Ultra-high-definition television (also known as Ultra HD television, Ultra HD, UHDTV, UHD and Super Hi-Vision) today includes

4K UHD 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) is the dominan ...

and

8K UHD 8K resolution refers to an image or display resolution with a width of approximately 8,000 pixels. 8K UHD () is the highest resolution defined in the Rec. 2020 ( UHDTV) standard. 8K display resolution is the successor to 4K resolution. TV manuf ...

, which are two

digital video Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data Digital data, in information theory and information systems, is information represented as a string of discrete symbols eac ...

formats with an aspect ratio of 16:9. These were first proposed by NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories and later defined and approved by the

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

(ITU). The

Consumer Electronics Association The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) is a standard and trade organization representing 1,376 consumer technology companies in the United States. CTA works to influence public policy, holds events such as the Consumer Electronics Show (CE ...

announced on October 17, 2012, that "Ultra High Definition", or "Ultra HD", would be used for displays that have an aspect ratio of 16:9 or wider and at least one digital input capable of carrying and presenting native video at a minimum resolution of . In 2015, the

Ultra HD Forum Ultra HD Forum is an organization whose goal is to help solve the real world hurdles in deploying Ultra HD video and thus to help promote UHD deployment. The Ultra HD Forum will help navigate amongst the standards related to high dynamic range (H ...

was created to bring together the end-to-end video production ecosystem to ensure interoperability and produce industry guidelines so that adoption of ultra-high-definition television could accelerate. From just 30 in Q3 2015, the forum published a list up to 55 commercial services available around the world offering 4K resolution. The "UHD Alliance", an industry consortium of content creators, distributors, and hardware manufacturers, announced during a

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event t ...

(CES) 2016 press conference its "Ultra HD Premium" specification, which defines resolution, bit depth, color gamut,

high dynamic range High dynamic range (HDR) is a dynamic range higher than usual, synonyms are wide dynamic range, extended dynamic range, expanded dynamic range. The term is often used in discussing the dynamic range of various signals such as images, videos, au ...

(HDR) performance required for Ultra HD (UHDTV) content and displays to carry their Ultra HD Premium logo.

Alternative terms

Ultra-high-definition television is also known as Ultra HD, UHD, UHDTV and 4K. In Japan, 8K UHDTV will be known as Super Hi-Vision since Hi-Vision was the term used in Japan for HDTV. In the consumer electronics market companies had previously only used the term 4K at the 2012 CES but that had changed to "Ultra HD" during CES 2013. "Ultra HD" was selected by the

after extensive consumer research, as the term has also been established with the introduction of "

Ultra HD Blu-ray Ultra HD Blu-ray (4K Ultra HD, UHD-BD, or 4K Blu-ray) is a digital optical disc data storage format that is an enhanced variant of Blu-ray. Ultra HD Blu-ray discs are incompatible with existing standard Blu-ray players, though a traditional Bl ...

Technical details

Resolution

Two resolutions are defined as UHDTV: * UHDTV-1 is 3840 pixels wide by 2160 pixels tall (8.3

megapixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...

s), which is four times as many pixels as the (2.07 megapixels) of current

1080p 1080p (1920×1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen ve ...

HDTV High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

(full HDTV). ** Also known as 2160p, and ''4K UHD''. Although roughly similar in resolution to 4K digital cinema formats, it should not be confused with other 4K resolutions such as the ''DCI 4K''/''Cinema 4K''. The total number of pixels of RGB stripe type is 8.3 mega pixel. * UHDTV-2 is 7680 pixels wide by 4320 pixels tall (33.18 megapixels), also referred to as 4320p and ''8K UHD'', which is sixteen times as many pixels as current

, which brings it closer to the detail level of 15/70 mm IMAX.

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

advertises the 8K UHDTV format with

22.2 surround sound 22.2 or Hamasaki 22.2 (named after Kimio Hamasaki, a senior research engineer at NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories in Japan) is the surround sound component of Super Hi-Vision (a new television standard with 16 times the pixel resolut ...

as ''Super Hi-Vision''.

Color space, dynamic range, frame rate and resolution/aliasing

The human visual system has a limited ability to discern improvements in resolution when picture elements are already small enough or distant enough from the viewer. At some home viewing distances and current TV sizes, HD resolution is near the limits of resolution for the eye and increasing resolution to 4K has little perceptual impact, if consumers are beyond the critical distance (

Lechner distance Bernard J. Lechner (25 January 1932 – 11 April 2014) was an electronics engineer and formerly vice president, RCA Laboratories, where he worked for 30 years covering various aspects of television and information display technologies. Biogra ...

) to appreciate the differences in pixel count between 4K and HD. One exception is that even if resolution surpasses the resolving ability of the human eye, there is still an improvement in the way the image appears due to higher resolutions reducing

spatial aliasing In signal processing and related disciplines, aliasing is an effect that causes different signals to become indistinguishable (or ''aliases'' of one another) when sampled. It also often refers to the distortion or artifact that results when a ...

. UHDTV provides other image enhancements in addition to pixel density. Specifically, dynamic range and color are greatly enhanced, and these impact saturation and contrast differences that are readily resolved greatly improve the experience of 4KTV compared to HDTV. UHDTV allows the future use of the new

Rec. 2020 ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 2020 or BT.2020, defines various aspects of ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) with standard dynamic range (SDR) and wide color gamut (WCG), including picture ...

(UHDTV) color space which can reproduce colors that cannot be shown with the current Rec. 709 (HDTV) color space. In terms of

CIE 1931 color space The CIE 1931 color spaces are the first defined quantitative links between distributions of wavelengths in the electromagnetic visible spectrum, and physiologically perceived colors in human color vision. The mathematical relationships that defin ...

, the Rec. 2020 color space covers 75.8%, compared to coverage by the

DCI-P3 P3 is an RGB color space. DCI-P3 (Digital Cinema Initiative) is used with digital theatrical motion picture distribution (DCDM). Display P3 is a variant developed by Apple Inc. for wide-gamut displays. __TOC__ History Development of the sta ...

digital cinema Digital cinema refers to adoption of digital technology within the film industry to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Whereas film reels have to be sh ...

reference projector color space of just 53.6%, 52.1% by

Adobe RGB color space The Adobe RGB (1998) color space or opRGB is a color space developed by Adobe Systems, Inc. in 1998. It was designed to encompass most of the colors achievable on CMYK color printers, but by using RGB primary colors on a device such as a compu ...

, while the Rec. 709 color space covers only 35.9%. UHDTV's increases in

dynamic range Dynamic range (abbreviated DR, DNR, or DYR) is the ratio between the largest and smallest values that a certain quantity can assume. It is often used in the context of signals, like sound and light. It is measured either as a ratio or as a base ...

allow not only brighter highlights but also increased detail in the greyscale. UHDTV also allows for

frame rate Frame rate (expressed in or FPS) is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images ( frames) are captured or displayed. The term applies equally to film and video cameras, computer graphics, and motion capture systems. Frame rate may also be ...

s up to 120 frames per second (fps). UHDTV potentially allows Rec. 2020, higher dynamic range, and higher frame rates to work on HD services without increasing resolution to 4K, providing improved quality without as high of an increase in bandwidth demand.

History

2001–2005

The first displays capable of displaying 4K content appeared in 2001, as the

IBM T220/T221 LCD monitors The IBM T220 and T221 are LCD monitors that were sold between 2001 and 2005, with a native resolution of 3840×2400 pixels ( WQUXGA) on a screen with a diagonal of 22.2 inches (564 mm). This works out to 9,216,000 pixels, with a pixel ...

researchers built a UHDTV prototype which they demonstrated in 2003. They used an array of 16 HDTV recorders with a total capacity of almost 3.5 TB that could capture up to 18 minutes of test footage. The camera itself was built with four CCDs, each with a resolution of only . Using two CCDs for green and one each for red and blue, they then used a spatial pixel offset method to bring it to . Subsequently, an improved and more compact system was built using

CMOS image sensor An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector (typically a pinned photodiode) and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) active-pixel sensor, MOS field-effec ...

technology and the CMOS image sensor system was demonstrated at

Expo 2005 Expo 2005 was a World Expo held for 185 days between Friday, March 25 and Sunday, September 25, 2005, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, east of the city of Nagoya. Japan has also hosted Expo '70 Osaka (World Expo), Expo '75 Okinawa (Specialised Expo) ...

Aichi is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture has a population of 7,552,873 () and a geographic area of with a population density of . Aichi Prefecture borders Mie Prefecture to the west, Gifu Prefecture ...

, Japan, the NAB 2006 and NAB 2007 conferences,

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

, at IBC 2006 and IBC 2008,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, and CES 2009. A review of the NAB 2006 demo was published in a broadcast engineering e-newsletter. Individuals at NHK and elsewhere projected that the timeframe for UHDTV to be available in domestic homes varied between 2015 and 2020 but Japan was to get it in the 2016 time frame.

2006–2010

On November 2, 2006, NHK demonstrated a live relay of a UHDTV program over a 260 kilometer distance by a

fiber-optic network Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of infrared light through an optical fiber. The light is a form of carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. Fiber is pr ...

. Using dense wavelength division multiplex (DWDM), 24

Gbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...

speed was achieved with a total of 16 different wavelength signals. On December 31, 2006, NHK demonstrated a live relay of their annual

Kōhaku Uta Gassen , more commonly known simply as ''Kōhaku'', is an annual New Year's Eve television special produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It is broadcast live simultaneously on television and radio, nationally and internationally by the NHK net ...

over IP from Tokyo to a screen in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

. Using a

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

developed by NHK, the video was compressed from 24Gbit/s to 180600

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...

and the audio was compressed from 28Mbit/s to 728Mbit/s. Uncompressed, a 20-minute broadcast would require roughly 4 TB of storage. The

SMPTE The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...

first released Standard 2036 for UHDTV in 2007. UHDTV was defined as having two levels, called UHDTV1 () and UHDTV2 (). In May 2007, the NHK did an indoor demonstration at the NHK Open House in which a UHDTV signal ( at 60fps) was compressed to a 250Mbit/s MPEG2 stream. The signal was input to a 300MHz wide band modulator and broadcast using a 500MHz

QPSK Phase-shift keying (PSK) is a digital modulation process which conveys data by changing (modulating) the phase of a constant frequency reference signal (the carrier wave). The modulation is accomplished by varying the sine and cosine inputs ...

modulation. This "on the air" transmission had a very limited range (less than 2 meters), but shows the feasibility of a satellite transmission in the 36,000km orbit. In 2008, Aptina Imaging announced the introduction of a new CMOS image sensor specifically designed for the NHK UHDTV project. During IBC 2008 Japan's

, Italy's

RAI RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

BSkyB Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

Panasonic Corporation formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

Sharp Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products, headquartered in Sakai-ku, Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. Since 2016 it has been majority owned by the Taiwan-based Foxconn Group. Sharp employs more t ...

, and

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...

(with various partners) demonstrated the first ever public live transmission of UHDTV, from London to the conference site in Amsterdam. On June 9, 2010, Panasonic announced that its professional plasma display lineup would include an plasma display with 4K resolution. At the time of announcement, it was the largest 4K display and the largest television. On September 29, 2010, the NHK partnered up and recorded The Charlatans live in the UK in the UHDTV format, before broadcasting over the internet to Japan.

2011

On May 19, 2011, Sharp in collaboration with NHK demonstrated a direct-view LCD display capable of pixels at 10 bits per channel. It was the first direct-view Super Hi-Vision-compatible display released. Before 2011, UHDTV allowed for

s of 24, 25, 50, and 60fps. In an ITU-R meeting during 2011, an additional frame rate was added to UHDTV of 120fps.

2012

On February 23, 2012, NHK announced that with Shizuoka University they had developed an 8K sensor that can shoot video at 120fps. In April 2012, Panasonic, in collaboration with NHK announced a display ( at 60fps), which has 33.2 million 0.417mm square pixels. In April 2012, the four major South Korean terrestrial broadcasters ( KBS, MBC, SBS, and EBS) announced that in the future, they would begin test broadcasts of UHDTV on channel 66 in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...

. At the time of the announcement, the UHDTV technical details had not yet been decided.

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG Corporation, the fourth largest '' chaebol'' in South Korea, and often considered ...

and

are also involved in UHDTV test broadcasts. In May 2012, NHK showed the world's first ultra-high-definition shoulder-mount camera. By reducing the size and weight of the camera, the portability had been improved, making it more maneuverable than previous prototypes, so it could be used in a wide variety of shooting situations. The single-chip sensor uses a Bayer color-filter array, where only one color component is acquired per pixel. Researchers at NHK also developed a high-quality up-converter, which estimates the other two color components to convert the output into full resolution video. Also in May 2012, NHK showed the ultra-high-definition imaging system it has developed in conjunction with Shizuoka University, which outputs 33.2-megapixel video at 120fps with a

color depth Color depth or colour depth (see spelling differences), also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, or the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel. When referring ...

of 12bits per component. As ultra-high-definition broadcasts at full resolution are designed for large, wall-sized displays, there is a possibility that fast-moving subjects may not be clear when shot at 60fps, so the option of 120fps has been standardized for these situations. To handle the sensor output of approximately 4 billion pixels per second with a data rate as high as 51.2Gbit/s, a faster analog-to-digital converter has been developed to process the data from the pixels, and then a high-speed output circuit distributes the resulting digital signals into 96 parallel channels. This CMOS sensor is smaller and uses less power when compared to conventional ultra-high-definition sensors, and it is also the world's first to support the full specifications of the ultra-high-definition standard. During the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, th ...

in Great Britain, the format was publicly showcased by the world's largest broadcaster, the BBC, which set up 15-meter-wide screens in London, Glasgow, and

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

to allow viewers to see the Games in ultra-high definition. On May 31, 2012, Sony released the VPL-VW1000ES 4K 3D Projector, the world's first consumer-prosumer projector using the 4K UHDTV system, with the shutter-glasses stereoscopic 3D technology priced at US$24,999.99. On August 22, 2012, LG announced the world's first 3D UHDTV using the 4K system. On August 23, 2012, UHDTV was officially approved as a standard by the

(ITU), standardizing both 4K and 8K resolutions for the format in ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020. On September 15, 2012, David Wood, Deputy Director of the EBU Technology and Development Department (who chairs the ITU working group that created Rec. 2020), told ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly large ...

'' that South Korea plans to begin test broadcasts of 4K UHDTV next year. Wood also said that many broadcasters have the opinion that going from HDTV to 8K UHDTV is too much of a leap and that it would be better to start with 4K UHDTV. In the same article, Masakazu Iwaki, NHK Research senior manager, said that the NHK plan to go with 8K UHDTV is for economic reasons since directly going to 8K UHDTV would avoid an additional transition from 4K UHDTV to 8K UHDTV. On October 18, 2012, the

(CEA) announced that it had been unanimously agreed by the CEA's Board of Industry Leaders that the term "Ultra High-Definition", or "Ultra HD", would be used for displays that have a resolution of at least 8 megapixels with a vertical resolution of at least 2,160 pixels and a horizontal resolution of at least 3,840 pixels. The Ultra HD label also requires the display to have an aspect ratio of 16:9 or wider and to have at least one digital input that can carry and present a native video signal of without having to rely on a

video scaler A video scaler is a system which converts video signals from one display resolution to another; typically, scalers are used to convert a signal from a lower resolution (such as 480p standard definition) to a higher resolution (such as 1080i hig ...

. Sony announced they would market their 4K products as ''4K Ultra High-Definition (4K UHD)''. On October 23, 2012, Ortus Technology Co., Ltd announced the development of the world's smallest pixel LCD panel with a size of and a

pixel density Pixels per inch (ppi) and pixels per centimetre (ppcm or pixels/cm) are measurements of the pixel density of an electronic image device, such as a computer monitor or television display, or image digitizing device such as a camera or image scanner. ...

of 458px/in. The LCD panel is designed for medical equipment and professional video equipment. On October 25, 2012, LG Electronics began selling the first flat panel Ultra HD display in the United States with a resolution of . The LG 84LM9600 is an flat panel

LED-backlit LCD display An LED-backlit LCD is a liquid-crystal display that uses LEDs for backlighting instead of traditional cold cathode fluorescent (CCFL) backlighting. LED-backlit displays use the same TFT LCD (thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display) techno ...

with a price of US$19,999 though the retail store was selling it for US$16,999. On November 29, 2012, Sony announced the 4K Ultra HD Video Player—a hard disk server preloaded with ten 4K movies and several 4K video clips that they planned to include with the Sony XBR-84X900. The preloaded 4K movies are ''The Amazing Spider-Man'', ''Total Recall'' (2012), ''The Karate Kid'' (2010), ''Salt'', '' Battle: Los Angeles'', '' The Other Guys'', ''

Bad Teacher ''Bad Teacher'' is a 2011 American comedy-drama film directed by Jake Kasdan from a screenplay by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky. Starring Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Lucy Punch, John Michael Higgins and Jason Segel, the film tel ...

'', ''That's My Boy'', ''

Taxi Driver ''Taxi Driver'' is a 1976 American film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, and Albert Brooks. Set in a decaying ...

'', and ''

The Bridge on the River Kwai ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' is a 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean and based on the 1952 novel written by Pierre Boulle. Although the film uses the historical setting of the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–1943, th ...

''. Additional 4K movies and 4K video clips will be offered for the 4K Ultra HD Video Player in the future . On November 30, 2012,

Red Digital Cinema Camera Company Red Digital Cinema (''Red Digital Cinema Camera Company'') is an American company that manufactures professional digital cinematography cameras and accessories. The company's headquarters is in Foothill Ranch, California, with studios in Holly ...

announced that they were taking pre-orders for the US$1,450 REDRAY 4K Cinema Player, which can output 4K resolution to a single 4K display or to four 1080p displays arranged in any configuration via four HDMI1.4 connections. Video output can be DCI 4K (), 4K Ultra HD, 1080p, and 720p at frame rates of up to 60fps with a color depth of up to 12bpc with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling. Audio output can be up to 7.1 channels. Content is distributed online using the ODEMAX video service. External storage can be connected using

eSATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard t ...

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

, USB, or a

Secure Digital Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...

memory card.

2013

On January 6, 2013, the NHK announced that Super Hi-Vision satellite broadcasts could begin in Japan in 2016. On January 7, 2013,

Eutelsat Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it is the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Eutelsat's satellite ...

announced the first dedicated 4K Ultra HD channel.

Ateme Ateme S.A. is a multinational company that specializes in video delivery, namely software for video compression based on H.265 / HEVC standards; MPEG4; MPEG2 encoding / decoding solutions for contribution links, multi-screen live streaming, OT ...

uplinks the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC channel to the EUTELSAT 10A satellite. The 4K Ultra HD channel has a frame rate of 50fps and is encoded at 40Mbit/s. The channel started transmission on January 8, 2013. On the same day

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, ...

CEO Paul Jacobs announced that mobile devices capable of playing and recording 4K Ultra HD video would be released in 2013 using the

Snapdragon ''Antirrhinum'' is a genus of plants commonly known as dragon flowers, snapdragons and dog flower because of the flowers' fancied resemblance to the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed. They are native to r ...

800 chip. On January 8, 2013,

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...

announced the BCM7445, an Ultra HD decoding chip capable of decoding

High Efficiency Video Coding High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In comp ...

(HEVC) at up to at 60fps. The BCM7445 is a 28nm

ARM architecture ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...

chip capable of 21,000

Dhrystone Dhrystone is a synthetic computing benchmark program developed in 1984 by Reinhold P. Weicker intended to be representative of system ( integer) programming. The Dhrystone grew to become representative of general processor ( CPU) performance. ...

MIPS with volume production estimated for the middle of 2014. On the same day THX announced the "THX 4K Certification" program for Ultra HD displays. The certification involves up to 600 tests and the goal of the program is so that "content viewed on a THX Certified Ultra HD display meets the most exacting video standards achievable in a consumer television today". On January 14, 2013,

Blu-ray Disc Association The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is the industry consortium that develops and licenses Blu-ray Disc technology and is responsible for establishing format standards and promoting business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc. The BDA is divided into th ...

president Andy Parsons stated that a task force created three months ago is studying an extension to the

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

specification that would add support for 4K Ultra HD video. On January 25, 2013, the BBC announced that the

BBC Natural History Unit The BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of BBC Studios that produces television, radio and online content with a natural history or wildlife theme. It is best known for its highly regarded nature documentaries, including '' ...

would produce ''Survival''—the first wildlife TV series recorded in 4K resolution. This was announced after the BBC had experimented with 8K during the London Olympics. On January 27, 2013,

Asahi Shimbun is one of the four largest newspapers in Japan. Founded in 1879, it is also one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. Its circulation, which was 4.57 million for its morning edition a ...

reported that 4K Ultra HD satellite broadcasts would start in Japan with the

2014 FIFA World Cup The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for list of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from ...

. Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications decided on this move to stimulate demand for 4K Ultra HD TVs. On February 21, 2013, Sony announced that the

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 i ...

would support 4K resolution output for photos and videos but wouldn't render games at that resolution. On March 26, 2013, the

Advanced Television Systems Committee The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is an international nonprofit organization developing technical standards for digital terrestrial television and data broadcasting. ATSC's 120-plus member organizations represent the broadcast, ...

(ATSC) announced a call for proposals for the

ATSC 3.0 ATSC 3.0 is a major version of the ATSC standards for television broadcasting created by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). The standards are designed to offer support for newer technologies, including HEVC for video channels of u ...

physical layer that specifies support for resolution at 60fps. On April 11, 2013, Bulb TV created by Canadian entrepreneur Evan Kosiner became the first broadcaster to provide a 4K linear channel and VOD content to cable and satellite companies in North America. The channel is licensed by the

Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcast ...

to provide educational content. On April 19, 2013,

SES SES, S.E.S., Ses and similar variants can refere to: Business and economics * Socioeconomic status * Scottish Economic Society, a learned society in Scotland * SES, callsign of the TV station SES/RTS (Mount Gambier, South Australia) * SES S.A., ...

announced the first Ultra HD transmission using the HEVC standard. The transmission had a resolution of and a bit rate of 20Mbit/s. On May 9, 2013,

and

Mitsubishi Electric , established on 15 January 1921, is a Japanese multinational electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi. The products from MELCO include elevators an ...

announced that they had jointly developed the first HEVC encoder for 8K Ultra HD TV, which is also called Super Hi-Vision (SHV). The HEVC encoder supports the Main 10 profile at Level 6.1 allowing it to encode 10bpc video with a resolution of at 60fps. The HEVC encoder has 17 3G-SDI inputs and uses 17 boards for parallel processing with each board encoding a row of pixels to allow for real time video encoding. The HEVC encoder is compliant with draft 4 of the HEVC standard and has a maximum bit rate of 340Mbit/s. The HEVC encoder was shown at the NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories Open House 2013 that took place from 30 May to June 2. At the NHK Open House 2013 the HEVC encoder used a bit rate of 85Mbit/s, which gives a compression ratio of . On May 21, 2013,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

announced the

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

, which supports 4K resolution () video output and

7.1 surround sound 7.1 surround sound is the common name for an eight-channel surround audio system commonly used in home theatre configurations. It adds two additional speakers to the more conventional six-channel ( 5.1) audio configuration. As with 5.1 surround s ...

. Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of marketing and strategy for Microsoft, has stated that there is no hardware restriction that would prevent Xbox One games from running at 4K resolution. On May 30, 2013, Eye IO announced that their encoding technology was licensed by

Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio Conglomerate (company), conglom ...

to deliver 4K Ultra HD video. Eye IO encodes their video assets at and includes support for the

xvYCC xvYCC or extended-gamut YCbCr is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space. xvYCC was proposed by Sony, specified by the IEC in October 2005 an ...

color space. In mid-2013, a Chinese television manufacturer produced the first 50-inch UHD television set costing less than $1,000. On June 11, 2013,

Comcast Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...

announced that they had demonstrated the first public U.S.-based delivery of 4K Ultra HD video at the 2013 NCTA show. The demonstration included segments from '' Oblivion'', ''

Defiance Defiance may refer to: Film, television and theatre * ''Defiance'' (1952 film), a Swedish drama film directed by Gustaf Molander * ''Defiance'' (1980 film), an American crime drama starring Jan-Michael Vincent * ''Defiance'' (2002 film), a ...

'', and nature content sent over a

DOCSIS Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-bandwidth data transfer to an existing cable television (CATV) system. It is used by many cable televisio ...

3.0 network. On June 13, 2013,

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

announced that they would end the broadcast of the

ESPN 3D ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The co ...

channel by the end of that year and would "...experiment with things like UHDTV." On June 26, 2013, Sharp announced the LC-70UD1U, which is a 4K Ultra HD TV. The LC-70UD1U is the world's first TV with THX 4K certification. On July 2, 2013, ''

Jimmy Kimmel Live! ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' is an American late-night talk show, created and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, broadcast on ABC. The nightly hour-long show debuted on January 26, 2003, at Hollywood Masonic Temple in Hollywood, California, as part of ABC's ...

'' recorded in 4K Ultra HD a performance by musical guest Karmin, and the video clip was used as demonstration material at Sony stores. On July 3, 2013, Sony announced the release of their 4K Ultra HD Media Player with a price of US$7.99 for rentals and US$29.99 for purchases. The 4K Ultra HD Media Player only worked with Sony's 4K Ultra HD TVs. On July 15, 2013, the CTA published CTA-861-F, a standard that applies to interfaces such as DVI, HDMI, and LVDS. The CTA-861-F standard adds support for several Ultra HD video formats and additional color spaces. On September 2, 2013 Acer announced the first smartphone, dubbed Liquid S2, capable of recording 4K video. On September 4, 2013, the HDMI Forum released the

HDMI 2.0 High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, ...

specification, which supports 4K resolution at 60fps. On the same day, Panasonic announced the Panasonic TC-L65WT600—the first 4K TV to support 4K resolution at 60FPS. The Panasonic TC-L65WT600 has a screen, support for DisplayPort1.2a, support for HDMI2.0, an expected ship date of October, and a suggested retail price of US$5,999. On September 12–17, 2013, at the 2013 IBC Conference in Amsterdam, Nagra introduced an Ultra HD User Interface called Project Ultra based on HTML5, which works with OpenTV 5. On October 4, 2013,

DigitalEurope DIGITALEUROPE is the European organisation that represents the digital technology industry whose members include 98 major technology companies and 4national trade associations It seeks to ensure industry participation in the development and implem ...

announced the requirements for their UHD logo in Europe. The DigitalEurope UHD logo requires that the display support a resolution of at least , a aspect ratio, the Rec. 709 (HDTV) color space, 8bpc color depth, a frame rate of 24, 25, 30, 50, or 60fps, and at least 2-channel audio. On October 29, 2013,

Elemental Technologies WowWS History Elemental was founded in 2006 by three engineers formerly of the semiconductor company Pixelworks: Sam Blackman (CEO), Jesse Rosenzweig ( CTO), and Brian Lewis. In July 2012, Elemental products supported the broadcast of the 2012 ...

announced support for real-time 4K Ultra HD HEVC video processing. Elemental provided live video streaming of the 2013

Osaka Marathon The is an annual marathon road running event for non-elite men and elite and non-elite women over the classic distance of 42.195 kilometres which is held in late October in the city of Osaka, Japan. There is also a "challenge run" with a dis ...

on October 27, 2013, in a workflow designed by K-Opticom, a telecommunications operator in Japan. Live coverage of the race in 4K Ultra HD was available to viewers at the International Exhibition Center in Osaka. This transmission of 4K Ultra HD HEVC video in real-time was an industry-first. On November 28, 2013, Organizing Committee of the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games 2014 in Sochi chief Dmitri Chernyshenko stated that the 2014 Olympic Winter Games would be shot in 8K Super Hi-Vision. On December 25, 2013, YouTube added a "2160p 4K" option to its videoplayer. Previously, a visitor had to select the "original" setting in the video quality menu to watch a video in 4K resolution. With the new setting, YouTube users can much more easily identify and play 4K videos. On December 30, 2013, Samsung announced availability of its Ultra HDTV for custom orders, making this the world's largest Ultra HDTV so far.

2014

On January 22, 2014,

European Southern Observatory The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 member states for ground-based ast ...

became the first scientific organization to deliver Ultra HD footage at regular intervals. On May 6, 2014,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

announced DVB-T2 tests in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

for Ultra HD HEVC broadcast with objectives to replace by 2020 the current

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Feb ...

MPEG4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related te ...

HD national broadcast. On May 26, 2014, satellite operator

announced the launch of Europe's first Ultra HD demo channel in HEVC, broadcasting at 50fps. The channel is available on the

Hot Bird Hot Bird (also styled HOTBIRD) is a group of satellites operated by Eutelsat, located at 13 °E over the equator ( orbital position) and with a transmitting footprint over Asia, Europe, North Africa, Americas and the Middle East. Only Digital d ...

satellites and can be watched by viewers with 4K TVs equipped with DVB-S2 demodulators and HEVC decoders. In June 2014, the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has ...

of that year (held in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

) became the first shot entirely in 4K Ultra HD, by

. The

European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who are members of the C ...

(EBU) broadcast matches of the

to audiences in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia in Ultra HD via

NSS-7 NSS-7 is a communications satellite owned by SES World Skies. It launched on 16 April 2002 on an AR-44L model of the Ariane 4 launch vehicle. It is a hybrid Ku- and C-band telecommunications satellite providing fixed satellite services, includin ...

and

SES-6 SES-6 is a commercial geostationary orbit, geostationary communication satellite owned and operated by SES S.A. Launch Constructed by Astrium, EADS Astrium, it was launched on 3 June 2013 at 09:18:31 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC from Baiko ...

satellites. Indian satellite TV provider unveils its plan to launch 4K UHD service early in 2015 and showcased live

quarter final match in 4K UHD through

Sony Entertainment Television Sony Entertainment Television (SET) is an Indian Hindi-language general entertainment pay television channel, that was launched on 30 September 1995, and is owned by Culver Max Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese Sony. SET India's ...

Sony SIX Sony Sports Ten 5 (formerly Sony Six) is an Indian English-language pay television sports channel operated by Culver Max Entertainment. It is part of the Sony Sports Network. History Sony SIX was launched in April 2012 by Sony Pictures Netw ...

. On June 24, 2014, the CEA updated the guidelines for Ultra High-Definition and released guidelines for Connected Ultra High-Definition, adding support for internet video delivered with HEVC. The CEA is developing a UHD logo for voluntary use by companies that make products that meet CEA guidelines. The CEA also clarified that "Ultra High-Definition", "Ultra HD", or "UHD" can be used with other modifiers and gave an example with "Ultra High-Definition TV 4K". On July 15, 2014, Researchers from the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the ancient arms attributed to the Kingdom of Es ...

both captured and delivered its graduation ceremonies in 4K UHDTV over the internet using

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...

in realtime. The 4K video stream was published at 8Mbit/s and 14Mbit/s for all its 11 ceremonies, with people viewing in from countries such as Cyprus, Bulgaria, Germany, Australia, UK, and others. On September 4, 2014,

Canon Inc. is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optical, imaging, and industrial products, such as lenses, cameras, medical equipment, scanners, printers, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.< ...

announced that a firmware upgrade would add Rec. 2020 color space support to their EOS C500 and EOS C500 PL camera models and their DP-V3010 4K display. On September 4, 2014,

announced a firmware update for the

Microsoft Lumia Microsoft Lumia (previously the Nokia Lumia) is a discontinued line of mobile devices that was originally designed and marketed by Nokia and later by Microsoft Mobile. Introduced in November 2011, the line was the result of a long-term partnersh ...

1020 Year 1020 ( MXX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events * Summer – Emperor Henry II conducts his third Italian military campaign. He makes plans to invade the south, ...

930 Year 930 ( CMXXX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * 17 June (traditional date) – The Althing, the parliament of Iceland, is established at ...

Icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The mos ...

, and

1520 __NOTOC__ Year 1520 ( MDXX) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–June * January 19 – King Christian II of Denmark and Norway defeats the Swedes, at ...

phones that adds 4K video recording. The update was later released by the individual phone carriers over the following weeks and months after the announcement. On September 5, 2014, the

announced that the 4K

specification supports 4K video at 60fps,

, the

color space,

, and 10bpc

. 4K Blu-ray Disc will have a data rate of at least 50Mbit/s and may include support for 66GB and 100GB discs. 4K Blu-ray Disc began licensing in 2015, with 4K Blu-ray Disc players released late that year. On September 5, 2014,

released an Ultra HD logo for companies that meet their technical requirements. On September 11, 2014 satellite operator

announced the first Ultra HD

conditional access Conditional access (CA) is a term commonly used in relation to software and to digital television systems. Conditional access is that ‘just-in-time’ evaluation to ensure the person who is seeking access to content is authorized to access the c ...

-protected broadcast using

DVB Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) o ...

standards at the IBC show in Amsterdam. The demonstration used a

Ultra HD TV, with a standard Kudelski SmarDTV CI Plus conditional access module, to decrypt a full pixel CAS-protected Ultra HD signal in HEVC broadcast via an SES Astra satellite at 19.2°E. On November 19, 2014, rock band

Linkin Park Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. The band's current lineup comprises vocalist/rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Mike Shinoda, lead guitarist Brad Delson, bassist Dave Farrell, DJ/turntablist Joe Hahn and drumm ...

's concert at Berlin's O2 World Arena was broadcast live in Ultra HD via an

Astra 19.2°E Astra 19.2°E is the name for the group of Astra communications satellites co-located at the 19.2°East orbital position in the Clarke Belt that are owned and operated by SES based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg. Astra 19.2°E used to be commonly ...

satellite. The broadcast was encoded in the UHD 4K standard with the HEVC codec (50fps and a 10bpc color depth), and was a joint enterprise of satellite owner

SES Platform Services SES Platform Services GmbH (previously ASTRA Platform Services GmbH, later MX1, now part of SES Video) was a subsidiary company of SES (owner and operator of the Astra satellites) based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg . From its headquarters in Unterf ...

(later

MX1 Interferon-induced GTP-binding protein Mx1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''MX1'' gene. In mice, the interferon-inducible Mx protein is responsible for a specific antiviral state against influenza virus infection. Furthermore, t ...

, now part of SES Video) and

2015

Indian satellite pay TV provider

Tata Sky Tata Play (stylised as TΛTΛ PLΛY, formerly TΛTΛ , sky) is an Indian direct broadcast satellite (DTH) service provider using MPEG-4 digital compression technology, transmitting using INSAT-4A and GSAT-10 satellite. Incorporated in 2005; i ...

launched UHD service and UHD Set Top Box on 9 January 2015. The service is 4K at 50fps and price of the UHD box is ₹5900 for existing SD/HD customers and ₹6400 for new customers. The

Cricket World Cup 2015 The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup was the 11th Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by men's national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was jointly hosted by Au ...

was telecast live in 4K for free to those who own Tata Sky's UHD 4K STB. In May 2015,

France Télévisions France Télévisions (; stylized since 2018 as ) is the French national public television broadcaster. It is a state-owned company formed from the integration of the public television channels France 2 (formerly Antenne 2) and France 3 (form ...

broadcast matches from Roland Garros live in Ultra HD via the EUTELSAT 5 West A satellite in the HEVC standard. The channel "France TV Sport Ultra HD" was available via the Fransat platform for viewers in France. In May 2015, satellite operator

announced that Europe's first

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...

Ultra HD channel (from Germany's pearl.tv shopping channel) would launch in September 2015, broadcast in native Ultra HD via the

satellite position. In June, SES launched its first Ultra HD demonstration channel for cable operators and content distributors in North America to prepare their systems and test their networks for Ultra HD delivery. The channel is broadcast from the

SES-3 SES-3 is a communications satellite operated by SES World Skies, then by SES S.A. Spacecraft SES-3 was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC), and is based on the Star-2.4 satellite bus. It is equipped with 24 C-band, and 24 Ku-band ...

satellite at 103°W. In June, SPI International previewed its "4K FunBox UHD" Ultra HD channel on the HOT BIRD 4K1 channel, in advance of its commercial launch on

's HOT BIRD satellites in the autumn. In July 2015, German HD satellite broadcaster HD+ and TV equipment manufacturer

TechniSat TechniSat is a German manufacturer of direct broadcast satellite receivers. The company produces televisions, car navigation and entertainment systems as well. Together with Loewe and Metz, it is one of the few remaining independent consumer elect ...

announced an Ultra HD TV set with integrated decryption for reception of existing HD+ channels (available in the Autumn) and a new Ultra HD demonstration channel due to begin broadcasting in September. On 2 August 2015, The FA Community Shield in England was broadcast in Ultra HD by broadcast company

BT Sport BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and BT Group, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former International Bro ...

, becoming the first live football game shown in Ultra HD on the world's first commercial Ultra HD channel. The match was shown on Europe's first Ultra HD channel,

Ultra HD where selected live English Premier League and European Champions League matches were broadcast Fashion One 4K launched on September 2, 2015 becoming the first global Ultra HD TV channel. Reaching nearly 370 million households across the World, the fashion, lifestyle and entertainment network broadcasts via satellite from Measat at 91.5°E (for Asia Pacific, Middle East, Australia) and from

satellites

(for Europe), SES-3 at 103°W (for North America), NSS-806 at 47.5°W (for South America). In September 2015,

presented new consumer research, conducted by TNS and

GfK GfK (originally german: GfK-Nürnberg Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung e.V., lit=Nuremberg Society for Consumer Research, label=none) is a provider of data and intelligence to the consumer goods industry. It is headquartered in Nuremberg, German ...

, on Ultra HD and screen sales in key TV markets. The study looked at consumer exposure to Ultra HD, perceived benefits and willingness to invest in equipment and content. GfK predicts a 200% increase in Ultra HD screen sales from June to December 2015, with sales expected to reach five million by the end of the year. GfK also forecasts that Ultra HD screens in 2020 will represent more than 70% of total sales across Europe and almost 60% in the Middle East and North Africa. On 2 September 2015, Sony unveiled the Xperia Z5 Premium; the first smartphone with a 4K display. On 9 September 2015, Apple Inc. announced that their new smartphone the iPhone 6s could record video in 4K. On 6 October 2015,

unveiled the latest version of their

Microsoft Surface Book The Surface Book is a 2-in-1 PC designed and produced by Microsoft, part of the company's Surface line of personal computing devices. Surface Book is distinguished from other Surface devices primarily by its full-sized, detachable keyboard, whi ...

laptop with a display of "over 6 million pixels" and their new phones the Microsoft Lumia 950 and 950 XL, which, aside from 4K video recording that their predecessors included, feature a display of "over 5 million pixels". On 8 December 2015, the ceremony of the opening of the Holy Door in Vatican City, which marked the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy in the Roman Catholic church, was the first worldwide Ultra HD broadcast via satellite. The event was produced by the Vatican Television Center with the support of Eutelsat, Sony, Globecast and DBW Communication. The team did some advanced experimentation with 4K/High Dynamic Range live images and in particular using technology developed by the BBC's R&D division and Japan's public broadcaster NHK in terms of Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) signals.

2016

The "UHD Alliance", an industry consortium of content creators, distributors, and hardware manufacturers, announced Monday on January 11, 2016 during CES 2016 press conference its "Ultra HD Premium" specification, which defines resolution, bit depth, color gamut,

(HDR) performance required for Ultra HD (UHDTV) content and displays to carry their Ultra HD Premium logo. On April 2, 2016, Ultra-high-definition television demo channel UHD1 broadcast the Le Corsaire ballet in Ultra HD live from the Vienna State Opera. The programme was produced by Astra satellite owner,

in collaboration with European culture channel

ARTE Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plu ...

, and transmitted free-to-air, available to anyone with reception of the

satellites and an ultra HD screen equipped with an HEVC decoder. As of April 2016,

The NPD Group The NPD Group, Inc. (NPD; formerly National Purchase Diary Panel Inc. and NPD Research Inc.) is an American market research company founded on September 28, 1966, and based in Port Washington, New York. In 2017, NPD ranked as the 8th largest mar ...

reported that 6 million 4K UHD televisions had been sold. In May 2016,

Modern Times Group Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...

, owner of the

Viasat Viasat may refer to: *Viasat (American company) (founded 1986) *Viasat (Nordic television service) (founded 1991) * Danish 1st Division, officially Viasat Divisionen, second-highest football league in Denmark * Viasat Cup, 2006 Danish football tour ...

DTH platform announced the launch of Viasat Ultra HD, the first UHD channel for the Nordic region. The channel features selected live sport events especially produced in Ultra HD and launch in the autumn via the

SES-5 SES-5 (also known as Astra 4B and Sirius 5) is a commercial geostationary communication satellite operated by SES S.A. It was launched on 9 July 2012. The launch was arranged by International Launch Services (ILS). History In October 2008, S ...

satellite at 5°E. Viasat is also launching an Ultra HD set-top box from

and a TV-module that enables existing UHD TVs to display the channel. Satellite operator, SES said that the launch of Viasat Ultra HD brings the number of UHD channels (including test channels and regional versions) carried on SES satellites to 24, or 46% of all UHD channels broadcast via satellite worldwide. In August 2016, Sky announced that 4K broadcasts would begin via their new

Sky Q Sky Q is a subscription-based television and entertainment service operated by British satellite television provider Sky, as a part of its operations in Austria and Germany, Ireland, Italy and in the UK. The name also refers to the Sky Q set- ...

2TB box. The opening match of the

2016-17 Premier League 16-17 is a band from Basel, Switzerland. Their music combines punk rock, hardcore punk, jazz and industrial music. Biography 16-17 was founded in 1983 by Alex Buess, Knut Remond and Markus Kneubühler. When the group played its first con ...

between

Hull City Hull City Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, that compete in the . They have played home games at the MKM Stadium since moving from Boothferry Park in 2002. The club's t ...

and

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

was the first 4K transmission.

2017

On 29 September 2017,

BSAT-4a BSAT-4a is a geostationary communications satellite ordered by Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (BSAT) and designed and manufactured by SSL on the SSL 1300 platform. It is expected to be stationed on the 110.0° East orbital slot for di ...

, dedicated for UHDTV programming and was also claimed "the world's first 8K satellite", was launched from the

Guiana Space Centre The Guiana Space Centre (french: links=no, Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximatel ...

aboard

Ariane 5 Ariane 5 is a European heavy-lift space launch vehicle developed and operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It is launched from the Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) in French Guiana. It has been used to deliver payloads in ...

rocket. BSAT-4a would be used for

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

held in Japan. Additionally, in September 2017, Kaleidescape, a manufacturer of home-theater movie players and servers made 4K UHD movies compatible with their movie store, and with their movie players. In December 2017, Qualcomm announced that their Snapdragon 845 chipset and Spectra 280 Image Signal Processor would be the first phone SoC to record video in UHD Premium.

2018

In April 2018, RTL started broadcasting its own UHD channel in Germany. First available at

, the Channel shows UHD productions, Formula 1, Football and Deutschland sucht den Superstar. Satellite operator

broadcast an 8K television signal via its satellite system for the first time in May 2018. The 8K demonstration content, with a resolution of pixels, a frame rate of 60fps, and 10bpc color depth, was encoded in HEVC and transmitted at a rate of 80Mbit/s via the

Astra 3B Astra 3B is one of the Astra communications satellites owned and operated by SES, launched in 2010 to the Astra 23.5°E orbital position providing digital television and radio for direct-to-home (DTH), and the AstraConnect two-way satellite ...

satellite during SES's Industry Days conference in Luxembourg. In June 2018,

fuboTV FuboTV Inc. (stylized as fuboTV) is an American streaming television service serving customers in the United States, Canada, and Spain that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports. Depending on country, channels offered by Fub ...

broadcast the

2018 FIFA World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting righ ...

live in 4K and

HDR10 HDR10 Media Profile, more commonly known as HDR10, is an open high-dynamic-range video (HDR) standard announced on 27 August 2015 by the Consumer Technology Association. It is the most widespread of the HDR formats. HDR10 is not backward compat ...

becoming the first OTT streaming service to do so. Quarter, Semi and Final matches were available on many popular streaming devices including Apple TV, Chromecast Ultra, Fire TV, Roku and Android TVs. Content was streamed at 60 frames per second using HLS and

DASH The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

. Video was sent in fragmented MP4 containers delivering HEVC encoded video. On December 1, 2018, NHK launched BS8K, a broadcast channel transmitting at 8K resolution.

2019

In May 2019, for the first time in Europe, 8K demonstration content was received via satellite without the need for a separate external receiver or decoder. At the 2019

Industry Days conference at Betzdorf, Luxembourg broadcast quality 8K content (with a resolution of pixels at 50fps) was encoded using a Spin Digital HEVC encoder (at a bit rate of 70Mbit/s), uplinked to a single 33MHz transponder on SES'

Astra 28.2°E Astra 28.2°E is the name for the group of Astra communications satellites co-located at the 28.2° East position in the Clarke Belt that are owned and operated by SES based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg. It is one of the major TV satellite positions s ...

satellites and the downlink received and displayed on a

Q950RB production model TV.

List of 4K television channels

Global

Fashion 4K Fashion 4K is a 24-hour New York City-based satellite television channel broadcast in Europe that operates under the Fashion One television network. The channel was officially launched in New York City on September 1, 2015, and is the first E ...

* Festival 4K * High 4K TV

Europe

*4K Heritage * 4K UltraHD FunBox *4K Universe * Astra Promo * BBC TV (UK) * beIN Sports 4K (Spain) * BT Sport Ultimate *

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

''UHD - Astra 1KR/1L/1M/1N at 19.2°E''
LyngSat. Accessed November 2, 2018 *Canal+ 4K Ultra HD (Poland) *Digi 4K (Romania) * Digiturk UHD *

Discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discove ...

* Eurosport 4K *

Fashion One Fashion One is a 24-hour New York City-based television network founded by German entrepreneur, Michael Gleissner and owned by the Miami Beach, Florida-based entertainment company, Bigfoot Entertainment. Officially launched on April 8, 2010, th ...

4K * Fashion TV 4K * Festival 4K *

Insight Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings: *a piece of information *the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intui ...

UHD * M3.hu UHD (online only) * Movistar Fórmula 1 UHD * Movistar Partidazo UHD *

NASA TV The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding th ...

NPO 1 NPO 1 (''NPO een'', formerly Nederland 1 until 2014) is the first national television station in the Netherlands. It launched on 2 October 1951. It provides public broadcasting and currently exists next to sister channels NPO 2 and NPO 3. Severa ...

Pearl TV TVB Pearl is a terrestrial television channel in Hong Kong owned by Television Broadcasts Limited. Established on 19 November 1967, it shares headquarters with TVB's other properties at TVB City at 77 Chun Choi Street in Tseung Kwan O Industr ...

* ProsiebenSat.1 UHD * QVC Deutschland * QVC Zwei * Rai 4K * RMC Sport 1 * RTL UHD * RTVS UltraHD * SES Ultra HD Demo Channel * SFR Sport 4K * Sky Sport 4K (Italy) * Sky UHD1 (UK) * Sky UHD2 (UK) * Sky Sport UHD (Germany) * Sky Sport Bundesliga UHD (Germany) * Sky Sports Main Event UK * Sportklub 4K * Sport TV 4K UHD *

Travelxp Travelxp HD is a pay television channel in India, It airs travel shows. The channel is owned by ''Celebrities management private Ltd''. Its primary language is English, viewers can switch the language. Background Travelxp started as a pay ...

* Tricolor Ultra HD *

TRT 4K TRT 4K, is an UHD television channel established by TRT on Türksat 3A. TRT 4K started test broadcasting February 19, 2015. TRT4K is the first UHD FTA TV channel in Turkey and Europe. TRT4K uses HEVC (H.265) codec with 4K Ultra HD resolution ...

* TVP 4K (Poland) * UHD-1 * V Sport Ultra HD * Viasat Ultra HD * Virgin TV Ultra HD *Wow! 4K

Africa

* BTV (Botswana) *E BS 4K (Ethiopia) *Nahoo sports+UHD (Ethiopia) *Nahoo sports+2 UHD (Ethiopia) *ETV sports UHD (Ethiopia) *Kana TV 4K (Ethiopia) *on Time sports HD (Egypt)

Americas

* NASA TV UHD * Sportsnet 4K and Sportsnet One 4K (Canada) * TSN 4K and TSN 2 4K (Canada) * Hispasat TV 4K (Latin America) * Fashion One 4K * Fox Sports 4K and Fox Sports 1 4K (USA) * DirecTV 4K and DirecTV Cinema 4K (USA) *

(USA) * 4KUNIVERSE * Insight UHD *

The Country Network The Country Network is an American cable, streaming and broadcast television network that specializes in broadcasting country music videos and exclusive original music-based content; its playlist of videos extends from the 1990s through the pres ...

Rede Globo TV Globo (, "Globe TV", or simply Globo), formerly known as Rede Globo, is a Brazilian free-to-air television network, launched by media proprietor Roberto Marinho on 26 April 1965. It is owned by media conglomerate Grupo Globo. The TV stati ...

(Brazil) * UHD-1

Asia

* CCTV 4K () * Guangdong Radio and Television 4K Variety Channel () * Guangzhou Television Ultra HD () * SiTV Joy UHD () * Wasu-Discovery UHD () * Beijing TV Winter Olympic & Documentaries UHD () * First Media 4K (Indonesia) * IndiHome 4K (Indonesia) * Cable 4K * KBS1 UHD * KBS2 UHD * MBC UHD * SBS UHD * KNN UHD * KBC UHD * TBC UHD * TJB UHD * UBC UHD * G1 UHD * Asia UHD (South Korea) * Insight UHD * Life U * SBS F!L UHD * IRIB UHD Iran * Sky UHD * UHD Dream TV * UMAX * UXN * 4K-Sat * Tata Sky 4K (India) * Now Sports 4K (Hong Kong) * Bol Network Pakistan * Hum News Pakistan * Kan11 4K (Israel) *

NHK BS 4K , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

(Japan) * BS Nittele 4K (Japan) * BS Asahi 4K (Japan) * BS TV Tokyo 4K (Japan) * BS-TBS 4K (Japan) * BS Fuji 4K (Japan) * SHOP CHANNEL 4K (Japan) * 4K QVC (Japan) * THE CINEMA 4K (Japan) *

J Sports J Sports is a group of four sports satellite TV channels in Japan produced and broadcast by Jupiter Sports. They are owned by Coverage Football Soccer * FIFA ** National teams *** Men's: **** FIFA U-17 World Cup *** Women's : **** F ...

(Japan) * Star Channel 4K (Japan) * Sukachan 4K (Japan) * Japanese movie + Jidaigeki 4K * Wowow 4K (Japan) * Astro Super Sport UHD (Malaysia) * True 4K (Thailand) * VTVcab 4K (Vietnam) * SCTV 4K (Vietnam)

Oceania

* Foxtel Movies Ultra HD (Australia) * Fox Sports Ultra HD (Australia)

List of 8K television channels

* BS Fuji 8K (Japan) *

NHK BS8K NHK BS8K is a satellite television broadcasting service offered by NHK. Launched on 1 December 2018, it is the world's first television channel to broadcast in 8K resolution. Background NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories had start ...

(Japan) * CCTV-8K (China)

Field trials of UHDTV over DTT networks

Field trials using existing

digital terrestrial television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV or DTT, or DTTB with "broadcasting") is a technology for terrestrial television in which land-based (terrestrial) television stations broadcast television content by radio waves to televisions in consumers' ...

(DTT) transmitters have included the following.

Status of standardization of UHDTV

Standards that deal with UHDTV include:

Standardization in ITU-R

Standards approved in ITU-R: * Rec. ITU-R BT.1201-1 (2004) * Rec. ITU-R BT.1769 (2006) * Rec. ITU-R BT.2020 (2012, revised 2014) * Rec. ITU-R BT.2035-0 (07/13) ''A reference viewing environment for evaluation of HDTV program material or completed programmes'' * Rec. ITU-R BS.2051-0 (02/14) ''Advanced sound system for programme production'' * Rec. ITU-R BT.2100 (2016) Other documents prepared or being prepared by ITU-R: * Report ITU-R BT.2246-3 (2014) ''The present state of ultra-high definition television'' * Draft New Report ITU-R BT. HDTV-DTT TRIALS(Sub-Working Group 6A-1) ''Collection of field trials of UHDTV over DTT networks''

Standardization in ITU-T and MPEG

Standards developed in

ITU-T The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three sectors (divisions or units) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating standards for telecommunications and Information Co ...

VCEG The Video Coding Experts Group or Visual Coding Experts Group (VCEG, also known as Question 6) is a working group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with standards for compression coding of video, images, audio ...

and

ISO/IEC JTC 1 ISO/IEC JTC 1, entitled "Information technology", is a joint technical committee (JTC) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Its purpose is to develop, maintain and pr ...

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and f ...

that support Ultra-HD include: * H.265/MPEG-H HEVC ''High Efficiency Video Coding'' (2013, revised 2014) * H.264/MPEG-4 AVC ''Advanced Video Coding'' (support for Ultra-HD added circa 2013)

Standardization in SMPTE

* SMPTE 2036-1 (2009) * SMPTE 2036-2 (2008) * SMPTE 2036-3 (2010)

Standardization for Europe

approved the Standard TS 101 154 V2.1.1, published (07/2014) in the DVB Blue Book A157 ''Specification for the use of Video and Audio Coding in Broadcasting Applications based on the MPEG-2 Transport Stream'', which was published by

ETSI The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is an independent, not-for-profit, standardization organization in the field of information and communications. ETSI supports the development and testing of global technical standard ...

in the following months.

Standardization for Japan and South Korea

Standards for UHDTV in South Korea have been developed by its

Telecommunications Technology Association Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that ...

. On August 30, 2013, the scenarios for 4K-UHDTV service were described in the Report "TTAR 07.0011: A Study on the UHDTV Service Scenarios and its Considerations". On May 22, 2014, the technical report "TTAR-07.0013: Terrestrial 4K UHDTV Broadcasting Service" was published. On October 13, 2014, an interim standard – "TTAI.KO-07.0123: Transmission and Reception for Terrestrial UHDTV Broadcasting Service" – was published based on HEVC encoding, with MPEG 2 TS, and DVB-T2 serving as the standards. On June 24, 2016, a standard – "TTAK.KO-07.0127: Transmission and Reception for Terrestrial UHDTV Broadcasting Service" – was published based on HEVC encoding, with MMTP/ROUTE IP, and ATSC 3.0 serving as the standards.

Notes

References

External links

*
4K TV Mag
' – an online magazine about Ultra HD TV
"What is 4K Ultra HD?"
– ''4K TV Mag'' {{High-definition Consumer electronics Digital television Film and video technology History of television Telecommunications-related introductions in 2003 Television technology Television terminology Video formats