SES demonstrates its first 8K broadcast in partnership with Spin Digital. Photo Credit: Spin Digital

SES will be broadcasting an 8K television signal via its satellite system for the first time during its annual SES Industry Days, taking place today and tomorrow in Luxembourg. Relying on the new DVB-S2X standard, the transmission will be carried out on a single 36 MHz transponder on Astra 3B.

With a resolution of 7680×4320 pixels, the video will be encoded in High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and transmitted at a rate of 80 Mbit/s, which is four times higher than for a 4K signal. In addition, the test transmission will use a native IP formatted signal, providing some insights into the requirements of a future All-IP broadcast infrastructure for television.

For this demonstration, SES has partnered with Spin Digital, which developed the expertise to decode and playback 8K HEVC signals in real-time using a software solution, and also encoded the content using its HEVC encoder. In addition, SES teamed up with Sharp, which is providing the 8K screens.