NHK BS8K is a satellite television broadcasting service offered by

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

. Launched on 1 December 2018, it is the world's first television channel to broadcast in

8K resolution 8K resolution refers to an image or display resolution with a width of approximately 8,000 pixels. 8K UHD () is the highest resolution defined in the Rec. 2020 (UHDTV) standard. 8K display resolution is the successor to 4K resolution. TV manuf ...

Background

NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (STRL, ja, NHK放送技術研究所, NHK Hōsō Gijutsu Kenkyūjo), headquartered in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan, is responsible for technical research at NHK, Japan's public broadcaster. Work done by th ...

had started to develop an 8K broadcast resolution in 1995. The format was first publicly displayed at the

Expo 2005 Expo 2005 was a World Expo held for 185 days between Friday, March 25 and Sunday, September 25, 2005, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, east of the city of Nagoya. Japan has also hosted Expo '70 Osaka (World Expo), Expo '75 Okinawa (Specialised Expo), ...

in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, whereas the first 8K live feed broadcast were tested at the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

in London. Due to the successful tests, plans for a television channel dedicated to airing an 8K resolution were approved by the NHK. On 1 August 2016, NHK started to test an Ultra HD channel on BS17, to prevent terrestrial digital broadcasting on its other networks. It featured a variety of 4K and 8K resolution programming, before concluding on 23 July 2018, after which an 8K network was assigned to a newly created BS 14 channel.

Overview

NHK BS8K was launched on 1 December 2018 at 10:00 ( JST) as the world's first television channel to broadcast in to 8K " Super Hi-Vision", along with NHK BS4K, which broadcasts in a similar but lower

2160p 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) is the dominan ...

4K UHD TV resolution. Unlike its preceding formats, BS8K's

4320p 8K resolution refers to an image or display resolution with a width of approximately 8,000 pixels. 8K UHD () is the highest resolution defined in the Rec. 2020 (UHDTV) standard. 8K display resolution is the successor to 4K resolution. TV manufa ...

resolution is displayed through a

progressive scan Progressive scanning (alternatively referred to as noninterlaced scanning) is a format of displaying, storing, or transmitting moving images in which all the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence. This is in contrast to interlaced video used ...

standard, as opposed to the traditional

1080i 1080i (also known as Full HD or BT.709) is a combination of frame resolution and scan type. 1080i is used in high-definition television (HDTV) and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the screen. ...

HDTV High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

that is commonly used by broadcasting systems around the world, including

's General TV service. The technology used to broadcast the resolution was developed by he NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories, which had earlier developed the

High Efficiency Video Coding High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In compar ...

format to be used for the 8K resolution in 2013. The channel's audio is broadcast in a

22.2 surround sound 22.2 or Hamasaki 22.2 (named after Kimio Hamasaki, a senior research engineer at NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories in Japan) is the surround sound component of Super Hi-Vision (a new television standard with 16 times the pixel resolut ...

standard.

Promotion

To promote the launch of BS8K, NHK opened a "Super Hi-Vision Park" at an event hall in

Shibuya, Tokyo Shibuya (渋谷区 ''Shibuya-ku'') is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. As a major commercial and finance center, it houses two of the busiest railway stations in the world, Shinjuku Station (southern half) and Shibuya Station. As of April 1, ...

from 30 November 2018 to 4 December 2018, featuring an "8K Living Room" equipped with an UHD TV and a 22-multichannel home theatre system. On 1 December 2018, the NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories also demonstrated a public viewing of both the BS8K and the BS4K channels, which included a live feed of the

Roman Forum The Roman Forum, also known by its Latin name Forum Romanum ( it, Foro Romano), is a rectangular forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient ...

and

the Pantheon The Pantheon (, ; la, Pantheum,Although the spelling ''Pantheon'' is standard in English, only ''Pantheum'' is found in classical Latin; see, for example, Pliny, '' Natural History'36.38 "Agrippas Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis". Se ...

Rome, Italy , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (Romulus and Remus, legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg ...

, and a presentation of the remastered version of the feature film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968).

Programming

NHK BS8K broadcasts for twelve hours a day, unlike its sister channel BS4K, which broadcasts for 18 hours a day. BS8K broadcasts entertainment, art, documentary and sporting events. Some of the programs being broadcast include footage shot in 8K from

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

and the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

, the annual ''

Kōhaku Uta Gassen , more commonly known simply as ''Kōhaku'', is an annual New Year's Eve television special produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It is broadcast live simultaneously on television and radio, nationally and internationally by the NHK net ...

'', and recorded concerts from some of the world's leading orchestras to showcase the immersive 22.2 channel sound. ''

Wife of a Spy is a 2020 Japanese spy drama film directed and co-written by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Starring Yū Aoi and Issey Takahashi, the film is set in Japan during World War II, and centers on a wife who starts suspecting that her husband may be a spy for th ...

'', the first television drama to be originally broadcast on Ultra HD, premiered on the channel on 6 June 2020. NHK also plans to broadcast over 200 hours of the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

in 8K resolution on the BS8K channel.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:NHK BS8K BS8K Television channels and stations established in 2018 2018 establishments in Japan 2018 in Japanese television