The International Olympic Committee is looking into using new technology to get the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea out to international broadcasters in 8K HDR, and to do so by using a 5G connection to get the recordings of the action from the site they’re shot at to a nearby broadcasting station. The Olympic Broadcast Service is planning on making the PyeongChang Olympics the largest 8K HDR broadcast in the short history of the medium, and is already testing both the recording equipment to produce such a spectacle, and the broadcasting equipment to get it into the airwaves and on its way to viewers. A test 5G network is already live for that purpose, and should be fully tested, configured, and ready for use by the time the Games roll around.
The Olympic Broadcast Service will be working with NHK, a major Japanese broadcaster, to capture and transmit the games in 8K HDR. Around 80 hours of content in this high-bandwidth format is planned to be created and broadcast live over a 5G network. The content itself will fall into the HLG broadcast format as far as encoding and transmission, a format that NHK created with help from the BBC. The full glory of the 8K HDR content will only be seen in special theaters and in private showings throughout Japan, where the medium is set to become a normal part of the broadcast landscape by 2020. The 8K HDR content given to broadcasters will be scaled down to 4K for easier transmission, and that’s what viewers at home will end up seeing.
This year’s 8K HDR broadcast on a small scale is only a test. The technology behind it is slated to go mainstream in the near future, driven by the ever-advancing march of 5G technology among the various international carriers and network equipment manufacturers. The next Olympic Games will reportedly be sent out for mass broadcast in 8K HDR, over a commercial 5G connection. The next Games will be happening in the summer of 2020, and will take place in Tokyo, Japan. If all goes as planned, this gives all players involved ample time to farm out and activate a 5G network for broadcasting.