Omdia: “8K could benefit from live events”
September 8, 2021
By Chris Forrester
Omdia’s Research Director Paul Gray believes that there’s definitely a future for 8K experiences and, where suitably equipped, large cinema screens could be a major attraction for live events.
In an interview on the current 8K Association’s newsletter, Gray says that even though some recent broadcasting-based sectors have reached the end of their expansion and progression because they have achieved “good enough” status, there is still potential in the consumer acceptance of 8K.
Gray states: “I guess that ‘good enough’ in video is somewhere between clean HD and UHD. The iPod moment has played out slightly differently with streaming replacing a personal library, largely bypassing audio’s piracy problem. If my music parallel holds, then without an orthogonal shift, the TV road to ever-higher resolutions will peter out eventually.”
But, with prompting, Gray spoke about live events, whether high-end opera or music concerts, as well as long-distance sports events where attendance in person is impossible.
“8K projection of live material to a huge screen in a performance space creates the sense of presence. It’s not TV, nor an in-person venue experience, but something new. The costs of a high quality 8K setup can be met, and it offers something unique. Imagine live concerts from a room behind a bar, costing (say) the same as a cinema ticket. Access to the talent is the way that music fights back – the live experience can develop a new channel,” states Gray