Advanced Television

Broadcasters urged to “make 4K happen”

June 25, 2014

By Chris Forrester

Ultra-HDThere were strong calls from satellite executives, speaking at CASBAA’s Satellite Industry Forum in Singapore, to pull their fingers out and start transmitting in Ultra-HD, even with the less than perfect transmission protocols currently in place.

Thomas Wrede, VP/broadcast systems at SES, while confirming that Ultra-HD would likely be a mass-market proposition by 2019-2020, also urged broadcasters to start transmitting. “[they need] to have the guts to start transmitting” programming in Ultra-HD TV format to prove its value. “We need to get out of the discussion loop and start broadcasting, even if it’s not in fully Ultra-HD TV format.”

His colleague Deepak Mathur, SES’s SVP/Commercial for Asia Pacific, said that the current World Cup event was the “coming out party for Ultra-HD”. He said SES was anticipating broadcasting more than 1,000 Ultra-HD channels by 2025, with a quarter of them over Asia.

Eutelsat’s commercial development manager Markus Fritz said it might even be necessary for broadcasters and satellite operators to create new business models to help speed 4K’s introduction. “We’re missing the booster that there was for HD,” Fritz said. “To make 4K happen you will need more early take-up with pay-TV channels.”

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, UHD, Ultra-HD/4K