German pay-TV broadcaster Sky Deutschland will debut two exclusive Ultra HD sports channels this fall via SES’ Astra satellite at 19.2 degrees east, SES said in a Monday announcement. Sky Deutschland will show one soccer match daily in 4K from Germany’s Bundesliga football league on its Sky Sport Bundesliga UHD channel and selected games in 4K from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League on Sky Sport UHD, SES said. SES and Sky Deutschland representatives didn’t comment on whether the two channels have a fixed debut date or whether the Bundesliga and UEFA matches will be shown live in 4K.

Turkish CE giant Vestel was one of six companies to recently join the UHD Alliance, the group told the FTC and Attorney General Loretta Lynch in July 19 written notifications, said a notice in Thursday’s Federal Register by DOJ’s Antitrust Division. Other companies joining the alliance were Amlogic, Eutelsat, Ittiam Systems, Quatius and SPI International, the notice said. The notifications were required to extend antitrust protections to UHD Alliance members under the 1993 National Cooperative Research and Production Act, it said.

One in 10 U.S. consumers will view 4K video online by 2021, up from one in 500 this year, said a Juniper Research report Monday. Globally, over-the-top 4K content services will have more than 189 million users in five years, Juniper said, up from 2.3 million this year. Connected TV will be the primary viewing medium, but viewership also will happen on smartphones, tablets and PCs, Juniper said. Device compatibility has been a barrier for online 4K video because of limited availability of 4K-capable streaming devices. Although YouTube, Netflix and Amazon offer some 4K video, network providers have been waiting for a critical mass of content to become available before launching their own 4K offerings, said Juniper. Rollouts of new 4K offerings this year, such as the Sky Q 4K service in the U.K., and device launches such as the 4K-capable Xbox One S, are expected to spark a rise in 4K viewing, said analyst Lauren Foye. Meanwhile, 8K content is a “long way from becoming mainstream,” said Foye, saying 8K smart TVs will hit the market first, followed by streaming devices and set-top boxes.

Plummeting 4K TV prices offset appliance gains at h.h. gregg in fiscal Q1 as revenue fell 4 percent year-over-year to $424 million. Average selling prices plunged 29.6 percent “across the market,” said CEO Robert Riesbeck on a Thursday earnings call, citing NPD figures, which were “in line with our results,” he said. Unit sales were up 81 percent in 4K TVs, “but with that type of decline in ASP, it is a challenge” that will continue through the rest of the year, Riesbeck said. The retailer is "gaining traction" on initiatives on appliances and furniture, he said. Appliances had a 3.7 percent comparable store sales increase in the quarter, he said. Gross margin improved in the quarter by 59 basis points through sales mix and higher gross margin rates in appliances and home products that were offset by the sales decline in CE, he said. CE sales were 30 percent of the mix (down 17.4 percent vs. the year ago quarter) compared with 64 percent for appliances and 6 percent for home products, he said. The negative CE comp was driven primarily by a negative 16.2 percent comp sales drop in video, which makes up three-fourths of the category. H.h. gregg “overindexed” in 4K TVs, Riesbeck said, and is working on several initiatives in CE to compete in the “difficult segment.” They include adding “key vendors and products” not currently in its CE mix and working through a “SKU rationalization to allow for expanded premium brands in smaller sizes” in stores and online, he said. The retailer also added to its leadership team for the category and both initiatives will be in place by Labor Day, he said. To help manage costs, h.h. gregg is closing its Indianapolis and Chicago distribution centers and consolidating operations in a new facility in the Cincinnati area, said Riesbeck. It will close six stores as part of the consolidation, including five in Wisconsin, and doesn’t expect additional “significant” store closings, he said. Net loss for the quarter was $7.2 million compared with an $8.6 million loss in the year-ago quarter. Shares closed down 4 percent Thursday to $2.19.

LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics each reported a profitable second quarter for their CE sectors Thursday, partly on robust shipments of higher-margin Ultra HD televisions. Q2 home entertainment revenue at LG jumped 6 percent year over year to $3.7 billion ($1 = 1,126 Korean won), the company said in a report. The sector swung to a $317 million operating profit from a year-earlier loss, it said. TV shipments fell sequentially from Q1 in the Middle East and Eastern Europe but increased in North America and Latin America, where “the revenue portion and shipments of premium TVs are continuously growing” it said. For Q3, “overall TV demand would remain sluggish,” but demand for TVs in the premium tier, including OLED TVs and Ultra HD sets, “will continuously move up,” it said. In Samsung’s report, Q2 revenue in the company CE sector jumped 3 percent from a year earlier to $10.3 billion, and operating profit doubled to $915 million, the company said. Samsung shipped 49 percent more Ultra HDs globally in Q2 than a year earlier, including a 33 percent increase in sets larger than 60 inches, it said. Samsung’s second-half outlook for the CE sector includes a plan to “strengthen marketing activity” for SUHD TVs with quantum-dot technology, it said.

Dish Network subscribers with Hopper 3 and 4K Joey boxes will be able to watch NBC’s coverage of the Rio Olympics in 4K on a new “dedicated linear channel” and via Dish’s “on-demand catalog,” albeit on a somewhat limited and delayed basis, Dish said in a Thursday announcement. The 4K coverage will be available on one-day delay and will include content from the swimming, track and field, basketball and judo competitions, it said. The men’s soccer final also will be available, as will the Aug. 21 closing ceremony and Rio “scenics,” it said. One event from the previous day’s competition will be shown daily and looped on channel 146 in three-hour intervals beginning Aug. 7, Dish said.

Samsung began taking preorders at its e-commerce store Thursday for a 40-inch designer TV that also will be available for U.S. customers through the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Design store on Aug. 6. The $1,499 4K Ultra HD Serif TV with high dynamic range was developed in collaboration with Paris designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. It also will be available next month through upscale furniture stores Bo Concept NY, Ligne Roset and Vitra in major markets, Samsung said. It’s the first time Samsung has aligned with a designer to “not only re-envision how the TV looks but also how it functions,” said the company. The name Serif derives from the TV’s frame that resembles the letter “I” in serif typeface. Four detachable slanting legs support the TV, which Samsung describes as having a minimal exterior, refined user interface and simplified remote control. Serif TV will be available in white across all retailers and in blue from Samsung and MoMA. Responding to our questions about extending the Serif line to other screen sizes or extending features to other Samsung TVs, a company spokeswoman said the features of Serif are exclusive to that product and the company had no further plans to share. The Serif TV "resonates with consumers who value design and who shop for aesthetically complementary pieces at premium design-centric retailers," she said, responding to our question on distribution through furniture stores. Showroom stores give Samsung the chance to showcase the TV either on its own legs or on a credenza, "which make it a piece of furniture in and of itself," she said.

Sky promises the U.K.’s “most comprehensive Ultra HD service” on Sky Q Silver when it launches the service Aug. 13, Sky said in a Thursday announcement. As part of the Ultra HD service, which requires a subscription and a Sky Q Silver set-top, customers can watch 124 live Premier League soccer games this season, and more than 70 movies, Sky said. “With Sky Q, we created the world’s best TV experience,” the company said. “Now with the introduction of an unrivaled line-up of Ultra HD TV, the service is going to get even better. ... So whether you’re a football fan, movie buff, natural history enthusiast or drama junkie, customers looking for the next-generation of TV viewing will love it.”

Italy’s national public broadcaster, RAI, and Eutelsat began delivering to Italian viewers Thursday the first of seven planned Euro2016 matches in Ultra HD. UEFA placed 14 Ultra HD cameras at the Vélodrome Stadium in Marseilles, and images were sent to the International Broadcasting Centre in Paris, where they were forwarded to Eutelsat’s Paris-Rambouillet teleport, they said. A temporary studio set up by RAI at the teleport added live commentary, before the special RAI 4K channel was encrypted and uplinked to Eutelsat’s Hotbird satellites, they said. Tivùsat homes equipped with an Ultra HD screen and a conditional access module certified by Tivùsat were able to watch the first quarterfinal match, due to be followed over the weekend by three additional quarterfinals, the semifinals on Wednesday and Thursday and Sunday’s final. The live broadcasts are precursor to the launch of regular Ultra HD channels, they said, and the installed base of Ultra HD screens in Italy is expected to hit 1 million units by the end of the year. Supporting partners are DBW Communication and V-Nova, proving the P.Link 4K encoding and decoding system.

Warner Bros. Entertainment joined HEVC Advance as both an H.265 licensor and licensee, the patent pool said in a Monday announcement. Warner becomes the second new member, after MediaTek last fall, to join HEVC Advance since its 2015 inception (see 1509230066). It's the first since founding member Technicolor bolted the group in early February because it disagreed with the HEVC Advance royalty structure and because it decided it wanted to license its H.265 patent portfolio on its own (see 1602040042). Having Warner’s backing will help eliminate H.265 intellectual property “barriers and greatly accelerate UHD adoption,” said HEVC Advance CEO Pete Moller in a statement.