Seville, world center of UHD

• The tenth edition of the 4K HDR Summit was inaugurated by the Secretary of Telecommunications of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, Matías González; the Regional Minister of the Presidency, Antonio Sanz; and the Mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz
• This international congress brings together 66 experts from 19 countries, leaders in 4K technology and content, at the PCT Cartuja
• The UHD map in Spain, the technical deployment of RTVE for the Paris Olympics and the AI project of Google and Canal Sur, have been the protagonists of the day
• Antonio Sanz has given the green light to the formulation of the Digital Infrastructure Plan. Also, RTVA has announced the creation of “Canal Sur Lab”. And UHD Spain has a new president, Victor Sanchez, Director of Media and Operations of TVE

Seville, and especially the Science and Technology Park Cartuja, has become the world epicenter of Ultra High Definition (UHD) in Television and New Technologies with the start of the tenth edition of the 4K HDR Summit, “Where technology and content have time to talk”. The Cartuja Auditorium has hosted this Monday November 11 the first of two days of this summit that will take place in the capital of Andalusia until next Thursday 14 in which a total of 66 experts from 19 countries from three different continents (Europe, America and Asia) will discuss the present, the future and applications of the most advanced technology (UHD/4K, HDR, 8K), also coinciding with the 21st edition of the European Film Festival in Seville.

The Minister of Presidency and Interior, Antonio Sanz; the Mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz and the Secretary of Telecommunications of the Ministry for Digital Transformation, Matías González, have inaugurated the X edition of the international congress 4K HDR Summit, a meeting point for professionals and experts in Ultra High Definition technology and content.

New DTT ‘new map’ in Spain

The first day was marked by the presence of the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Civil Service, which presented the draft national DTT plan currently being processed, including the 4K channels (UHD-HDR) that will be free to watch in 2025 throughout Spain. Matías González, general secretary of Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, has addressed the technological evolution in the field of video and audio on television in which the central government has a relevant role. “The audiovisual sector is in full transformation due to the digitalization processes that are diluting the borders and changing the models of agents and competition that occur in this area”, considered Matías González, who pointed out that “the audiovisual sector is strategic for the Spanish economy”.

On this consolidation of Spain’s leadership in Ultra High Definition (UHD), Julia Criado, advisory member of the General Secretariat, has delved into the technical scope of the ‘new UHD map‘ of Spain that has been submitted to public hearing and whose “draft is expected to be available in June 2025”.

Andalusia will be the best film set in Europe

The Minister of Presidency of the Junta de Andalucía, Antonio Sanz, thanked the celebration of this 4K HDR Summit that “places Andalusia in the focus of the audiovisual industry and new technologies related to Ultra High Definition”. “In Andalusia we make a clear commitment to the audiovisual industry and digital content that represents a group of more than 40 companies that make up the LAND cluster. An industry to which we want to add new advantages to make Andalusia an attractive place to invest and develop the industry at its highest level,” said Antonio Sanz, who stressed “that Andalusia is the best set in Europe“. Finally, he announced the formulation of the Digital Infrastructure Plan: “This plan will bring high resolution and high capacity networks to every corner of Andalusia“.

Also, the mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz, has welcomed at this summit held in an “auditorium and a technology park unique in Europe” and that “places Seville in a meeting point of UHD content. The first mayor of the city council has been pleased that the Andalusian capital has become “capital of the audiovisual vanguard” highlighting the “enormous audiovisual talent that exists in Andalusia and Seville, center of technology and digital culture.

RTVE, leader in Europe in UHD

One of the major milestones of 2024 in Spain has been the broadcasting of the Paris Olympic Games in Ultra High Definition (UHD) through La 1 UHD. Radio Televisión Española (RTVE) has become the first broadcaster in the world to regularly broadcast the programming of its main television channel in UHD via DTT. “RTVE has consolidated itself as a technological engine, which has allowed us to provide users with an opportunity to improve their visual and audio experience thanks to Ultra High Definition,” said José Luis Muñiz, RTVE’s Director of Production and Media. He also advanced that “in 6 or 8 months there will be native and current productions that can be made in UHD”.

On the technical deployment made by RTVE for the broadcast of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024, Victor Sanchez, director of Media and Operations RTVE and Jesus Garcia Romero, director of the technical area of TVE, have shelled all the possibilities that gave them the UHD / HDR and opened “a new stage” for the public entity for these “changes that improve the user experience” and that place RTVE “at the forefront of the Broadcast industry with these technologies. This was stated by Víctor Sánchez, who highlighted the work of “100 people in Paris and more than 200 between Madrid and Barcelona for 400 hours of television with an investment of 5 million euros to achieve all this deployment”.

Canal Sur and Artificial Intelligence

The host television of the 4K HDR Summit, Canal Sur Television, has focused on applications based on Artificial Intelligence in the audiovisual world, which will be one of the hot topics throughout this summit. Juande Mellado, general director of Canal Sur Radio and Television, has advanced the agreement of the Andalusian public television with the technology multinational Google to launch a project for the “use of AI during the Carnivals of Cadiz 2025 to translate into several languages the coplas of the contest”. It has also announced the future birth of “Canal Sur Lab, a research laboratory to promote research, development and knowledge of innovative processes”.

The director of CanalSur Media, Juanma Blanco Poley, has delved into this new and exciting project that will “start working with all the archival content that Canal Sur has”. “This is not just take the audio and translate, but go further and understand what you want to say. This involves working with words that are not in the AI database, making the project even more complex,” said Manu Quero, head of strategic alliances for the European audiovisual sector in Google.

Canal Sur also hosted the FORTA Technical Commission, which brought together the technical directors of the Spanish regional television stations (FORTA), where they updated their knowledge and future plans for the development of Ultra High Definition (UHD) in Spain.

Likewise, Araceli García Cuartango, CEO at Axion and Lineox, a telecommunications services and infrastructure company that is responsible for bringing Canal Sur to more than 8 million people throughout Andalusia, has praised the importance of the new technical plan of the Government for DTT with which it is expected to “migrate all DTT channels to UHD for an audience that is increasingly demanding in content quality”. In García Cuartango’s opinion, “the free-to-air, coverage, efficiency and sustainability of DTT compared to Internet TV, as well as the minimization of technological risk”, make Digital Terrestrial Television the preferred one for around 75-80% of Spanish households.

LAND Cluster and European Film Festival

The tenth edition of the 4K HDR Summit has practically coincided in space and time with the 21st edition of the Seville European Film Festival. Its director, Manuel Cristóbal, has invited all those present to attend so that they can enjoy the numerous reproductions that will take place over the next few days with the presence of “more than 250 guests, including Johnny Depp and Jeremy Irons”.

For his part, Gustavo Fuentes, president of the LAND cluster, has valued the creation of this group of companies that was born with the “aim of creating industry and boosting the audiovisual sector as a whole”, a purpose with which it is intended to “give national and international visibility to Andalusia”, turning it into “natural set of Europe”.

UHD Spain and its AI project in the audiovisual industry

The UHD Spain association has presented for the first time its pilot experience of AI application in the audiovisual sector, which has been introduced by its president, Pere Vila, the main responsible for an idea in which a large number of the 40 companies that make up the association have collaborated, “representing the entire spectrum from one end to the other of the entire audiovisual production chain”.

José Manuel Menéndez, professor at the Universidad Politécnica Madrid, presented the 3rd edition of the UHD Spain White Paper to “provide companies with a reference that is very useful when dealing with these technologies”, including “the use of AI to measure the subjective quality QoE (Quality of Experience) in video”.

The latest work of UHD Spain has consisted in making a production based on AI, in 4K and HDR with which, in the words of Emili Planas, CTO of Grup Mediapro, “we looked for the limits of the system to know how far we could go”. An idea that arose from the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and that turned the project into “an experience divided into three phases with 16:9 editing, immersive 360º and the use of three virtual rooms,” as specified by Iván López, RTVE producer.

For his part, Francisco José Espinosa ‘Tilano’, Author and Television Technician at RTVA, presented his book on Artificial Intelligence focused on university students who want to be introduced to the new Generative AI.

At the end of the first day, the UHD Spain association took advantage of the incomparable setting provided by the 4K HDR Summit to hold its General Assembly with the participation of representatives of the 37 companies that are part of this association born with the aim of bringing together all companies in the Spanish 4K audiovisual industry to work together in the advancement and consensus of the implementation of Ultra High Definition (UHD) in Spain, as a highlight was announced new president, Victor Sanchez, Director of Media and Operations of TVE.

UHD evolves at breakneck speed

Engineering firm MoMe together with Deloitte have shared how they leverage synergy and their extensive experience in the Digital Transformation and Technology Evolution of their industry. “We are in a fast-changing environment and we have to know how to deal with it. Processes that used to take years, such as the transition from SD to HD, are no longer so slow because technology is revolutionizing the speed of change,” said Jaime Herbada, Chief Operating Officer of MoMe, who was accompanied by Javier Martinez, Broadcast Engineering Lead | Technology & Transformation at Deloitte, who agreed that “we are in a context of dizzying change and to navigate in this context of change.

Ana Domínguez, senior researcher at Vicomtech, explained the challenges and applications in audiovisual production of volumetric video, a promising and booming technology due to the popularization of Extended Reality (XR) applications. It is a “3D video formed by meshes and points instead of pixels, which is the most advanced technique for capturing people and moving objects in 3D”.

A meeting with great repercussion in the sector and in the media.

The 4K HDR Summit has been attended by international, national, regional and local media have echoed this first day of the tenth edition: Canal Sur and its programs Andalucía Directo and En Red, Europa Press, Radio Nacional de España (RNE), 7TV, El Economista, Señal News, Andalucía Información, ‘El Mira’ newspaper, Andalucía Noticias, Viva Sevilla, etc.

As every edition of the 4K HDR Summit, companies and experts present at the Cartuja Auditorium in Seville have had the opportunity to make ‘networking’, one of the hallmarks of the ’boutique’ events organized by Medina Media Events. In addition, visitors have been able to enjoy an area of exclusive demonstrations: Do you know what is volumetric capture? What are the technological advances in color management, IP and cloud? How does Space look in 4K or the most remote places on the planet? How is inside a 4K Mobile Unit for live broadcasts? Do you want to feel a unique experience of immersive audio and video of Extended Reality (XR)?

Second presential day

The tenth edition of the 4K HDR Summit continues this Tuesday, November 12 with the second and last day in person, with the participation of Luis Pérez, General Director of the Cartuja Science and Technology Park, and Álvaro Pimentel, Deputy Mayor of Seville, as well as some of the most influential experts, companies and associations in the audiovisual sector worldwide. One of the great novelties will be the presence of China, which will participate for the first time in this summit by the hand of the two most important UHD associations of the Asian giant: the UHD World Association (UWA), represented by Liqiang Zhao, Global Content Partnership in HUAWEI; and the Sichuan UHD Video Alliance (SUVA), represented by Cao Ju, senior project & media planner of the association. Jorge de la Nuez, from the Olympic Channel Service (OCS); Sergey Podlesski, from the Olympic Broadcasting Service (OBS); Miguel Mur, operations manager of Grup Mediapro; or Jacques Donat-Bouillud, director of France TV, among others, will also be protagonists in this last day in person.

The conferences of the 4K HDR Summit 2024 can be followed on Medina Media Events’ ‘The Observatory’ and will be available 24/365. On this platform, attendees can also schedule video meetings with other participants and speakers, in addition to exclusive virtual demonstrations.

The tenth edition of the 4K HDR Summit is organized by Medina Media Events and has the support of the Digital Agency of Andalusia (ADA), Dolby, MOME, Vicomtech, Canal Sur Radio and Television, EVS, Synamedia, Fraunhofer IIS, Axion, Mediakind, Ateme, AJA, Hispasat, Quantum, Cellnex, Eutelsat, Rohde & Schwarz, Canon, Sapec, AEQ, Gsertel, Hurí and UHD Spain, among others.