Quebec’s largest cable provider Videotron launched what its supplier Alticast is calling Canada’s “first availability” of a 4K Ultra HD set-top “on a commercial basis throughout a cable system operator's entire service footprint.” Alticast is supplying the set-top box’s middleware and user-interface “enablement,” it said in a Wednesday announcement. The “tremendous promise” that Ultra HD “holds for our customers can only be realized by true commitment on the part of the entire industry," said Pierre Roy, Videotron vice president-engineering R&D. Rogers Cable, Canada’s largest cable provider, has claimed several 4K firsts, such as its beaming in January of the first-ever live NBA and NHL games in 4K to customers with a NextBox 4K set-top (see 1601140002). For Rogers, those broadcasts began "a big year of content for our customers who will be able to access over 500 hours of live sports, movies and shows in 4K, including all 81 Toronto Blue Jays home games on Sportsnet," spokesman Andrew Garas emailed us Wednesday. As for the implication in the Alticast-Videotron announcement that not all cable customers in the Rogers Canadian “service footprint” have access to the 4K NextBox set-top, Garas said: "Currently, Rogers 4K TV is available to our entire Ontario cable footprint."

Vizio announced SmartCast, a smart entertainment ecosystem covering displays, soundbars and stand-alone speakers. The P-Series TVs are the first Ultra HD and HDR TVs to fully integrate Google Cast technology, said Vizio Tuesday, and are controlled by the Vizio SmartCast app that comes preinstalled on the included 6-inch Android tablet remote. Prices start at $999 for the 50-inch model, it said. The SmartCast app turns mobile device screens into a remote control, allowing users to search and browse content by genre across multiple apps at once and then select the app or source to play the content, Vizio said. The app also simplifies on-screen navigation by allowing users to see and adjust settings, navigate apps from across the room and gain access to all menus and playback controls via the app, said the company. The SmartCast app will solve the problem of lost remote controls for consumers, it said. Through Google Cast, consumers can access thousands of mobile apps, and by tapping the Cast button they can watch content jump from their mobile screen to a Vizio SmartCast or Cast-enabled device on the home network, it said.

Online abstracts are due April 22 for papers to be presented at the Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers annual technical conference and exhibition Oct. 24-28 in Hollywood, California, SMPTE said Friday in a call for proposals. Proposed papers “must be informational and must address technical theory, research, innovation, application, or practice specific to any of the evolving technologies associated with the media technology industry,” SMPTE said. Suggested topics include Ultra HD, “color and dynamic range management,” new distribution methods such as ATSC 3.0 and content security, it said.

AT&T’s announcement that DirecTV will beam all four rounds of next month's Masters golf tournament in Ultra HD (see 1603090060) “is terrific and will spur further interest” in 4K TVs, CTA President Gary Shapiro emailed us Wednesday. But Shapiro stopped well short of calling the DirecTV initiative a “tipping point” for Ultra HD as he had called the launch of ESPN HD and its impact on HDTV adoption. Ultra HD 4K TVs are “already successful, consumers are buying millions of sets and it is doing great as more programmers realize consumers love it!” Shapiro said.

Best Buy began taking orders Thursday for 2016 Insignia 4K Roku TVs on its website, and the TVs will be in stores early next month, the retailer said. Prices are $399 for the 43-inch model, $499 for the 50-inch and $649 for the 55-inch, it said. Clearing out 2015 inventory of Roku HDTV models, Best Buy had a Sharp 2015 LC-43LB371U Roku TV on sale Thursday for $319 and a 50-inch model for $429. A 32-inch 2015 Insignia Roku HDTV was on sale for $199.

Ultra HD needs strict standards and policing of those standards to prevent what happened in the HD market, where non-HD screens were sold as HD, said Antonio Arcidiacono, Eutelsat director-innovation, during an Ultra HD panel Tuesday at the Satellite 2016 conference in National Harbor, Maryland. There already have been signs of such problems, such as sale of 2K Blu-ray discs as 4K, he said. "If you fool the customers, the market will not grow." While Ultra HD lacks a clear definition, traits beyond just higher definition -- from wider color space and higher frame rates to immersive sound -- when put together, "you get the 'wow' factor," said Peter Siebert, executive director of the DVB Project. He said industry specifications have been worked out cooperatively for the high-resolution areas, and now there's work being done on specifications for high dynamic range, high frame rate and related matters. The market is seeing Ultra HD TVs "somewhat in advance of our ability to deliver content to them," said Steve Richeson, Advantech Wireless senior vice president-global sales and business development. He said "4K seems to be customer pull." But the satellite industry is somewhat dropping the Ultra HD ball, with Netflix having launched service in 4K, said Arcidiacono. Satellite providers need to better promote Ultra HD, though the industry has launched some Ultra HD channels, he said.

Total 2015 TV shipments fell 4 percent year over year to 226 million units in 2015 despite “impressive” 4K TV shipment growth, said IHS Wednesday. An “abrupt weakening” of global demand for TVs, combined with LCD capacity expansion, caused an oversupply of TVs in the second half, said IHS. But while oversupply has led to “extremely steep” LCD TV panel price declines, savings haven’t passed on to consumers due to inflation and currency depreciation, IHS said. Plasma and CRT shipments fell to “negligible” levels, and OLED TV is still in early stages of growth, while the dominant LCD category fell less than 1 percent in shipments last year to 224 million units, compared with a 7 percent increase in 2014, it said. In 4K TVs, shipments jumped 173 percent to 32 million units, pushed by average-selling-price-per-inch erosion of nearly 30 percent, said the researcher. The pace of TV screen size growth slowed in 2015, with the average TV display size halving its 2014 growth rate, rising only 2 percent to 39.3 inches, IHS said. But the 4K TV segment, even at midrange screen sizes of 40-50 inches, has been “better than expected,” said IHS, accounting for half of 55-inch-and-larger TV shipments in 2015 and 30 percent of TV shipments in the 48-50-inch range. In Q4, North America TV shipments increased 2 percent while TV shipments declined 2 percent globally, IHS said. China TV sales surged 12 percent on Chinese New Year sales. “Like China, North America has largely been unaffected by depreciation and inflation due to the strong dollar, leading to steady, if slow, shipment growth, though inventory management remains a concern,” said analyst Paul Gagnon. TV shipments in emerging markets fell 6 percent year over year in the quarter, IHS said. Latin America TV shipments were down 6 percent, limited by a subsidy program in Mexico that offset an 18 percent shipment falloff in Brazil, it said.

Panasonic's DMP-UB900 Ultra HD Blu-ray player will arrive on European store shelves around mid-April, bundled with two free Warner titles -- San Andreas and Mad Max Fury Road, Panasonic Europe said Monday at its product launch convention in Frankfurt. Both titles are encoded with Dolby Atmos surround, but not Dolby Vision high dynamic range. They were among several Warner titles whose jackets were on display at Samsung's CES booth bearing the UHD Alliance's Ultra HD Premium logo (see 1601060049). Panasonic North America representatives didn't comment on U.S. pricing or availability of the DMP-UB900, which will be sold in Europe for the equivalent of $835, well above the $399 price point of Samsung's Ultra HD Blu-ray player.

Bargain website Brad’s Deals posted a Samsung 55-inch 4K smart TV Thursday cart-priced for $698.97 at Walmart.com. The price for the UN55JU6400 is the “lowest price we’ve ever seen,” said Brad’s, comparing it with prices of “at least $895 anywhere else.”

The first two satellites in ViaSat's ViaSat-3 ultra-high capacity satellite platform are expected to be ready in 2019, the satellite company said in a news release Tuesday. The ViaSat-3 constellation will include three satellites, and the first two will have more than twice the total network capacity of the roughly 400 commercial satellites currently in orbit combined, the company said. ViaSat said the ViaSat-3 platform -- with network capacity of more than 1 Tbps per satellite -- promises residential broadband service of 100-plus Mbps, which would enable 4K Ultra-HD video streaming; "hundreds" of Mbps for in-flight connectivity; and up to 1 Gbps speeds for maritime, oceanic and other enterprise applications.