First 4K UHD TV broadcasts coming July 2014

[Crisp]

First 4K UHD TV broadcasts coming July 2014

According to a recent report, the world's first 4K or UHD TV broadcasts will begin in Japan from July 2014.

The report from Ashai Shimbun claims that the Japanese government is planning to start these Ultra High Definition TV broadasts in around 18 months time. This will be two years ahead of schedule.

The intention with this early launch is to stimulate demand for UHD TVs - many of which, of course, come from major Japanese countries such as Sony and Panasonic.

Early adopters of these TV sets currently have very little 4K content to use with them, yet the likes of the LG 84LM960V can cost as much as ?20,000.

Bringing the launch date for UHD or 4K TV broadcasts to July 2014 will enable early adopters to catch the final matches of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil - one of the premier television events in the world.

Japan is also known to be leading the way with plans for the 8K format which, whilst still technically under the UHD banner, is twice as sharp again as the 4K standard. The country will be launching an 8K TV broadcast test in 2016.

Source

[Pupik]

Good. Enough time for me to save for a 60+ inch television to be able to enjoy it.

[LUTZIFER]

Good. Enough time for me to save for a 60+ inch television to be able to enjoy it.

lol, by that time a 60 inch will have already been affordable for awhile, and it'll be 100 inch and over that people will be wanting.

[Pupik]

lol, by that time a 60 inch will have already been affordable for awhile, and it'll be 100 inch and over that people will be wanting.

Last time I checked, 60' 4k TVs go for over 30k bucks.

[OilersFan]

Should be interesting how they handle the bandwidth. Right now a lot of HD channels are crap because they are compressed so badly.

[shakey]

For this to even come to a reality in America, cable companies are going to really need to upgrade the structure. We barely get decent 1080p. When I upgrade, it will be to something bigger than 55" and a 3D TV. But investing in this technology would be too soon.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Should be interesting how they handle the bandwidth. Right now a lot of HD channels are crap because they are compressed so badly.

That's what I thought too. 1080p has been around for awhile but I read somewhere that most TVs can't decode a 1080p signal. And most providers can't even transmit a 1080p signal.

[Brian M. Veteran]

Yeah that's the problem with Virgin. They have 2 HD boxes in circulation, the old ones which used mp2 encoding, which resulted in pretty decent quality, but massive bandwidth requirements, and the new ones which use shoddily compressed mp4.

I'd rather have 1080 @ 4x the encoding quality, than 4k at current quality levels.