Under the “FAME” banner, European broadcasters met in Geneva to map out a future for the development of Ultra High Definition Television (UHD TV, also known as UltraHD or 4K) in Europe.
The Forum for Advanced Media in Europe (FAME) is a cross-stakeholder platform administered jointly by the Digital Interoperability Forum (DIF) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). It brings together pay TV platforms, pay TV broadcasters and free to air broadcasters, as well as manufacturers, software and middleware vendors, and national groups such as the Danish, French, German, Italian and Scandinavian HD Forums and the UK’s Digital Television Group, to share knowledge and experience of the introduction of advanced media services in Europe.
The US Consumer Electronics Association took part in the meeting, while the group was joined remotely by participants from Korea and Japan.
The meeting agreed to put in place the definition of a logo for UHD TV displays and engage closer with the European Commission.
Sheila Cassells, Executive Director of DIF and Co-Chair of FAME, said: “We have served Europe well in past years by helping to make HDTV successful, and we will hope to do the same for UHDTV now”.
Sheila Cassells says, “FAME (the Forum for Advanced Media in Europe) is co-chaired by DIF (www.difgroup.eu) and the EBU (www.ebu.ch). It is the successor to the European High Definition Forum (EHDF) which was set up in 2005 at the request of Commissioner Reding (who was then in charge of DG Information Society) to provide a multi-stakeholder platform to support the launch of HD services in Europe and to anticipate any interoperability issues. FAME is not a standardisation body but offers a basis for identification of standards or other technical work which may be required to create the necessary conditions for the launch of new services. It also offers a forum for exchange of knowledge and experience.”
She says the barriers to UHD TV include issues such as HEVC licensing terms, decisions on frame rates, colour gammut, developments in HDMI, timescales for chip availability, etc. “It may be more useful to describe these as technology issues to be resolve. The industry is working on these issues, and Digital Europe is leading on the development of a label,” says Cassells.
Their intention is to present a roadmap for the introduction of UHD TV to the European Commission in January 2014.
Participation is open to anyone with an interest in developing new services. At the last meeting, they had more than 40 participants including professional and consumer equipment manufacturers, satellite operators, pay TV platforms providers, broadcasters and national forums.
