UHD Innovation: IBC Roundtable Recap 

IBC Roundtable

UHD World Association (UWA) and Informa organized a roundtable at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC), on Ultra High Definition (UHD) as part of our mission to foster innovation and increase the adoption of UHD across the European market.

To establish robust industry standards of UHD and hold organizations accountable, a roundtable was the perfect opportunity to gauge industry sentiment and explore the unique challenges facing these organizations in their UHD content journey. We wanted to facilitate a discussion where industry leaders could share ideas and concerns to be addressed by our team of experts.

On Sunday, September 15th, 2024, professionals across the broadcasting industry gathered for a roundtable discussion at the IBC in Amsterdam. The session, titled " Embrace UHD. Embrace the Future" was moderated by Maria Rua Aguete, Senior Research Director at Omdia, and focused on UHD content and technology.

Trends

The core of Maria Rua Aguete’s keynote speech formed the perfect starting point for a lively discussion on the gap between UHD-ready technology and 4K content. As she observed, research suggests that over 1 Billion UHD TV sets are currently being used worldwide, but there remains a significant gap in UHD content being produced. So how does this impact the penetration of UHD content in the European market?

Key Challenges

During the roundtable, the main challenge the leaders expressed concern over was the large gap in cost when comparing producing and broadcasting UHD content to HD content. Additionally, the lack of clarity on who should fund the additional cost puts the financial burden on content producers, as broadcasters are reluctant to invest in UHD content due to insufficient monetization opportunities. This makes it increasingly difficult to convince advertisers to risk investing in UHD. An example would be public broadcasters such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) needing global partners to support the production of UHD content, enabling global distribution of the UHD content. Planet Earth was given as a notable example of profitable UHD content that was co-produced with global partners. Some agreed that this approach is the key to covering the additional production costs.

This lack of UHD content means broadcasters and operators cannot sustain 24/7 UHD channels. Eutelsat, for example, has fewer than 10 UHD TV channels broadcast from their 13° East Hotbird satellite position, out of a total of around 1,000 channels overall.

Another example is the BBC, which focuses on delivering UHD content via BBC iPlayer rather than linear broadcast, citing around 500 hours of UHD content online and 100 hours of UHD content added annually.

Some of the BBC’s UHD content comes with short-term licenses. Coverage of Glastonbury Festival, for example, is restricted to a license of 30 days on iPlayer.. On the other hand, streamers like Netflix and Apple TV+ have successfully promoted UHD content.

The roundtable participants had mixed opinions on consumer demand, with some believing it was the lack of clarity around the value of UHD content and others highlighting the lack of perceived difference between HD and UHD as the issue. In this instance, a number of participants agreed that focusing on other UHD aspects such as Wide Color Gamut/HDR would provide greater consumer appeal.

UWA’s Mission

Despite the challenges faced by the industry, overall morale is high for the future of UHD content producers, with UWA committed to bridging the gap between. In a post-show article, Stuart Thomson of IBC reaffirmed the UWA’s mission statement as “...to build an industrial ecosystem around core standards, committed to an open and friendly intellectual property rights (IPR) policy so that users can afford the cost of developing UHD technologies.”

Vincent Zhang, Secretary General of UWA echoed this, saying of the roundtable discussion:

“The UWA Roundtable facilitated extensive communication with European industry experts, allowing us to hear their views on the development of the UHD industry. The insights gained were highly valuable, and it also provided an opportunity for our European partners to gain a deeper understanding of UWA, marking a solid first step for UWA's future development in Europe. The discussions among the experts were lively and engaging, resulting in a very high-quality roundtable.”

In Summary

The roundtable was a resounding success, offering attendees the opportunity to discuss challenges faced, such as the additional costs of HDR content, the lack of consumer demand and understanding of the value, as well as the need for robust monetization for broadcasters.

Regardless, innovative ideas and fresh perspectives were shared, with countless opportunities for collaboration. We wish to reiterate a special thanks to our sponsors, partners, and speakers for making it a productive and enjoyable roundtable.

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