5G Broadcast offers a unique chance to establish a uniform global transmission standard for broadcast and mobile services for the first time in TV history.
This is the outcome of the fourth edition of the Media Innovation Platform German industry association Deutsche TV-Plattform held on April 3, 2019 in Vienna. The event, which was hosted by ORF and its technical services subsidiary ORS, focused on the production and distribution of Ultra HD (UHD) content.
An important topic was the discussion about the coupling of mobile and broadcasting networks, which is beginning throughout Europe as a result of the first 5G rollouts. “This would enable a global transmission standard to be established for the first time in TV history, supporting not only TV sets, but also 5G-enabled mobile devices,” ORS managing director Norbert Grill said in his speech.
Grill explained that a 5G broadcast network would also have advantages for mobile communication providers. Through the technical interaction of the powerful broadcast transmitter sites with 5G antennas, the scarce frequencies could be better utilised. This was of particular importance for live events, but also in upcoming use scenarios like UHD, mobile applications, augmented reality or entertainment services in self-driving cars, which are only at the beginning.
ORS intends to launch a 5G Broadcast trial in Q1 2020 and make the results available for the Austrian digitisation concept.
According to Andre Prahl, chairman of Deutsche TV-Plattform and head of technical distribution for TV channels at commercial broadcaster Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, 5G can play an important role in the distribution of Ultra HD content in future.
“The availability of live programmes and on-demand content in Ultra HD increases constantly. This content will be consumed on a large variety of devices in future, and in this context 5G is a very interesting option for distribution, but also for the production environment,” said Prahl.
