HomeComputingMobileInternetGamingElectronicsExtremeDealsExtremeTechComputingSony pushes 4K TV at the World Cup, even though there’s nothing to watch – and no Blu-rays, cables, or bandwidth for 4KSony pushes 4K TV at the World Cup, even though there’s nothing to watch – and no Blu-rays, cables, or bandwidth for 4KBy Sebastian Anthony on June 23, 2014 at 12:03 pmComment
Share This articleAt the 2014 World Cup, the weirdest thing isn’t that USA is doing better than England, but that 4K TV is being pushed surprisingly hard. As I watched USA versus Portugal last night, one of the main ads around the edge of the pitch was a hoarding for Sony 4K. This surprised me, because I know there’s virtually zero 4K content actually available. Like a good little potential purchaser I wandered along to the Sony website to see what the deal was, and sure enough it’s selling some 4K TVs priced anywhere from $3,000 to $30,000. Yes, for a sizable chunk of your annual income, you can buy a TV that’s capable of watching Breaking Bad and House of Cards in 4K… and… that’s it.
It is either an amazing marketing move, or diabolical. It’s almost as if Sony is telling you to future-proof yourself by living in the future… on your own… with no one else to experience the future with. I understand that someone has to be the first penguin for 4K — the first one to dive in and be eaten by a killer whale — and I don’t think anyone would call me a Luddite, but still I am surprised to see Sony pushing its massively expensive 4K TVs when there’s almost no reason to buy one.
At the time of publishing, there are a handful of Sony films available in 4K via its Video Unlimited download service, and Netflix is streaming Breaking Bad and House of Cards in 4K (but reports say that it’s still hampered by compression). YouTube has also recently enabled 4K uploads and streaming, which may eventually evolve into a good source for 4K content when 4K video recording becomes commonplace (probably next year, with new smartphone SoCs supporting 4K encoding). But, significantly, there’s absolutely no 4K broadcast TV and no 4K optical discs (Blu-ray doesn’t support 4K) — and there probably won’t be for years to come.
Marvel as Sony teases some poor Brazilian kid with a 4K TV that probably costs in the region of one year’s salary.
At the 2014 World Cup, Sony is filming three games in 4K @ 60Hz: One game from the Second Round, one of the quarter-finals, and the World Cup final on July 13. Sony will use its own PMW-F55 CineAlta 4K cameras to shoot these games (priced at $30,000 each incidentally, before lenses), and its own custom workflow to handle/edit all of the 4K footage. This “Official 4K World Cup film” will then be made available to Sony Bravia 4K TV owners at some point in the future (no word on pricing, but I don’t think it’ll be free).
A Sony 4K TV camera. You are probably looking at around $100,000 of kit.More interestingly, the BBC is also using the 2014 World Cup for 4K testing. The BBC will beam a live 4K video feed, via satellite, to BBC headquarters in the UK. The BBC says the 4K footage will then be broadcast to a handful of 4K TVs in its “research and development facilities” via digital terrestrial TV (DVB-T2) and internet streaming. The newer DVB-T2 broadcast digital TV standard is capable of data rates in the region of 20-30Mbps, which in theory is capable of carrying a 4K video feed (albeit compressed). And yes, in case you’re wondering, ~20Mbps sustained is what you’ll need for a half-decent 4K stream from Netflix (or Sony or FIFA). [Read: The state of 4K gaming: We’re glitching our way to gaming nirvana.]
The BBC appears to be the exception, though. There are almost no 4K tests being carried out elsewhere in the world. There were hints of a new Blu-ray standard that would support 4K back at the beginning of 2014, but in a more recent press conference Sony refused to answer any questions about it. The good news is that HDMI 2.0, ratified late last year, does support 4K — but HDMI 2.0 TVs and media streamers still haven’t hit the market. [Read: No, TV makers, 4K and UHD are not the same thing.]
Sony’s 84-inch 4K TV. But that’s the problem: Right now, unless you want to look at pretty photos of flowers, there isn’t much in the way of 4K content.The most likely route towards 4K content is with modern smartphones, tablets, TVs, and PCs that support H.265/HEVC hardware decompression, and then providing the 4K source material via the internet — that way you can avoid the mess of Blu-ray/media streamer/HDMI support. In this scenario, Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube definitely have the edge in leading us towards 4K (though there are certainly not many internet connections in the world that can sustain 20Mbps, especially with the ongoing Netflix/Verizon/Comcast spat). If the BBC 4K DVB-T2 test goes off without a hitch, it’s possible that BBC/Freeview won’t be too far behind Netflix and Amazon.
But in either case, I really can’t recommend that you buy a 4K TV just yet. They have come down in price significantly — but you’re still better off waiting another 12 months, at which point you’ll actually have some content to enjoy, and you’ll be able to get a higher-quality panel at a much lower price. I know that TVs are still considered a “big purchase,” a bit like a new car or fridge, and many people are tempted to buy a very expensive TV every 5-10 years, but I assure you that you’ll be happier (and enjoy better picture quality and modern features) if you buy a more reasonably priced TV every 24 months instead.
Tagged In hardwaresonytv4Kstreaming videouhdtvtelevisionHDTVbbcbroadcastingworld cup 2014world cupdigital terrestrial tvdvb-t2Share This Article .article {margin:0px !important;}.AR_1 {margin :0 0 20px 0 !important;}.AR_2 {margin:0 0 20px 0;} CommentPost a Comment Matt MenezesFrom the article, “buy a more reasonably priced TV every 24 months instead.”
I think that’s the case with almost anything tech-related. Instead of a $2k computer that’ll last 5 years, get a $1k computer and another $1k computer in 2.5 years that’s faster.
http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian AnthonyYep, exactly.
But I still think people are thinking of TVs as “big purchases”, rather than “tech purchases”. I still think it’s pretty rare for people to buy a TV as regularly as they buy a PC. But I guess that’ll change, as the years go by and more Gen X/Gen Y become TV buyers.
massaui have a rather old TN 1080P screen and i really don’t see any need to upgrade. ok IPS+ LED is nice but i don’t do photo editing and anything above 1080P just costs too much compared to an 1080P screen,
it would be cheaper to buy 2 smaller HD screens.
so there isn’t really something like regular upgrades if there are no gains. while upgrading an GPU every odd gen (rebrands do not count) will really have some gains.
bootIn Portugal one of the biggest ISP/IPTV providers, MEO, is also using the World Cup to do testing, but you need to live in an area where they have FTTH coverage, although I’m not even sure if their set-top-boxes support 4K (probably not).
The problem with all of this is what you described in the article, I’ve never seen a 4K TV outside of a large consumer electronics store, and even then, they are just used for demos.
PhobosI do agree, where is the 4k content? Seems if you get a 4k tv now by the time there is 4k content those 4k TV’s will be dirt cheap. If they are pushing for 4k TV’s when do they(Sony, Samsung etc.) expect the content to catch up?
massauits a chicken egg program. no one produces 4k because no one can watch it thus it is more expensive for nothing. while the prices of 4k can only fall when mass production start but than again why produce a TV that has no content.
Marc GuillotGaming in that awesome 4K 84-inch TV would be mind-blowing.
Joel HruskaYou’d actually be able to read the fonts. :P
Angel HamSingle screen gaming? You filthy casual.
SchwarzgoldBut there are 4k YouTube Videos ;)
Just search for “4K”.
http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian AnthonyYes indeed! I actually updated the story with some stuff about YouTube, but it might not be visible yet.
I think 4K is much more likely to gain strength from YouTube/smartphones, than from broadcast/Blu-ray TV.
Keith RollBullshit. I have a 250g/month limit on my internet. I cant watch more than a few hours of ‘hd’ netflix per day before running into the limit before the month is out. 20m/s is how much per hour? Stream a season of breaking bad. Bam no more internet for the month. Google fiber needs to get its shit together and come to my town.
Marcel KleinAccording to Netflix they encode 4K with 25 Mbit/s, so 250GB/month is sufficient for 22h of 4K streaming. That is already one half of the entire Breaking Bad series. Btw: HD (at Netflix) is encoded at 5 Mbit/s, that means 113h streaming/month or almost 4 hours every single day of the month… Internet limitation sucks, but maybe you just watch too much ;)
Keith RollWell I dont watch much. Others in the house hold do. Just try to explain to a 8 year old why she cant watch cartoons. Lazy kid imo, but not my kid. You couldnt get me to sit still long enough to watch that much tv. Also i think somebody is leaching off my WiFi. 56gigs in 1 day only watch 3 hours of netflix? Uh.. something is up. Still, i could pay for more limit but then you have to think… whats the point of the limit if i can just double it for 50extra bucks? Since im not the one watching i think ill just lower the stream quality. LOL 360p on 50inch HDTV wooo! Thankyou Suddenlink!
Marcel Klein56 GB in one day certainly seems suspicious. I can’t provide Netflix related parenting tips but you should find your internet leak. Maybe one of your computers is part of a botnet and helps in criminal activities, i.e. mass sending of spam.
Keith RollSuddenlink owned modem/router combo. Locked password. I cant see how many isp’s or mac address are connected. Taking that thing back and hooking up my router. Should fix most of the problems. Imo dont use the rental router/modem thing. It just uses a number for the network password.
massauthere are some really good compressed files out there.
someone that can really do good compressions is YIFI ok it is not legal provider but he gets 2h of HD in 2GB which is just 1GB/h.
lets assume the scaling gets the same for 4k (i guess it could get even better compression ratios). this would be 4GB/h. so up to 60h of 4k content per month.
paulWhen will electronic gadgets and equipments become 100% recyclable? (psychologically hurts me to think about e-waste).
It’s damn time for companies to start competing on recyclability than on width/weight of the gadget.
Joel HruskaIt is virtually impossible to build a smartphone that’s 100% recycleable, competitive with modern technology, and cost effective. Furthermore there’s no way to police the entire supply chain to ensure devices get recycled and that the companies that “recycle” them are doing so in accordance with high economic standards.
This is why so much of China’s recycling programs were so terrible for people and the environment — the low value of materials to be recovered meant that only the worst, most damaging, cheapest methods were used to recover material inside the phone.
But there *is* a phone that fits your desire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairphone
paulMaybe internet of things will be used in future to track all the devices out of its life time.
Also some future tech, which can sense gadget proximity (and devices which don’t have an internet of things ID). So it takes care of older e-wate
While all your other points are valid 4K HDMI 2.0 TVs have been available for a few months already. Not yet in massive volume, but they certainly have hit the market.
http://www.korioi.net/ KoriosJust one sample, that we can purchase now :
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-XBR65X850A-65-Inch-Ultra-Internet/dp/B00ES5YZCW/
Yep, true! That’s one of the TVs that Sony is advertising in connection with the World Cup. Thanks for the link.
JD RahmanAlthough the content is lacking, many consumers and businesses are buying 4K screens, when they can afford it.
I recently visited a company who had just redone their conference rooms and they had installed 4x 4k screens per room. Just to be future proof. And smaller organizations who have one per large meeting room.
I think the trend is good, on the TV front and adoption may end up being faster than anticipated.
That being said, I think the PC users are the ones who will end up waiting – I have yet to see a good 4k monitor.
Darren ReidI don’t think it’s aimed at anyone looking to go out and buy a 4K TV for this world cup. Sony are a big and expensive brand that are looking to establish themselves as being worthy of the extra money. Associating their brand with 4K makes it more valuable as they are seen to be innovating and of high quality. Plus before the next world cup 4K will likely be a big thing. Even when HD content was first accessible it was years before I bought a HD tv and was watching content in HD. Still the Sony adverts with the bouncy balls and advertising HD made me think highly of Sony.
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