Contrary to recent statements from chipmaker Sigma Designs that Ultra HD's adoption rate "is going quite a bit faster than the industry forecasters had it pegged for" (see 1506100003), the growth of 4K TV "has been rapid, but perhaps less so than hoped for by supply chain stakeholders,” said an IHS white paper on how Ultra HD is “shaping” the display market. Market growth has “almost certainly been limited” by the scarcity of “diverse native UHD content and content sources, along with poor upscaling quality by some brands initially,” it said. For Ultra HD to become “an ongoing and long-term success like HD has been, it is not only about the deployment of technology into devices, but also about ensuring consumers receive and value 4K content,” it said.

SES launched an Ultra HD demonstration channel for the North American TV market, it said Tuesday. The channel, broadcast via SES-3 at 103 degrees west, will enable cable operators to prepare and test their networks for Ultra HD trials, the satellite operator said. The satellite provides broad coverage over North America and is positioned to deliver live and linear Ultra HD to cable networks, SES said. It joins three UHD demo channels available across Europe. SES initiated the new UHD demo channel in response to cable operator demand after its demonstration of the first live and linear Ultra HD broadcasts to cable systems at the NAB and INTX conferences this spring (see 1504130001). The Ultra HD broadcasts were enabled by SES’s Ultra-HD-ready linear content delivery network, which is used to transmit the UHD demo channel, SES said. The camera-to-screen ecosystem uses the multicasting capability of DOCSIS 3.0, used by most cable systems, it said. “Cable operators and content distributors can now begin to prepare their systems and test their networks for Ultra HD delivery, leading into major trials this summer,” said SES Vice President-Business Development, North America Steve Corda. The channel is expected to reach subscribers’ homes later this year.

Universal Pictures joined the UHD Alliance as its fifth major studio member, following Disney, Fox, Sony and Warner, the alliance’s website shows. ARRI Group, which bills itself as the world’s largest supplier of professional motion picture equipment, also has joined, as have Taiwanese chipmaker MStar Semiconductor and Nanosys, which has partnered with 3M on quantum-dot display technology, it says. DTS and Nvidia also are listed as new members.

Global Q1 shipments of 4K LCD TVs reached 4.7 million units, a nearly 400 percent increase from Q1 a year earlier, IHS said Monday in a report. Overall TV shipments, including LCD, plasma, OLED and CRT, fell 2 percent year over year, while all LCD TV shipments alone rose almost 3 percent, IHS said: “The disparity in growth has to do with the significant reduction in both plasma and CRT shipments compared to a year ago.” Availability of 4K TVs is mainly confined to screen sizes larger than 40 inches, where 4K’s benefits “can be most clearly observed,” and also in regions where consumers are more willing to spend a premium to upgrade, IHS said. Overall, 9 percent of all TV shipments in Q1, but more than 31 percent of sets 50 inches and larger, were 4K TVs, it said.

Ateme is providing the primary H.265 video encoding platform for live 4K broadcasts during the two-week French Open tennis championships, the video compression technology supplier said in a Wednesday announcement. The live video is being encoded in Ultra HD at 50 frames a second using BT.2020 colorimetry, Ateme said. The images are being broadcast on the Fransat satellite platform, “and can be viewed on any 4K compatible TV,” it said, though no consumer TVs on the market today are capable of reproducing BT.2020 color.

AU Optronics will use this week's Display Week conference to showcase Ultra HD displays for 6-inch smartphones and 15.6- and 17.3-inch notebook PCs, the panel maker said in a Monday announcement. Its debuts make 4K displays "the new parameter for high-end mobile devices," it said. "When 4K videos are played, colors are more vividly rendered, while figures and objects stand out even more three-dimensionally to deliver impressive images with extreme details and authenticity," it said. The company gave no details in its announcement on pricing or availability. Display Week's exhibition floor opens Tuesday for a three-day run at the San Jose Convention Center.

The Hisense 50-inch H7 Series Ultra HD TV will be available next month at Walmart, both online and at brick-and-mortar stores, Hisense USA said in a Tuesday announcement. Touting what Hisense is calling “the industry's only 4-year UHDTV warranty,” the set is among the first to carry the “Netflix Recommended TV” mark, Hisense said. At $598, it’s also sure to be among the industry’s least expensive 4K TVs. The set features “premium” 4K upconversion and is HDMI 2.0- and HDCP 2.2-compliant, the company said.

“Internet of Everything” and “4K/8K UHD and Beyond HD” are two of 15 listed technical topics on which submissions are sought for the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Technical Conference and Exhibition this fall, SMPTE said Tuesday in a call for papers. The event, set for Oct. 27-29 in Hollywood, is “the premier annual technology event covering current and future developments in media technology, content creation, image and sound, over-the-top, and the allied arts & sciences,” the solicitation said. For those answering the call for papers, SMPTE set a June 26 deadline for submitting a topic heading, paper title and an abstract of 50-100 words.

More than a month after issuing a call for “contributing members” (see 1504070054), the UHD Alliance is on the cusp of announcing the first of those new members, Sony executive Victor Matsuda told us. Matsuda, the alliance’s vice chairman, also chairs its promotions working group and so is its official spokesman. Matsuda declined to name or speculate on individual companies that soon may join as contributing members but told us recently the alliance has gotten queries from dozens of firms expressing interest in joining.

Ultra HD resolution is becoming “mainstream” in the high-end TV market, with shipments of 4K TV panels having jumped to 19 million in 2014 from only 63,000 in 2012, Yoonsung Chung, director-large-area displays and flat-panel display materials analysis in the DisplaySearch Korea office, said Monday in a blog post. DisplaySearch parent IHS forecasts 4K TV panel penetration will double in 2015 to 15 percent and double again to more than 30 percent in 2018, Chung said. But as resolution “continues to be pushed even higher,” the logical “next question” is when will 8K displays start to penetrate the market, he asked. Based on historical trends in the migration to higher resolutions, “it seems possible that 8K display penetration could start around 2018,” he said. Not only is that the general time frame when Japan wants to start commercial 8K broadcasts in preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but from an “industry perspective,” 2018 also seems “a reasonable year” to introduce 8K displays, he said. It’s possible 4K will have “become mature around then,” so 2018 “could be the year that industry players need another driver,” like 8K, to help stimulate the market, he said. But technical challenges will abound in making 8K displays a mainstream reality, Chung said. For one thing, 8K will need four times more data processing and pixels in the display as 4K, he said. “This means that high-speed electron-mobility-backplane technology is required,” he said. It’s also believed that 8K displays “cause poor transmittance compared with typical panels, creating lower brightness, higher costs, and greater power consumption,” he said. “Finding ways to overcome these issues will be a big challenge for panel makers.”