4K

Advances in almost every facet of consumer electronics — everything from robotics to drones to wearable “quantified self” technologies to the ubiquitous Internet of Things — are on hand here this week as the Consumer Electronics Association’s annual CES conference is poised to kick off, but it’s an old consumer favorite — television, albeit a new-and-improved version — that is projected to be the next big thing.

A group of companies from across the television industry have banded together to form the Ultra-HD Alliance, a coalition aiming to establish open standards for 4K and higher resolutions, high dynamic range, wider color gamut and immersive audio. Samsung is leading the alliance, with fellow TV manufacturers LG, Panasonic, Sharp and Sony on board. Among the Hollywood major studios, Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. have signed on, as have Netflix, DirecTV and  tech providers, Technicolor and Dolby.

Despite the resolution of ultra high-def units, many engineers considering replacements for their aging HD cameras, said they are far more interested in buying versatile cameras that can do different kind of shoots (breaking news and magazine-style).

For the last few years 4K “Ultra HD” televisions have been displayed at CES, but in 2015 they’ll dominate — not just on the show floor, but on showroom floors everywhere throughout the year.

DirecTV’s latest satellite has been delivered in preparation for launch. The satellite will use a new technology that the company is likely to use first for delivery of Ultra HD video. DirecTV 14 is described as a 20 kw class Ka-band and reverse-band digital broadcast satellite that will be used to provide Ultra HD and other new consumer services.

The companies say the successful test shows that “broadcasters will be able to deliver the highest quality content, inclusive of 4K UltraHD live broadcast in a simultaneous transmission to consumers both at home and on-the-go.”

At IBC in Amsterdam, Blackmagic Design debuted SmartView 4K, what it calls the world’s first full resolution Ultra HD broadcast monitor with 12G-SDI inputs for compatibility with virtually all SD, […]

Since it was first announced, 4K utra high-definition television (4K UHDTV) has been met with both excitement and skepticism within and outside of the media industry.  According to new research from Intelsat, a leading provider of satellite services, 4K UHDTV will be mainstream within 10 years.

TOKYO (AP) — At a humble Tokyo laboratory, Godzilla, including the 1954 black-and-white original, is stomping back with a digital makeover that delivers four times the image quality of high […]

The world’s largest electronics chain has teamed up with Samsung and Sony to open in-store showrooms staffed with Blue Shirts trained to tout the merits of ultra-high-definition, or 4K, technology, which generates a picture four times sharper than existing HDTVs. The question for Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly is whether the pricey innovation will jump-start a wave of home-theater upgrades the way flat-panel TVs did last decade — or wind up a flop like 3D sets.

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Samsung and Sony are escalating their fight for the attention — and dollars — of TV buyers. Both electronics giants will open up special areas in Best Buy stores to showcase 4K TVs and other home entertainment products. Sony arguably has home-field advantage, given its long legacy as a premium TV manufacturer. Samsung, however, is the No. 1 TV vendor in the world, and this new partnership can only help cement that position.

NewTek CTO Andrew Cross says don’t expect to be watching sports at home in 4K in the near future. Over-the-air is out for now and it could be a decade or more before there is sufficient bandwidth to deliver 4K via the Internet, he says.

Panelists at the HPA Tech Retreat agreed with PBS’s Eric Wolf: “Channel sharing is a reasonable option for people to look at, but at the end of the day management has to look at this and say we can take a one-time infusion of cash from the auction and give up forever some portion of our spectrum, which is our bread and butter, and forgo a lot of future options.” But panelists weren’t in harmony on every issue. CBS’s Bob Seidel (l) and Sinclair’s Mark Aitken disagreed on the approach to the next-gen TV standard ATSC 3.0.

Manufacturers do their best to fuel excitement over 4K TVs at International CES — with decidedly mixed results.