Want 4K TV? — Now Comcast Has a Set-Top Box

Will your family be enjoying a shiny new 4K TV this year?

4K, 4K TVs everywhere — and now Comcast says it’s launching a4K Ultra HD set-top box later this year. Comcast announced Wednesday the Xi4 will be available later this year, along with a growing catalog of 4K video content. The Xi4 will run on Comcast’s X1 platform and will let customers program “virtual 4K linear channels” from the company’s Ultra HD library.

Are you ready to upgrade?

When will you make the leap to a 4K Ultra HD TV? … or, have you done that already?

It was only a couple years ago that 4K TVs first dominated the news at CES (the International Consumer Electronics Show). At the time some pundits insisted 4K definition was unnecessary and didn’t matter on the “normal” TV sizes people were buying at that time (early 2013). But a lot has changed, including the cost of larger TVs (and 4K TVs) coming down faster than might have been anticipated.

Most people now aren’t going to claim 4K doesn’t make a meaningful difference. I mean, come on! The thing about 4K video is the gasp factor. “GASP — those details! GASP — those colors!” Many of us now are goggling over their brilliant imagery in our neighborhood electronics stores, trying to decide when to make the move up. (Although believe it or not, TVs with even higher resolution were the news at this year’s CES show — it makes you wonder, “Should I stick with what I’ve got until those become mainstream?”)[Editor’s note: this article first appeared in 2015.]

What stops us from buying 4K TVs?

Still, there are lots of hurdles to the adoption of 4K technology by everyone.

A big hurdle is in content. First, 4K TVs really only matter when your content comes in 4K, and there’s not much of that yet. But even as content increases, a related hurdle is how we’ll get hold of this new content. 4K content is fat — way fatter than 1080p content — so it requires much higher storage capacities and bigger bandwidth to deliver over wires.

Ultra HD BluRay disks are coming this year, but consumers just got done upgrading their DVDs to HD BluRay didn’t we? Then again, some say movies on disk are passé — isn’t everyone moving to Video-On-Demand and streaming video? In that case, your DVR needs a bigger hard drive, or we need much better internet bandwidth both outside and inside the home, don’t we? And if all our video becomes 4K (or higher) how much server storage will all the world’s video take up? (For the filmmaker, a single hour of 4K footage uses a huge 318 GB.) Sheesh, it makes my head spin.

Higher-resolution moves forward on many fronts

4K television display with comparison of resolutions. Ultra HD on on modern TVThis week’s Comcast news is part of the industry’s efforts to resolve this content-access hurdle. Comcast had already announced last year a 4K on-demand streaming app on some Samsung UHD TVs providing access to a small 4K content library. DirecTV started offering 4K Ultra HD programming last November directly to subscribers’ TVs via their Genie HD DVR. Dish Network announced in January they’ll launch 4K service later this year along with a 4K Ultra HD DVR. In Wednesday’s news, Comcast also said it’s developing another box called the Xi5, designed to support high dynamic range (HDR), an imaging protocol that produces greater dynamic range of luminosity than standard digital imaging.

So are we about to overcome the biggest hurdles surrounding the need for content?

When can we get more 4K content?

The content itself is on the way. Netflix and Amazon Instant Video are offering small but titillating selections in 4K including a smattering of movies and some of their award-winning original series (among them House of Cards, The Blacklist, Breaking Bad, Transparent). Sony’s has today’s widest Ultra HD content selection so far with over 200 titles including The Amazing Spider-Man 2, American Hustle and Captain Philips — buy their FMP-X10 4K Ultra HD Media Player to get access their service. Comcast said its Xfinity Ultra HD catalog will offer hundreds of titles including some produced for IMAX, and full seasons of several current TV shows including Defiance, Outlander and Playing House. And we’ll see lots more content later this year when those Ultra HD BluRay titles hit the shelves (also one solution to the issue of local storage).

Streaming bandwidth issues? Comcast said that’s being addressed partly by encoding streamed content in the bandwidth-saving HEVC/H.265 format — reportedly the same compression format that’ll be used on Ultra HD BluRay disks.

It really does seem the industry will do what it takes to get 4K adopted sooner rather than later, if they can. Matt Strauss, an exec VP and general manager of video service for Comcast said in a statement: “With Xfinity in UHD, our customers can easily and seamlessly enjoy some of the best 4K programming available today as part of their subscription with no additional equipment or costs.”

How about you? Did you get a 4K TV last year? Are you buying into it today? Are you waiting for more content? Are you waiting for 10K?

2018-01-19T18:22:23+00:00

About the Author:

John Paulsen
John Paulsen is a "Data for Good" advocate, with more than 20 years in the data storage industry. He's helped launch many industry-firsts including HAMR technology, 10K-rpm and 15K-rpm hard drives, drives designed specifically for video and for gaming, Serial ATA drives, fluid dynamic HDD motors, 60TB SSDs, and MACH.2 multi-actuator technology.