Video on demand company Netflix believes it has the answer to 4K (aka UHD) streaming and it’ll be available within two years.
 Click to enlarge |
Unfortunately this superior standard is hampered by poor infrastructure. Broadcasters don’t support the standard and the average size of a 4K movie is larger than most people’s data plan.
There’s some nice mint waiting for whoever can crack this problem and American video on demand company Netflix believes it is in the best position to do so.
“Clearly we have much work to do with the compression and decode capability, but we expect to be delivering 4K within a year or two with at least some movies and then over time become an important source of 4K,” Hunt said in an interview with The Verge.
“4K will likely be streamed first before it goes anywhere else,” he added.
Hunt believes the 4K hill is far steeper for cable companies and the film industry.
“Streaming will be the best way to get the 4K picture into people’s homes. That’s because of the challenges involved in upgrading broadcast technologies and the fact that it isn’t anticipated within the Blu-ray disc standard.”
Netflix is already making preparations to host 4K content by filming creating content supportive of the standard.
“To that point, our own original House of Cards was shot in 4K. It’s being mastered in full HD, but the raw footage, or a good chunk of it, was shot in 4K, and we hope to have some House of Cards 4K encodes later this year.”
Netflix’s due-diligence aside, the company still has to overcome the limitations of internet infrastructure. In Australia, the currently underway NBN should lend some assistance, all in good time.
Source The Verge | Via TechRadar
