The UHD Alliance will soon broaden its outreach to broadcasters on certification criteria for high dynamic range and other premium performance attributes, Dan Schinasi, director-product planning at Samsung Electronics America, told us at CES. Typifying that outreach, the alliance will have the European Broadcasting Union host the next alliance meeting in late January at its Geneva headquarters, said Schinasi, alliance spokesman. “There’s no simple answer” how the alliance’s Ultra HD Premium certification logo could be applied to broadcast content that qualifies for it, he said. “Really what’s important” is that broadcasters throughout the world “are interested in making sure that HDR metadata -- if there is metadata attached to it -- that it’s transported, that we don’t lose anything,” he said. It’s the subject of a “very active discussion” as to what performance attributes would be included in a UHD Alliance spec for broadcasters, he said. “Certain attributes are more demonstrable than others,” he said. “There’s different thoughts, different philosophies, of what’s important.”

Westinghouse will bow Ultra HD 4K TVs for 2017 with a smart TV feature that rivals Roku, it said in a CES teaser Tuesday. The new smart TV operating system “by a major partner” will launch Jan. 3 at CES Unveiled, said the company.

The UHD Alliance plans a CES announcement with “some updates," but nothing that would "justify a full-blown press conference,” spokeswoman Heather Gioco emailed us. Except for an April announcement expanding its certification program to Ultra HD Blu-ray players (see 1604120017), it has been a quiet year for the alliance since last CES, where it announced its Ultra HD Premium logo program (see 1601030003). Compliance with a series of “performance metrics” on image resolution, color gamut and high dynamic range will determine which devices and content will qualify to bear Ultra HD Premium as a “consumer-facing” logo, the alliance said then. But the alliance, whose formation was announced at CES two years ago (see 1501060001), has yet to publicly release a list of certified TVs, Ultra HD Blu-ray players and content, and tabs for accessing those lists at the alliance’s website were still password-protected Friday.

HDTV will “become the norm” in the U.K. beginning Jan. 1 because the Freeview logo will be “withdrawn” from new standard-definition TVs and set-top boxes entering the market, the subscription-free over-the-air TV viewing service said in a Thursday announcement. The change will be a “landmark moment” in the evolution of U.K. TV service and will pave the way “for further improvements in picture quality, including Ultra HD,” said Freeview Managing Director Guy North in a statement. Freeview calls itself the U.K.’s “most widely used TV service,” and estimates it reaches 19 million homes. The withdrawal of the Freeview logo from new SD products, first publicized in 2015, already has helped drive a 36 percent decline in sales of SD TVs, while HDTV sales have surged to make up 80 percent of the 6 million TVs sold in the U.K. each year, Freeview said. It emphasized the Jan. 1 change applies only to new SD equipment. “Legacy SD equipment will still be able to access Freeview channels,” it said. “No viewers will experience a loss of service.”

Comcast is offering customers a free trial through Sunday of its X1 platform enhanced movie extras offering, it said in a news release Friday. Through the service -- which Comcast said it created with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, Lionsgate, Paramount Home Media Distribution and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment -- viewers who digitally buy certain movie titles also get extras such as photo galleries and video clips that update as the movie plays, games, set tours and maps. Comcast said it expects to expand the number of movies and studios in 2017.

The international travel channel Travelxp 4K will debut on SES’ Ultra HD distribution platform next month through North American pay-TV providers, the satellite company announced Monday. Travelxp 4K will launch on the SES-1 satellite, one of three that host the company’s Ultra HD distribution platform in the region, it said. SES now has signed distribution agreements with more than 30 Ultra HD channels globally, it said. Travelxp 4K will showcase global travel content in 10-bit Rec.2020 color space with hybrid-log gamma high dynamic range, SES said.

Rogers Communications will begin deploying Comcast's X1 platform in early 2018, it announced Friday. Before the X1 launch, Rogers said, it will make changes to its existing video platform, including additional 4K content and a 4K personal video recorder. The Canada cable company said it's moving to X1 "to ensure it has access to the scale and technical roadmap needed to meet the ongoing pace of IPTV innovation." Comcast previously licensed X1 to Cox Communications in the U.S. and Canada's Shaw (see 1507230038).

HEVC Advance will waive the licensing and collection of royalty fees on H.265 application-layer software downloaded to mobile devices or PCs after the initial sale of the device, the patent pool administrator said. The initiative is to “encourage widespread adoption” of H.265 technology in consumer devices, CEO Pete Moller said. H.265 technology “implemented in specialized hardware circuitry provides the best and most efficient user experience, [but] there are millions of existing mobile devices and personal computers that do not have” that hardware capability, Moller said. The initiative “is tailored to enable software app and browser providers” to include H.265 capability in their software products so “everyone can enjoy” Ultra HD video today, he said. HEVC Advance debuted a high-priced, multitiered royalty rate structure two summers ago with no provisions for incentive discounts or annual payment caps (see 1507220001). But royalty waivers, discounts and yearly caps abounded in the revised HEVC Advance pricing schedule released about a year ago after the patent pool worked many months quietly behind the scenes to accommodate industry pushback over its high rates and complicated structure (see 1512210034). The new announcement was HEVC Advance’s latest pricing concessions to land more licensees. It has three known licensees -- Sky, Strong TV and Warner Bros. Entertainment, which also joined in June as a licensor (see 1606280012). HEVC Advance’s website Tuesday designated its licensee list as “coming soon.”

The rise in 4K-capable streaming media players is helping drive Ultra HD TV adoption mainstream, said a Tuesday NPD report. Some 38 percent of consumers surveyed said they’re very or somewhat likely to use a 4K TV in the future, up five percentage points since Q1, NPD said. As of Q3, 87 percent of installed 4K TVs had active internet connections, showing an interest among 4K TV owners in streaming media. Recent 4K-capable streaming media device launches from Amazon, Google and Roku will boost the transition to 4K TV adoption, it said. In Q3, 32 percent of U.S. Internet homes had at least one installed streaming media player, up by 7 million homes over the past year, fueled by the growing number of streaming TV services, said NPD. Only a limited number of streaming media player owners have used a 4K streamer, however, said NPD. A higher percentage of millennials -- more than half -- are aware of them and 39 percent said they’re interested in using 4K streaming media devices in the future, said the research firm. Broadband speed will be critical to 4K video streaming, said NPD. An internet connection speed of 25 Mbps or higher is recommended for 4K streaming, and currently about 5 million U.S. households have the broadband infrastructure required, it said. The number of U.S. households with 25 Mbps or higher internet speeds has been growing through the year, but so has the competition for the pipeline, with the average home having eight connected devices, putting a strain on the network’s ability to transmit a 4K video stream, NPD said. “Content distributors with an infrastructure prepared to offer 4K UHD video streaming are poised to take advantage of the pending inflection point in the display and TV programming industries, as viewers who stream video will be the first to expect their movies and TV shows delivered in 4K resolution,” said NPD analyst John Buffone. The survey, done July 28-Aug. 15, reached 5,364 U.S. consumers, aged 18-plus from diverse regions and demographical backgrounds.

Harmonic is “finally seeing real signs of life" for Ultra HD and high-dynamic-range “channel deployments” among major pay-TV providers, CEO Patrick Harshman said on an earnings call. “Although coming slower than we had originally anticipated, a maturing ecosystem, new channel launches and growing television sales and consumer interest and continuous innovation in video quality and bandwidth efficiencies are all now coming together, giving us confidence the global trend of Ultra HD and HDR adoption is finally arriving,” he said Wednesday. “Despite the late arrival of 4K, Harmonic continues to invest in enabling R&D and ecosystem integration work, and consequently we are well positioned to take advantage of the 4K wave.”