What They Say
The 8K Association worked with codec specialist Jan Ozer to look at the encoding of 8K video and published an interesting article that he wrote that looked at the bitrates needed for high quality 8K. On the face of it, you might think that as 8K has 16X the resolution of FullHD, you might think you need 16X the bandwidth. However, it is known that codecs operate more efficiently at higher resolution.
Ozer tested different resolution clips of the same content and compared the bitrate needed to create the same quality. He applied a ‘rule of thumb’ of the industry that you should use a ‘power of 0.75’ factor when increasing resolution. His tests, using the HEVC codec suggests that a ‘power of 0.61’ might be more accurate. To match the quality of 1080P at around 7 Mbps needed around 38Mbps for 8K. The result, he emphasised, is codec dependent.
What We Think
The test highlights that you need fewer ‘bits per pixel’ for higher resolutions. That’s good news as it should mean less use of resources in transmission and broadcast than you might think.
The 8K Association is continuing to look at this topic. (BR)
