Paris 2024 Olympics in 4K: the most immersive in history

• Mario Reis (OBS): “We will have more than 40 events taking place at the same time and all the native production is done in 4K”.
• Mickaël Raulet (Ateme): “We are looking for an experience to make it look like we are the ones competing”.
• Juanma Blanco Poley, Director of Canal Sur Media, presents ‘CanalSurMás hasta en el Metaverso’, “multi-device and multi-platform repository for a personalized immersive experience”.

The National Digital Content Pole in Malaga has hosted this Tuesday the second day of the ninth edition of the 4K HDR Summit, an event organized by Medina Media Events which has brought together the most important multinationals and associations in everything related to Ultra High Definition Television and New Technologies and that will run until November 16 in hybrid format.

With the presence of the most important multinationals and associations in everything related to Ultra High Definition and the participation of more than 40 speakers from America, Europe and Asia, specifically from the United States, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, India, Japan, France, Venezuela, Belgium and Spain, the ninth edition 4K HDR Summit has had in its second day with the presence of several personalities in the 4K and 8K world, as well as entities, companies and producers of the audiovisual and technological fields.

This second day focused on one of the most important events that will take place next year: the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Mario Reis, Director of Telecommunications & OTT at Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) and Mickaël Raulet, CTO at Ateme, discussed the challenges facing the world’s biggest sporting event. “The Paris Olympics will be the most connected Games in the world,” said Mario Reis, who maintained that “as consumers, we want to be involved, we want to participate. They will therefore be the most connected and the most immersive Olympic Games in history.”

“At the Olympics we will have more than 40 events taking place at the same time and all native production is done in 4K. The standard for OBS is 4K,” said Mario Reis, while Mickaël Raulet stressed that what viewers are now looking for is to be inside the competition itself: “It’s as if you were playing a video game. The aim is to interact with the content, to make the experience immersive so that it feels like we are the ones competing. This is the next step with the new generations”.

Recognition of Manolo Romero

One of the names of the day was that of Manolo Romero Canela (1941-2022), a reference in Olympic broadcasting and the first European to enter The Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame of the Olympics, who has been given a well-deserved posthumous recognition for his impeccable career. An engineer of a professional quality as enormous as the human one who was at the top, raising the Olympics to a higher level. Friends and some of his former colleagues have recognized through a video the work and this well-deserved distinction to a person who left his mark in the technical and creative field of television.

His daughter Úrsula Romero has been present through a video in which she thanked her father for this recognition: “Thank you for this magnificent honor. These have been difficult days for my family, but I wanted to say thank you. My father was there a few years ago and was very involved with the technology relay. He was a big fan of anything new and was a lover of technology. Any breakthrough or new thing related to technology, there he was. He was very proud to be part of the 4KHDR Summit in Seville and he would be proud to be there”. Words subscribed by his brother Miguel Romero and his friend Eladio Gutiérrez, who have been in charge of collecting this distinction.

For her part, Alicia Izquierdo, Councilor Delegate for Innovation, Digitalization and Investment Attraction of the City of Malaga has been in charge of welcoming this second day praising the city of Malaga as “innovation center in Europe”. The City of Malaga provides full support to such developments and we are committed to all these projects that are also driving our growth in the international arena,” he stressed.

CanalSurMás even in the Metaverse’.

Juanma Blanco Poley, Director of Canal Sur Media, has presented ‘CanalSurMás hasta en el Metaverso‘, “a multi-device and multi-platform repository” that has made the Andalusian public television to be “pioneer in this type of technology”, placing it in the “Top 10 in platform consumption in Spain” along with other renowned platforms such as Netflix or Amazon. Thanks to this “project of enormous depth and digital transformation” in the company, “the user can be in any set having an immersive personalized experience thanks to a platform that allows 360º content”.

Kristof Van der Veken, Senior Solutions Architect Live IP at EVS, introduced attendees to the fascinating subject of Live IP, which will be the networked television production of the future and has already been used in major events such as the World Cup in Qatar, the 2023 Superbowl in Arizona or the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. “When we move to Live IP, don’t be afraid,” Van der Veken warned, believing that “it’s as easy as it was to move from SD to HD or from analog to digital. Although it always takes time to acquire a new technology, you have to use your experiences to learn. You have to go bit by bit. Step by step.

Ulrich Grönewald, Video Lead Network Solutions Engineer at Synamedia, discussed the practical aspects of 4K implementation and asked “why we don’t see more 4K channels”. He argued that the answer lies in the need to “improve the 4K and HDR infrastructure both upstream and downstream, and although cameras and TVs are ready to record and broadcast in 4K, there are limitations in between that prevent faster development”.

HDR as a differentiator

Paul Gray, research director at Omdia, immersed us in the current trends in 4K, HDR and 8K, making special mention of HDR as “what really makes the difference because it works with all screens. It captures our attention, and that’s what needs to be demonstrated. Once we see it, we don’t want to go back to the way we see before.” Similarly, Gray has advanced “a new technology that’s coming: miniLed.” “If we use it well, we will be able to create a TV that looks like an OLED, that is almost as thin as an OLED and with the same contrast. And if we can manage to reduce costs, it’s going to be super-competitive.”

Elena Burdiel, senior engineer at Fraunhofer IIS, talked about audio, an aspect as important as the image and which is sometimes downplayed. Specifically of the new generation audio systems such as MPEG-H, an “innovative audio system whose main feature is customization: accessibility, immersion and the best experience regardless of the device used by the user”.

In the same way that audio, color “is becoming very important”. So said Jordi Joaquim, product manager of AJA Video Systems, who said that “after the implementation and settlement of 4K and 8K, the next criterion for defining the quality will be the color signature. And in order to work with color, Joaquim has detailed the operation of Colorbox, “a compact and high-performance converter for workflows with color management designed to specifically meet the conversion needs of broadcasts, live events and on-set applications”.

Lluis Ribes, Sales Engineer at Mediakind, explained how a broadcast can be done in the cloud and how to prepare it, while describing Cloud technology as “a disruptive chain that alters the supply chain. We have to go to the cloud because it is a technology that brings new opportunities”.

Meetings of industry professionals and exclusive demonstrations

The Technical Directors of all the Spanish regional television channels grouped in FORTA met during the opening day. FORTA is the body that represents regional television and radio stations and usually meets its Technical Commission approximately every 2 months. These meetings usually deal with technical issues of interest to all members of the Federation: the functional and technical characteristics of common services to be implemented or launched are determined, as well as the monitoring of those in operation and the determination and assessment of new technologies for individual or collective internal use.

On this occasion they have chosen the 4K HDR Summit 2023 to hold their meeting. In addition, FORTA is currently part of the association that promotes Ultra High Definition in Spain, UHD Spain, which also held its general assembly behind closed doors during the first day of the event in addition to a private meeting of the Board of Directors with representatives of Ultra HD Forum Italy and Ultra HD Forum.

Like every edition, the visitors present at the Digital Content Pole of Malaga have enjoyed an area of unpublished demonstrations: For example, they have been able to discover how Space looks in 4K or the most remote places on the planet, see the inside of a 4K Mobile Unit for live broadcasts, or know how it would be to watch a series or a movie in the Metaverse. They have also tested a T-shirt designed to live an immersive experience while playing video games.

The most curious visitors were able to satisfy their curiosity at the 4K HDR Summit. In addition to knowing the latest model of Samsung 8K TV, visitors have an innovative experience watching sports broadcasts in 4K quality via 5G, the haptic gaming system OWO and many more developments related to this technology that do not leave the viewer indifferent.

The conferences of the 4K HDR Summit 2023 can be followed through Medina Media Events’ ‘The Observatory’. On this platform, attendees can schedule video meetings with other participants and speakers, as well as visit exclusive online demos. This edition has been held on 13 and 14 November, in person, at the Digital Content Hub in Malaga, and continues tomorrow, Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 November, virtually.

The ninth edition of the 4K HDR Summit is supported by the Malaga City Council through the Polo Nacional de Contenidos Digitales, the Agencia Digital de Andalucía, ATEME, Canal Sur Radio y Televisión, Axión, Fraunhofer, Mediakind, Synamedia, EVS, Telefónica, Grupo ADM, AJA, Hispasat, Cellnex, Eutelsat, Rohde & Schwarz, Canon, Sapec, SONO, Hurí, Sapec, UHD Spain and Europa Creativa Media Desk Andalucía.