LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8, 2020 -- A model is seen next to a Hisense 8K television at the 2020 Consumer ... [+]
The sales pitch for 8K televisions at CES 2021 took place online instead of in Las Vegas, but in one key respect it matched the messaging at earlier editions of this trade show: TV manufacturers don’t talk much about what 8K video you can watch on these giant sets.
You can’t blame them for wanting to change the channel, because they don’t have a good story to sell. Two and a half years after major manufacturers introduced their first lines of 8K TVs at the IFA trade show in Berlin, would-be 8K viewers still have next to nothing to watch in that 7680-by-4320 resolution.
YouTube offers a small selection of 8K clips. Gamers can plug in an Xbox Series X or (once a pending software update adds 8K support) PlayStation 5. And if you have a smartphone like Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 that records in 8K, you can make your own 8K content.
"It's limited,” admitted Grace Dolan, vice president for integrated marketing at Samsung Electronics, in a “Next Generation Television in Focus” panel Tuesday. "Even in 4K, there's only limited content."
(4K TVs had their commercial debut at CES 2012, but research from S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Kagan unit show they remain a small minority of the installed base: In 2020, 81.8 million of the 353.6 million TVs installed in the U.S. were 4K.)
Instead, manufacturers emphasize how software will upscale 4K and even HD content into 8K resolution—although it’s an easier lift to convert 4K footage into 8K footage with four times the pixel count than it is to take an HD stream and transform it to 8K with 16 times as many pixels.
As Dolan said in that panel: “We lean really hard on AI and upscaling technology to bring it as close to native as possible."
A certain amount of AI hand-waving figured in CES announcements from such companies as LG (“leverages deep learning to enhance upscaling”), Samsung (“using up to 16 different neural network models, each trained in AI upscaling and deep learning technology”), and TCL (“intelligently upscaled with TCL’s powerful AiPQ Engine”).
For many viewers, that may be good enough. Avi Greengart, founder and lead analyst at Techsponential, noted in email how well 4K TVs can upscale HD content to that resolution.
“It is difficult for humans to see obvious differences between native 4K and upscaled 4K, though in sizes above 80” it can be noticeable,” he said.
But if you’re going to pay extra for an 8K TV—their entry-level price might drop to $2,000 for a 65-inch set later this year—you’re probably not a good-enough TV shopper.
(Note that on a screen as “small” as 65 inches, you will have to sit exceedingly close to discern those extra pixels.)
Some production is already happening in 8K—in the panel, Michael Davies, senior vice president for field and technical operations at Fox Sports, said they had three 8K cameras at the Super Bowl last winter out of 105 total. But it’s hard to predict how that will reach viewers’ screens.
Cable and satellite are technically capable—in Japan, NHK has been providing 8K via satellite since 2018—but the business viability of that for these ailing firms is a different matter.
Forget about it, said Greengart: “They have been reluctant to remove HD channels to add 4K, so there’s no chance that they will be interested in doing that for the tiny 8K installed base.”
NextGen TV, the new digital-broadcast standard also known as ATSC 3.0 now being deployed across the U.S. and seeing limited support in new TVs, has been tested providing 8K with high-efficiency video compression.
"With HEVC, they're delivering 8K over ATSC 3.0 right now,” said Advanced Television Systems Committee president Madeleine Noland in that panel. But local stations aren’t even using ATSC 3.0 to deliver its advertised 4K support, instead employing it for enhanced HD alongside the ATSC 1.0 digital signals they’re required to keep on the air.
That leaves streaming. Greengart suggested TV manufacturers might bankroll an 8K streaming service “as a way of stoking interest in their hardware.”
One manufacturer did announce a new streaming service at CES this week—but Sony’s Bravia Core will offer 4K content, not 8K.
Plus, Greengart added, data caps such as those imposed by Comcast would make that a non-starter even for people with a sufficiently fast connection—figure at least 40 megabits per second for a single 8K stream.
“You’d be silly to blow through your bandwidth for more data-rich streams that contain detail your eye cannot see from the couch,” he said. “What happens when you need to get on a Zoom call with the boss the next day?”
