4K still in early stages for Latino markets
October 13, 2016
By Chris Forrester
Brazilian broadcasting giant TV Globo is already making high-end drama productions in 4K, although the finished programming is only available for viewers to download. There is – as yet – no plan for Globo to start 4K transmissions.
This seems to be the case with other Central and South American markets, despite the popularity of 4K displays with consumers.
Carlos Miranda, CTO of Dish Mexico, while agreeing that 4K was technically perfectly possible but remained in its very early stages as far as distribution, content creation and even the number of devises in the market. “We are still dealing with HD as to know what will happen to 4K”, said Miranda, adding that 4K will be a standard “in the medium term, at least in five years”.
It is a similar story with Mexico’s TV Azteca’s Francisco Ramírez (CTO) who according to newspaper El Universal that there was simply not yet enough 4K content available.
His view was shared by Luis Guerrero, Engineering Director at Ultravision, who expected 4K would consolidate as a standard but “would will suffer the same process as the HD, which was launched 10 years ago and there are still operators launching High Definition, a decade later”.