Back
R&D
8K on the test bench
After 4K, France Télévisions is taking advantage of this year's French Open to conduct its first 8K trials. Although there are no broadcasts planned for these images on the group's channels, excerpts can nevertheless be seen on site thanks to TV sets from Sharp, which also supplied the two professional 8K cameras equipped with Canon lenses. France Télévisions is thus one of the first broadcasters to experience 8K in real conditions and to test one of the first 8K monitors marketed with the assistance of Intel and Spin Digital for encoding. This first experimentation will be conducted throughout the tournament and will allow the curious to get a glimpse of tomorrow's TV, especially during the first live tests that will take place during the last four days of the tournament.
"TV 8K was expected in 2022, but now, in 2018, the first TV sets will go into production. The challenge for broadcasters today is to determine the consequences that this will have on 4K in the medium term in order to know whether it can be considered as a springboard to 8K or not," explains Bernard Fontaine, Director of Technological Innovations at France Télévisions.
While waiting to decide the question, France Télévisions is broadcasting all of Philippe Chatrier's court matches in 4K for the sixth consecutive year. This year, broadcasting has been extended to the entire Ile de France region as well as Nantes and Toulouse thanks to DTT with TdF, and for the rest of France by satellite with Fransat. These broadcasts will also be visible on the TV Media Zone from two 4K televisions.
5G frees up content
From 3G to 4G, it was only one step. From 4G to 5G, it was a leap. The arrival of this new level of wireless connection, expected around 2020, will offer performance close to that of fiber optics. For Bernard Fontaine, 5G will probably answer one of the problems of 8K, that of broadcasting capacity. Performance is promising, and Qualcomm has announced a distribution capacity of 40 channels in 8K and 160 channels in 4K on the millimeter bands dedicated to 5G.
Today, 5G equipment symbolizes the future of wireless broadcasting, as demonstrated by Qualcomm's 5G tuner and 5G keys on display in the Showroom. A few days ago, France Télévisions was testing the first 5G TV transmissions in the United States with Qualcomm, which already has usable test frequencies. The group is now taking advantage of the French Open to share its experience with this technology.
Bernard Fontaine predicts that "5G, in order to develop, will probably be the subject of numerous industrial partnerships and will require the acquisition of three areas of expertise: technological expertise, business expertise and regulatory expertise. "He also warns: "It is important that Europe does not fall behind the United States or Asia, which are already well ahead in this sector. »
The automotive industry has understood this. Peugeot's autonomous vehicle, whose brand representatives are present in the showroom, incorporates Qualcomm's 5G technology to put into perspective how the television of the future will be consumed on board autonomous vehicles. The automobile brand is thus offering a demonstration in the parking lot of the Media-TV zone that illustrates the future of mobile television.
Virtual reality gets a new look
For the third consecutive year, France Télévisions is offering an innovative virtual reality experience. This year, a new technological approach to RV now makes it possible to offer a much higher level of image quality than the previous ones, both on television and on a tablet or with headphones. The images come from 24 synchronized cameras and are broadcasted on the France Télévisions booth in partnership with the company Digital Immersion which offers the possibility to live a more immersive TV experience of the Suzanne Lenglen tennis court.
Bernard Fontaine explains that "the idea is to enrich the TV experience by offering the user the freedom to choose the viewing angle while maintaining HD resolution. All he needs to do is to direct the view with his remote control. It's a way to offer 360° formats that can be shared with the whole family. »
But the progress of video does not stop there. We will soon be able to see videos in HDR (High Dynamic Range) on cell phones. France Télévisions wanted to test in real conditions this new video streaming format as well as AC-4 audio (which the most recent mobiles are equipped with) in partnership with Dolby's laboratories.
As simple as AI
AI is one of the key trends of the year, fuelled in turn by announcements from web giants about it and the political ambitions illustrated by the Villani report. France Télévisions is exhibiting a prototype conversational interface that allows users to find the greatest tennis matches of the last 30 years via voice search and relive them.
Although artificial intelligence is sometimes subject to tension, it was presented on the France Télévisions stand as a complementary extension to the television experience, allowing easier access to programs at a time when replay and VOD catalogs tend to thicken. AI thus serves the cause of many digital services by allowing to broaden their use by simplifying them.
