21 TECHFEED 4K
OON? S ON?
n media technology it’s often only the latest innovations that generate headlines – the status quo is far less newsworthy. So, we should be treating the summer’s excitement around 4K UHD live streaming of the World Cup and Wimbledon with the caution it deserves. The reality is that the vast majority of content online, or not, reaches our screens in high definition at best, and for many people that will remain the benchmark for some time. Even when it comes to traditional modes of delivery, UHD is a long way from becoming standard. Statistics provided by analyst NSR reveal that just 0.17% of the world’s TV channels distributed by satellite are UHD today, and there will only be about 930 UHD satellite-delivered channels by 2026. Another analyst, Euroconsult, forecasts 1116 UHD channels by 2025 out of a global total of 47,300. Of that number, about 22,485 would be in HD and the rest still in standard definition. There are a number of reasons for this, not least of which is the cost of distributing
channels of higher resolution which require purchasing more satellite capacity. And the production cost of 4K content itself has been, until recently, at a premium, as post facilities, equipment manufacturers and rental houses try and extract more bucks for using the new technology. The cost of storing and processing the additional material (data) is more expensive than HD and has certainly caused some blockbuster VFX feature films to be post- produced at 2K (HD) even though they are acquired at 4K, 6K or, in the case of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , 8K. What’s more, these costs cannot easily be passed on to the consumer who is reluctant to pay more for content which may be perceived as only a moderately better resolution. VOD streaming services have fewer of these inhibitors, and indeed Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Apple are now commissioning most of their originals in 4K. Even here it has proven diicult to entice subscribers to pay an additional fee to receive a show in 4K. When, last year,
Apple made shows on iTunes the same price regardless of resolution, it forced rivals like Amazon to revise their fees downward too. Netflix is about to test these waters further. It is trialling an Ultra tier of its service which will charge select subscribers €16.99 a month to view content in UHD and HDR across up to four screens. EXPERIMENTAL Despite the enthusiasm of a few big companies, 4K live streaming is still at the experimental and promotional stage of its evolution. At the FIFA World Cup, Telestream (which makes products for video capture, encoding and transcoding) told FEED that it is working with various broadcasters, producing some 60+ channels of live HD streaming and just one 4K stream. This 4K stream is being driven largely through a promotional agreement with a consumer electronics manufacturer. Still, others take a more optimistic approach. Olivier Karra, director OTT
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