Last week in Hong Kong, NTT Communications staged its first R&D Forum outside of Japan with an exhibit of the latest technologies fresh out of the NTT R&D labs. There was a lot to see, but here are a few highlights.
4K Video Streaming: which is to say, real-time video running at 4096 x 2160 resolution via a JPEG 2000 video codec developed by NTT Advanced Technology.
The technology is at the heart of a digital cinema distribution/management system already deployed in Japan that allows digital content distributors to send digital video to movie theatres – not just film, but also live broadcasts such as music concerts and sports events.
NTT intends to apply the same codec technology to videoconferencing suites as well, and is already doing so between New York and London.
One catch: 4K video is unsurprisingly bandwidth-intensive. For digital cinemas, where content packages are as large as 300GB, streaming 4K video at 35mm quality to a movie screen requires about 800 Mbps of bandwidth. 4K videoconferencing requires about 250 Mbps per screen.
Meanwhile, YouTube began supporting 4K video earlier this month (albeit with caveats about connection speeds). So for operators who have been wondering if they really can fill up 40G/100G optical links, the answer is: yeah, probably.