philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Report from the SMPTE 4K/UHDTV Symposium – 4K/UHD TV – Will it be a hit with consumers?

By Phil  Lelyveld

Toward the beginning of SMPTE’s 4K/UHD TV – Will it be a hit with consumers? Panel, Samsung’s Dan Schinasi stated that Samsung learned the lesson from their 3D experience of creating limited-access content offers and is working on building out the 4K ecosystem.  He noted that the ITU’s David Wood has been researching ‘what is immersion’ and how does it impact the viewing experience. ‘You get a wider field of view without seeing the pixel structure.’  ‘You watch it longer.’  ‘You are more engaged.’  ‘And people migrate to the better quality.’

NPD DisplaySearch’s Paul Gagnon said that adoption will depend on convincing people that the content is coming.  Not accomplishing that was part of the significant but still disappointing market adoption of 3D TVs.  TV replacement cycles are currently in the 7-8 year range.  The average set being replaced worldwide is 32-37”.  Consumers usually upgrade to a 10” larger screen, and 4K sets in the upper 40” range are not readily available  Beyond the US and China, where large screens are popular, screen sizes top out at 55” in many parts of the world.  Plus people approach replacement with a budget in mind, so price point will matter.

Steve Venuti of the HDMI Licensing organization said that consumers want resolution.  He doesn’t see color bit depth and other elements that HDMI 2.0 enables being important to consumers.  Sony’s Jamie Marsh concurred that better picture quality is what people want.

The very high frame rate models (240 hz) of HDTV have not grown as much as we expected them to, added Paul Gagnon.  The higher cost may be the major factor, but he noted that many consumers take an ‘is it good enough’ position.

The full panel discussed the fact that upconversion will be extremely important in both viewing experience and UHDTV marketing for the foreseeable future.  There is a huge difference between the quality top-tier upconversion solutions and the lower priced solutions coming out of China.  DisplaySearch’s data shows that consumers in China don’t care about that quality.  Most of the sales in the US are from the higher quality vendors.  The industry learned from 3D that the quality of the conversion matters.  With 3D, consumers had the choice to turn 3D conversion on or not.  With 4K, every HDTV signal fed to the set is displayed as upconverted.

Samsung currently shows native 4K content in their in-store demos, but those demos are also equipped with upconversion demo material.

Pointing out the title of the panel session, Paul Gagnon noted that simply calling it 4K/UHD TV adds to consumer confusion.  Common terminology and common ground on what we are talking about is needed or else this simple marketing issue can become a barrier to adoption.  CEA has come up with definitions in the US, but Europe and Asia don’t comply with them.  DisplaySearch is having an internal discussion, because they want to use the terms that their clients use.

Sony’s Jamie Marsh reminded the audience that consumers are already starting to have 4K or greater resolution experiences with their cameras.  They will want to see their captured high resolution images displayed properly.

Panelists

Paul Gagnon, NPD DisplaySearch

Jamie Marsh, Sr Product Mktg Mgr, Sony Electronics

Dan Schinasi, Samsung Electronics America, UHD TV Product Planning, also International 3D Society

Steve Venuti, HDMI Licensing