- World’s first successful long-distance transmission of 8K uncompressed video streaming
- Also succeeded in transmission experiment of 4K compressed multicast streaming
- Achieved building multiple virtual circuits of different qualities over a 100Gbps circuit
- Now possible to perform experiments using Big Data such as 8K uncompressed streaming over JGN-X starting April 2014
Home > Press Release > World’s First Successful Ultra-High-Speed Transmission of Uncompressed 8K Streaming Video of Sapporo Snow Festival
World’s First Successful Ultra-High-Speed Transmission of Uncompressed 8K Streaming Video of Sapporo Snow Festival
March 12, 2014
“In this experiment, we transmitted uncompressed video streaming of the Sapporo Snow Festival in 8K as well as 4K quality simultaneously over a 100Gbps Ethernet network,” explained Prof. Mitsuru Maruyama, Kanagawa Institute of Technology. He added, “This is the first time in the world it's ever been done.” In parallel with this, host NICT, collaborating with industry, government and academia, also performed experiments of multiple on-demand virtual networks transmitting HD/4K.
The network used for the experiments was JGN-X, which is built and operated by NICT as a research and development testbed network. NICT President Dr. Masao Sakauchi is currently promoting the research of technologies over JGN-X for establishing the New Generation Network. In the first experiment, based on the results of a successful 100Gbps transmission last year, NICT was able to build multiple virtual circuits of different qualities over a 100Gbps circuit provided by NTT Communications between Tokyo and Osaka, which enabled the parallel carrying of uncompressed 8K and 4K video streaming.
In the second experiment, NICT, Kanagawa Institute of Technology (KAIT), and other institutions jointly demonstrated the operation of ultra-high definition (UHD) streaming transmission over an IP network between multiple points in Japan in HD/4K quality video of the beautiful scenes from the Sapporo Snow Festival. Prof. Maruyama emphasized, “We successfully demonstrated both the wide-area and multifunctional capabilities of our network operation technologies,” and went on to state, “these were achieved by creating virtual networks of different qualities to dynamically meet the requests of each user.”
With the anticipation for network operation of multiple virtualized circuits over 100Gbps, NICT has built a high precision network measurement and analysis system to answer to ever increasing demand. Additionally, NICT performed parallel transmission experiments of 4K compressed video streaming and high-quality commercial broadcasting video transmission through the OpenFlow network of the SDN testbed RISE, which is built over JGN-X. “By mixing these different qualities of service, we could verify that the technology will meet the transitional period from existing to New Generation services,” Dr. Eiji Kawai, who leads network research over JGN-X of NICT, explained.
“In the near future, we plan to upgrade JGN-X to make it possible to perform experiments using Big Data such as 8K uncompressed streaming, previously considered extremely difficult,” Dr. Kawai added. “NICT expects JGN-X to be a testbed with on-demand SDN technologies as well as able to operate technologies of 100Gbps bandwidth.”
Dr. Kawai finished by saying, “NICT will continue promoting R&D activities for the New Generation Network to meet future demands such as ultra-high density video transmission and Big Data.”
Appendix
Experimental Network Overview
8K video wide-area uncompressed transmission
- Utilized 100G-ready JGN-X network equipment before actual JGN-X upgrade in April 2014
- Performed high-precision network analysis to meet 100G testbed operation
- 8K/4K parallel uncompressed transmission over IP network (8K：24Gbps＋4K：12Gbps)
* the video transmission related experiments are the joint research of NICT, KAIT and other organizations
- Dedicated temporary 100G circuit between Tokyo and Osaka was utilized for this experiment
* The 100GE circuit from Tokyo to Osaka was provided by NTT Communications
Feb. 5 Osaka 8K ⇔ Tokyo 8K video uncompressed transmission experiment
Feb. 7 Tokyo 8K ⇔ Osaka 8K video uncompressed transmission open experiment
4K video wide-area compressed transmission
- For commercial video transmission of broadcasting companies which requires high-quality transmission
- Operational experiment of RISE3.0, the next SDN testbed on JGN-X from April 2014
- This experiment ran the duration of the Sapporo Snow Festival and was continuously conducted until the end of February.
Experiment Participants
1. Organized by
- National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT)
2. Cooperating Organizations (in no particular order)
- Asahi Broadcasting Corporation(ABC)
- Sky-A Inc.
- GAORA Inc.
- Hokkaido Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (HTB)
- NTT Corporation
- NTT Communications Corporation
- NTT IT Corporation
- Hokkaido Telecommunication Network Co., Inc.(HOTnet)
- KYOWA EXEO CORPORATION
- OBIS, Inc. (OBIS)
- Fatware Inc.
- Information Services International-Dentsu, Ltd. (ISID)
- Cisco Systems G.K.
- Juniper Networks, Inc.
- NEC Corporation
- Ixia Communications K.K.
- TOYO Corporation
- PFU LIMITED
- Sharp Corporation
- ASTRODESIGN, Inc.
- Purelogic CO., LTD
- Trans New Technology, Inc.
- Kanagawa Institute of Technology
- The University of Tokyo
- Nara Institute of Science and Technology
- Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts
- Nago City, Okinawa Prefecture
- Ginoza Village, Okinawa Prefecture
- Union-wide Municipal Affairs of Northern Area of Okinawa Prefecture
- Specified NPO, Nago Development Authority (NDA)
- Cyber Kansai Project (CKP)
Glossary
4K is a high quality TV standard for the Next Generation. Its service is expected to start in the summer of 2014. With 8 million pixels, which are 4 times larger than current Full HD, it achieves very high-quality videos. 8K UHD is a new high-resolution television format which was developed by NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories along with other institutes. 8K UHD, also known as “Super Hi-Vision,” has 7680x4320 (33 million) pixels, 4x the resolution of 4K and 16x the resolution of Full HD. It is called 8K because the horizontal resolution is approximately 8000. Japanese public broadcaster NHK is aiming towards 8K broadcasting service starting in 2020.
A large winter event in Sapporo, Hokkaido attracting more than 2 million visitors every year. Dating back to the year 1950 when local junior and high school students gathered in Odori Park and created 6 snow sculptures, it continues to grow in participants and popularity with people from all over the world every year. The 65th Sapporo Snow Festival was held from February 5 to 11, 2014.
A new network testbed environment to achieve New Generation Network technology and deployment. NICT has been operating JGN-X since April 2011.
NTT Communications Corporation provided the 100Gbps dedicated Ethernet service between Tokyo and Osaka for this experiment.
A joint research project over JGN-X for “Verification of streaming-cloud function with real-time oriented network computer technology.” This was a joint project by NICT, KAIT, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, NTT IT Corporation, PFU LIMITED, NTT Corporation and ASTRODESIGN, Inc.
PRESTA 10G was used for the analysis. It is a network measurement system enabling 10-nano level measurement with 10Gbps capturing/generating functions. It was developed by NTT Network Innovation Laboratory and NTT-IT and is currently being used in wide-area experiments with cooperation by KAIT.
A generic name for network technologies and control plane interface specifications proposed by OpenFlow Consortium, originally led by Stanford University (http://www.openflowswitch.org/). OpenFlow is marked as one of the SDN (Software-Defined Network) technologies, which are used to define how networks are controlled by software. The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is working towards standardization in the networking industry (http://opennetworking.org/). The latest specification is v1.4.
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