IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - October 2015 - 90

HBO now offers its service over the
top, or without a cable subscription,
and companies like Netflix and
Amazon are creating dozens
of new shows for direct distribution
to consumers through their
own channels.
adopters, and ultimately government-mandated [2] adoption of
high-definition TV (HDTV) still fresh, there seemed to be little
incentive for anyone to break the impasse. After all, there would
not soon be another nudge from the government, like the switch
from analog to digital broadcast, and cable providers are notoriously slow to change. (Ever notice how your channel guide
looks the same as it did in 1998?) So, even as display makers
began shipping their first UHD-capable sets, it looked as though
adoption of UHD could be in for an even longer slog to the
mainstream than HD.
Then, China happened, and things started to move fast. Driven mostly by sales in China, shipments of UHD TVs grew an
amazing 633% in the last year to more than 12 million units.
Chinese TV brands looking for an edge were suddenly cranking
out sub-US$1,000 UHD sets, making the technology more
accessible to more people faster than almost anyone predicted.
Still, the impasse might not have broken without a couple
of other technology-driven changes in the market. A new,
"over-the-top" direct content distribution model is enabling
consumers to access full UHD content today while new hardware in the form of both content creation tools and display
technologies is bringing the viewing experience to life.

DISTRIBUTION DYNAMICS

Viewer Preference (DQS)

Content distribution is changing rapidly. HBO now offers its service over the top, or without a cable subscription, and companies

Cinema Color
HD Color
Mobile
Device
Color

UHD Color

FHD
HD

Color Gamut
Resolution

UHD "4K"

UHD "8K"

480 p

Value Relative to FHD
FIgURE 1. 3M's display quality score (DQS) for a 55-in display at a
9-ft viewing distance. For more information, see http://
multimedia.3m.com/.
90 IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

october 2015

like Netflix and Amazon are creating dozens of new shows for
direct distribution to consumers through their own channels
[3]. In fact, Amazon Prime subscribers with a Samsung Super
UHD TV can now watch Amazon's hit show Mozart in the
Jungle [4] in its full HDR glory at home. So, while the broadcast cable middleman is still there for most of us, millions of
TV viewers now get their content directly from the content creators themselves.
The incentives are totally different for these over-the-top
distributors. They're able to efficiently serve even a small population of early adopters by delivering content on a one-to-one
basis. This means they can offer premium-quality content to
customers who want to pay for it without having to make costly or complex changes to a legacy broadcasting backbone.
According to Netflix's chief product officer, Neil Hunt [5]:
If you're a broadcaster or a cable operator, it's very hard to
imagine upgrading to HDR or 4K until there are enough
televisions at the other end to be able to receive it. You
have to allocate channels, you have to allocate new decoders, and all the rest of it. Netflix, because we're delivering
one-to-one, has the capability to deliver even to a very
sparse number of users.

CAPTURE AND DISPLAY
UHD means more than just 4K resolution. It's now possible
for content creators to capture more colorful, dynamic, and
lifelike images than ever before with powerful production
tools like the ARRI Alexa SXT camera [6]. At the same time,
new display technologies like quantum dots [7] make it possible to actually see everything that these cameras can capture in our living rooms. We saw a preview of what this looks
like at IFA 2015 this year with nearly every new set from the
top brands offering all the immersive UHD features from 4K
to wide color gamut to HDR.
This sounds great, you're probably thinking, but how does
the UHD experience really compare to the HD set in my living room today? Will I be able to see the difference, or is this
just the next 3-D? Let's take a look at UHD's top three image
quality features-resolution, color, and HDR-to get a sense
of how they compare to HD.
Resolution is probably the most talked about new UHD feature, and just about all UHD sets will ship with a super-sharp
resolution of 3,840 × 2,160 pixels. That's four times the resolution of today's 1,920 × 1,080 HDTVs. It's a big improvement,
but it's actually not the most noticeable feature of UHD. This
is because HDTV was already close to the limit of what the
average human eye can resolve from a distance of 9 ft away
(the distance most of us sit from our TVs).
Color is a different story. HDTVs can only display about
one-third of the range of colors our eyes can detect, so there's
a lot more room for improvement. UHD sets with wide color
gamut will deliver about 5,000 times more color information
to consumers in terms of both a wider range of colors and
more accuracy. The difference is striking.
Display component maker 3M recently commissioned a
study to look at viewer preference for resolution versus color.

http://http:// http://multimedia.3m.com/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - October 2015