UltraHD TV sets are on the shelves, but 4K content isn't exactly flooding the screens. What is the holdup?
Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) Innovation Labs Executive Director Joshua Seiden recently said during a panel discussion that the company wants to offer its 4K UltraHD service in conjunction with high dynamic range (HDR) technology and 10 bit HEVC encoding, and only over IP - not QAM, according to press reports.
Tom Munro, CEO of Verimatrix, who spoke on the same panel, reported that Seiden said Comcast would shoot the Olympics in 4K from now on, but in terms of delivery, Comcast would be ready maybe this year, but certainly in 2018.
The reasons cited for the holdup include availability of chipsets, standards confusion, and the integration of watermark and security.
A representative from the SCTE started her talk by saying that there isn't a standards war, but then waded through several slides that showed the different paths being taken and possible outcomes, Munro said. However, most of it involves software, so for early adopters, changes need only be made as firmware upgrades.
"It was clear that (while) you don't want to call it a format war, the cookies are not baked yet," Munro said. "(However,) there is less concern that you will be trapped in a technological blind alley. When the formats are resolved, people (will be) able to adapt to it readily."
Verimatrix based its own watermarking for UltraHD on a document issued by MovieLabs two years ago, which said that compliance would lead to qualification for delivering content in that format. The requirement calls for unique, session-based forensic watermarking, which Munro says has been a strength of Verimatrix.
While with standard definition (SD) video, filming a screen with a camera would rebroadcast with poor quality, but doing the same with UltraHD would result in high quality.
"The bar is higher than for HD and much higher than for standard (def). It is tied to the value of the content and the threat it poses as a vehicle for redistribution," Munro said.
Verimatrix' security microscopically alters video when it is rendered so it is delivered to each device in an imperceptibly different way. This allows authorities to determine who originated the fraudulent copy.
As for the chipsets, Munro said that while there might be one available, but many companies like to have two vendors with product on the market. Set-tops are also available and being certified.
"Some are for operators who don't want to lose the opportunity to do 4K. They might not have the commercial business case for this yet, but they don't want to ship (non-4K set-top boxes) and then have to reship. That tends to drive infrastructure purchase decisions," Munro said.