As billions of viewers tuned in to the World Cup this summer on 4K screens, they carried that expectation to every subsequent broadcast. Yet, what many don’t realize is that a significant portion of premium live sports is still transmitted from venues as lower-resolution feeds. The conversion to 4K often occurs within the television set itself, without any production control over the final quality. Bridging this gap between what leaves the venue and what viewers expect has been a challenge that traditionally required rebuilding contribution infrastructure—a multi-year process.
Beamr (NASDAQ: BMR) is stepping in to close this gap using existing broadcaster infrastructure, without incurring the delivery cost penalty typically associated with upscaling. The company’s AI super resolution technology upscales lower-resolution feeds to 4K, while its Emmy® Award-winning content-adaptive bitrate (CABR) technology maintains the output at up to 50% lower bitrate than standard solutions. This is crucial because increasing from HD to 4K can involve up to nine times the pixel count, and without CABR, that would translate to nine times the bandwidth—which would break the economics of delivering such streams.
However, visual improvement is only part of the equation. Whether an upscaled stream actually looks better to viewers depends on the specific content—motion, lighting, and on-screen graphics. To address this, Beamr has developed Beamr VISTA, a subjective quality-testing platform that compares two versions of a video using real viewers rather than algorithms. This allows broadcasters to test their own footage and receive confirmation of quality within days, compared to weeks for traditional testing methods.
The full workflow—AI upscaling, CABR compression, and VISTA verification—will be demonstrated live at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam, held 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, trusted by top media companies like Netflix and Paramount, specializes in content-adaptive video compression. Its technology is backed by 53 patents and has won an Emmy® Award for Technology and Engineering. The company’s solutions reduce video file sizes by up to 50% while preserving quality and enabling AI-powered enhancements. Beamr’s offerings are available on-premises, in private or public clouds, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
The announcement comes at a time when live sports broadcasters are under pressure to deliver higher quality experiences while managing costs. By enabling true 4K without the bandwidth penalty, Beamr’s solution could redefine what’s possible in live sports streaming. The ability to verify quality through real viewer feedback adds a layer of accountability that has been missing in upscaled content.
For more details, visit www.beamr.com or the investors’ website at www.investors.beamr.com.
