4K is here to stay

by all | 21 November 2013 8:30 am

By Bob Caniglia
In the beginning, there was light. Then marketer Dave Nichol (now recently departed) hooked up videocassette recorders (VCRs) to cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors in Loblaws grocery stores and early digital signage was born. Those first attempts were eventually followed by flat-panel displays (FPDs), including ubiquitous high-definition (HD) liquid crystal displays (LCDs). These initially amazed passersby with their beautiful clarity, but now are being surpassed by even higher-resolution ‘4K’ digital screens.

Technology slows down for no one. As a growing number of consumers buy 4K-quality TVs for home viewing, they will begin to wonder why the local digital signage around them does not look as good.

Where 4K digital signage has been installed so far, such as at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nev., it stands out, looks amazing and outshines any of the aging screens around it. It represents a very exciting development for the medium that needs to be considered in today’s plans and designs.

That said, there is no reason to panic about existing networking infrastructure having to be completely replaced or about digital signage professionals needing to learn a whole new field of technology and workflow. While some new equipment will be required, 4K digital signage can be surprisingly affordable and is compatible with almost all of the media the industry works with daily, so long as professionals focus on how to manage and route 4K-quality images.

Managing media
After HDTV debuted back in the 1990s, it took many years to gain ground on standard-definition (SD) TV, particularly in North America. Hardware that could handle HD content was initially very expensive, hindering its adoption both at the industry and consumer levels.

In stark contrast, 4K seems to have hit the ground running, as there are already faster connectivity standards and products that can handle SD, HD and 4K content all in the same device. This is the case even though 4K represents four times the resolution of HD video, with a massive 3,840 x 2,160-pixel frame size, making it all the easier for, say, quick-service restaurant (QSR) customers to read menu items on a screen from a distance.

With this larger format, however, come larger media files through the ‘pipe’ to the sign. That content needs the right connectivity hardware and routing speeds to maintain image quality as it plays out on the screen, hour after hour.

One wire to rule them all
One of the most promising technologies for managing digital signage is the 6G serial digital interface (SDI) standard, which allows 4K video to be transmitted along a single Bayonet Neill-Concelman (BNC) cable. As 6G-SDI is the only format that allows switching between four different media-format signals all on the same BNC connector, there is no need to tear down walls to build a new maze of different wires connected to a router. Users can simply run a 6G-SDI system at 6 Gbps and then switch as desired to 270 Mbps for SD video, 1.5 Gbps for regular HD video or 3 Gbps for 3G SDI content.

As 6G-SDI can be added without significant new costs, a single set of wires can be used to upgrade existing SDI infrastructure for various digital signage installations and locations. The ability to switch between signal formats is particularly useful given the audiovisual (AV) industry has not yet agreed upon universal broadcast standards for 4K content and, for that matter, most users have little if any 4K content ready to go.

The 6G-SDI standard is very flexible for use everywhere from recording, playback and converting from High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) to SDI to converting signals over optical fibre and even handling digital signage at live events with a production switcher. There is no reason 4K content cannot be sent from its acquisition point to a switcher adding graphics to a recorder and finally to the display, all within a cabling infrastructure set up for HD digital signage.

Thunderous interface
No one likes delays to affect digital signage content, so the next question is how to get the most bandwidth at the input and output stage. That is where new hardware interface formats come into play.

One of these is Thunderbolt, which works with both Apple and Windows platforms to move media along at 10 Gbps, about 10 times faster than Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0. This dual-port interface is compatible with Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) and the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA’s) DisplayPort standard for computers and monitors, offering the freedom and flexibility to handle any of the viewing technology a venue using 4K media would need.

Where 4K and Thunderbolt will really take off is with the imminent release of Thunderbolt 2, which will support two 20-Gbps bi-direct channels, enabling much faster data storage transfer rates.

Solid recording
Once it is clear how media will get to where it needs to go, the next step is figuring out how the actual 4K footage will be recorded and played back. Many AV professionals must plan to collect 4K footage of pretty much anything anywhere, so they will need an easily mobile recording device.

This is where a solid-state drive (SSD) comes in handy, as 4K media will eat up a lot of storage space, which an SSD can provide. Not only are prices of SSDs themselves coming down rapidly, but SSD recording is now a mature technology with several generations of development behind it. Users can record in either compressed or uncompressed formats, right from SDI connections.

For live productions, where video footage is captured and sent directly to digital signage displays around a sports stadium or concert arena, it is important to ensure the 6G-SDI infrastructure includes recorders that can capture 4K content and transmit it to the screens without delay.

What’s next
Given the availability of these technologies, 4K digital signage is certainly not out of reach for any given venue, so long as managers understand the basic requirements. It is more important for them to worry about how to move and manage the content than about the media itself and the final display of the content. If users are not prepared for 4K at every part of the workflow, it will surely slow down their systems.

It is worth noting the amount of 4K content is on the rise, as the format is being increasingly adopted not only by the digital signage industry, but also by the film and TV industries. Indeed, with cross-platform applications, it is no longer a question of whether or not 4K will be broadly adopted, but rather what will happen to those organizations that do not adopt it.

And since 4K is already ‘out there’ in the digital signage sector, many professionals and their clients are taking notice. Their first questions about it are usually related to cost, efficiency and compatibility with existing systems.

This is why technologies like 6G-SDI wiring and Thunderbolt 2 interfaces are suitable starting points for building out new digital signage infrastructure. And given 6G-SDI, in particular, is flexible enough to work with different formats across various installations, 4K actually represents an opportunity to simplify digital signage networks.

This can come as a surprise to many people who still remember the ‘tortoise days’ when HD was gradually being adopted. In contrast, 4K is like the hare, already running in more places than most people would guess. Price barriers previously seen with HD are no longer an impediment to growth and new products are being developed from all corners of the industry, supporting the capture, delivery and display of 4K content. Easy-to-use ‘boxes’ are converting all types of SDI connectivity to HDMI for 4K displays that seem to get larger every day.

In the digital signage industry more than anywhere else, it is clear 4K is here to stay. The market is taking ever fuller advantage of huge displays, with ever higher-quality images to fill those screens. Long gone are the days of fuzzy infomercials playing out in grocery stores. Clean, crisp, detailed images are emphasizing just how much size matters.

Bob Caniglia is senior regional manager of Eastern North America for Blackmagic Design, which manufactures video equipment for the digital signage, TV and post-production industries. For more information, visit www.blackmagicdesign.com[4].

To read more about 4K, click here[5].

Source URL: https://www.signmedia.ca/4k-is-here-to-stay/

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