As viewers increasingly expect 4K quality in live sports, a new solution from Beamr (NASDAQ: BMR) aims to bridge the gap between lower-resolution venue feeds and the 4K experience audiences demand. The company announced a workflow that uses AI super resolution to upscale feeds to 4K, paired with its Emmy® Award-winning content-adaptive bitrate (CABR) technology to maintain quality while reducing bitrate by up to 50% compared to standard solutions.
The announcement comes as billions of viewers tuned into the World Cup this summer on 4K screens, setting expectations for all subsequent content. However, many live sports broadcasts are still transmitted as lower-resolution feeds, with upscaling often happening inside consumer TVs, outside the broadcaster's control. Rebuilding contribution infrastructure for native 4K is a multi-year process, leaving a pressing need for immediate solutions.
Beamr's approach addresses this gap without requiring infrastructure overhauls. By leveraging AI super resolution, the lower-resolution feed is upscaled to 4K. Then, CABR technology optimizes the bitrate, ensuring that the increased pixel count—up to nine times more than HD—doesn't translate into nine times the bandwidth. This is crucial for broadcasters, as without such optimization, the delivery costs of 4K streams become prohibitive.
But visual improvement alone is not sufficient. Whether an upscaled stream truly looks better depends on the content's characteristics, such as motion, lighting, and graphics. To validate the quality, Beamr offers VISTA, a subjective quality-testing platform that uses real viewers rather than algorithms. Broadcasters can submit their own footage and receive results in days, compared to traditional testing that can take weeks.
The full workflow—AI upscaling, CABR compression, and VISTA verification—will be demonstrated live 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, a leader in content-adaptive video compression, counts major media companies like Netflix and Paramount among its clients. The company's technology is backed by 53 patents and has won an Emmy® Award for Technology and Engineering. Beamr's solutions are available on-premises, in private or public clouds, and through AWS and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
This development is significant for the broadcasting industry as it offers a practical path to deliver true 4K experiences to viewers without waiting for complete infrastructure upgrades. The combination of AI upscaling and efficient compression could make 4K live sports more accessible to a wider audience, potentially setting a new standard for quality in streaming. By also providing a means to verify quality through human perception, Beamr addresses a critical trust issue, ensuring that the '4K' label meets viewer expectations.
As live sports continue to drive demand for higher resolution, Beamr's solution may help broadcasters meet these expectations while managing costs effectively. The IBC 2026 demonstration will offer a firsthand look at this technology in action.
