As billions of viewers watch major sporting events like the World Cup on 4K screens, they carry high expectations for picture quality. However, much of the '4K' content they see is not native 4K but upscaled from lower-resolution sources. This gap between what leaves the venue and what viewers expect can lead to dissatisfaction and a lack of control for broadcasters. Beamr (NASDAQ: BMR) addresses this with a new workflow that combines AI super resolution, content-adaptive bitrate (CABR) technology, and subjective quality verification via Beamr VISTA.
The challenge is that many live sports events are still produced in lower resolutions, with the upscaling often happening inside the television itself, without production control. Rebuilding the entire contribution infrastructure to native 4K is a multi-year process, leaving broadcasters needing an immediate solution. Beamr's AI super resolution upscales lower-resolution feeds to 4K on existing infrastructure, while CABR reduces the bitrate by up to 50% compared to standard solutions. This is crucial because HD to 4K can require up to nine times the pixels, but CABR ensures that this increase doesn't translate into nine times the bandwidth, making 4K delivery economically viable.
Visual improvement is only half the story. Whether an upscaled stream actually looks better depends on the content—motion, lighting, and graphics. Beamr VISTA is a subjective quality-testing platform that uses real viewers to compare two versions, providing confirmation in days rather than weeks. This allows broadcasters to validate that their upscaled content truly meets viewer expectations.
The full workflow will be demonstrated at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam, September 11-14, at Stand 1.D22 (Hall 1). Broadcasters, rights holders, and streaming platforms can arrange private meetings and demonstrations at beamr.com/ibc26.
Beamr's technology is trusted by top media companies including Netflix and Paramount, and its CABR technology is backed by 53 patents and an Emmy® Award. The company's solutions are available on-premises, in private or public cloud, and through AWS and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
This development is significant because it addresses a growing concern in the broadcast industry: ensuring that 4K content is genuinely of high quality without prohibitive costs. By enabling broadcasters to upscale existing feeds efficiently and verify quality with real viewers, Beamr provides a practical path to meeting consumer expectations in an evolving media landscape.
