Leader Supports 8K Sports Demonstration For BT Sport

A Leader LV5900 HD/4K/8K multi-standard waveform monitor was chosen by BT Sport to monitor the signal feed from the UK's first public demonstration of live 8K sport.

The UEFA Europa League match between Arsenal and Olympiacos (round of 32) on the 27th February was transmitted live by BT Sport and its partners using the LV5900 to check signal quality in a BT Sport 8K broadcast production truck located just outside the venue.

BT Sport Ultimate, launched in 2019, was the world’s first service to feature regular programming in high dynamic range as well as 4K UHD and Dolby Atmos. BT first demonstrated its 8K capability with an hour-long live relay of a Premiership Rugby Sevens match from Northampton, England, to the September 2019 International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam.

"We are pleased to have partnered with BT Sport at these two events," commented Leader Europe Business Development Manager Kevin Salvidge. "8K HDR is the pinnacle in terms of television production quality, creating a picture four times sharper than 4K and 16 times sharper than HD, plus very high quality audio. Our LV5900 waveform monitor is a highly compact instrument designed for checking video and audio signal parameters at any point in the production and delivery chain, from studio right through to transmission and reception. Its uniquely versatile toolset can be used to ensure raw and encoded signal feeds conform as closely as possible to the maximum deliverable quality. It can also simultaneously display two 4K sources, a capability that is taken for granted with HD products but was not hitherto available on any 4K test instruments."

Other partners supporting included Appear TV, Astro Design, Blackmagic Design, Fujinon, Leader, MOOV, Samsung, Socionext, Sony, Telegenic and Timeline TV.

The most recent addition to Leader's product range, the LV5900 is designed for content producers, broadcasters and equipment manufacturers progressing into 8K. A Leader-developed focus detection algorithm applies nonlinear super-resolution technology even to low-contrast images for which focus errors were previously difficult to detect.

Housed in a half-rack-width by 4U high portable unit with a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution 9 inch front-panel monitor, the LV5900 is compatible with the SMPTE ST2082-12 standard which receives 8K images via 12G-SDI quad link. Measurement capabilities include video signal waveform display, vector display, picture display, eye pattern display, five-bar display, CIE chromaticity display, freeze error detection, black error detection and gamut error detection.

Up to four inputs can be displayed simultaneously in various user-definable configurations, or one input signal can be displayed on multiple screens. Status display allows operators to check the status of errors at any instant or compile a record of events along a user-definable timeline. Enhanced data analysis can also be performed. Operators can graphically check the phase difference and sync status of incoming SDI video based on the external reference sync signal (black burst or tri-level sync).

HDR support is provided for HLG, Dolby PQ, S-Log3, C-Log, Log-C and OOTF. In the LV54900's Cinezone display, the brightness of the HDR area is displayed by rendering the SDR area in monochrome and the HDR area in a brightness-dependent colour.

Eye pattern and jitter can be displayed on SDI signals from HD-SDI up to to 12G-SDI. These measured values can be measured automatically or under cursor control. In addition, the histogram can be superimposed and displayed on the eye pattern display. The LV54900 can decode and display subtitles superimposed on SDI signals, CEA-608, CEA-708 closed captions, and Teletext OP47 subtitles. Patterns can be output in various forms, including HD multi format colour bars, 4K multi format colour bars and HDR colour bars.

Audio measurement facilities include audio-to-SDI embedding, externally input MADI audio signals, level meter display, Lissajous display, loudness display, mute and clip error detection. Detected errors can be recorded as an event log.

A screen capture function is included to capture the display screen as still image data. Also provided is a frame capture function to capture frames including blanking periods. Frame capture data can be checked on a PC and searched for errors using the frame capture viewer. Time code can be superimposed on the SDI signal and also used to timestamp logged events.

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