Mixed Messaging Has UK Retail Trade Group Chief Fearing Ultra HD Consumer Backlash

When customers buy a 4K Ultra HD TV set, “they think they are getting something future-proof,” Saycell told the conference at the London headquarters of the U.K.’s Digital TV Group. But having listened to the daylong presentations at the conference, “now I know they are not,” Saycell said. As administrator of Retra’s “legal help line,” Saycell and his group constantly urge dealers and manufacturers “to treat customers fairly,” he said. “Everything on their websites must be laid out clearly to say what goods will do.” But in Ultra HD, “I see here the prospect of class actions,” he said. “We don’t want to be like VW,” he said, referring to that automaker’s recent scandals. “We have a massive communications job,” he said.

As he sat on an end-of-the-day panel on Ultra HD’s retailing issues, Saycell kept referring to presentations he heard earlier in the day detailing the lack of Ultra HD standards and the high volume of 4K TVs already sold without anyone having any idea of how they will work with future products and services. The European Broadcasting Union for years has advocated introducing Ultra HD to the public in a series of phases, with a “UHD-2" introduction later in the decade that would include higher frame rates and wider color gamuts than those available today, plus the introduction of high-dynamic-range technologies.

At the conference, Thomas Wrede, SES vice president-reception systems, openly criticized the phased EBU approach as flawed in its messaging and prone to delays. Thierry Fautier, Harmonic vice president-video strategy, defended the EBU strategy. “Let’s do it in stages,” urged Fautier, president of the Ultra HD Forum. UHD-2 “will be the first real technical improvement at an affordable price,” he said. “We need ‘wow’ and we need a business model. We need the right logo.” Fautier expects specs and standards on UHD-2 to be completed by the end of 2016, “and hopefully ATSC will follow,” he said. Completing the specs on UHD-2 by late 2016 will enable the introduction of UHD-2-capable products and services in 2017 or 2018, Fautier said. At ATSC, “our work on the development of video specifications for ATSC 3.0" is focused on UHD-1, as well as technologies such as high dynamic range, wider color gamut and high frame rates, ATSC President Mark Richer emailed us Thursday. Consideration of UHD-2 “is a future task," Richer said.

On Fautier’s prediction that UHD-2 specs will be ready by the end of 2016, Wrede sharply disagreed. “I don’t see Phase 2 by the end of 2016, because of the complexity of the standardization process and commercial ambitions,” Wrede said. “We can only expect Phase 1-plus in early 2016. But time will tell. Ten years ago, we were moving from SD to HD and we still don’t have everything in HD.”

Stephan Heimbecher, head of innovations and standards at Sky Deutschland, seemed to echo those fears about the complexities of standards-setting, saying: “There are 101 things to be done” to get the industry up to speed on UHD-2, “and the consumer is already confused.” Sky Deutschland has been working on 4K since 2011 and is now able to handle live Ultra HD, end to end, Heimbecher said. But four years ago, “we didn’t think standards would take this long, and they look likely to keep us busy for a few more years,” Heimbecher said.

Looking back at the transition to HD, “it was all sorted out before anyone had the chance to buy,” said Andy Quested, head of technology at the BBC. By comparison, with Ultra HD, “it is all happening incredibly fast -- too fast -- and we are washing our dirty laundry in public,” Quested said.

Chris Johns, Sky chief engineer-broadcast strategy, began his talk with his now-familiar refrain: No announcement of plans for Sky to launch a 4K service. As for why Sky has remained sidelined on 4K services, Ultra HD is “a puzzle with many pieces that need to be fitted together” in coordinating features and standards, Johns said. “There has to be a step change for UHD to be successful.” It requires a “combination” of better pixels, higher dynamic range, wider color depth, “all of which then have to translate into production, studio workflows and distribution,” he said.

Johns also worries the “big jigsaw puzzle” of Ultra HD has “so many standards and bodies and issues involved,” he said. “To do things right, we have to get them all in line. It’s unsure yet what will happen at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.” Among his practical concerns, he said, are how will legacy 4K TVs handle live sports in Ultra HD? He also worries that if HDR displays go to 1,000 nits of peak brightness and higher, “will they contravene European regulations on power consumption?” he said. Johns recalled that Sky “tested HD for three years before putting it into the marketplace,” he said. “We have been testing UHD for some time. We want to make sure we know how to do it.”