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Ultra HD 4K Here Today


Ultra HD 4K video was everywhere at NAB 2014. Netflix’s launch of its House of Cards TV series in this format, which offers 4 times the definition of current high-definition programming, indicates that it is rapidly moving from camera to eyeball. Parks Associates research reinforces the idea of relatively fast consumer acceptance of Ultra HD 4K video when they suggest, “That within the next 2-3 years, 4K televisions will reach mass-market pricing, which will be a major driving force between an increased adoption rate in American households.”

In the above interview at Storage Visions 2014 (concurrent with International CES), Dave Foley of Nanotech foretold the rise of Ultra HD 4K as he explained their product offering which includes a studio to consumer offering of content and devices.

Foley explains that they have set out how to solve the problem of how to get content and how to play it on the TV. To solve the content part of the challenge, Nanotech created a service for content providers, 4K studios, that converts 35mm prints to 4K digital files.  This service also works with independent producers to shoot native 4K content. Foley indicates that they can deliver great looking content with bandwidth as low as 6 Mb/s. He says that they have encoded using both Google’s VP9 and HEVC encoders and that their testing indicates that the VP9 codec provides greater efficiency as compared to HEVC.

To help the consumer use their new Ultra HD 4K televisions, Nanotech introduced a 4K streaming service, UltrafFlix UHD. To decode the service, they will soon launch a couple of different Ultra 4K streaming set-top boxes; one based on Windows 7 and another based on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS. As Foley points out, because it is an Android-based device, all the applications (e.g. Netflix, YouTube, etc.) that work on Android work on 4K TVs.

The content isn’t just limited to movies and TV, as the NVIDIA® Tegra® 4 GPU that powers the Android box is well suited for gaming and the Bluetooth capability of the box allows for external game controllers. Along these lines that Ultra HD 4K will be more than just TV, Nanotech announced a deal this morning with game OUYA, a company that specializes in making games for the television.

7 responses to “Ultra HD 4K Here Today”

  1. […] Ultra HD 4K Here Today […]

  2. Ken Pyle Avatar
    Ken Pyle

    The boxes are almost here today from a letter sent to those who signed up to be on their waiting list. According to that letter, based on feedback they have had from early reviewers, the boxes that ship are going to be pre-loaded with Android 4.4 and will include motion sensing for a better gaming experience. It’s not clear whether this new version will also support HDMI 2.0, which is needed for 4K at 60 Frames per second.

  3. Infostack Avatar

    Ken, wonder how they are able to achieve such compression when arguably Netflix, with its scale volumes and dollars only gets to 15mbs at best.

    Separately, I believe 4K could scale to mass market in 5 years vs the 15 years it took for HD to really scale to mass market. HD had its inflection moment in 2006 and was mass market by 2008. With smartphones, displays, and IP-broadband already all capable of shooting, transporting and displaying 4K, it will only take 3-4 years to hit that same inflection point and then 1 year after that to be really mass market. So we’re talking 2017, 2018, respectively. Watch out linearTV models! Michael

    1. Ken Pyle Avatar

      Michael,

      Thanks for your insightful comment. Your numbers sound about right for adoption. The 6 Mbs he refers to in the video may be for relatively static content (e.g. the picture of a flower). Having said that, what drew me to their booth was that they were big proponents of the Google-driven VP9 codec. I believe Foley mentions in the video that they are seeing a better performance relative to HEVC.

      What may the most impressive thing is that one can buy a $699, 50″ Ultra 4K HDTV on their web site (Seiki Digital). The pictures on these TVs looked pretty darn good, especially given the price. The only near-term drawback I could see is that it doesn’t support HDMI 2.0, which will be important for sports and other fast-moving content with its support of 60 frames per second frame rate.

  4. Infostack Avatar

    For sure we need less expensive, ubiquitous bandwidth. And along with 2-way HD collaboration, mobile BB, and IoT, we need to think about fundamental restructurings of the service provider models. Wonder if someone at the FCC is modeling this in terms of IP transition, net neutrality and interconnect proceedings (hint, they really are all related and just speak to layer 2-3 and WAN/MAN demarc tradeoffs wrt latency, capacity, QoS, etc…). Ahhhh the future. It’s going to be fun!

    1. Ken Pyle Avatar
      Ken Pyle

      And add spectrum to your list that the FCC needs to be looking at with regards to how all of this technology fits together. Congress needs to be looking at the bigger picture as well, as the FCC is only doing what Congress gave them the power to do (although some would argue that they sometimes exceed their authority).

      The interesting thing about NAB is that I didn’t see any evidence of the idea of transmitting 4K over the air via traditional broadcast airwaves.

  5. Infostack Avatar

    The problem typically with incumbents (and particular 1-way broadcast) is that they have a hard time isolating marginal demand as their business models are built around average consumption and distribution.

    That’s another reason why IPTV will drive 4K rapidly. Only satellite and DVD could satisfy the marginal consumer’s demand for HD. Cable and OTA broadcast faced a chicken and egg with HD. That’s in part why cable is working with wifi offload and multi-screen approaches to keep it’s subscriber based locked into the dominant LinearTV model for at least a decade as it transitions to IP4K.

    Also, what you say supports Wheeler’s reasons (remember former cable AND wireless leader) to reallocate the spectrum. Who understands the tradeoffs better?

    Lastly, the 4 trends I spoke to above can be considered “demand” drivers. The “supply side” of the equation is: C-RAN/hetnets, NFV/SDN, OTT, and distributed cloud. All things the carriers should be rapidly embracing simultaneously, but aren’t. Most people are looking at all 8 drivers separately and not simultaneously.

    The FCC has simultaneous interconnect (lower layer) and settlement (middle layer) issues to solve for.

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