18 TVBEurope
www.tvbeurope.com July2013
“4K is here to stay and a natural progression from HD” —Jack Wetherill
Market analysis: Format fatigue
and the consumer proposition By Melanie Dayasena-Lowe
AS WITH HD, Jack Wetherill, senior market analyst, Futuresource Consulting, explained that a number of things must fall in place before we see a mass uptake of 4K. These include affordable TV sets, the availability of 4K content, the means by which to deliver that content to TV sets, and enough consumer interest and understanding of 4K. Tackling the question ‘what’s
driving 4K?’ head on, Wetherill believes that 4K is currently being pushed by the industry rather than by consumer interest. “The single most important reason is that the TV manufacturers are losing money on TVs. They need to find a compelling reason for consumers to buy new and more expensive TV sets. “Secondly, several TV
brands are still pushing LED. They believe 4K can extend the shelf life of LED. Thirdly, 3D hasn’t caught the consumer imagination yet but, given a boost by 4K, it could be that glasses-free will become a more realistic proposition. Another factor related to 3D is that 4K offers the prospect of full HD 3D for passive sets.” On the consumer side, 4K
is not yet in consumers’ minds. Around 700 sets were sold in Western Europe last year. In the future consumers who see 4K sets will notice a markedly better image on large screens and this will fuel their interest. Additionally the upsurge in ownership of tablets and smartphones with high resolution screens will make consumers more aware of the benefits of 4K screens. Western European TV sales
show how serious the situation is. Demand in Western Europe peaked at 51 million HD sets in 2010, followed by a 4% decline in 2011 and 12% fall last year. Futuresource predicts a similar decline this year in terms of units. The growth up to 2010 was fuelled by digital switchover, increased desire for additional sets in the home and a willingness to replace recently purchased CRT sets in favour of the new stylish flatscreens. The arrival of tablets also means there is less demand for additional TV sets in the home.
Emerging technology standards and the broadcaster investment
THIS SESSION was designed to update attendees about the status of the current UHD ecosystem, emerging standards and the commercial implications of compression formats. Do we really understand what is meant by UHD: 4K or 8K, and which interconnect standard? Could 4K be an interim standard with 8K becoming ‘Full UHD’?
Jack Wetherill: “Many operators who are still playing catch up with HD will be reluctant to jump on the 4K bandwagon”
In terms of retail value, the
Western Europe TV market is forecast to be worth over €19 billion this year, 20% below the 2010 total. “We see similar trends in the UK, US and Japan. Will the introduction of 4K sets rejuvenate the market and if so, when will this happen?” he asked. The 4K sets available in the UK today are from four brands, all 3D and all but one is over 40-inch in size. Makers are fully committed and all major brands will have 4K sets on the market by the end of the year. The expectation is that about 8,000 4K TV sets will ship in Western Europe this year out of a total market of 38 million TV sets. Wetherill then switched his
focus to what’s happening with delivery infrastructure and content availability. One of the key factors is compression. “The good news is that HEVC is already in an advanced state of development and silicon containing HEVC will be widely available by the end of the year.” But how will 4K TV owners
receive their content? In Western Europe there are about 45 million homes receiving HD TV services from a pay TV operator and a further 20 million on free-to-air satellite and terrestrial. Wetherill commented: “4K via free-to-air terrestrial is not really an option for several years in Europe having switched from analogue to digital and in some cases to HD. So pay TV operators will be in the vanguard for 4K delivery.” Operators have invested
heavily in HD in the past few years and are charging a premium for it. 3D hasn’t been so effective in this respect but there will be an appetite to investigate new means of attracting and
retaining subscribers and adding new revenue streams by pushing back the boundaries of picture quality. “However, there is a danger that many operators who are still playing catch up with HD will be reluctant to jump on the 4K bandwagon too soon,” Wetherill remarked. In terms of Blu-ray, the
Blu-ray Disc Association is currently working on a new 4K spec for both the discs and the players and this is likely to become available towards the end of the year or the beginning of next year. Online operators such as
Netflix and LoveFilm are a new breed of video delivery vendor, with the potential to serve Western Europe’s 140 million broadband homes. “With HEVC in development, the prospect of delivering 4K to the home via IP is a realistic one, although it poses massive challenges to the broadband network — which already struggles under the weight of SD and growing demand for HD content,” he said. Wetherill pointed out that
there is upgrade fatigue from widescreen, HD and 3D. “At least 4K doesn’t involve a new approach to shooting content as was needed for 3D. Is there an appetite for 4K among consumers and how quickly will 4K catch on? In Western Europe 78% of homes have HD screens but only half are receiving HD broadcasts.” Futuresource believes screen
sizes of 4K TVs will be restricted to 40-inch and above during the forecast period. By 2020 half of 50-inch+ TV sets sold will have 4K resolution. Wetherill concluded: “4K is here to stay and a natural progression from HD. Futuresource views 4K as a premium technology for years to come.”
Gwenael Le Lay, Perceived Quality team manager, France Telecom/Orange Labs, spoke on behalf of the 4EVER — For Enhanced Video ExpeRience) group. The 4EVER partners are Orange, Technicolor, Ateme, Insa, France Televisions, Highland Technologies (Doremi), TeamCast, GlobeCast, Telecom and Paris Tech. “We launched the project
one year ago,” said Le Lay. “It is funded by the French government; that’s why we are only French partners. The scope of the project is quite large as it embraces both HEVC technology and new video formats such as Ultra High Definition.
“Our main goal is to look for
a generalised HD format for everybody — across DSL, fibre, 4G, DVB-2 — from tablets to cinema streams. “We look at it from an end-to-end point of view; we don’t want to focus only on one part of the network,” he said. “We look at devices and colorimetry; the players, especially for HEVC; and all the issues regarding access networks — distribution of UHD content will be complicated if we don’t look at access networks. Then the partners are looking at encoding, especially live
encoding, plus all the issues around shooting, production and realisation. “From time to time we try to do experiments that put everybody together in an end-to-end chain. That was done last week for Roland Garros, where we demonstrated HEVC HD live distribution from cameras to players on tablets and DVB-T. “Looking at the new format,
there are issues around immersion, brightness, realism, image frequency, field of view for the spectator and screen size. On top of that, UHD is proposing a large canvas of parameters based on what you want to get at the end, but each parameter may or not bring additional beneficial user experience. And from our point of view we will try to settle what are the key parameters for the optimum user reception and experience — frame range, spatial definition, pixel depth, colour gamut and so on. “Regarding production, as with 3D you also have a new grammar and attributes, new equipment, and management of all this change. This costs quite a lot for producers. We are starting to look at some cameras and also sensor entropies and HEVC encoding under different shooting conditions, as we don’t want to have a stand-still picture and stand-still chain. We have already shot in about six different conditions. “Finally,” said Le Lay, “I should mention encoding distribution. That means setting up the whole chain in terms of handling the video stream — bit rate quality on different
Continued on page 20 Richard Lindsay-Davies:
“There’s as much opportunity to cause confusion as there is
opportunity to create exciting new products and services”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52