Samsung says Ultra HD will be mainstream by 2017

hodg100

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If you consider 5% penetration 'mainstream'

Samsung's Director of European Business Development, Vassilis Seferidis, believes Ultra HD will be a mainstream reality by 2017.

At the Futuresource Entertainment Summit 2013 held last week, Seferidis drew natural comparisons to the launch of HD where operators began launching services when market penetration reached around 5 percent.

“Our estimation is that ultra-high definition will become mainstream by the year 2017. The question is whether operators will wait for penetration to reach this five per cent level before introducing channels. There are good indications that will start earlier as well.”

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Seferidis noted that a number of operators were already experimenting with U-HD production, describing it as “the natural next step” for resolution.

“Ultra-high definition is a market that's going to happen, basically driven by consumer demand, but also by operators and manufacturers, who want to differentiate their products. We expect this will happen by 2017.”

So that's, prospectively, a four year wait for those early adopters before there's 4K content in any meaningful volume to watch. Maybe he ought to have been a bit more bullish, given Samsung are just about to launch their 'affordable' and domestic friendly 4K TVs.

Source: Advanced-Television
 

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Really, that far off? I'd have predicted mid-late 2015 :rolleyes:
 
Are they predicting when 3D (driven by Consumer demand :eek:) will go 'mainstream'?

Joe
 
Big predictions for 3D in 2011, never happened of course ....

Samsung predicts boost for 3D TV market in 2011 - ComputerworldUK.com

4K is in the same boat .... its going to be a very hard sell indeed.

For the Majority of people , a screen of the size needed to really see the advantage of 4K is not an option.

Replacing say , anything from a 32 inch to a 50 inch 1080p TV with a 4K of the same size will not show a very obvious benefit .... that and the lack of native 4K content ..... I think its dead out of the starting blocks.

The last major technology to shift screens was SD to HD and Bluray .... you had a two huge benefits , the huge CRT cabinet was gone and SD to HD was a clear and obvious upgrade in terms of picture quality.
Along with those you had content in terms of Blu ray , Consoles like the PS3, and Sky's HD box.

No one thought or predicted that it would shift units as fast as it did , so fast that CRT's were history in no time at all , leaving Sony with no flatscreen TV roadmap at the time and desparately playing catchup.

None of "next big things" has had anything like those benefits , in fact most of them just had what look to consumers like drawbacks !

3D has the glasses , the number one reason for failure , but no content certainly didnt help.

4K Besides the " No immediately obvious benefit" factor , 4K has little content and no clear roadmap from anyone as to how content is to be even delivered , besides Sony's current proprietary player , which is a dreadful example to start with. Proprietary brand locked players ( should others follow Sony's example ) will kill this format at birth.
 
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Ultra HD is about more than just 4K pixels though...

http://www.avforums.com/forums/news/1791562-fame-beckons-european-ultra-hd-rollout.html

It will be about faster refresh rates, a wider colour gamut and more bits per pixel (smoother colours). So there will be much to make a fuss of to potentially attract the consumer.

Since the standard for Ultra HD is not even close to existing yet, any TV or blu ray player which claims to be Ultra HD and is available now, is unlikely to meet the final spec and in the meantime you will have a box which supports 4K resolution (and possibly proprietary attempts to increase colour gamut) but no content to play on it.
 
Ultra HD is about more than just 4K pixels though...

http://www.avforums.com/forums/news/1791562-fame-beckons-european-ultra-hd-rollout.html

It will be about faster refresh rates, a wider colour gamut and more bits per pixel (smoother colours). So there will be much to make a fuss of to potentially attract the consumer.

Since the standard for Ultra HD is not even close to existing yet, any TV or blu ray player which claims to be Ultra HD and is available now, is unlikely to meet the final spec and in the meantime you will have a box which supports 4K resolution (and possibly proprietary attempts to increase colour gamut) but no content to play on it.

Indeed , in much the same way that a lot of people think they already have LED sets so whats the big deal about OLED ?

That particular bit of manufacturing marketing dishonesty will hurt OLED sales , and likewise with 4K , the hype is starting with very expensive devices already available , but as you say the standards are not finalised , also hardware wise , currently available items could be obsolete within months , on release of the HDMI 2.0 specification.

Also , in terms of fabrication of panels , the only thing keeps such a Semiconductor Fab line going is high volume , high yield.
Low volume lines for such large parts cannot be sustained for any length of time no matter what the cost of the final product. 5% market penetration wont cut it unless that's a single point on a strong trend upwards!
 
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UHD is gonna sell like hot cakes, just wait until people see high framerate sports.
 
As an aside, both Samsung and Sony are now saying that they will upgrade their 4k TVs when the UHD/HDMI spec changes, I'm assuming that will include an upgrade to HDMI 2.
 
Sony are saying they will look after early adopters (though some get better treatment/options from day one) they haven't said what they will actually do.

Dangerous to assume it'll be a simple job to 'upgrade' a chassis to any new HDMI standard - I'd assume :))) it far more likely they supply some form of external external converter!

Joe
 
When will folk start to see this 'high frame rate sports'?

Joe

When Sky start transmitting it. My money is on next year when they dump the 3D channel, they are already doing tests of 4k recording.
 

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