RE: HEVC is scheduled to be an international standard this coming May
Broadcast using HEVC to compatible devices is essential to the development of the UHD ecosystem. Satellite operators such as Eutelsat and SES have been, and will be, the primary proponents of early UHD distribution. However, the current technology of DVB-S2 and MPEG-4 AVC required a bit rate of 40 Mbit/s when Eutelsat transmitted UHD on its demonstration channel. Compared to the capacity per transponder of an "average" satellite, this means that each transponder could perhaps serve one, or possibly two, UHD channels, as opposed to five or six HD channels. The SES broadcast in UHD, utilising DVB-S2 and HEVC, was transmitted at just 20 Mbit/s - which indicates an increase in encoding efficiency of HEVC over MPEG-4 of around 50 per cent. With a new DVB-based transmission standard, DVB-S2x, in development, the total capacity for each transponder will also increase, whilst further development of HEVC could see the bitrates necessary for UHD transmission further reduced, to the 10-15 Mbit/s range. This would mean bitrates for UHD transmission would be not too dissimilar from the 8-10 Mbit/s(Indian dth ops @ using less than 5Mbit/s for most of the HDchannels) bitrates used for current HD channel broadcast.
The set-top boxes (STBs) with UHD-capable silicon (which will be first produced in 2014, and more widely available from 2015) could be shipped in volume; and the camera replacement cycle will see studios migrating further to 4K-capable cameras, benefiting existing HD capture in the process. By 2020, the early pay-TV operator adopters of HD will have achieved 100 per cent HD STB penetration, at which point rationalisation of SD and HD channels becomes possible. Then UHD....
