IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - October 2015 - 91

HERE COMES THE CONTENT
UHD TV
Household Ownership by Region
50
North America
Western Europe
Asia Pacific
Central and Latin America
Central and Eastern Europe
Africa Middle East
Global

Household Penetration (%)

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5

20
20

19
20

18
20

15
20

14
20

13
20

0
Year
FIgURE 2. UHD TV household ownership. (Source: Strategy Analytics.)

Across thousands of people, in 30 different countries and
across genders and cultures, they found that, after viewing
HD resolution, users showed a distinct preference for better
color. In the study, 86% of participants would choose a set
with 1,080-vertical pixels (distinguished from horizontal resolution, which is 1,920 pixels in FHD) HD resolution and
UHD color over an 8K set with HD color (Figure 1).
You've probably heard that a good "black level," a measure of just how inky black a TV can make a black pixel, is
important to look for when choosing a new TV. This is
because black level translates directly to contrast ratio-the
deeper the black, the better the contrast and the richer and
more lifelike the image, especially in darker scenes.
You can think of HDR like contrast ratio on steroids. HDR
TVs push the dynamic range in both directions with deeper
blacks and brighter colors. Most HDR UHD sets will deliver
about 1,000 nits of brightness, which is roughly two-and-a-half
times brighter than the average HDTV. It sounds almost painfully bright, but the idea here isn't to blast users into snow
blindness with full white screens at full brightness. Having
extra brightness headroom available can add tremendous depth
and realism to the kinds of tough-to-capture scenes that used to
make cinematographers lose sleep. Think super bright stars
popping out against a black sky or a bright candle in a dimly lit
room or sunlight glinting off of a suit of armor.
The combination of these features offers much more than
another incremental improvement in image quality. Seeing is
believing, of course, so I'd recommend taking a test drive at
your favorite local electronics store. I think you will find that,
for the first time in quite a while, the differences between the
TVs consumers have in their living rooms and the new sets at
their local Best Buy retail outlet is dramatic.

As a result of these technological changes, content creators
are beginning to respond with new content that takes advantage of all the new features UHD TV sets have to offer, and
they're moving fast too. Just last year, Netflix was among the
first companies to deliver 4K content to your home with
House of Cards [8]. A year later, they say they've already
started shooting ten new TV series in full UHD with both
wide color gamut and HDR (Figure 2).
So, the impasse is starting to look more like a virtuous
cycle, with content availability driving interest in upgrades
from last-generation flat panels and premium display features
showing off just how great that content can look. Shipments
of UHD sets are now expected to double this year, and we
may see nearly half of U.S. households owning a UHD TV
by the year 2020, according to research firm Strategy Analytics [9]. That's just incredibly fast when you look at the adoption of HDTV, which saw its first sets ship in the late 1990s
and took around ten years to reach 50% of U.S. households.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Yurek (jyurek@nanosysinc.com) has advanced degrees
from Suffolk University's Sawyer School of Management and
the Berklee College of Music. He is the product marketing
manager at Nanosys. He writes a blog on emerging display
technologies, about which he notes: "My aim is to provide a
useful resource on the science, software, engineering, and art
that go into making the displays we use every day so amazing."

REFERENCES
[1] J. Yurek. (2013, Feb. 13). Apple CEO Tim Cook talks color quality at
Goldman Sachs conference. [Online]. Available: http://www.nanosysinc.
com/dot-color-archive/2013/02/13/apple-ceo-tim-cook-talks-colorquality-at-goldman-sachs-conference
[2] M. Reardon (2008, Nov. 26). What you need to know about the digital TV switch. [Online]. Available: http://www.cnet.com/news/
what-you-need-to-know-about-the-digital-tv-switch/
[3] C. Littleton. (2014, Oct. 14). HBO to launch over the top service in
US next year. [Online]. Available: http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/
hbo-to-launch-over-the-top-service-in-u-s-next-year-1201330592/
[4] Amazon PR. (2015, June 24). High dynamic range now available on
Amazon instant video exclusively for prime members. [Online]. Available: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irolnewsArticle&ID=2062190
[5] S. Curtis. (2015, Jan. 12). Netflix: High Dynamic Range is `more
important' than 4K. [Online]. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
technology/news/11340226/Netflix-HDR-is-more-important-than-4K.
html
[6] D. D. McAdams. (2015, Mar. 18). ARRI rolls out Alexa with 4K
ProRes Recording. [Online]. Available: http://www.tvtechnology.com/
equipment/0082/arri-rolls-out-alexa-with-k-prores-recording-/275065
[7] T. Perry. (2015, Mar. 27). Just how pure are those quantum dot colors? [Online]. Available: https://youtu.be/h4zXOe22HAE
[8] A. Webster. (2014, Apr. 8). Netflix is now streaming 4K, starting with
`House of Cards.' [Online]. Available: http://www.theverge.com/
2014/4/8/5593520/netflix-is-now-streaming-4k-starting-with-houseof-cards
[9] D. Watkins. Ultra high definition TV displays: global market forecast.
[Online]. Available: http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod
=reportabstractviewer&a0=10660

october 2015

IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

http://www.nanosysinc http://www.cnet.com/news/ http://www.variety.com/2014/tv/news/ http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ http://www.tvtechnology.com/ https://www.youtu.be/h4zXOe22HAE http://www.theverge.com/ http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod

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