8k News - Page 20 of 21 - CNX Software

January 30, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Kodi 18 “Leia” Released Ahead of FOSDEM 2019

As one should have expected based on the abstract of the upcoming Kodi presentation at FOSDEM 2019, Kodi 18 “Leia” has just been released a few days before the 2-day open source developer event. It’s been nearly two years since the release of Kodi 17 “Krypton”, and it took a little longer than initially expected for Kodi 18 to become stable enough for an official since there have been so many changes including half a million lines of code added by 36 open source developers, close to 10,000 commits for almost 9,000 changed files. Some of the improvements in Kodi 18 include: Retroplayer gaming with support for gaming emulators, ROMs and game controls. Digital Rights Management (DRM) decryption support to play subscription content Improved Music Library with better filtering, faster API access, and more Live TV improvements including support for new back-ends like Zattoo, Teleboy, and Sledovanitv.cz, as well as enhanced […]

January 3, 2019January 3, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

LG Unveils 8K, HDMI 2.1 Capable TVs Powered by Alpha 9 Gen 2 Processor

Last year Samsung unveiled their first 8K TV right before CES 2018 with a 85″ QLED model that can now be yours for a cool $15,000, and capable of upscaling SD / HD content to 8K using artificial intelligence since 8K content was not – and still is not – broadly available. One year has passed, and now LG has announced two new 8K TVs with HDMI 2.1 inputs just before CES 2019. Both 88″ Z9 OLED TV and 75″ SM99 8K LCD TV are powered by the company’s α9 (Alpha 9) Gen 2 processor running deep learning algorithms to deliver enhanced picture and sound. The press release gives an overview of how AI works on both video and audio as follows: In addition to content source detection, the new processor finely adjusts the tone mapping curve in accordance with ambient conditions to offer optimized screen brightness, leveraging its ability […]

November 14, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Samsung Exynos 9820 Application Processor Supports 2 Gbps LTE, 8K Videos, UFS 3.0 Storage

Samsung has just unveiled a new high-end Exynos processor that comes with an enhanced NPU (Neural Processing Unit), and an LTE Advanced Pro modem supporting 2.0 Gbps downloads. Exynos 9820 is a tri-cluster octa-core processor with two custom Arm cores, two Cortex-A75 cores, and four Cortex-A55 cores coupled with an Arm Mali-G76 MP12, and manufactured using Samsung’s latest 8nm LPP FinFET process, which reduces power consumption by up to 10 percent compared to 10nm LPP process. Samsung Exynos 9820 key features and specifications: CPU – Dual-core custom CPU + dual-core Cortex-A75 + quad-core Cortex-A55 GPU – ARM Mali-G76 MP12 Integrated NPU Memory I/F – LPDDR4x Storage I/F – UFS 3.0, UFS 2.1 Display – WQUXGA (3840×2400), 4K UHD (4096×2160) Cellular Connectivity LTE Modem – LTE-Advanced Pro Cat.20 8CA 2Gbps (DL) / Cat.20 3CA 316Mbps (UL) 4×4 Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO), 256-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), and Enhanced Licensed-Assisted Access (eLAA) technology. Camera […]

October 17, 2018April 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Socionext HV5 Series HDMI 2.1 Video Processing ICs Enable 8K TVs and STBs

HDMI 2.1 specification was released late last year with the main benefit being the support of 8K videos at up to 120 Hz, and a small downside with the requirement for new 48G cables. Samsung Q900R is one of the first 8K TV on the market, but according to the product page HDMI 2.1 is not supported just yet: Will provide complimentary upgrade for HDMI 2.1 support when available. Please contact customer support for more details So it looks like the Quantum Processor 8K processor found in the TV will be firmware upgradable to support HDMI 2.1. Anyway for 8K video equipment to be useful we’ll need video equipment to support HDMI 2.1 Tx & Rx, and SocioNext has launched what it claims are the first HDMI 2.1 compliant video processor ICs with their HV5 series. The processor family comes with HDMI Tx and Rx with two main series: Interface […]

June 1, 2018September 3, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Arm Announces Cortex-A76 CPU with Laptop-class Performance, Mali-G76 GPU, Mali-V76 8K VPU

Arm Cortex A75 based processors are only found in a few SoCs and devices, but Arm keeps on innovating, and they’ve now announced a new suite of of IP with Cortex-A76 CPU enabling 35 percent more performance, and Mali-G76 GPU with ML support and 30 percent higher efficiency and performance. SoC based on those new CPU and GPU IP will provide “laptop-class” performance, and the company also announced Arm Mali-V76 VPU with support for 8K video decoding and encoding. Arm Cortex A76 After Cortex A75, the Arm Cortex-A76 CPU is the second high performance processor core based on DynamIQ technology, and beside the 35 percent performance gain mentioned in the introduction, it also offers 40 percent improved efficiency, as well as delivers 4x compute performance improvements for AI/ML at the edge. Highlights of Cortex A76: Architecture – Armv8-A (Harvard) with Armv8.1, Armv8.2, Armv8.3 (LDAPR instructions only), cryptography and RAS extensions […]

May 11, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Astro Design HDMI Test Equipment Supports 8K @ 120 Hz

8K media players and 8K TVs are coming, but if you develop one of those products how do you test them since 8K players/TVs are not available just yet. Answer: Test equipment. Astro Design offers just that with their VG-879 digital video generator, as well as their VA-1844A HDMI protocol analyzer. VG-879 digital video generator key features: 4K/60p is transmitted by one channel of 12G-SDI. Max.4 slot-type interface units can be selected from 12G-SDI, HDMI2.0b 3G or 6G, DisplayPort 1.2a, V-by-One and Analog. By synchronizing 4 or 2 units of VG-879, 8K/120p or 8K/60p signals are supported. (8K/120p by V-by-One HS, 8K/60p by V-by-One HS and HDMI.) HDMI 2.0b test functions supported EIA CEA-861-F Timing Format including 4K/50, 60p, YCBCR 4:4:4/4:2:2/4:2:0 timing. SCDC parameter change and status display. ITU-R BT.2020 color bar and video output setting 4K6G with Scrambling Enable setting CEA-861.3 HDR (High Dynamic Range) InfoFrame setting HDR Test Patterns supported […]

April 10, 2018April 10, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Advantech and SocioNext Collaborate for 8K 60Hz Real-Time HEVC Video Encoding, Streaming, and Decoding Solutions

The first live event to be broadcasted in 8K resolution should be the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020, but but broadcasters will use large and expensive infrastructure equipment to achieve this feat. However, the cost of this solution will be prohibitive for most other situations, so Advantech and SocioNext have collaborated to provide more affordable solutions for live 8Kp60 HEVC video encoding and decoding. One of those solution is Advantech VEGA-3304 that is said to be the first 8Kp60 HEVC acquisition encoder, and comes with 16 x SDI-3G inputs Key features: 1-ch 8Kp60, 4-ch 4Kp60 or 16-ch 1080Kp60 HEVC real-time encoding in Main 8, Main 10 4:2:2 modes Video acquisition over built-in 16-ch 3G-SDI inputs HDR support Double width, ¾ length PCI Express x16, compatible with server GPU slots The PCIe card supports Linux and Windows, and simple-to-use API and example code for FFmpeg and GStreamer multimedia are provided. It can […]

January 8, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Samsung 8K QLED TV Uses Artificial Intelligence to Upscale SD Content to 8K Resolution

You’ve probably read how artificial intelligence can be applying to modify photos, either repair them, or change the weather in photos from sunny to rainy, and vice versa. Samsung unveiled an 85″ 8K QLED TV right before CES 2018, which should be news by itself, but that I found really intriguing is the TV’s artificial intelligence capabilities that will upscale standard and other resolution content to 8K resolution. The TV will take SD, Full HD or 4K sources runs it through machine learning algorithm to re-create details, reduce noise, and restore edges to bring them back to 8K picture quality. Not your usual “dumb” upscaling 🙂 The TV is said to be equipped with a database that studies and analyzes millions of images in advance to transform low-resolution content into high-resolution, and capable of selecting the optimal filter to convert the source to higher quality. Samsung then explains the images […]