DirecTV‘s CEO Mike White says the broadcaster will be able to supply 4K/Ultra-HD content later this year as ‘on demand’ offerings, and says full 4K transmissions are on track for 2015 or 2016.

“I’m certainly excited about [4K]. We expect to be able to do 4K VoD before the end of the year. We’re working to secure some content because that’s one of the challenges is getting content that’s shot in 4K. And we expect certainly in 2015 or early ’16, to be able to stream live content. That’ll somewhat depend on the scheduled launches we have of two new satellites for the US business that will be going up over the next 18 months. So as we get those satellites up in the air, certainly, that’s going to unlock a tremendous amount of incremental capacity for our system. And we fully expect some of that capacity to be used to be able to stream 4K content.”

White, speaking to analysts following on from DirecTV’s Q2 results, added that he expected DirecTV to be the first US pay-TV operator to launch a 4K service, and that 4K would make a material impact on the company’s revenues by around 2018.

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