4K UHD: Forging
ahead on all
fronts?
4K UHD TV sales continue to grow and
standards have emerged, but are there
still important gaps holding back the
success of the ecosystem? Chris Forrester
brought together four experts to debate UHD state of
play and its medium-term development.
Broadcasters don’t see the investment
case. There must be a critical mass of UHD
panel sales that will suddenly see all these
channels wanting to become 4K,” says
George Mikeladze, founder and CEO Qarva.
“It will move from economic pragmatism to
competitive necessity.”
“I
think the production community
has made a lot of progress in the last
year,” says Ian Trow, senior director
of emerging technologies, Harmonic. “They
“I think we have the easy job,” admits Robert
Taylor, senior product manager LG Home
Entertainment. “For 2017, 75 per cent of our
total line up will be UHD and in the UK over
50 per cent by value and one third by volume
is UHD sales. We are fast approaching the
“Too many years have
passed with waiting for
4K.” – George Mikeladze,
Qarva
are aware of the need to future-proof any
investment decisions they are making, and that
“It is difficult,” agrees Wilson-Dunn.
means IP and UHD. I think it is impressive
“Back to the business case, if you are a
that production houses are getting themselves
new broadcaster, you’ll equip for the latest
ready, irrespective of the challenges for
standards and technologies but if you have
distribution.”
legacy studios and workflow there are still
“Everything we put into a client’s domain
many questions. It has to come from the
now is based around IP and around putting
consumer ultimately. Most viewers who have
flexibility into the value chain,” adds Mark
Wilson-Dunn, VP, BT Media & Broadcast.
“Against that, I did make some bold
predictions this time last year about the
number of channels there would be by now,
“8K is for public displays.”
– Mark Wilson-Dunn, BT
Media & Broadcast
and that hasn’t happened yet. That has to
come down to the business case because the inflection point where we do have the majority
technology is there.” of UHD displays. We look to support as much
content delivered as possible be it VoD, OTT
Displays
or HDMI.”
a 4K set probably don’t realise they are not
watching 4K as the sets do such a good job of
upping the resolution of HD. And that means
you don’t get the push from the consumer.”
“There are certainly customers who do want
everything today,” comments Taylor, “OLED,
HDR, etcetera, and they bear the frustration
of the lack of content. At the lower end, the
consumer is probably not recognising the
full potential of what they have got. In HDR,
“Yes, too many years have passed with waiting
for 4K to become a widespread commodity.
Live Content
“I think the viewers get it and there is a built
up demand for 4K content,” advises Trow,
“but the amount of content out there is a
problem. I think the challenge is what subset
of screens, which feature set, do broadcasters
cater for? That’s the really big challenge. CES
was a step forward, there was a desire from all
“What subset of screens,
which feature set, do
broadcasters cater for?” –
Ian Trow, Harmonic
12 ADVANCED TELEVISION
manufacturers, and all the latest HDR modes
have been standardised with all the various
flavours on board. One cloud on the horizon is
HDMI upping the ante and talking about 100-
120 FPS which slightly clouds the issue.”
“We are approaching the
point where we have the
majority of UHD displays.”
– Robert Taylor, LG Home
Entertainment