IBC delegates heard Alex Green, BT Sport’s director of TV, say the broadcaster was working “very hard” to see 4K transmissions of its Premier League soccer matches during the 2015-16 season.
BT Sport conducted the first end-to-end all 4K trial in the UK (of a Rugby final) and the recording is being played out on the Ericsson stand (1.D61). “This gave us a great deal of confidence. We are also doing a lot with 4K camerawork across upcoming sports events. We are also using in the studio a couple of 4K ‘stitched’ images allowing us to see the whole field of play, and this is very useful and we are excited by this.”
Green was speaking during the ‘More Pixels or Better Pixels?’ session, and he said he sensed a strong enthusiasm for the technology from the public. “I invested in a 4K display for home, and showed my family House of Cards in 4K and it truly generated the ‘wow’ factor. There is an appetite [from the public] for quality. The demand is there.”
Green said that sport would be a major driver, and perhaps ‘the’ driver for 4K adoption. “We see 4K being a natural evolution right across the industry. Live sport is all about immediacy and UHD is perfect.”
