This time last year, our ViBE 4K HEVC encoder was brand-new – having just been launched at the 2015 NAB Show – and was already in use for groundbreaking 4K coverage of the French Open tennis championship. For this year’s French Open, the ViBE 4K, alongside other equipment, provided terrestrial viewers with an even more astonishing experience through a powerful combination of high dynamic range (HDR) and hybrid log-gamma (HLG) technologies. It was also used to provide a backup for the satellite broadcast.
In partnership with Eutelsat and TDF, the French Tennis Federation and France Télévisions used the ViBE 4K to broadcast the French Open live in UHD with HDR according to HLG specifications. The UHD broadcast was available on channel 81 over the TDF terrestrial network to Paris residents equipped with 4K televisions compatible with DVB-T2 and HEVC. The UHD channel was also available on Fransat. The channel was live during the last four days of the tournament to cover the semi-final and final matches for the men’s and women’s singles, as well as the final matches for the men’s and women’s doubles.
The ViBE 4K’s HLG-HDR decoding configuration has been successfully tested with Samsung and LG’s latest-model UHD televisions. The French Open UHD channel was broadcast at around 20 Mb/s on terrestrial network and at 30 Mb/s on satellite.
Once again, the ViBE 4K has proven its power not only as the industry’s most compact live 4K encoder, but as the most leading-edge encoding solution available for terrestrial UHD broadcasts. In addition to support for main HDR standards including HLG, the ViBE 4K offers HEVC compression efficiency that enables UHD encoding at a bit rate compatible with terrestrial networks. Broadcasters are able to encode two channels in a terrestrial mux and take advantage of a truly impressive audio feature set, including support for Dolby AC-4. Consumers are the real winners, with the ability to experience their favorite sports in stunning UHD and HDR.