4K TV confirmed as 10bit

One of the main organisations that shapes TV standards worldwide, the DVB Steering Board, has confirmed that the HEVC profile for Ultra HD 4K will be 10bit and up to 60fps.

“HEVC is the most recently developed compression technology and, among other uses, it is the key that will unlock UHDTV broadcasting,” said DVB Steering Board Chairman, Phil Laven. “This new DVB–UHDTV Phase 1 specification not only opens the door to the age of UHDTV delivery but also potentially sets the stage for Phase 2, the next level of UHDTV quality, which will be considered in upcoming DVB work,” he continued.

Phase 2 is, of course, 8K, and the Phase 1 specification takes into account the possibility that UHDTV Phase 2 may use higher framerates in a compatible way (with some broadcasters lobbying for 120fps).

Elsewhere, in what was obviously a busy meeting, the Steering Board approved standards for syncing second screen content with mainstream broadcasts (handy for time-shifting viewers) and the codec agnostic MPEG-DASH adaptive nitrate technology, which should greatly simplify transcoding content for the second screen too.