Though TV makers have announced or introduced 8K TVs, the 4K segment will continue to cement its place as the mainstream TV format over the next few years, with more than 233 million sets expected to ship in 2024, reported ABI Research Thursday. “The cost of 8K TV sets is far from affordable for most consumers,” said analyst Khin Sandi Lynn, citing previewed models from Samsung, LG, Sony and TCL, priced between $5,000 and $70,000. Price will limit 8K sales volume for the “foreseeable future,” though price points will decline to more reasonable levels over the next several years, mirroring 4K trends, said the analyst. The lack of content and distribution models are more significant barriers than cost, though, for 8K TV adoption, said Lynn, noting that only Japanese broadcaster NHK is currently delivering 8K broadcast channels. Korean Broadcasting is working toward an 8K broadcast, and streaming service provider Rakuten recently announced intent to provide 8K content late this year, she said, but service providers overall “are not ready for 8K content, nor is there much incentive for content providers due to limited 8K TV set adoption.” The need for larger data files with 8K content creates challenges for distribution and data management, said Lynn. Versatile Video Coding, promising 34 percent higher efficiency vs. HEVC, is in the standardization process and will play a key role in driving the 8K TV market when the standard is completed next year, she said: “8K is likely to gain momentum only when challenges are addressed, and the ecosystem evolves.”

Best Buy slashed the price of TCL’s 4-Series 55-inch 4K Roku TV to $299 from $329 in a Dads and Grads promotion, said TCL North America Friday. The offer is available through July 4 in-store and at BestBuy.com, said the vendor. The set has HDR10 and TCL’s “4K creative pro upscaling” feature.

“Technical manuscript proposals” are sought for presentation at SMPTE’s annual conference and exhibition, now that the call for papers is open for the Oct. 21-26 event in Los Angeles, said the society Monday. Abstracts are due online by April 30 on a wide range of possible topics, including Ultra HD, HDR, high frame rates, the future of media distributions, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Early submissions will ensure proposed papers get maximum “consideration” from the conference’s program committee, which plans to finish picking the winning paper entries by June 15, it said.

Harmonic continues to see growing demand for its Ultra HD “solutions,” said CEO Patrick Harshman Monday on a Q4 call. Harmonic’s UHD-related sales rose 58 percent sequentially, “which continues the strong sequential UHD growth trend we saw throughout the year,” he said. “Frankly, it's been a long time coming, and we're pleased to be finally taking advantage of a growing worldwide investment cycle and deploying and monetizing high-quality ultra-high-definition programming.” The cable gearmaker expects total Q1 revenue to fall sequentially, to as low as $80 million from Q4's $113.7 million. Its outlook missed expectations, Raymond James' Simon Leopold wrote investors. "Harmonic’s business pivot has progressed, but the process will take time." The weaker guidance and other financial bad news from Casa "could fuel concerns regarding a pause in cable TV operator spending," the analyst said. Harmonic closed down 8 percent Tuesday at $4.97.

Though CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus predicted at NAB Show New York that broadcasting live sports in 4K or 8K would take the same slow, methodical migration path as HD (see 1810170060), 4K and 8K cameras figure prominently in the network's plans to telecast the Super Bowl Feb. 3 from Atlanta, it said Thursday. In so doing, CBS will continue “its long tradition of introducing innovation and technology to the sports broadcasting industry at the Super Bowl,” including when in February 2004 it became the first to broadcast the Super Bowl pregame, game, halftime show and postgame show in HD. This year, for the “first time ever on any network” in the U.S., CBS will use “multiple” 8K cameras for the telecast, plus 16 cameras with 4K “capabilities,” it said. The 8K cameras will use a “unique, highly constructed engineering solution” to give viewers “dramatic close-up views of the action” from the end zones, it said. The “bonanza” of 4K cameras “will provide additional live game camera angles, and give the production the ability to replay key moments of the game in a super slo-motion and an HD cut-out with zoomed-in perspectives with minimal resolution loss,” said CBS. Its Super Bowl plans also include using a live, wireless handheld camera showing augmented-reality graphics and “up-close camera tracking on the field,” it said. “This will allow the camera to get closer to these virtual graphics in a way that gives viewers different perspectives and angles including never-before-seen field level views of these graphics.”

More than 200 million households globally have an Ultra HD TV, Strategy Analytics reported Thursday, predicting that number will reach 222 million by year's end, up 50 percent from year-end 2017. Only 3 percent of Ultra HD TVs in use by January will be 8K-ready, the rest having 4K displays, it said. Some 71 percent of U.S. homes will own an Ultra HD TV by 2023, it said. Sales of 8K TVs will reach more than 400,000 units next year and top 11 million by 2023, or 6 percent of the Ultra HD market, but the researcher’s expectation for 8K services is “cautious”: “While Japan has now launched 8K TV in preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the rest of the world will be slower to follow suit, given that the number of homes with 8K-ready TVs will remain low until the mid 2020s,” said analyst David Mercer. Owners of 8K TVs will mostly watch 4K and HD content, “while the TV’s image processors will do a good job of scaling most content to give impressive images,” said analyst David Watkins. Image resolution is only one element in perceived video quality, Watkins said, mentioning HDR and high frame rate as additional drivers of consumer satisfaction.

Himax sees potential benefits to its large-display driver IC and timing-controller businesses from the impending introduction from “many” TV brands of “consumer-grade super high-end” 8K TVs, said CEO Jordan Wu on a Thursday earnings call. An “industry-leading” TV-maker customer will launch a new 8K TV early in 2019 “with Himax technology inside,” he said. “We expect more to come from this and other customers in the future.” Himax recorded high-single-digit Q3 growth in its large-display driver IC business from improved components supply, “ongoing capacity expansion” from Chinese panel-maker customers and shipments to a new panel customer that “only started ramping up their first fab lately,” he said. For Q4, “we are seeing continued strength in customer demand,” and better “order fulfillment,” despite “industry-wide capacity constraints” in the packaging of components, he said.

BBC’s iPlayer service will stream the upcoming natural-history series Dynasties in 4K with hybrid log-gamma HDR, beginning Nov. 11, said the broadcaster Wednesday. Audiences will need an internet connection of at least 24 Mbps for the full 3840x2560 image, which will be streamed at 25 frames a second, it said. “Dynasties is exactly the kind of landmark BBC programme that audiences want to see in Ultra HD,” said Matthew Postgate, BBC chief technology and product officer, in a statement. “We’ve been trialling Ultra HD over the past couple of years as we reinvent the BBC, and it’s clear that people enjoy the increased quality.” The BBC's Ultra HD trials included 4K HDR streams this summer of the royal wedding, the World Cup and Wimbledon tennis, said Postgate.

Harmonic saw Q3 Ultra HD sales increase 138 percent sequentially, said CEO Patrick Harshman on a Monday-evening earnings call. It was “particularly impressive” because such Q2 sales were up 200 percent year-over-year, he said: “We’re well positioned to take advantage of growing worldwide interest in deploying and monetizing high-quality ultra high-definition programming.”

Ultra HD 4K TVs will be nearly half of all TVs shipped worldwide this year, said a Futuresource report last week, calling it a “thriving segment.” By 2022, the installed base of 4K TVs will be triple that of today, and household penetration will reach 37 percent, it said. The content gap that has existed for 4K content “is being filled,” with significant growth in available 4K content in the first half of the year, led by international sports: the Winter Olympics in South Korea, broadcast by Japan’s NHK and the Olympic Broadcasting services, and the FIFA World Cup games in Russia, recorded in 4K and delivered via satellite, cable, IP and over-the-top video services. The high-resolution video format is an opportunity for Blu-ray, though consumer uptake of 4K Blu-ray players “is slow, perhaps due to a lack of vendor initiatives and retailer support” beyond the U.S. and Canada, said Futuresource. The availability of 4K UHD content on subscription VOD services reinforces consumer perception that streaming is the cutting edge of entertainment technology, said analyst Tristan Veale, noting there's a “very small, if any, cost premium" for Ultra HD via SVOD services, which he called “contrary to positioning this as a premium product.” Service providers and rights holders are creating a period of “turbulent pricing” by experimenting with price points, content bundles and delivery mechanisms, said Veale, creating a consumer experience that could become “disjointed and fragmented.” Aggressive promotions are bringing 4K UHD content to the price level of HD movies, he said.