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.
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