'First-of-its-kind' 4K camera captures wild footage of deep-sea life

The new video was published by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI).

Mounted onboard MBARI's remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), MBARI has captured new 4K ultra-high-definition (UHD) resolution footage of deep-sea life thousands of meters below the ocean's surface. MBARI began evaluating opportunities to upgrade from high-definition to 4K camera systems on its ROVs in 2018 and have since developed the new MxD SeaCam in collaboration with DeepSea Power & Light.

MBARI's ROVs have logged over 5,800 dives, accumulating over 27,600 hours of video from the deep sea. MBARI's last significant upgrade to its video capabilities was its transition to 1080i resolution, or 1920 by 1080 pixels, over 20 years ago. Now, the researchers behind MBARI are excited about the new scientific value that will be elucidated with the upgrade to 4K, 3840 by 2160 pixels, a resolution four times greater than what they could achieve previously.

"At MBARI, we annotate all of the video captured by our ROVs and permanently archive these discoveries into our one-of-a-kind Video Annotation and Reference Systems, or VARS. As we accumulate these highly valuable details, the bigger picture starts to come into clearer view and enriches our understanding about the different communities of deep-sea animals, the environments that they inhabit, and how things might be changing over time. And, of course, this stunning imagery is simply mesmerizing and we enjoy sharing these inspirations with the public," explained Video Laboratory Manager Nancy Jacobsen Stout.

"4K gives us much higher resolution for studying the structure of the animals we investigate, particularly the transparent species. 4K lets us see the fine details of how these animals are put together and how all the individual parts work, individually and together," said MBARI Senior Scientist Bruce Robison.