The Video Systems Strategic Programme coordinates all work in its domain. Where relevant, dedicated groups are created to work on topics in more detail.
Currently the following deliverables are planned (green indicates the deliverable has already been delivered). Note that deliverables are dependent on enough participation in the work and that the planning is subject to change.
AR/MR
AR broadcasters survey (Q3-Q4 2017)- AR 'Proof of Concept' applications (5 different ones) (Q1 2018)
- EBU BPN 115 - Augmented Reality - A first guide for broadcasters (Q1 2018)
- EBU Tech Review on software for creating CG-based videos and AR/VR apps (Q2 2018)
Archiving
Survey of interest in Archive Guidelines (Q1 2019)
IMF
- EBU IMF Workshop (Q2 2017)
- Report on 'IMF for broadcasters' (Q3 2017)
- IMF Fact Sheet (Q3 2017, Q3 2018)
Post production
QC
- Update of EBU R 095 'Safe Areas' (Q3 2017)
- Implementation of an API for EBU.IO/QC (Q4 2017)
- Detailed updates of existing QC Tests (Q4 2018)
Addition of QC Tests on Subtitling (Q1 2019)- Quality Control Fact Sheet (Q3 2017, Q3 2018)
- Addition of QC Tests on IMF (Q1 2019)
Subtitling / Access Services
- Update of EBU-TT-D (Q4 2017, Q2 2018)
- List vendors support for EBU-TT (Q3 2018)
- Subtitling Fact Sheet (Q3 2017, Q3 2018)
- Access Services gap analysis (Q1 2019)
UHD, HDR, HFR and HD
- EBU Tech 3320 'Professional Video Monitor Requirements' HDR update (Q3 2017)
- Video Monitors Fact Sheet (Q3 2017)
- Creation of UHD HDR test material + making of video (Q3 2017)
- EBU BPN 114 - Initial Guide on HDR (Q4 2017)
- Exchange of UHD / HDR test files (XAVC) to verify metadata settings (since Q4 2017)*
- AV1 vs JEM vs HEVC subjective tests (Q1 2018)
- UHD/HDR in distribution webinar (Q1 2018)
- Sharing of Montreux Jazz HDR test material with EBU Members (Q2 2018)
- HDR production monitors testing (Q2 2018)
- HDR monitors testing report (Q1 2019)
- UHD-HDR-HFR-NGA tests during EAC 2018 (Q3 2018)
- Sharing of EAC Berlin 2018 UHD-HDR-HFR-NGA test material (Q4 2018)
- Update of EBU R 129 'Avoding screen burn-in' (Q4 2018)
- EBU Tech Review article on the EAC 2018 UHD-HDR-HFR-NGA trial (Q1 2019)
- HDR Conversion Guidelines (Q1 2019)
- HFR Subjective Testing (Q1 2019)
- VMAF Subjective Testing (Q1 2019)
- HFR Subjective Testing report (Q1 2019)
- VMAF Subjective Testing report (Q1 2019)
- EBU HDR Masterclass (Q1 2019)
- HDR implementations testing (Q1-Q2 2019)
- EBU Tech 3320 update (Q2 2019)
- EBU Tech 3325 update (Q2 2019)
* To have access to the files, EBU Members need to first join the Video Systems Group.
For more information on HDR, also check out this specific HDR page.
VR
- EBU User Group on VR (Q3 2017 - Q3 2018)
- Virtual Reality Fact Sheet (Q3 2017)
- VR Proof of Concept app (Q1 2018)
Join us
We welcome your active participation in Video Systems and/or its dedicated groups: IMF-TV, QC, Subtitling. Depending on your EBU Membership status, restrictions may apply. You may also be interested to join the EBU NLE User Group (EBU Members only).
EBU Technology & Innovation Workplan
Every two years, the EBU develops a roadmap for technology and innovation activities based on the requirements and inputs given by EBU Members. The result of this roadmap is our bi-annual EBU Technology & Innovation workplan.
Video Systems exists since summer 2017 and combines the work of the previous Strategic Programmes 'BHD' and 'QC' (the latter since has become a group under Video Systems).
The EBU Strategic Programme on Video Systems deals with all aspects of video images, image quality and quality assessment, specifically concerning HDTV, UHDTV, High Dynamic Range and High Frame Rates as well as emerging immersive image systems such as Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality.
Taking an end-to-end approach from production to distribution and the consumer, the work encompasses all aspects of video processing, investigating production codecs, related file formats and wrappers (e.g. MXF, IMF), workflows and access services and also evaluating practicality and cost aspects.
Video Systems provides strategic and technical advice and, through active collaboration with industry and standards bodies such as DVB, ITU-R, SMPTE, and W3C, helps to ensure broadcaster requirements are reflected in future media applications and services.
See the 'activities' section for the curently planned deliverables.
Two parts
EBU Video Systems consists of two parts:
- VS-ALL, which is open to all industry professionals (including equipment manufacturers, research organizations, etc.)
- VS-EBU, which is restricted to EBU Members (public service media organizations)
When you join EBU Video Systems, you are automatically added to the appropriate e-mail reflector(s) and given access to the relevant workspaces and other tools.
How we work
The actual work is performed via the e-mail reflector(s) and using additional tools where needed.
At least one Video Systems webex per month is held with EBU Members and at least one Webex every two months with the wider group. These webexes are used to coordinate the work and keep all in-sync regarding the latest activitities.
The best places to start for an overview of what is going on are the VS-ALL workspace and the VS-EBU workspace (restricted to EBU Members).
If you have any questions/need help, please contact the coordinator: Frans de Jong (EBU).
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Planet Earth II in UHD and HDR for PTS 2017
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Media companies get personal at EBU DevCon 2015
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2160p/100 HLG test material shot 'as live' during the European Championships 2018 in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin (Germany).
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The Interoperable Master Format is a SMPTE standard for the interchange of multi-version, finished audio-visual content. How relevant is it for broadcasters?
Guaranteeing the quality of media content is vital for our industry. The EBU helps all actors to speak a common Quality Control (QC) language.
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PSM organisations produce content and services for linear and non-linear distribution. A set of distribution requirements has been defined to ensure the desired availability and technical quality of PSM services across all platforms and on all devices.
The advent of High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide Colour Gamut (WCG) video naturally leads to consideration of what constitutes a good monitor for use with such signals.
This report provides the conclusions of work performed in the EBU IMF-TV group with regard to the relevance of the Interoperable Master Format for broadcasters. It includes a basic introduction to IMF.
Tech 3320 defines the technical characteristics for video broadcast monitors used in a professional TV production environment for evaluation and control of the images being produced.
This document provides guidelines to safe areas (both graphics and action).
This document is Part 3 of the EBU-TT series. It specifies how to use EBU-TT for the production and contribution of live subtitles. This is version 1.0.
This document provides strategies for the mapping of EBU STL (Tech 3264) to EBU-TT Subtitle Files.
This document contains the formal definitions for metadata elements that can be used within EBU‑TT documents to describe characteristics of the contained subtitle data, thus facilitating interchange between users of an EBU‑TT document.
This is the specification of an XML based archiving and interchange format for EBU-TT subtitles. Version 1.2 provides continued alignment with the related EBU-TT specs. Note that the EBU-TT mettadata has been moved to EBU-TT part M.
This document describes how EBU‑TT Live documents (EBU Tech 3370) can be carried from node to node using WebSocket connections.
The Media Technology Pulse is a new publication from the EBU Technology & Innovation department, highlighting 12 critical media technology trends for EBU Members.
This reports the tests, methodologies, results and the conclusions drawn from subjective assessments of UHD TV, including HDR contents as displayed by both HDR and SDR panels.
This document identifies a set of service requirements for representative use cases concerning 3GPP-based television distribution.
The March 2017 issue of tech-i includes FM switch-off in Norway, the launch of the EBU Multi-CDN pilot and the PEACH personalization project.
A new system concept for DTT, called “WiB”, is presented, where potentially all frequencies within the UHF band are used on all transmitter sites (i.e. reuse-1).
This document briefly gives the main features of the American ATSC 3.0 IP delivery suite of standards that should be finalised in early 2017.
Our latest issue of tech-i 29 takes a closer look at meeting audience expectations, women and technology, big data, cybersecurity, live IP and more!
The report discusses video system requirements for UHDTV and an advanced 1080p HDTV format, to help inform broadcasters making decisions on infrastructures and flexible workflows. Today's version corrects a typo and a link.
An overview of EBU Technology & Innovation activites from 2015 - 2016.
EBU tech-i magazine, Issue 28 answers the question what all the 'fuzz' around HbbTV is about, takes a look at the advantages of the IMF and much more...
EBU tech-i magazine, issue 27 includes articles on Virtual Reality, Cross-Media Production, UHD, Loudness, and much more...
EBU tech-i magazine, issue 26 welcomes you to the LiveIP Project, shows the latest on Automated Signing Production, and more...
This article suggests a way of adapting IMF to broadcasters’ requirements by giving an insight into possible extensions to the IMF structure.
EBU Timed Text (EBU-TT) is the successor of the EBU STL subtitling format. It supports the production and archiving of subtitles, legacy STL file transcoding and tunnelling, online distribution and live subtitling.
EBU tech-i magazine, Issue 25 tells you all about personalisation, why broadcasters should go IP, and how subtitles go live. And that's not all...
EBU tech-i magazine, Issue 23 tells you how you can produce smarter, introduces future broadcasting architectures, dives into the use of the 700 MHz band, explains how hackers have become 'smart', and more...
EBU tech-i magazine, issue 22 explains why Video did NOT kill radio and what the future of radio will be like. And there is more, including Cross-Platform Authentication and a look at the state of loudness normalisation in Europe.
This is version 1.0 of the document, dated October 2014. The aim of the document is to specify how the EBU-TT-D subtitling distribution format specified in EBU Tech 3380 can be stored using the storage format defined in ISO/IEC 14496-12.
Since 11 Sep 2014 the EBU QC Test Items are no longer defined in an Excel sheet, but using an online platform (which allows for exporting the information as well). Go to: EBU.IO/QC for all details.
Broadcasters produce a wide range of content and services as traditional linear radio and TV but also as time-shifted, on-demand, hybrid content and data services. This study assessing the distribution options available to broadcasters now and for the future.
Issue 20 of tech-i includes news on newsrooms, addresses the question if FTA TV is dead, takes a look at MPEG MMT, provides a profile of the new EBU TC chairman Egon Verharen (NPO) and features two articles explaining what UHDTV will offer. And there is more...
Issue 17 of tech-i looks at UHDTV, with SVT's Per Björkman on the UHD equation, Hans Hoffmann on UHD technology parameters, David Wood on high frame rates, and a report on the recent shoot of the Eurovision Young Dancers.
NPO, the Netherlands public broadcasting organization, has implemented an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) solution for real time conversion of in-vision subtitles to spoken subtitling audio.
This article explains the current state of video file quality control at the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle). In general, QC activities at Yle try to ensure that play-out automation can play back a video file, that the technical quality of the video and audio are acceptable, and that there are no issues that have not been detected by the automated QC.
Between 2007 and 2009, NRK carried out a project called the “Programme Bank”, the main goal being to transform its TV production infrastructure to a fully file-based platform with an incorporated MAM system.
Assessment of a Sony BRC-H900 performed by Alan Roberts in line with EBU R 118. This report is a supplement to EBU Tech 3335.
This article — first published in the March 2012 edition of the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal — connects the dots among SDI, AAF/MXF, SMPTE 2022, IMF and FIMS.
Issue 12 of tech-i includes a look back at February's RadioHack workshops, a look forward to the Libre Software Meeting where the EBU is organizing sessions on Free and Open Source Software for media, introductions to the IMPS programme, EBUCore and MPEG-DASH, plus an update on follow-up actions from WRC-12. David Wood weighs up digital radio options and HRT's Kazimir Bacic is "In the spotlight".
Assessment of a Nikon D4 DSLR performed by Alan Roberts in line with EBU R 118. This report is a supplement to EBU Tech 3335.
The means of transporting subtitles & captions using MXF (the de-facto standard for A/V essence) in IT-based television production environments is specified.
Assessment of a Nikon D800 DSLR performed by Alan Roberts in line with EBU R 118. This report is a supplement to EBU Tech 3335.
Digitization has became a mandatory step that media stakeholders have to face up to, in order to cope with the increasingly digital nature of production, archiving and distribution workflows.
Besides giving some details of a migration project at ORF, this article discusses different proposals concerning the understanding of QC from an archival viewpoint, along with file format collateral effects and, finally, some data-tape library issues.
This article explores some of the whats and hows of Access Services – what do prepared subtitling, live subtitling, audio description, spoken subtitling and visual signing entail ... what kinds of issues emerge when offering access services ... and how can these production and delivery issues be addressed by broadcasters.
A suite of programs, written for colorimetric analysis of single frames extracted from digitally captured video sequences. The programs are all written in BBC BASIC for Windows, and the routines have been kept as simple as possible.
Teletext is about 25 years old and is currently being brought into the digital broadcasting environment by the DVB project. This article looks at some of the key issues involved in offering teletext and subtitling to DVB viewers.
Subtitling has become one of the "growth areas" of European broadcasting, as television services take in increasing numbers of programmes from outside their own countries. The EBU has taken the initiative of establishing a standard for the exchange of subtitle lists.
This document specifies a format for the exchange of subtitling data. The EBU standardised this data file format to enable the exchange of in- vision and teletext subtitles. The format was designed for use by broadcasters at both national and international levels.