At the 2012 NAB Show, Thomson Video Networks will map out the route to the industry’s next great advance toward an immersive viewing experience — 4K. Thomson’s Jean-Louis Diascorn will deliver a summary of the technologies that will drive 4K broadcasting, together with some of the implications and challenges for broadcasters.

As part of the 2012 NAB Show theme, “The Next Digital Transition for Television,” the session is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on April 15. In the presentation entitled “On the Road to 4K, How Can HD Picture Quality Evolve?”, Diascorn will survey the future development of 4K from the viewer’s angle, posing the question: How much better can television get? With its potential for very large-scale displays, 4K holds out the promise of a picture that could fill the entire field of vision, but new transmission technology would be needed to transmit the eightfold increase in pixels that 4K requires.

The presentation takes in the range of approaches the industry can take on the route to 4K, from broadcasting a high-quality 1080i source that is scaled up to 4K by the viewer’s display technology to the possibility of transmitting a full 4K image, with the advances in compression technology that are becoming available. Using research data on objective and subjective assessments of picture quality, the presentation gives pointers to the different ways viewers may experience 4K pictures, and the suitability of differing technologies for a variety of programming types.