Image processing specialists, Calibre UK have announced that a massive
installation of their FoveaHD motion estimated and motion compensated
standards converter will be used for frame rate conversion of live footage for
transmission to viewers in countries with 50Hz television standards throughout
the highly anticipated FIFA World Cup in Brazil, taking place from 12 June to 13
July 2014.
“Brazil uses 59.94Hz TV standards but the vast majority of football and soccer
nations watch 50Hz television,’ said Tim Brooksbank, Chairman and CEO at
Calibre UK. “This poses a huge challenge for broadcast of this live content as
frame rate conversion of fast moving sports events is particularly challenging.’
“Fast live action sports, especially with long camera pans combined with many
moving objects, each with complex detail motion can be totally unsuitable for
conversion using linear techniques, which lead to either substantial motion
smear, motion judder, or both.’
Frame rate conversion is notoriously hard to get right, with less than a handful
of companies offering high-end solutions. Most high-end solutions are
prohibitively expensive for many studios and even large broadcasters would find
the cost of such a large installation as is needed for the world cup to be eye-
wateringly high, but lower cost solutions generally don’t perform well, especially
on challenging content. Football is particularly difficult to process well.
“Calibre’s FoveaHD uses a very efficient yet powerful MEMC implementation
which gives it true high-end performance with high-end processing capabilities
yet at a mid-market price point. This is a truly unique combination of price and
performance among frame rate converters,’ explained Brooksbank.
“We believe that this is one of the largest and most significant installations of
MEMC frame rate converters ever undertaken. We are very pleased FoveaHD will
be used for such an important worldwide event having been chosen in the face
of strong competition from established market leaders.’
