Intel and the Future of 8K Live Broadcasting at the Paris 2024 Olympics

Jakarta, INTI - Watching your favorite Olympic sports live from the comfort of your home in 8K video resolution might sound like a dream. However, at the Paris 2024 Olympics, Intel will demonstrate that this vision has become a reality thanks to long-term collaboration between Intel, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), and several broadcasters and partners worldwide.

Ravindra (Ravi) Velhal, Global Content Technology Strategist and 8K Lead at the Software and Advanced Technology Group at Intel, explains the impact of Intel-led artificial intelligence activation at the Paris 2024 Olympics. As the Official Worldwide AI Platform Partner for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Intel will introduce innovative new AI experiences based on the company’s hardware and software that enable next-generation engagement for fans, organizers, athletes, and viewers worldwide.

Intel’s 8K Broadcast Technology

Throughout the Paris 2024 Olympics, AI-optimized broadcast servers will encode and compress live 8K signals produced by OBS and then deliver them to selected media rights holders over the open internet. These servers are powered by the latest 5th Generation Intel® Xeon® processors (Emerald Rapids) and 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® processors (Sapphire Rapids) with Intel® AI accelerators (AMX) and Deep Learning Boost technology. This technology allows the compression of data from raw live feeds at 48 gigabits per second (Gbps) into VVC-enabled live streams at 40 to 60 megabits per second (Mbps) – a 1,000-fold compression ratio – in less than 400 milliseconds.

These 8K over-the-top (OTT) broadcasts will then be delivered by OBS worldwide to 8K TVs connected to the latest Intel-enabled PCs. Intel has a long history in this space, partnering with OBS, broadcasters, and technology providers to support OBS in live streaming 416 hours of Olympic content and processing 4.7 petabytes of data at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics – about 333 times the volume of all data stored in the US Library of Congress.

A New Experience in 8K Broadcasting

The Paris 2024 Olympics will be the world’s first live demonstration of end-to-end VVC 8K live streaming, utilizing Intel’s 5th Generation Xeon CPUs for encoding and Intel client-based CPUs and Arc GPUs for decoding. This paves the way for the future of low-latency, broadcast-quality 8K live streaming over the internet. The process of getting 8K live content from the Olympic stadiums in Paris to 8K-enabled TVs on the other side of the planet is complex and enabled by a constellation of Intel’s hardware and software technologies.

The steps to complete an 8K broadcast include:

1. Broadcast-grade cameras at specific Olympic venues capturing live content in 8K at 60 frames per second in high dynamic range (HDR) at a bitrate of 48 Gbps, mixed with 32 audio channels.
2. Custom-built "broadcast in a box" encoders powered by the latest 5th Generation Intel Xeon CPUs processing raw content in under 400 milliseconds and distributing it over the internet within seconds.
3. Worldwide, Intel® Core™ i9 processor-based PCs with Intel® Arc™ graphics processing units and Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 processor-based laptops decoding OBS content in real-time before displaying the video feed on 8K TVs protected by Intel’s high-bandwidth digital content protection technology.

The Next Evolution of High-Definition Video: 8K Displays

Innovations like Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors with Intel® Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel® AMX), built-in AI accelerators, and Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost) that encode raw 8K/60FPS/HDR feeds in milliseconds have helped the industry take revolutionary steps toward 8K displays and their democratization.

8K display technology is the successor to the ultra-high-definition 4K standard introduced in the early 2000s. The world’s first 4K TV was released in 2012. Generally, it takes about seven to ten years for the media industry to evolve and embrace the next visual and audio technology standard, such as the shift from analog to digital displays in the late 1990s, from standard definition (SD) to high definition (HD) in the early 2000s, and from HD to 4K about a decade later.

AI Technology and 8K Broadcasting

Capturing rich and immersive 8K content may sound complex, but delivering it to screens worldwide is even more challenging. During the Paris 2024 Olympics, Ravi and his team will work on several events to acquire, process, and stream petabytes of data. This task is well-suited to Intel’s advanced AI platform technologies like Intel® Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel® AMX) and Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost), which enable complex AI workloads to run without increasing the overall computing footprint.

“We leverage these technologies in our Xeon CPUs to analyze every scene, frame by frame, and train our algorithms to process fast-moving data without sacrificing latency and quality,” said Ravi. The overall latency from camera to TV is just a few seconds, a figure unattainable in the past. Alongside our industry and technology partners, we are overcoming the world’s biggest distribution barriers preventing 8K live broadcasting. Paris 2024 proves that the future of low-latency, high-definition 8K live streaming is here.

Intel will work with OBS to stream select events from Paris to Intel campuses and broadcasters worldwide.

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