4KTV Standards Are A Mess, and Only 41% Even Know What 4K Is While 4K isn't the gimmick 3D TV was in the eyes of many consumers, a new study shows the standard has a lot of work to do before sales of the sets ramp up. According to new data from Leichtman Research, just 41% have even heard of 4KTV, though that's up from 30% one year ago. According to Leichtman, 26% of those who have seen a 4K HDTV are interested getting one -- compared to 6% of those who have not seen a 4K TV.

With 4KTV's slowly coming down in price, adoption is expected to start climbing steeply this year. Though be careful: real 4K content is limited, standards remain in flux, and the 4K TV gear you buy today may not be truly 4K-capable tomorrow. For example, many 4KTV vendors are shipping sets that claim to have fully HDMI 2.0 compliant ports, yet the actual ports are only "HDMI lite" -- only capable of 10 Gbps of the full 18 Gbps the standard is supposed to deliver. As such these sets are being advertised as absolute cutting edge and future proof, but they can't actually deliver full full 4k 4:4:4 chroma at 60p. Worse, many of the biggest manufacturers can't be bothered to advertise this fact. Similarly, while Netflix has stated that High Dynamic Range (HDR) may actually be more important than 4K, the standard -- which provides brighter and more varied color -- has yet to see a coherent unified definition, yet implementation in most 4K sets. There's also HDCP 2.2 copy protection to worry about; that standard is intended to protect 4K content from piracy, yet it hasn't been implemented in most receivers. In other words, there's probably millions of consumers buying a "4K compliant" receiver that actually isn't truly 4K compliant. Every component in the chain will need HDCP 2.2 compliance for upcoming 4K content, and many users will be annoyed to learn their brand new receiver can't actually carry fully 4K content. And that brings us to the biggest impediment to 4K adoption: there's hardly any 4K content to be had. While Netflix and Amazon have started offering 4K content via embedded smart TV apps, set top players like Roku and Apple have yet to support 4K (and HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2). Game consoles can't push games in 4K, and both the Xbox One and Playstation 4 may need hardware upgrades (read: you'll need to buy a new console revision) to fully do so. And forget broadcasters -- most aren't able to send even true 1080p signals yet, so 4K broadcasts remain years away. That said, Leichtman's quick to highlight that most of the growth we've seen in traditional HD adoption only came in the last few years. And that's very clearly going to happen again here as most of these standards start to fall in line and prices drop. "While HDTV now seems commonplace in the US, much of the growth of HD has come in recent years," states Bruce Leichtman. "Over the past five years, more than one-third of all US households got their first HDTV, and HDTV's share of TV sets used in US households grew from about 24% to 65%." If you have to have 4K now, do your homework and make sure the set supports true HDMI 2.0 (and HDR, if you've got the money). Still, your best bet remains to probably wait until next year once standards solidify, or the year after that for when much better quality OLED sets finally start to materialize at a sane price point. If youto have 4K now, do your homework and make sure the set supports true HDMI 2.0 (and HDR, if you've got the money). Still, your best bet remains to probably wait until next year once standards solidify, or the year after that for when much better quality OLED sets finally start to materialize at a sane price point.







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Most recommended from 104 comments

NLiveris

join:2001-11-25

Chicago, IL 3 recommendations NLiveris Member 4k is awesome Yesterday I helped my uncle setup a 55 inch Samsung 4k tv in his living room. We used the embedded xfinity app to test out some limited 4k content. We were both impressed with the level of detail seen on random objects and everything else just looked better. I brought a couple of BDremux files on 64GB usb flash drives to compare as well. I've seen 4k demos at Best Buy and thought that looked awesome too. 4k sports allows you to easily discern individual faces of people in the crowd. Comcast's 4k tv show samples provided by the embedded app were very impressive and definitely looked better than bluray. I believe if you have good eyes and pay attention to the things you're watching, you'll enjoy 4k. Now for example, we watched some ESPN, which we all know is a mere 720p. It looked like shit compared to 4k and 1080p bluray. 720p is soft and fuzzy compared to 1080p and 4k. I think Karl needs to get 1080p. How can the editor of a technology website be using 10 year old technology? How can you write about the importance of 4k but not actually have it in your living room? 720p is barely HD. Watch NBC nightly news (1080i) and switch back and forth to ABC World News (720p) and you'll easily see major differences in quality. Those distance viewing charts people love to post each time we discuss 4k are worthless. If you have a good vision and know how to pay attention to detail when you're viewing an image, 4K is awesome.

720p is not awesome. brianlan

join:2009-10-12

Garner, NC 2 recommendations brianlan Member Why? The truth about 4k is the same as 3D was two years ago... NO CONTENT MEANS NO REASON TO REPLACE WORKING EXISTING EQUIPMENT!



SIMPLE!!



Its not like were replacing $100 TV's here, most of us have $1K or $2K hanging on the wall! Its going to have to be something super special for me to replace it before it breaks on its own.