AWE, the U.K. distributor of high-end specialty audio and video brands for custom installers, featured the first European demo Tuesday of the new Imax Enhanced video system with DTS-X surround sound. It staged the demo on a preview day for media and the trade of the Smart Home Expo it organized Wednesday and Thursday at its headquarters in Epsom, about 20 miles southwest of London. The demo used a test Ultra HD Blu-ray disc that DTS parent Xperi prepared with Imax to showcase Imax Enhanced on a $79,000 home theater system. The Imax Enhanced demo’s sound and pictures were expectedly loud and clear, but there was no opportunity for comparison with other versions of the same content. One novelty was a sequence in which the vertical expansion of the image was switched on and off. This showed how theatrical widescreen content can be displayed on a 16:9 consumer screen, without customary edge cropping or letterbox masking, and without image shape distortion. Technical information on Imax Enhanced was thin, with no details of the HDR system used, or how picture expansion without distortion is achieved. By coincidence, a lengthy and detailed U.S. patent application (20180288379) published Oct. 4 at the Patent and Trademark Office describes how image mapping can improve on systems such as Digital Imax by displaying content with a wide range of different picture ratios on a fixed size theatrical screen, without edge cropping or letter-boxing and without adding image shape distortion.

There are five “realities” about Ultra HD and HDR that “everyone should know,” and Thomas Bause Mason, SMPTE director-standards development, will disclose them during an NAB Show New York workshop Oct. 17, 2:45 p.m., at the Javits Convention Center, said SMPTE Thursday. Ultra HD TVs with HDR “are taking up more and more shelf space every day” at big-box retailers, said a session description. “What about the content, though? What about the professional media creation facilities and distribution?”

Liberty Global's Horizon 4 TV platform includes a set-top box that supports 4K resolution, a voice remote and an upgraded version of the Go app that ties to the set-top, the company said Wednesday as it unveiled the platform. It said Horizon 4 will debut in coming months in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium with a wider rollout to follow. It said the Horizon 4 set-top already is available in the U.K. as the V6 box, and close to two million customers are using it in combination with TiVo software, but the Horizon 4 platform combines the set-top with the Horizon 4 user interface.

Epson bowed a 4K projector with HDR for $1,999, it said Tuesday, highlighting 2,400 lumens brightness, 200:000:1 contrast ratio and wide color gamut. The Home Cinema 4010, with a trio of 1920 x 1080 LCD panels, accepts a maximum input of 4096 x 2160 pixels, said the company, using pixel-shifting to create a 4K experience similar to projectors claiming native 4K performance. It’s based on a 12-bit digital processing chip with frame interpolation and advanced motion control.

DTS expanded on the Imax Enhanced program (see 1809040073), emailing us that it's based on static-metadata-based HDR10 “with dynamic metadata as optional.” Benefits of Imax Mode are “achieved through a combination of software, calibration and performance standards,” a spokesman said. Products currently in the market that have been certified for the Imax Enhanced program could receive an Imax Mode through a software update, the spokesman said. Although the original announcement didn’t cite disc players as one of the hardware products in the Imax Enhanced chain, he said the program includes Ultra HD Blu-ray Discs and 4K HDR streaming content, “which will be streamed at or above existing 4K HDR bit rates.” Once a device is accepted into the program, DTS and Imax “will work with that CE manufacturer to design an IMAX Mode for that particular device that is meticulously optimized to play IMAX digitally remastered content for the best viewing and listening experience as the filmmaker intended,” he said. On the pricing premium that will apply to Imax Enhanced titles, the spokesman left that to the content producers, saying, “Studios will dictate pricing.” Sony and Sound United brands Denon and Marantz will be among the first to bring product to market with the Imax Mode. High-end video server company Kaleidescape didn't respond to questions on its plans for the technology.

Hisense announced two series of short-throw 4K Ultra HD smart laser TVs with Alexa voice control. Screen sizes range 88- to 120-inches for the two-piece projection TVs that will begin shipping this fall. “Ultra-short throw” optics allow viewing as close as 10 feet from the screen due to the laser TVs’ reflective light source, said to provide more comfortable viewing than LED-lit screens. The L10E laser TV series with HDR and wide color gamut is available in 100- and 120-inch screen configurations, Hisense said. The L8E Series laser TV is an 88-inch model designed for living rooms, bedrooms or media spaces, it said. Salamander Designs will launch cabinetry designed specifically for Hisense laser TVs, said Hisense. The cabinets will have an aluminum support chassis, flush top surface, recessed projector cavity design and active cooling system with built-in louvers to vent warm air, Hisense said.

Samsung filed dual applications last week in the EU and the U.S. to register “Quantum Processor 8K” as a trademark and service mark for LED-backlit TVs and other consumer goods, Patent and Trademark Office records show. Samsung this year touted the forthcoming introduction of quantum-dot 8K QLED displays that use machine-learning-based artificial intelligence to upscale image resolution to 8K from standard-definition and 1080p source material (see 1803070041). Samsung’s 8K TV lineup will begin with the debut later this year of 65- and 75-inch 60-Hz models and 120-Hz versions in 65-, 75- and 82-inch sizes, with a 120-Hz product in a 98-inch screen size planned for 2019, said Samsung Display representatives in June (see 1806270067). Additional details of the 8K TV launch likely will be disclosed at IFA, where Samsung has scheduled an Aug. 30 news conference.

The European Broadcasting Union will lead a team that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer and 17 other “industry partners” to do the world’s first distribution of Ultra HD signals with HDR and high frame rates of the European Athletics Championships in Berlin, said EBU Tuesday. The goal of the trials is to transmit 4K signals with hybrid log-gamma HDR at 100-Hz frame rates, it said. “Current state-of-the-art live broadcasts don’t exceed a field or frame rate of 50Hz in Europe, and HD interlaced (1080i25) is still the dominant broadcast emission format even though commercial encoders and TV sets manage up to 2160p50 resolution.” The championships open Thursday in Berlin for a 10-day run.

Samsung filed EU and U.S. trademark applications last week that hint at the promotional tagline the company will use when it begins marketing 8K TVs to consumers, Patent and Trademark Office records show. Samsung wants to register the phrase, “Turn everything you love into 8K,” for an international class of goods that includes TVs, mobile phones and smartwatches, said the PTO application, filed July 24, a day after Samsung submitted a similar application to the EU Intellectual Property Office. Samsung’s 8K TV lineup will begin with the debut this year of 60-Hz models in 65- and 75-inch screen sizes, culminating with the 2019 introduction of a 98-inch, 120-Hz product, a Samsung advanced display conference was told last month (see 1806270067). A Samsung spokeswoman declined comment Monday.

The BBC’s iPlayer platform trials fielded more than 1.6 million requests for livestreamed Ultra HD coverage of World Cup and Wimbledon matches, “a scale never seen before in the UK,” blogged Phil Layton, BBC R&D head-broadcast and connected systems. The trials showed for the first time that Ultra HD and HDR can be delivered live and “free-to-air” over the internet, he said Thursday. “We have always felt that Ultra HD needed to be more than just extra pixels,” so the trials also demonstrated the ability to beam hybrid log-gamma HDR and wide-color-gamut images with the 4K resolution, he said. “This is essential to improving the visual experience irrespective of the viewer’s screen size.” Latency is the big “elephant in the room for live internet streaming,” and is “less of an issue for everyday viewing, but it comes in to sharp focus when we look at sport,” blogged Jim Simmons, senior product manager-BBC Design & Engineering, also Thursday. For the live World Cup and Wimbledon Ultra HD trials, “we got latency down to between 45 seconds and a few minutes but it was very variable,” depending on the device, he said. “When we asked viewers about latency in our survey, while they wanted it to be as low as possible, most said they wouldn’t trade it off against picture quality.”