My friend—call him “Xerxes”—asked me to write about 4KTV. This could be another way of saying, “Let’s paint a target on your back and see what happens.” My colleague just wrote an obit for 3DTV and got flamed. He looks hilarious without eyebrows.
Since I need my eyebrows for the false confidence vanity brings, I asked other people what they thought of 4KTV—fad or phenomenon? Xerxes thinks 4KTV is a snipe hunt.
“Really,” he says, emphatic. “Who can see the difference?”
My BFF on 4KTV: “Why? We’re not even delivering 1080p/60 yet. 4K cameras offer improved pictures and flexibility. At home, there’s not much improvement.”
Brad Adgate, senior vice president of Horizon Media, said this: “It’s very expensive; not a lot if content outside of movies; they take up a lot of bandwidth; consumers are still getting new HD sets. So I think it’s still a few years away. That said, Sharp had an 8K demo at the CES last fall.”
I asked my subjects for 20 or so words. Amberfin’s Bruce Devlin gave me 14, proving that engineers can be brief and succinct.
“It will have a long life, but not as soon as people think,” he said.
And then he gave me more, proving he’s an engineer.
My server guy went political: “4K— UHDTV-1—has the potential to drive next-generation video, transmission and delivery capabilities for the industry’s facilities and viewers.”
And here’s Peter Putman, quintessential display dude:
“The dog will wag the tail this time; the implementation of 4K will be driven by widespread adoption in commercial markets and then trickle down to consumers.”
One certainty about 4KTV—it has a significant noise factor. I couldn’t have received more feedback had I offered Bitcoinage.
Let’s take this to the Interweb. Check out the LinkedIn poll at http://linkd.in/170KSF4. Let me hear what you think of 4KTV.
