Quote:We’re only about four years into the market launch of high resolution 4K Ultra HDTV, but TV manufacturers, content producers and engineering consultants made it clear at International CES a few weeks ago that we’ve only just started to see what this new display ecosystem can deliver.

Learn the details and read an interview with a UHD Alliance member spokesperson after the break.

Platform stakeholders want to prove that Ultra HD is about more than just pixels, and whether or not you’re in the market for the best picture quality an Ultra HD TV can deliver today or tomorrow, you might want to consider what the industry has coming just ahead.

Since the launch of the first 4K Ultra HD sets, content producers, engineers and the media have debated whether or not the average consumer is really deriving a perceivable benefit from typical TV screen sizes capable of producing four times the resolution (1920×1080 vs. 3840×2160 pixels) of the previous Full HD benchmark.

To help put some of those concerns to rest, set manufacturers have started developing UHD TVs that address other areas of the picture to make them look more realistic, such as adding more colors from a wider swath of the visual color spectrum, and more detail in the deep black and bright white ranges of the image. Some of these areas are being addressed in new technologies like Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display panels, LED/LCD TVs using quantum dot technology and other approaches.

The results are as varied as the different approaches in play, and what has been glaringly lacking is the absence of input from the content side of the equation.

For this reason, representatives from multiple companies in multiple industries have put aside their differences to work together to develop a best of breed framework. This so-named UHD (Ultra HD) Alliance is seeking to create a functionally competitive environment through which TV manufacturers and content producers can enhance the images produced by all of those extra pixels with new levels of expanded color bit depth, a wider and more natural color palette, higher frame rates, new 3D audio sound and the inclusion of techniques for adding high dynamic range for greater image detail. (See CES Recap: Thoughts On Color for more on this).

Ironically, these added side benefits aren’t necessarily 4K Ultra HD resolution dependent. The same or similar results can be achieved on Full HDTVs. But from a business standpoint, adding those extra benefits to a technology treading dangerously close to commoditization wouldn’t give manufacturers a lot of room for profit and could add prohibitive cost to a low-margin display technology, when time and again the market has shown bigger resolution spec numbers inspire TV upgrades. In time, however, many of the benefits derived from this body will undoubtedly move into mid- and even low-end ranges of the TV market. Just don’t hold your breath waiting.

Quote:Is it me or are those options are almost comically limited?

It's not you.

Quote:Which means we've been in this weird in-between time, waiting for significant numbers of people to make a relatively illogical decision to buy an extra-expensive TV that will only look marginally better than their old one for the next year or two.