US smart TV maker Vizio is planning to release a $600 43-inch 4K TV in 2015, according to reports from HD Guru. If this is the case, 4K sets will now be reaching price points roughly interchangeable with mid-range Full HD sets – a key inflection point if 4K wants to improve on its current niche adoption rates and become a mass market platform.
Market research reports such as the one from Futuresource Consulting out this week, say that from a small base, 4K TVs will increase shipments by 700% during 2015 and this pricing promotes that idea.
While the 80-inch model’s $4,000 price tag could not be described as affordable by any means, it also isn’t as fully featured as one might expect. There is no quantum dot film (to improve the color gamut of a Rec. 709 signal without having to upgrade the source file to Rec. 2020), no High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology (another way of improving image contrast, which requires additional data encoded into the source) and no 3D – a feature increasingly omitted from cheaper TVs due to poor consumer adoption and demand.
The TVs also lack Vizio’s Smooth Motion feature, which is its brand name for motion estimation and compensation technology, which suggests that the TVs lack the refresh rate necessary to use the feature – meaning that these units likely wouldn’t be capable of the 120Hz required by the ITU’s UHD standard.
Reading between the lines here, on the admittedly unconfirmed specs, these TVs will be truly 4K – that is, they won’t support the full UHD specification but will focus only on the increased resolution. In encoding terms, the 3840x2160p image that these units will display would be identical to a 1080p video in every way, but the resolution. The picture quality improvements found in the HDR, Rec. 2020 color gamut, and potential 120Hz refresh rate would be absent.
So while these units will likely upscale 1080p content admirably, if an owner complies with the typical 7-year refresh-cycle, when (if, some might argue) full UHD content (2160p, HDR, 10/12-bit color, 24-120fps) they will likely find themselves with a TV that can’t fully support the new format.
The industry is getting there, but the fact remains that affordable true UHD TVs still appear to be a long way off. 4K’s increased resolution and the TV’s upscaling technology do make visible improvements but there are more to be found in increased contrast, faster refresh rate and wider color gamut and these would make a greater visual difference on the smaller units.
And this is before we try and clear the hurdle of supplying UHD content to the home, which Faultline has covered extensively in the past. The last-mile connection in the consumer’s home is as big a stumbling block as the price of a UHD TV – and it looks like UHD TVs might actually reach mass-market affordability before the ISPs are able to supply a single or multiple UHD streams to a home.
However, physical changes in the TV technology could drastically improve picture quality without having to alter the data flowing into the set. The aforementioned quantum dot technology, essentially a way of tuning the LED backlight to produce a more accurate range of colors, is creeping into some units and doesn’t look like it is adding much of a premium to those devices. In addition, full array LED backlighting with local-dimming is now expected in most TV sets.