Netflix is to charge an extra $3 a month to new users in the US to view its 4K output, but the Ultra-HD content will be available for no additional fee when subscribing to its $11.99 ‘family’ bundle. “We decided to move 4K UHD video into our four-stream plan for new members who sign up […]
Openwave Mobility, a software innovator enabling operators to manage and monetise mobile data, is claiming to be the first company to provide optimisation for 4K Ultra-HD video on mobile networks. Openwave’s DynaMO is capable of optimising High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) to achieve optimum HD video playback on mobile devices. “Mobile video already accounts for […]
Technicolor has successfully trialled over-the-air 4K Ultra-HDTV transmissions using the USA’s proposed ATSC 3.0 specification. Technicolor used antenna towers owned by Sinclair Broadcast to carry out the tests. Technically the trial was the first-ever in the world to incorporate Scalable HEVC (SHVC) video coding, MPEG-H, audio and MPEG’s MMT A/V transport standard. The test was […]
American businessman, activist shareholder and investor Carl Icahn has written a wide-ranging open letter to Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, urging a share repurchase, suggesting its stock is undervalued, and has highlighted TV as a “large” market opportunity for the company. With Icahn’s company, Icahn Enterprises, which holds some 53 million shares in Apple, forecasting “robust” […]
KT Skylife, South Korea’s DTH broadcaster with more than 4 million subscribers, is to adopt an all-HD policy. Until recently it was carrying 104 HD channels, and now says it will offer 141 “full HD” channels by the end of this year, and dropping all standard definition channels in the process. “KT SkyLife has set […]
In an update of where Ultra-HD/4K is today, a study by IHS-Consumer Electronics & Video Technology says the technology has “hit the ground running, and is about 10 years ahead of where HD TV was just two years after standards ratification”. But IHS also issues a warning saying that
Japan already has a 4K ‘test’ channel on air, but Sky Perfect JSAT, the Japanese satellite broadcsater, has revealed it will launch two 4K/Ultra-HD channels on March 1st next year. The two 4K channels will be broadcast as part of Sky Perfect’s premium service, although whether an additional payment will be needed has yet to […]
French telco Bouygues Telecom is testing 4K transmission using its ‘Miami’ hybrid set-top box. The Android-based box blends all incoming source signals from the basic IPTV head-end transmission as well as live DVB broadcasts, OTT and Internet on Demand source material. It can also handle 4K signals. The 4K Ultra-HDTV signals are full 3840 x […]
CDN provider Tata Communications has become the first company to deliver a live 4K feed from a Formula 1 event. The landmark was achieved during the first practice session at the 2014 Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix, where live footage was delivered end-to-end over Tata Communications’ Global Video Connect Network, to Formula One […]
US trade body the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has unveiled new logos to designate 4K Ultra High-Definition TVs, monitors and projectors for the home that meet CEA’s voluntary core characteristics for 4K Ultra HD display products announced earlier this year. As devised by CEA’s Ultra HD Communications Working Group and approved without any objections by […]