Webinar to discuss whether UHD has been a commercial success

DVB, in collaboration with the Ultra HD Forum, will host a free webinar on Tuesday 12 May (11:00 CEST) to assess the state of UHD deployments globally. The event marks the recent launch of the Forum’s UHD Service Tracker.

The new tool shows that UHD deployments have grown strongly, with 150 commercial services today, up from just 50 less than three years ago. An estimated 300 million viewers around the world consume in UHD, with the majority of those services underpinned by DVB’s open standards.

Against this backdrop, the webinar’s panellists will ask whether UHD is now mainstream or remains to prove itself. They will also consider whether the pandemic-driven lockdowns will serve to accelerate or slow down UHD penetration.

Expert panellists

Jason Power (Dolby), who chairs the DVB Commercial Module working group on audio and video coding, will open the session with an overview of the DVB family of specifications for UHD. He will provide an update on the Phase 1 and 2 timeline, examine which specs have been adopted in the market, and summarize how DVB covers key features like HDR, HFR and next generation audio.

Next up, Ben Schwarz, chair of the Ultra HD Forum’s communications working group, will introduce the new service tracker. Building such a tool was not straightforward and required important decisions on coverage, definitions, data sources and more.

Omdia’s research director Paul Gray will then share the latest data on the outlook for UHD services globally, including insights based on the impact on COVID-19.

Questions welcome

The three presenters will be joined by Virginie Drugeon, chair of the DVB Technical Module AVC group, for a discussion moderated by Ian Nock. Attendees will have the opportunity to put questions to the panel during what’s sure to be a lively debate.

The webinar will be available to watch on demand via the DVB website and the slides presented will be available for download.

Register now for the webinar.