German pay-TV broadcaster Sky Deutschland has expanded its preparations for the new generation of high-definition television.
The DFL-Supercup football game between Bundesliga champion Bayern München and DFB Cup winner VFL Wolfsburg on August 1, 2015 was transmitted live in Ultra HD. For the first time, High Dynamic Range (HDR) was used throughout the whole production chain – from the camera in the stadium across the satellite to the TV set.
HDR is a technology extending the contrast range which enables a more precise exposure of dark image areas while at the same time increasing brightness. TV viewers thereby see more details, for example during football games with strong light and shade contrasts.
“High Dynamic Range is an important extension of Ultra HD and enables a considerably improved contrast spectrum through which we can generate an even more significant difference to HD,” said Stefan Kunz, vice president business & distribution services at Sky Deutschland. “The results of the DFL-Supercup are very good. In further trials we will test more parameters and commence fine tuning.”
The Ultra HD test transmission was carried out in collaboration with German football league Deutsche Fußball-Liga (DFL) and Sony which supported the production with professional production equipment. The HDR images were captured by a Sony HDC-4300 camera connected to a BVM-X300 HDR video monitor using different HDR formats. They were shown and analysed on different Sony Ultra HD TV sets for internal test purposes.
