NTT West is hosting the trial - which runs until Friday - and says it believes it is the first of its kind. A new video compression standard is being used to reduce the amount of data that needs to be transmitted. 4K broadcasts offer four times the amount of detail as 1080p high-definition content.
Compressing technologies allow broadcasters to transmit material using much less data than would otherwise be required while minimising the loss of picture quality.
In regards to video, instead of sending data describing each pixel of each frame as if it were a standalone entity, a variety of algorithms are used to analyse how colour is distributed across each image and what changes occur between each frame.
This is then used to allow redundant information to be discarded, providing instead only the information needed to reconstruct a sequence based on an understanding of how each pixel and frame are related to each other.
At present the H.264/MPEG-4 codec is commonly used to broadcast digital TV - including the UK's Freeview HD and Sky HD satellite services - as well as the vast majority of video clips on the web.
Source: BBC News
