A Leader LV5900 HD/4K/8K multi-standard waveform monitor was chosen to monitor the signal feed of an hour-long live 8K broadcast by BT from Northampton, England, to IBC Amsterdam. One of the world’s first broadcasts of its kind, the broadcast enabled IBC attendees to see the Gallagher Premiership Rugby 7s tournament relayed direct from the home stadium of Northampton Saints. Other partners supporting the event included Appear TV, Astro Design, Blackmagic Design, Fujinon, Ikegami, MOOV, Samsung and Telegenic.
“We are very pleased to have been chosen to partner in this landmark demonstration,” says Leader Europe Business Development Manager Kevin Salvidge. “The LV5900 allows OB technicians to check video and audio signal parameters at any point in the production and delivery chain to ensure raw and encoded signal feeds conform as closely as possible to the maximum deliverable quality.”
“8K currently represents the pinnacle in terms of production quality, creating a picture four times sharper than 4K and 16 times sharper than HD, plus very high quality audio. With the source feed an enormous 48 gigabits per second, a lot depends on the delivery network and choice of codecs. The demonstration was highly impressive a tribute to the skill both of BT Sport and BT’s Media & Broadcast pision.”
“For those not looking to deploy 8K services, the LV5900 can simultaneously display two 4K sources, something that is taken for granted with HD products, but currently not available with any 4K products until now.”
“We have a long history of firsts, starting with HD and 3D content and now adding 8K live sports broadcasts to the list,” says Dominik Wrona, Head of Outside Broadcast at BT’s Media & Broadcast Division. “This demonstration is another example of how our specialist broadcasting pision team is bringing to life new innovation and technology and partnering with some of the best brands in the business to make this happen.”
Making its European launch at IBC 2019, the LV5900 is designed for content producers, broadcasters and equipment manufacturers progressing into 8K. A new Leader-developed focus detection algorithm applies nonlinear super-resolution technology even to low-contrast images for which focus errors were previously difficult to detect.
Housed in a half-rack-width by 4U high portable unit with a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution 9 inch front-panel monitor, it is compatible with the SMPTE ST2082-12 standard which receives 8K images via 12G-SDI quad link. Measurement capabilities include video signal waveform display, vector display, picture display, eye pattern display, five-bar display, CIE chromaticity display, freeze error detection, black error detection and gamut error detection.
Up to four inputs can be displayed simultaneously in various user-definable configurations, or one input signal can be displayed on multiple screens. Status display allows operators to check the status of errors at any instant or compile a record of events along a user-definable timeline. Enhanced data analysis can also be performed. Operators can graphically check the phase difference and sync status of incoming SDI video based on the external reference sync signal (black burst or tri-level sync).
HDR support is provided for HLG, Dolby PQ, S-Log3, C-Log, Log-C and OOTF. In the LV54900’s Cinezone display, the brightness of the HDR area is displayed by rendering the SDR area in monochrome and the HDR area in a brightness-dependent colour.
Eye pattern and jitter can be displayed on SDI signals from HD-SDI up to to 12G-SDI. These measured values can be measured automatically or under cursor control. In addition, the histogram can be superimposed and displayed on the eye pattern display.
The LV54900 can decode and display subtitles superimposed on SDI signals, CEA-608, CEA-708 closed captions, and Teletext OP47 subtitles.
Patterns can be output in various forms, including HD multi format colour bars, 4K multi format colour bars and HDR colour bars.
Audio measurement facilities include audio-to-SDI embedding, externally input MADI audio signals, level meter display, Lissajous display, loudness display, mute and clip error detection. Detected errors can be recorded as an event log.
A screen capture function is included to capture the display screen as still image data. Also provided is a frame capture function to capture frames including blanking periods. Frame capture data can be checked on a PC and searched for errors using the frame capture viewer. Time code can be superimposed on the SDI signal and also used to timestamp logged events.
