philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Experts See Fuzzy Future for Ultra-HD TV

Ultra-High-Definition 4K television is poised to be the next standard, the TV that will dominate the living room of the mid-21st century.

But to hear the technologists assembled for the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineeers’ day-long symposium on UHD TV tell it, Ultra-TV will tread a hard and thorny path on its way to wide adoption.

“If we deliver something that is Ultra-HD lite, if you want to call it that, will the consumers see enough of a difference to make them want to buy it?”

Many of the interim steps to HD have paradoxical consequences. For example, major brand Ultra-HD televisions have built in upscaling to convert regular HD content to UHD. Upscaling is technically challenging, but even if looks great, it’s problematic: if consumers will accept upscaled content, why should producers incur the costs of UHD production?

Johns later observed that if producers use 4K cameras, the result looks better even in regular HD, but “and if you do that you’re actually eroding the difference between HD and Ultra-HD.”

Read the full story here: http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/experts-see-fuzzy-future-for-ultra-hd-tv-1200749278/