Japan to Broadcast in 4K in 2014?

[admin]

What do you do when you want to sell a lot of 4K televisions but there's no content? Simple. You just have the government mandate 4K broadcasts. At least, that seems to be Japan's solution. The Japanese government has scheduled July 14th as the date is will produce the worlds first 4K TV broadcast. While that may seem like a long way off (it doesn't to us) it's actually a full 2 years ahead of schedule. Japan has a high stake in the success of the new 4K televisions as it represents a potential for increased consumer demand and, unlike the 3D bombstravaganza, may be a legitimate reason for existing HDTV owners to upgrade. The news about the ultra high-definition broadcast comes, unfortunately, from a Japanese newspaper that didn't cite any specific sources.

Discuss "Japan to Broadcast in 4K in 2014?" here. Read the article.

 

[Adam]

In my two trips to Japan, I watched TV one time for less than an hour. The one thing that I saw was an interview of Jun Shibata on what seemed to be a Japanese MTV (in which they played this video). Oh, man - I would have killed for 4k for that hour! I'd never heard of her before, but I went on to buy several albums.

 

[Swerd]

I think the article sets the right tone when it says:

4K broadcasting technology will require the updating of a myriad of hardware in order to facilitate the increased resolution and bandwidth. That includes editing and preview monitors, digital storage and editing, and of course the towers and bandwidth requirements.
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It made me curious to look up some details of the long development of the present HDTV digital standard High-definition television - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Especially the timing.

As early as 1979, Japanese state broadcaster NHK first developed an analog form similar to today's HDTV standard. Satellite broadcasts were tested in 1989, with regular commercial use in 1994. It took quite a long time before something similar was adopted in the USA, with field testing during the 1990s. It required, among other things, the transition from analog broadcasting to digital broadcasting and effective digital compression.

Of course technology never develops at the same pace. But I think 4k TV as a commercial reality is a long way off. There is still plenty of video source material today that is not available at the present HDTV standards.