What They Say
NBC will cover the Winter Olympics in UltraHD and with HDR for US viewers. NBC Sports will provide live coverage of the NBC broadcast network’s Olympics primetime and Prime Plus shows in certain markets in UHD/HDR with Atmos audio.
NBCUniversal will distribute the 4K HDR coverage to U.S. distribution partners, who will individually choose how to make the content available to their customers. YouTube TV, which carried NBC’s UHD feed during the Tokyo Games announced earlier this month that it will carry NBC’s 4K from Beijing as well.
Dave Mazza, senior VP and CTO for NBC Sports Group and NBC Olympics reflected on the network’s work on providing UHD coverage of the Games.
“We started down a path with 4K and HDR in earnest for the Tokyo Olympics, and were successfully able to produce those images to many of our affiliates, which was a groundbreaking feat,” he said. “That was a big effort to both get the HDR done and produce all of the content in 4K/HDR and be able to down-convert it to regular HD/SDR without causing any damage to the regular HD pictures while still having the stunning pictures over on the 4K/HDR side. As a result of the success, we are continuing the same thing for the Winter Olympics.”
What We Think
Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be able to see how good this looks as my TV provider only has BT Sport in UltraHD, but the rights to the Olympics are shared between the BBC and Eurosport. HDR technology should make the events in the (artificial) snow really ‘sparkle’.
I would imagine that the ‘lockdown’ strategy in China must have made developing the coverage very challenging. (BR)
