Japanese successfully test first 8K broadcast - bye bye 4K?

Engineers of the Japanese public broadcasting service NHK have successfully broadcasted 8K content over the air. The achievement brings them a step closer to the final goal, broadcasting the Olympic Games of 2020 (in Tokyo) in the 8K format.

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The Nippon Hoso Kyokai Science & Technology Research Laboratories was able to transmit and receive video over a single UHF channel with a resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels over a distance of 27 kilometers (nearly 17 miles). The engineers used a technology called OFDM to transmit the video.

The video was compressed using the H.256 codec which resulted in a stream of 85 MBit/s (nearly 10 Megabyte per second). The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs wants the NHK to broadcast the first 8K video to Japanese viewers in 2020. The same year the Olympic Games take place in Tokyo.

During the World Championship soccer in Brazil this year, the NHK plans to broadcast the games in 4K / Ultra HD. TV manufacturers have announced a large amount of of Ultra HD TVs which are able to display 4K content.  World Championships of soccer are known for driving up the sales of TVs around the world, but obviously broadcasts in UltraHD would need to be available so consumers can actually enjoy their new TV set.

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