4K/UHD Content at CES 2013

With all the 4K/UHD displays on hand at CES, the next big question is, where will the native UHD content come from? At least two companies offered answers to this question. LG was demonstrating UHD over-the-air terrestrial broadcasting in conjunction with the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), which has been running trials of this system in Seoul over a coverage area with a radius of 10 kilometers. The system transmits UHD at 60 frames per second (progressive) using a new codec called HEVC (high-efficiency video coding), aka H.265, which allows the signal to be transmitted at 35 Mbps, a 75-percent bandwidth savings compared with MPEG-2.

In the LG booth, the transmitter was behind the wall holding the 65-inch UHD TV seen above. Two antennas, which can be seen on either side of the TV in the photo, are required to pick up the signal, and the decoder sends the image to the TV via two HDMI cables. The KBS-produced content looked quite good to my eye.

Sony announced a distribution system that will provide UHD content for download to a server, such as the prototype shown here. The service is planned for launch this summer. Sony also announced consumer-oriented UHD camcorders, allowing you to create your own 4K content.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Hitchman 

This isn't going to look good on a projection system or extra large flat panel... which is what you'll need for UHD anyway.

Sony is smoking crack if they think the current U.S. infrastructure can handle quality 4k anything for the next decade, at least. It'll be so cludgey that people won't bother with it, especially the much needed early adopter. In Japan, perhaps. But this ain't Japan, if they haven't noticed.

As I mentioned in a previous thread, even the BDA has admitted that a disc based format will probably be required for the foreseeable future... if you want quality UHD movies. Even Sony was loading UHD content onto their home media servers (free with one of their ultra-expensive sets) with higher capacity Blu-ray data discs.

It seems to me that you're talking about streaming here, in which case, I agree with you that most people in the US don't have the bandwidth to support high-quality 4K streaming. Netflix was demonstrating 4K streaming in the Samsung booth, which I didn't get to see, but I can't imagine it would look very good, especially on a very large screen, as you point out.

On the other hand, Sony is talking about downloading, not streaming. So the quality can be very good, even if the consumer's bandwidth is low; it will just take a while to download. I suspect you would download a movie, say, overnight and then play it once it's on your local hard disk. You are right that Sony is pre-loading 4K movies onto a server that comes with the XBR-84X900, and more titles will be delivered to owners on Blu-ray data discs (not video discs), which are then loaded onto the server.

Red Ray is a similar story, with distribution on memory sticks or perhaps downloading, but not streaming.

As far as 4K Blu-ray video discs are concerned, I think that will take some years to come to market. For one thing, a higher-capacity physical format would be required. Yes, we have BDXL at 100 GB, but that's currently a recordable data format, not video ROM. And even if a video ROM version was developed, all the replication facilities would have to be updated to produce it. Plus, if history is any indication, the BDA will take a long time to finalize a new spec.

In my opinion, downloading is the best way to get 4K content to the home, at least in the short term. Of course, the tricky part will be DRM.

Dan,

Well, you are certainly correct that there are MANY details that need to be worked out in any 4K distribution system, be it downloading, streaming, or physical disc/memory stick. And what the studios want is often diametrically opposed to what consumers want, which will make it even more difficult to develop. Your questions here are all very good, and only time will tell how it will all play out.