B<>Com is a technology company that was in the Future Zone and was showing its technology for tonemapping between SDR and HDR and which it previously showed at NAB. The mapping can be done in hardware or software and the company sees applications in mapping library content for including in HLG or PQ-based streams. The company was showing the converter in hardware systems of different sizes, including a very small one. It was showing a demo using an FPGA developed by Embrionix. B<>Com has an ip licensing business model and is interested in licensing the technology to equipment makers.
BCom’s SDR/HDR Converter can be made very small. Image:Meko
Barco Silex was showing how it is taking its SMPTE ST2042 VC-2 HQ light codec which is now being adopted as a solution that helps to support applications including HDMI over IP. This standard can be used as an alternative to HDBaseT and can use standard switches, even supplying power using PoE, although it doesn’t support USB. Silex has implemented new technology that is part of the latest revision (SMPTE ST 2042-1:2017), released in June 2017, which introduced the option of using asymmetrical wavelet transform for the VC-2 processing, instead of the usual symmetrical wavelet. Asymmetrical wavelets allow a better trade-off between the complexity of the codec and its efficiency, Silex said. The new standard has also been updated to support latest and future video formats.
Barco Silex’s VC 2 codec has been updated to reflect the new SMPTE standard. Image:Meko
The BBC had a stand in the Future Zone, mostly devoted to audio technology developments. We had a quick look at some interesting technology that it is developing for binaural/immersive audio for use in VR applications.
In the early days, we thought that Beamr‘s ‘improve your codec’ technology was all ‘smoke and mirrors’. However, over time, the list of serious clients that the company acquired meant that we started to take the firm seriously. It’s early days were in pre-processing content to improve the efficiency of codecs, without visible changes. Now, the company has acquired Vanguard Video (Beamr Acquires Vanguard) and has had investment from Verizon. (Beamr Imaging Gets Investment). At the show, it was highlighting its new HLG support and Content Adaptive Bit Rate HEVC software to compress FullHD and UltraHD content.
The company was also showing how its Beamr 5 software can compress six real time streams of 10 bit HDR 4Kp60 content on a single dual socket Xeon Platinum 8180 processor-based server – up from one stream on the previous Intel processor. The company was also showing a Kontron 2U rack unit that could encode 18 live channels of HEVC in UltraHD with 10 bits.
At the show, Beamr said that Chili of Italy is using the Beamr Optimizer to reduce bitrates by up to 50% for its OTT library. The company claims to be able to compress HD down to 1.5Mbps and with UltraHD down to 5.9Mbps.
Unlike previous years, Humax was grumpy and wouldn’t show us around its new STBs which were in a private room. However, on the show floor there was a lot of emphasis on home gateways and fast networking. It was demonstrating a 10Gbps bi-directional gateway syste that has been tested with Comcast.
BenQ had its UltraHD SW271 colour-critical monitor and was being shown by its distributor. The monitor was originally previewed at Siggraph. (BenQ Brings New Monitors to Siggraph)
