Advanced Television

Ultra-HD/4K

Freeview embarks on all-HD future

High definition TV will become the norm in the UK from January 1st 2017 as the Freeview logo is withdrawn from new SD TVs and set-top boxes. Guy North, Managing Director of digital terrestrial TV platform Freeview, described the move as “a landmark moment” in the evolution of UK television which would pave the way […]

December 22, 2016

AT&T offers 4K to businesses

US telco giant AT&T is now offering 4K Ultra High Definition video content to businesses via its DirecTV pay-TV subsidiary, including live sports – claiming to be the first provider in the US to do so. “Many of our bar and restaurant customers cater to sports fans. Now, with 4K UHD, they can ‘up their […]

December 22, 2016

Huawei to provide 4K platform for Altibox

Altibox, in cooperation with Huawei, will roll out its new television solution with 4K as standard. Huawei will provide both the new TV platform as well as decoders for Norwegian operator Altibox. “Broadcasting the best UHD images requires tremendous transmission capacity. In practice, it is only possible to do this on the best fiber networks. […]

December 20, 2016

Amazon Fire redesigned with 4K interface

Amazon Fire TV user-interface has been completely redesigned to make finding what to watch next fast, easy and enjoyable. The new UI offers video trailers and content screenshots right on the home screen to help customers quickly access the content they want — without the need to open and close apps. The new look directly […]

December 16, 2016By Chris Forrester

Research: 4K TVs likely to increase energy bills

Preliminary findings released from UK energy company British Gas’s upcoming Home Energy Report 2016, set for publication in January 2017, reveal that household energy bills from watching TV are likely to increase for the first time since 2011.  Data analysed by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) points to the new generation of […]

December 15, 2016

TravelXP going UHD in February

Mumbai-based TravelXP’s CEO Prashant Chothani has confirmed that his travel and lifestyle channel will launch a Ultra-HD service in February 2017. This week sees TravelXP launch a Tamil-language version to add to the Bengali version already on air. The Bengali version is already on air on Tata Sky, Dish TV, Videocon d2h and Airtel, and […]

December 13, 2016By Chris Forrester

Liverpool-Chelsea kicks off BT Dolby Atmos coverage

Having announced on November 11th that it intended to enhance further sport fans’ viewing experiences with the launch of Dolby Atmos sound to its BT Sport Ultra HD customers in January 2017, BT has revealed that Premier League title contenders Liverpool and Chelsea will battle it out in what BT plans to be the first […]

December 9, 2016By Colin Mann

BBC HDR iPlayer tests

The BBC is undertaking a trial of 4K high dynamic range (HDR) video on its iPlayer streaming platform. The test involves four minutes of footage from its Planet Earth II series, which the BBC suggests reveal more detail and present more vibrant colours than was possible before. It is part of the broadcaster’s efforts to […]

December 8, 2016

4K will triple cellular traffic

A study from Juniper Research has forecast that annual cellular data traffic, generated by smartphones, tablets, connected cars, and other M2M modules, will reach 129,000 PB (Petabytes) by 2018, equivalent to approximately 14 billion hours of 4K video streaming. The research found

December 6, 2016

Hulu offers 4K

Premium entertainment streaming service Hulu now supports streaming in Ultra HD. “As TV and movie lovers ourselves, we want to makes sure viewers can watch their favourite shows and movies in the best possible quality,” says Ben Smith, Head of Experience. “4K Ultra HD gives content creators a more immersive canvas for their stories. So […]

December 5, 2016