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Go through virtual spacewalk training with this NASA video
Most people will never train to walk in space, but you can always get a cheapo Google Cardboard and play the latest 360 ultra high-definition video out of NASA's headquarters to pretend that you are. The space agency used Harmonic's VR tech to show three different perspectives of astronauts training at its Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston. That's a humongous pool with a life-size replica of the ISS, where they perform simulated tasks for their future missions aboard the space station. If you don't have a VR headset right now, you can still watch the whole thing below the fold -- don't forget to set the quality to 4K and drag the screen to look around for max enjoyment.
SES demos first Ultra HD transmission in more efficient HEVC standard
We're still a bit away from Ultra HD becoming the standard for television. One of the things standing in the way is just how much bandwidth pushing that many pixels demands. SES recently demonstrated an Ultra HD transmission that uses the up and coming HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) standard, as opposed to the more established H.264. It's demonstrated 4K broadcasts before, as seen above at its IBC booth last year, but those were using older codecs. The 3,840 x 2,160 image was broadcast at a data rate of 20 Mbps, roughly a 50-percent improvement in encoding efficiency over H.264-based MPEG-4. The demonstration was performed with support from SES's partners, Harmonic and Broadcom, the latter of which provided the BCM7445-based decoding box used for pulling in the video. The tech still isn't quite ready for prime time, but we'd say a 4K House of Cards stream is probably closer than any of us realized.
Comcast looking to compress HD even more
Oh Comcast we understand you're always looking for new ways to increase the capacity of your network, but we'd hoped you learned by now that bit starving HD wasn't one that would go un-noticed. Some providers wean off analog channels, others deploy SDV and still others move VOD to IP or start using more efficient codecs like H.264. Now all of those have their drawbacks, and we appreciate you always trying to find a better way. But testing out ways (that appear to be snake oil from Arris, BigBand Networks, Harmonic, Imagine, and others) to fit four quality HD channels in one 38Mbps QAM channel while still using MPEG2 seems about as likely as our dear old grandma winning the lottery. So while we want you to keep on keeping on the good fight to improve your infrastructure, we just hope you don't forget that not everyone who watches Comcast HD doesn't mind if it looking like a mosaic.
Cable HD compression gets turned up a notch in the Electra 8000 encoder
We haven't talked about QAM cramming much recently, but we have a feeling its ugly, pixelated head will soon be raised once more, now that Harmonic is launching the DiviCom Electra 8000 encoder, capable of stuffing four MPEG-2 HD streams in one QAM channel. It might be an interesting bit of hardware if you're a head end tech, capable of delivering 1080p60, MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 video capable of three encoding passes, but all we can see at the end is too many channels slotted into too little frequency and the potential for compression artifacts. Anyone stopping by Cable Show '09 this week should be able to get a demo, with the first units shipping in June, we'll be keeping a close eye on both our channel lineup and picture quality.[Thanks, Larry]
Sun Direct TV brings MPEG-4 satellite service to India
While DirecTV rolls out plans to migrate some of its customers to MPEG-4, Sun Direct TV is giving around 40 million homes in southern India such service right now. By incorporating Harmonic's video delivery solutions, it has become the first carrier in India to offer up MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) direct-to-home broadcast service. As it stands, 120 standard-definition channels are currently available to subscribers, but the operator is planning to add an undisclosed amount of HD channels "in the near future."
