SK Telecom is a major telco in South Korea, and signal transport was its main focus at MWC. This covered data – the company had a 5G demo area in the middle of the stand – and video, with an 8k encoding demonstration towards the rear.
The encoder that SKT has developed is capable of live encoding of 8k video, although the process requires some streamlining. Currently, it works with software-based HEVC (because there are no 8k-capable HEVC chipsets yet). The 8k stream is split into four UltraHD streams, each of which is encoded separately and sent over an IP network. They are merged back together at the receiver device.
Maximum compression rate is 200:1, meaning that 8k video can be sent over networks supporting between 100Mbps and 1Gbps of throughput. SK Telecom expects its ‘8k UHD Super Encoder’ to become a core technology in the near future, for 8k video and VR.
A 110″ 8k Samsung TV was being used to show off the encoding. The advantage of 8k was immediately obvious, when a basketball game was shown on the set: the whole court could be viewed at once, from a single viewpoint in the middle of the area and with lots of detail.
Entrix, an SKT subsidiary, was showing off set-top box virtualisation. This solution is intended to provide the functionality of an STB in the cloud, so that viewers no longer need to buy new hardware. The STB’s UI is processed in the cloud and can be shown on the user’s TV using legacy boxes – unlike today, when the STB’s CPU and RAM are essential to performance. Eliminating the need to roll out new STBs will save money for customers and service providers, said the company.
SK Telecom expects to roll out its cloud streaming solution to overseas markets this year – in particular Europe, Japan, China and South-East Asia. Cyber Cloud, a Chinese provider to pay-TV operators, has already acquired the exclusive rights to use SKT’s solution in China this year.
Although not directly display-related, we were impressed by the idea behind a self-developed dialler app, which will be pre-installed on SKT’s smartphones (alongside the manufacturer’s dialler) in the future. It is called the Advanced Call Platform, and manages all call-related functionality, such as forwarding and voicemail. It can also be used to find numbers of nearby locations: i.e., entering ‘Tapas’ will show nearby tapas restaurants. The most unique feature, however, is the rating system.
People in South Korea are subject to a high number telemarketing calls, and the Advanced Call Platform can be used to rate them, with a smiley face or a frowning face: the rating (i.e. 100 ‘bad’ experiences and 2 ‘good’ experiences) will appear to all people using the app when they are contacted by that number. A very slick way of beating cold calls!
