in the sale of TVs to 'the normal replacement cycle' will return and that will help the market to recover.

YouTube reviewer Dustin Abott looks at the Fujifilm X-H2 which can capture 4:2:2 Prores 8K at 30fps with 10 bits of color or 8K RAW with an external recorder. The camera is based on the APS-C specification and offers very good value, he believes.

He also has a 'deep dive' review here.

THine Electronics of Japan has released its latest high speed drivers for 4K and 8K TVs. THine specializes in developing the interface systems between the timing controller inside a flat panel such as an LCD and the row and column drivers in the panel itself. The interfaces are a key component of cost and can at times limit the performance of the panels if the interfaces are not up-to-date.

THine's V-by-one interface was upgraded to V-by-One HS to support 8K and now has been upgraded to V-by-One HS Plus to reduce the number of lanes used by half.

The DVB, which develops international technical standards for broadcast and streamed media, has approved a new specification that covers the use of the VVC and AVS3 codecs in DVB delivery systems including terrestrial, satellite, cable, IPTV and DVB-DASH. The new specification will be formally standardized by ETSI. This development is an expected, but necessary, step in the evolution of video delivery methods that can support 8K with optimized codecs.

DVB also published new 'blue books' setting out the commercial requirements for the next generation of codecs. DVB issues commercial requirements before using those to select and develop the technical solutions to meet those requirements.

Colorfront, a developer of dailies/transcoding and streaming for motion pictures, OTT, broadcast and commercials, announced at NAB that it has developed products for 'live streaming' of 8K using 'just hotel broadband'.

“We are thrilled to now have the ability to play out 8K camera RAW files to our 8K HDR cinema screens directly from our Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in AWS,”

said Jonathon Lee, Head of Media Engineering & Innovation at Amazon Studios.

“This has created a new paradigm for us, and helps close the loop with our global pure cloud production environment. We can
now post our shows anywhere in the world in full fidelity.”

Blackmagic Design has announced a new camera that has a 12K Super35 image sensor. It includes an optical low pass filter (OLPF) that is intended to reduces artifacts such as moiré and aliasing, while preserving the color and critical image detail. It will also be available without the OLPF. As the sensor has 80megapixels it can support cropped or re-framed UltraHD or DCI 8K or in-sensor scaled 8K RAW at up to 120fps with 14 stops of dynamic range. It has an interchangeable lens mount and supports large PL cinema lenses, EF or F mount photographic lenses, and even B4 broadcast lenses. The firm said that the camera is now certified for Netflix production. Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K OLPF is available immediately worldwide for $6,385.