NTT West, one of Japan’s major telecom providers announced on Tuesday that it would begin to test 4k resolution streaming over the Internet through set-top boxes. The testing was scheduled to start on Wednesday and continue until Friday this week. The three-day trial was meant to be part of the digital media seminar currently being held in Tokyo.
Is TV obsolete?
According to a number of digital and media experts, television as a means of entertainment has outlived its purpose since almost anything can now be viewed online via the Internet. Many television shows are now made available online through a subscription.
However, the argument still exists on whether or not television ought to be tagged as obsolete especially since high definition television is now picking up traction in the market. Consumers are becoming partial to devices that deliver high quality resolution visual images. Some of these high definition screens have great capacity to amplify the vividness of the images being shown such that they almost seem like the real thing.
4k is the future of television
But since 4k is almost within everyone’s reach, a lot of television manufacturers are gearing up and focusing on releasing products that are 4k ready. This started when rumors started going around that 4k streaming will eventually take over in the coming years. Still despite the fact that many devices are now 4k-capable, the available content is still limited. A lot of these devices still run on HD streams and videos to fill the extra unused pixels.
The next generation in media coding
According to NTT, the testing would involve H.26/HEVC technology. The use of HEVC was approved only in January of this year. It was specifically designed to get as much compression as possible in order to lessen the size of the video stream without sacrificing the resolution. According to NTT, HEVC is capable of compressing data twice as those used in existing standards like MPEG-4. With the said compression capability, it has been predicted that it would perfectly suit 4k streaming since compression is the key for 4k to work perfectly.
Japan’s target
Japan is the perfect testing ground of 4k streaming since the country has a vast network of Internet-based services. With the high number of providers of Internet connectivity in the country, subscription and access prices have dropped. According to recent statistics, one of the major ISPs in Japan, NTT West only charges $40 per month with a 1GB standard plan.
According to NHK, one of the leading Japanese broadcasters and also a company dedicated in the promotion of the future in television, they are aiming to offer 4k services by the year 2014. NHK also added that they are also expecting to eventually put 8k broadcasts in the next three years after the release of 4k.
Still ahead of the race at this point, Japanese company Sony is gearing up and now ready to flow with the tide. Sony is now on the verge of bringing out the big guns that are a sure fit to 4k Internet streaming as soon as it is ready for consumer usage.
Caption: HD Television unit with a box that can receive 4k streaming via the Internet
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