Advanced Television

Omdia: “Next 2 years a marketer’s dream for 4K”

November 23, 2020

By Chris Forrester

Paul Gray, Omdia Senior Research Manager, speaking at Spain’s UHD Summit, said that while the broadcasting of 4K material had been badly impacted by the pandemic and the cancellation of global sporting events, he was confident that 2021 would be “tremendous” year for the take-up of 4K.

“The next two years will be a marketer’s dream because of the very rich pipeline of sports events,” he told delegates. Gray specifically referenced next year’s delayed Olympic Games, major football tournaments (Euro 2020 in June/July 2021, and the World Cup in late 2022) and a resumption of routine sport, and other cultural events and even extending to the Paris Olympics in 2024.

Gray also recognised that 8K prospects should not be dismissed. He explained that 8K could have a role as a professional performance format and that then 2024 Olympics could see 7-8 million 8K sets shipped.

He said that China was enthusiastic about 8K and there were many demonstrations of the combined 8K sets with 5G capability although no major broadcaster had yet committed to 8K. “Huge 5G investment is an incentive to develop 8K content although infrastructure remains immature at this time.”

Gray said that the complete UHD ecosystem needed more availability especially of High Dynamic Range (HDR) and that HDR should be incorporated onto Mobile devices, and in business/telepresence services and in particular UHD Gaming. “UHD simply brings more realism,” he added.

Gray presented forecasts which shows that HDR would be in some 35 per cent of all TVs shipped by 2024 in Japan, although take up would be slower elsewhere (Western Europe barely 15 per cent by 2024).

He added that while 8K sales of TV sets represented only 0.1 per cent of unit shipments, they were 1.2 per cent of revenues.

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

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