Japan's public broadcaster NHK plans to begin transmissions in the 8K format in 2016.

NHK is supporting the Super Hi-Vision format, which supports a resolution of 7,680 x 4,320 pixels. That's four times the resolution of "4K" television.

NHK has already tested the format at last summer's Olympic Games in London, where NHK produced 6 channels of live Super Hi-Vision coverage for distribution at public viewing sites around the U.K. and back in Japan.

An uncompressed Super Hi-Vision signal runs at around 24 gigabits per second, making routing and editing of the signal inside a TV station a challenge. Getting the signal compressed and transmitted to viewers in realtime is a further challenge, but one that NHK is working on.

NHK plans to start uper Hi-Vision broadcasts in the 12GHz frequency band via satellite, with terrestrial broadcasts to follow.