New England Sports Network, which beat Bally Sports to market in June with the very first over-the-top regional-sports-network streaming service, is now taking its streaming into 4K and HDR display resolution.

Starting on with the Boston Bruins NHL home opener on Saturday, NESN 360 will feature the game in 4K/HDR on apps running on iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Fire TV and Google TV.

Authenticated TV Everywhere streaming of the linear NESN RSN will also be available in 4K/HDR.

Also read: Not Impressed! Reviews Mixed for NESN 360, the First Regional Sports Network To Go DTC

Major League Baseball games featuring NESN’s other major core tenant, the Boston Red Sox, will be available to sports fans in the formats starting next spring, when the Sox begin their 2023 season. 

To hoist the 4K/HDR experience, NESN did what folks from Boston often like to do — partner with another New Englander, in this case, cloud-computing company Akamai.

“This technology provides a rich, immersive experience for NESN 360 subscribers and those with access through their TV provider,” Ahmed Darwish, NESN’s chief marketing officer, said. “Fan reaction when we piloted 4K/HDR during the Red Sox season was spectacular, and we look forward to wowing Boston sports fans this Bruins season.”

Added Will Law, chief architect for Akamai’s Edge Technology Group: “NESN is proving that the technology to live stream 4K/HDR at scale and consumer demand for the content have both finally arrived.” ■

Dish Network shed a few more details about its plans to offer all World Cup 2018 matches in 4K and High Dynamic Range.

RELATED: World Cup 2018 Sets Stage for Video Tech Showcase

Dish said its coverage in the format, which started today with the matchup between Saudi Arabia and tournament host Russia, is being delivered on channel 540. World Cup signals in 4K HDR from Dish are supported on its Hopper 3 DVR. Viewers, of course, will also need a 4K HDR TV to watch the World Cup fixtures in their full glory.

Among U.S. MVPDs, Layer3 TV and DirecTV are also delivering World Cup games in 4K. Comcast X1 subs with 4K-capable boxes will have access to Telemundo’s 4K coverage of the World Cup on a VOD, next-day basis.

RELATED: Layer3 TV to Offer Live World Cup Matches in 4K

Dish is also helping subs keep tabs on the matches – and how to view or record them – via its Soccer Zone app. The app, available through July 15 on all internet-connected Hopper devices, also lets customers select favorite countries, view scores and stats, and track how teams make their way through the group stages and brackets.

Dish said Soccer Zone is featured in the Apps menu, Dish’s GameFinder app, and can be accessed on channel 835.

Among OTT TV providers, Hulu announced this week that it will offer live and on-demand coverage of all World Cup matches across Fox and FS1 (99% Fox coverage – 96% local affiliates, 3% national) and Telemundo (100% coverage), along with recaps and highlights.

Hulu also has added a World Cup Hub that highlights all live and upcoming games, as well as a “Team Collection” area where viewers can find their favorite teams and add them to the service’s “My Stuff” area so those games are recorded as the tournament progresses.

For the semifinals and finals games of the tournament, Hulu will offer a multi-stream experience (five live bonus feeds) to its live TV subscribers.

RELATED: fuboTV Adds Discovery Features Ahead of World Cup

Ericsson used this week’s NAB Show to bow a variant of its cloud-based MediaFirst platform that supports Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range.  

The offering features and integrates Ericsson’s AVP System Encoder (supporting MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC and HEV), the MediaFirst Content Processing system, and the MediaFirst Video Processing platform for VOD and live, linear TV.  

Ericsson didn’t announce any initial takers for the UHD-capable version of MediaFirst, but Bell Canada recently inked a deal with Ericsson for an upgraded TV platform that will support multiscreen video services.  

RELATED: Bell Canada Rings Up Ericsson for Upgraded TV Platform 

Bell Canada has been using Mediaroom, the IPTV platform Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in the fall of 2013. MediaFirst is a next-gen, cloud-powered IP video platform from Ericsson that covers TVs as well as web browsers, smartphones and tablets and targets MVPDs as well as OTT service providers. Other announced MediaFirst customers include J:COM, Japan's largest cable operator, and Canada's SaskTel.  

In late January, Ericsson announced that One Equity Partners would acquire a majority stake in Ericsson's Media division, which includes Mediaroom and MediaFirst.  

Arris will get a piece of the action as Bell Canada upgrades its Fibe TV service to a personalized, multiscreen offering that will be powered by Ericsson’s MediaFirst platform.

Arris said it will be aiding that deployment with new boxes that support both 4K and High Dynamic Range, as well as 802.11ac WiFi using a 4x4 architecture. Arris’s  global services team will also provide integration services and customization for the user experience as Bell Canada moves to a MediaFirst-based offering.

Heading into the upgrade cycle, Bell Canada has been using Mediaroom, the IPTV platform Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in the fall of 2013. Arris has also been a key supplier of set-tops for Mediaroom.

Bell Canada’s IP-delivered Fibe TV service has about 1.5 million customers.

Arris reports Q4 2017 results on Wednesday afternoon.

NBC Olympics is working with satellite company SES to distribute its 4K/HDR coverage from the Winter Olympic Games from PyeongChang.

NBC is providing select coverage, on delay, from the games in the advanced video format. That coverage included footage from the opening ceremony, and will also include coverage of specific events such as hockey, figure skating, short track speed skating, ski jumping and snowboard competitions. Up to four events from the previous day’s competition is being made available in  4K.

Under the arrangement, NBC Olympics is distributing its HDR feed from the games to affiliates in the U.:S. via the SES-1 satellite, located at 101 degrees West.

RELATED: Vendors Get in on NBC’s Olympics Action

SES is also providing preconfigured satellite receivers to affiliates that will be receiving the HDR feed. SES’s existing 4K platform is already being tapped by a growing number of MVPD partners.

“NBC Olympics is pleased to work with SES to offer 4K HDR coverage of the PyeongChang Games to our valued distribution partners,” David Mazza, CTO and SVP, NBC Olympics, said in a statement. “The HDR feed distributed by SES, and presented by Xfinity, will complement our HDR Video On Demand offering available to MVPDs and satellite providers across the United States.”

RELATED: Dish Gears Up for the Winter Olympics

The media landscape saw steady change in 2017. High Dynamic Range (HDR) moved to the forefront and consumers took advantage of even more skinny bundle offerings as they continue to look for ways to cut or shave the cord. Artificial intelligence became more accessible and had a big impact on consumer interaction.

The question is, how will the tides turn in the next 365 days? Here are my predictions for 2018:

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Becomes Ubiquitous

The rollout of HDR-capable devices and content will proceed much as the 4K rollout happened, which is to say smoothly and quickly. Stores are brimming with 4K display options this holiday season, many of which include HDR options across a good selection of reasonably priced models. By this time next year most new TVs will likely be HDR-capable with many more options available in the mid- and low-price range.

As with the 4K rollout, there is a chicken and egg problem of having a capable device along with the availability of content to playback that utilizes the new display capabilities. With 4K it was easier since existing cable, satellite and broadcast services were able to upgrade and provide 4K content and channels.  

With HDR it’s a bit different. Since HDR is not backward-compatible with Standard Dynamic Range TVs and most traditional broadcast infrastructure is not compatible with HDR signals, most of the HDR content will be coming from online video services such as Netflix and Amazon.  There are broadcasters out there experimenting with HDR for sure, but the time horizon for having a wide selection of HDR television and sports events available through standard TV services is still a ways out. Meanwhile, subscribers to Amazon Prime Video or Netflix can enjoy a reasonable selection of HDR titles today, and most new titles from these two services are coming in HDR.

While there is still an issue of the competing Dolby Vision vs. HDR10 vs. HLG HDR formats, this won’t really matter for the average consumer. The fight is mainly between Dolby Vision and HDR10. And, with the exception of Samsung, most TV makers are beginning to support both formats and most content creators already support both. So, while Dolby and HDR10 duke it out in the format wars, most consumers will be able to continue viewing content regardless of their video service.

Skinny Bundles Abound

2018 will be the year of the skinny bundle. There are many options now available from different providers such as SlingTV, DirecTV Now, Spectrum TV Stream, YouTube TV and Hulu Live. There will be lots of hype and significant growth due to the fact that there are few skinny bundle subscribers today and it will be a compelling offer for many. For others, subscriptions even come free with mobile phone services.

What remains to be worked out is why the skinny bundle is better. At the moment, it remains simply a port of the traditional TV experience to the internet.

There is nothing significantly better than traditional TV services, except for price. Price is an important factor for sure, but price alone will not significantly disrupt the traditional TV market, especially not with the limited number of channels and on-demand assets that the skinny bundles have today.

The key thing to watch for in 2018 with regard to skinny bundles is for those companies experimenting with new and unique user experiences that take advantage of the fact that they are being offered over the internet. Some of these experiments will work, some will not; but ultimately the widespread adoption and success of the online TV offering and its ability to disrupt traditional TV is going to be based on some innovation in user experience versus simply having a cheaper option to the same experience online.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will enable better content experiences

In the last few years, but especially in 2017, artificial intelligence has advanced significantly. There are now tools available from providers such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services that no longer require an expert in artificial intelligence to set up for use. Furthermore, these providers are offering pre-built networks to process media files such as pictures and videos.

As an example, most major online photo storage and sharing services are using artificial intelligence to perform facial recognition in order to allow users to navigate photo collections by people versus simply by date. Many of today's online video services rely on metadata in order to categorize, recommend and search the content catalog. However, the sources and depth of this metadata is rather thin, being constrained to a few items such as title, director, genre, actor etc. Even that is only for the relatively small set of content that is professionally produced in comparison to the vast volumes of user-generated and semi-professional content being created in the world. The kind and amount of metadata available for that content varies widely and often doesn't exist.

Artificial intelligence can quickly and easily process vast volumes of data that not even an army of humans could manage in a reasonable timeframe, providing the kind of metadata required for categorization, recommendation and search. This information could also be used to help further target advertising beyond simple demographics and allow for advertisers to include information about the video into which the advertisement will be placed to drive selection. Knowing what kind of content the user is watching could be as valuable as knowing the gender and age of the person watching.

The consumer-facing impact of artificial intelligence on media will be in the form of new and better user experiences around search and discovery of content, better recommendations and more relevant advertising. Knowing that this improvement was driven by artificial intelligence is something that may or may not be known depending on whether the provider reveals the implementation behind their experience.

--Bill Wishon is senior architect, media office of the CTO, at Akamai

 [Image source: Wikimedia Commons]

Expanding beyond its initial work around 4K, DirecTV will also deliver a mix of sports, music and events programming that will also be delivered in High Dynamic Range, an emerging format that delivers brighter and more vibrant pixels.

DirecTV, the satellite TV service now part of AT&T, will start off its 4K/HDR coverage with an NHL Network simulcast of tonight’s Pittsburgh Penguins-Vegas Golden Knights game, which gets underway at 10 p.m. ET. However, the 4K HDR telecast and simulcast on NHL Network will be blacked out in the Pittsburgh and Las Vegas regions; the regular telecast of the game will be offered in both markets via the local RSNs.

DirecTV is also set to broadcast 13 NBA games in 4K/HDR this season, starting with the December 19 matchup between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Milwaukee Bucks via NBA TV.

On the events side, DirecTV will also present a 4K/HDR simulcast of AXS TV’s live coverage of Brian Setzer Orchestra's 14th annual "Christmas Rocks!" concert from the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Monday, Dec. 18 at 8 p.m. p.m.

Also on tap from DirecTV in that combined format:

-Women's college basketball -- University of Connecticut vs. Duquesne, on Dec. 22 at 7 p.m. ET, via simulcasts of SNY.

-The Toronto Raptors vs. Oklahoma City Thunder on Dec. 27 at 8 p.m. ET from NBA TV.

-The annual Rose Parade, with live simulcast coverage of HGTV’s coverage on Jan. 1, 2018, starting at 11:00 am ET simulcasts of HGTV.

In addition to delivering wide color gamut and 10-bit color depth, DirecTV’s 4K/HDR coverage will also be delivered at 60 frames a second, which should drive more fluidity and clarity to the feed to TVs that support the formats.

DirecTV, which runs three dedicated 4K channels (104, 106, and 105, a PPV channel), noted that if the customer’s 4K TV does not support HDR, games will be viewable in standard 4K.

Amazon’s entire High Dynamic Range (HDR) library is now available in the HDR10+ format on Samsung’s full line of 2017 UHD TV models, including its new premium QLED TVs, the companies announced today.

The technical tie-in enables Amazon to stream a library offered in that standard format, which utilizes dynamic metadata to deliver a wider gamut of colors and enhanced contrast. The dynamic metadata component in HDR10+ enables HDR-capable TVs to adjust brightness levels on a scene-by-scene or frame-by-frame basis.

Amazon noted that its use of “Bezier” based tone-mapping guides allow it to deliver those enhancements across a wide range of TV models.

Amazon said its Prime Video library today offers “hundreds of hours” of content in HDR10+, including original series such as The Grand Tour, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Jean-Claude Van Johnson, The Tick and The Man in the High Castle, along with licensed titles.

“We are thrilled to announce HDR10+ content for consumers,” said Sang Yoon Kim, Vice President of Smart TV Business Development at Samsung Electronics America.

“The launch marks the first opportunity for consumers and the industry to experience HDR10+ technology through a streaming service,” Sang Yoon Kim, VP of smart TV business development at Samsung Electronics America, said in a statement.

Amazon is broadening its Fire TV lineup with a new model that bakes in support for 4K, High Dynamic Range, 60 frames-per-second video and Dolby Atmos audio, plus an Alexa-powered voice remote, for $69.99.

The addition, which is also equipped with Alexa “skills,” is also 40% more powerful than the Fire TV stick, and follows a 4K-capable Fire TV device, which has more processing power than the product announced today, that Amazon introduced in the fall of 2015.

The new Amazon Fire TV is now available for pre-orders and will start to ship to U.S. customers on Oct. 25.

The new device, which uses a dongle-style form-factor, comes equipped with a 1.5 Ghz quad-core processor, dual-band 802.11ac WiFi, 2GB of memory, and 8 GB of storage. Amazon noted that the Alexa component of the device will also bring voice control and navigation to apps and services that include Hulu, Showtime, PlayStation Vue, CBS All Access, NBC, Bravo, CNBC and NBC News.

RELATED: Hulu Slates Fall Support for Amazon’s Alexa

Amazon said Fire TV is also working with partners to bring single sign-on capabilities to TV Everywhere apps from programmers such as ESPN, NBC, ABC, Disney Channel, AMC, CNN, Food Network, E!, Freeform and USA, among others.

For a limited time, Amazon is also bundling the new Fire TV and Echo Dot for $79.99 or the Fire TV Stick and Echo Dot for $59.99. Eligible customers who buy and activate the new Fire TV by Nov. 15 will also get two free months of Hulu (the SVOD service with limited commercials or no commercials), one month of Showtime’s OTT direct-to-consumer service, and a $10 credit to rent or buy content from Amazon Video.

Amazon’s new streamer will go toe-to-toe with other streaming players and platforms from Apple, Roku and Google (Android TV and Chromecast) that support new video and audio formats.

Of that group, Apple recently launched a version of the Apple TV that embraces 4K video, HDR 10 and Dolby Vision, but starts at a loftier price of $179. Amazon’s new device uses HDR 10, but not Dolby Vision.

RELATED: Apple Intros Apple TV 4K

“In terms of performance, the new Fire TV device is notably slower in graphics/gaming performance than the PowerVR GPU-equipped 2nd-gen Fire TV that it replaces, falling in between the aforementioned and the current Fire TV Stick in GPU capabilities,” Paul Erickson, senior research analyst for service provider technology at IHS Markit, said in a statement.

He said Amazon went in that direction so that it could deliver core capabilities while reducing cost substantially at the expense of gaming performance.

Amazon also introduced a new version of the Echo smart home hub for $99.99; a new Echo Plus for $149.99; and the Echo Spot, a compact version with a screen, for $129.99.

Arris last week said it had inked an expanded deal with Altice that calls for the service provider to deploy new boxes with 4K and High Dynamic Range capabilities across its footprint in Europe and the U.S. starting next year.

Financial terms weren’t announced, but the deal paves the way for Altice USA to roll those boxes out in the Suddenlink and Optimum (former Cablevision System) properties.

They noted that Portugal Telecom, part of Altice, will use Arris boxes to power its MEO 4K TV service across Portugal.

Altice and Arris also said that the operator is rolling out Arris’s flagship access network platform, the E6000 Converged Edge Router, in France, the U.S., and the Dominican Republic to deliver new 1-Gig services.

RELATED: Altice USA Eyes FTTP Milestone

“The 4K HDR set-tops we're developing with Altice showcase the evolution of the video and will offer exciting entertainment services to millions of Altice subscribers across the US and Europe," Larry Robinson, president of Arris’s CPE division, said in a statement.

"We expanded our strategic partnership with ARRIS to match the scale of our vision for tomorrow's entertainment," added Bruno Zebib, Altice Group CTO. "As Altice continues to grow and to usher in next-generation services for our subscribers around the world, we're leveraging ARRIS's expertise in the set-top evolution to meet demand for higher-definition viewing experiences. Our collaboration with ARRIS will reinforce our position as a pioneer in the global TV and services market."

4K TV is not yet a mass-market phenomenon, but Fox Sports said it’s preparing for an inevitable “evolution” once the pixel-packed format is widely adopted by distribution partners and consumers.

Fox Sports, which has already produced some NASCAR races and college basketball games in 4K, is taking another step forward this fall as it moves ahead with a plan to produce one college football game per week in 4K — for a total of 13 games.

The first took place on Sept. 2, when the Maryland Terrapins visited the Texas Longhorns.

Fox Sports will distribute its full slate of college-football games in 4K with DirecTV, which has been using its satellite-TV platform to spearhead an ambitious strategy around the emerging video format.

“They’ve got the distribution, and they have the technology to move 4K from the remote [location] to the house,” Michael Davies, Fox Sports senior vice president of field and technical operations, said.

Fox is also discussing 4K distribution of those games with Layer3 TV, the Denver-based IPTV cable operator that supports 4K on all its boxes that has launched service in markets such as Washington, D.C., Los Angeles; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Dallas/Fort Worth and Longmont, Colo., with New York on deck.

4K’s College Try
The college football slate represents Fox Sports’s most significant 4K project to date.

“This gives us a great opportunity to flex our muscles a bit with what 4K can be,” Davies said. “College football at this level is something that can be done in 4K and can be done successfully, so we’re excited about giving it a try.”

Davies said the 4K college football productions will offer some efficiencies because Fox Sports can produce the event in 4K and downconvert it for a wider audience watching the game in HD or standard definition.

“You don’t need to make too many sacrifices in terms of the production level [and] the end cost,” he said.

Additionally, these productions will take advantage of other features usually found in a standard football broadcast, such as on-screen graphics and yellow lines that mark first-down locations, but designed for 4K-level resolutions.

“The graphics look beautiful in 4K,” Davies said. “I think that puts the sheen on the whole production.”

Unlike its earlier NASCAR productions, Fox Sports won’t need to roll in a separate truck for the 4K college football productions, and it will need only one production crew to pull them off. (That wasn’t the case for 3DTV productions, which required separate crews and a different set of cameras.)

For this year’s games, Fox Sports has earmarked a 4K truck from Denver-based Mobile TV Group that also did some work with NBC to produce a handful of Notre Dame football games in the format.

“It’s got some reps under its belt,” Davies said, noting that the productions will use the guts of the 4K truck while preserving the overall workflow. “The goal is to put all of this in one truck.”

Though Fox Sports will learn some new 4K lessons this fall, it’s also drawing on some that it got from its earlier 4K productions.

“Organization is key,” Davies said. “You have to organize yourself very well to make sure you don’t run out of inputs.”

Plus, Fox Sports plans to be selective on what can be upconverted and inserted seamlessly into the 4K feed. Replays, for example, are still done in HD and upconverted for the 4K telecast.

Looking ahead, Davies said Fox Sports is “itching to get our hands on some HDR production,” referring to High Dynamic Range, an emerging technology that will make the pixels brighter and more colorful and complement the pixel density afforded by 4K.

“When we look at the evolution of the format … the Holy Grail is 4K HDR,” Davies said. “That’s what’s we’re working towards. We think there’s a lot of benefits that come from the combination of resolution and High Dynamic Range, but we’re not quite there yet.”

Also not there yet is widespread consumer adoption of 4K TVs. While the pace of 4K/UHD TV adoption is ahead of the transition from standard-definition to HD, according to the Consumer Technology Association, there’s still a lot of ground to capture.

Shipment of 4K TVs in North America are expected to more than double, from 11.7 million in 2016 to 25.9 million in 2020, according to IHS Markit.

Said Davies: “4K is an evolution. For us, this is an opportunity to work week over week in this space, and it also gives us a laboratory to experiment with different things in 4K.”

Filling a gap in its video arsenal, Apple is expected to introduce a new Apple TV device next month that will enable streaming in 4K and High Dynamic Range, Bloomberg first reported.

That device, along with a new lineup of iPhones and a new smartwatch with an integrated LTE chip, will also be unveiled at an event set to take place on September 12, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Update:Apple announced that it will hold an event on Sept. 12 at 10 a.m. PT at the Steve Jobs Theater (on the new Apple Park campus). 

The CE giant introduced its current, fourth-gen Apple TV box (along with a touch- and voice-based remote) in September 2015.

RELATED: Apple Launches New Apple TV

Apple has been in catch-up mode with respect to 4K, a format already supported by streaming rivals such as Roku, Amazon and Google. 

Apple, which has a major original content initiative underway, also appears poised to introduce a new model as it continues to fall behind in the OTT media player market.

RELATED: Apple to Spend $1B Annually on Original Programming

Last week, Parks Associates said Roku is in the driver’s seat, with 37% of U.S. homes owning and using a Roku device, ahead of Amazon’s Fire TV (24%), the Google Chromecast (18%), and Apple TV (15%). Roughly 45% of U.S. broadband homes own a smart TV, according to the research firm.

Bloomberg said the new Apple TV will be part of a “major product blitz” being planned by Apple.

The curtain is finally raising in the U.S. for 4K/High Dynamic Range (HDR). While Hollywood has been mastering an increasing amount of programming in HDR, and Amazon, Netflix and DirecTV have been successfully delivering UHD content, we are now starting to see cable operators taking the plunge.

We knew this day would arrive. Vivicast Media launched into licensing 4K/HDR content more than four years ago, just as the dramatic 4K and 8K picture quality started to capture the industry’s attention. Key technology challenges have now been or are on the way to being successfully addressed — including the ability to compress adequate bandwidth required to deliver the signal into the home — just as HDR/UHD-ready TV sets and HDR/UHD content and delivery are finally catching up with one another.

Once 4K set-tops are more readily available, the landscape looks (literally) picture perfect.
At the same time, recent months have seen an encouraging evolution in 4K/HDR thinking by cable and IPTV operators who are beginning to trial and test 4K channels, responding to the increasingly vocal demands of subscribers.

Two forward-thinking cable systems — Marquette-Adams of Oxford, Wis., and Highlands Cable Group of Highlands, N.C. — are giving the industry a glimpse into the future of 4K/UHD. While these systems may be small in scope, they loom large for pioneering UHD and HDR into the home. As a result of their historic “proof of performance,” we are seeing an acceleration of UHD delivery to homes nationwide.

The set-top box still continues to be the largest barrier to entry for cable operators of all sizes. Although set-top manufacturers have begun in earnest to integrate the 4K chipset, we are unlikely to see these readily available in the market until later this year. Still, several of the large tier-2 operators have decided not to wait any longer and are actively pursuing either alternative STBs or have designed their own 4K compatible set-tops to meet rising subscriber demand.

Factors contributing to the inevitability of UHD in the US include:
• The sheer number of UHD TVs currently sold in the U.S. is rising. The sales rate of UHD TVs is about five times faster than the move from SD to HD, and the new technology is encouraging consumers to seek out UHD content.
• There are more dedicated 4K and HDR channels and content. Cable and IPTV operators interested in 4K channels want more than just one or two — and they are getting their wish. Vivicast media alone represents seven of the full-time 4K/UHD channels, targeting the full cross-section of core demographics.
• Viewer awareness is growing. HDR is fast transforming among consumers from a fascination to demand. Subscribers are letting operators know they want this image quality every day of the week across all of their channels. And, yes, they are willing to pay more.
• Obstacles are disappearing and the competition is increasing. Several of the larger cable companies in the U.S. are demonstrating a desire to offer 4K channels, not only because of anticipating the inevitable competition from major networks but also due to the erosion of their subscriber base from both satellite-TV and over-the-top providers such as Amazon and Netflix who have been actively offering 4K for more than a year.
The pieces of the puzzle are fitting together as television sets, delivery technology and content are converging to ready 4K/HDR for the mass market.

Stuart Smitheman is president of Vivicast Media, a Memphis-Tenn.-based content licensor to MPVDs worldwide.

Microsoft used the E3 confab Sunday (June 11) to introduce the Xbox One X, a new console with enough horsepower to support 4K gaming and video at 60 frames per second, along with support for High Dynamic Range (HDR).

Microsoft’s new console, which has been teased under the Project Scorpio label, is set to arrive on November 7 and start at $499.

Notably, existing Xbox One accessories will work with the Xbox One X, work with Xbox One games, and will implement a feature called “super sampling” on the new console to make new games look better on 1080p HD TV sets, according to The Verge.

In addition to touting Xbox One X, with is equipped with 6 teraflops of processing power, as its most powerful console, Microsoft is also calling it the smallest console the company has ever built.

Meet the world's most powerful console: the #XboxOneX. https://t.co/nlQHT5mk3j#XboxE3pic.twitter.com/BhV37k7KPl

— Xbox (@Xbox) June 11, 2017

Update: Microsoft said the new console will also be compatible with a library of nearly 400 Xbox 360 games. Several gaming titles, including Gears of War 4, Forza Horizon 3, and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands will also get a free updates to take advantage of the horsepower in the Xbox One X, including a subset that will “run in true 4K.”

The new console follows Sony’s launch late last year of the PlayStation 4 Pro, a higher-octane that also supports 4K resolution and HDR.

RELATED: PlayStation 4 Goes ‘Pro’

The Xbox One X also follows the launch last year of the Xbox One S, a smaller version of the Xbox One that includes a Ultra HD disc drive.

Video piracy is a global epidemic. From recording device-toting movie theater audiences to the behind-the-scenes torrent network manager (and ad salesperson), there isn’t a limit to the number of identities content thieves can assume. But to varying degrees, they’re united in their desire to swindle content producers — and consumers in many cases — and capitalize.

The advent of higher-quality resolution content like High Dynamic Range (HDR) is one of the latest opportunities for video pirates around the globe to target and exploit to their advantage, as the pirate source is most attractive to users (and their eyeballs).

Strategy Analytics predicts that annual worldwide sales of HDR-enabled TVs will reach 58 million units in 2020, with U.S. penetration of HDR TVs forecasted to reach nearly 25% of homes. The need to protect HDR content will intensify as more consumers obtain access to these devices — and subsequently this higher quality and valued content. Effective and efficient measures, however, are already in place so content owners and players can equip and protect themselves in the wake of this growing technology.

The content industry started adopting new systems to better secure its revenue when 4K-quality content was unveiled to the market — initially, on UHD Blu-ray Discs, and more recently on a wide variety of pay TV and over-the-top platforms. MovieLabs — a joint venture among the six Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) studios — published the first version of its Specification for Enhanced Content Protection in 2013, which outlined a set of security recommendations for improving the security of the highest value audiovisual content regardless of delivery mechanism. Since then, the specifications have been tightened further. Content distribution partners should always use the most recent ones as their lodestar.

In discussing the challenges associated with HDR content, my co-author, Ron Wheeler, senior vice president of content protection and technology strategy at 20th Century Fox, told me that for companies whose business is to entertain viewers, innovation is key — including the latest picture quality evolution made possible with HDR.

However, better quality is just as attractive to pirates as to paying consumers. “Fox’s experience is that the moment a high-quality pirate source becomes available, it immediately becomes much more popular than lower-quality sources such as theater camcorders or ‘ordinary’ HD sources, and is, therefore, a bigger threat to our legitimate business. That makes it imperative that we do everything we can to protect that high-quality source from piracy as long as possible,” he said.

This is where forensic watermarking becomes a critical tool. The presence of a unique identifier for each piece of content makes retrieval a lot easier and enables content owners to easily identify the weak link in their distribution system. The ability to trace illicit redistribution to the original source makes it a very strong piracy deterrent, as content owners can strongly warn pirates, and even consumers watching an illegal stream, against the legal implications of accessing or sharing copyrighted content.

Equally if not more importantly, they can refer uploaders of the content to law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution, with attendant publicity that will make future would-be uploaders think twice. This deterrent effect has resulted in significant delays in piracy of high-quality sources in places where watermarking has been deployed, such as South Korea.
Studios are planning to offer HDR as a mass-market proposition by 2018, so content distributors need to implement or upgrade their protection arsenal now. By preparing for this growing pixel revolution, they can avoid the pitfalls of tech-savvy pirates using the latest specifications for content protection.

Mark Nakano is senior director of product marketing and partnerships at NexGuard; Ron Wheeler is senior vice president of content protection and technology strategy at 20th Century Fox.

High Dynamic Range, a technology that produces brighter more vivid pixels, is poised to “infiltrate” some full HD TVs and provide a lift to 4K, according to a new forecast.

ABI Research predicts that HDR TV shipments will grow at a 41% CAGR and reach 245 million units in 2022, adding that 8K TVs are “still years away from permeating the global market” despite the  hype centered on Japan’s plans to deliver 8K video at the 2020 Olympics.

RELATED: NAB 2017: Industry is Ultra Bullish About Ultra HD

“As evident with Sony’s recent announcement to include HDR in all its new TV sets, the next-generation TV technology will soon be a prominent feature in many UltraHD TV sets,” Khin Sandi Lynn, industry analyst at ABI Research, said in a statement. “While some less expensive sets will not yet support the technology, high-end TV manufacturers recognize the value that HDR functionality brings to the viewing experience.”

ABI noted that HDR10 is the “baseline industry norm,” but held that Dolby Vision offers premium features like dynamic scene-by-scene metadata to further enhance the picture.

Lynn expects 8K TV sets to enter the market in “small quantities in 2020 but mainly in Japan and possibly South Korea.”

Comcast has begun to deploy a new whole-home DVR for its X1 platform called the XG4 that supports 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR) video, an industry source confirmed.

The Arris-made device, spotted by Light Reading, has popped up on Comcast’s X1 device comparison web site. FCC documents also offer a few more details, including this engineering prototype and a label referencing X1 licensee Cox Communications, about a “XGIv4” 4K set-top.

Comcast declined to comment on the XG4, but a person familiar with the product said the operator has begun to make it available on a limited basis.

According to the X1 site, the XG4 sports six tuners and an integrated DVR. At the recent NAB show in Las Vegas, Arris also showed off the MG2, a 4K-capable device that uses the TiVo interface.

Comcast is also testing an IP companion box, called the Xi6, that also supports 4K, but the operator has not announced when it will be released. Comcast is also deploying the Xi5, a  wireless companion box for its X1 video service that supports HDR.

Comcast appears to be seeding the market with some of these devices ahead of a larger content initiative that will take advantage of 4K, a format that packs in four times the pixel density of HDTV, and HDR, which delivers brighter, more vivid pixels.

Comcast currently offers an OTT app for Samsung smart TVs that offers a sampling of 4K content. It will need more to keep up with some pay TV competitors that now offer select content in 4K, including Layer3 TV, DirecTV, and Dish Network. A group of telcos, including Verizon Communications and Frontier Communications, as well as several cable operators are also testing or deploying 4K services in partnership with SES.

RELATED: Layer3 TV Adds Live, On Demand 4K Fare

Update: “ComcastJessie,” a handle for a Comcast employee, has published more detail about the XG1v4, including a front and back look at the device, on the Xfinity customer forum.

Per the post, the  XG1v4 is an HD DVR device that also supports HDR10, 4K, and Bluetooth 4.2 capability, though HDR10 4K and Bluetooth won’t be supported until later this year. “It will be available via professional installation only for new X1 customers, and regions can expect to continue using a mix of XG1s for new X1 installations,” the post adds.

4K content also is not available at launch, though it will later support content in that format from Netflix and eventually “select” VOD, live and DVR content from Comcast.

The coming Bluetooth support will allow customers to pair the box to other Bluetooth devices, such as speakers or headphones, to stream audio, the post adds, noting that the feature is currently being reviewed at Comcast Labs.

The post also spells out more of the specs about the device, confirming six tuners and a 500 GB hard drive.

Google Fiber is pausing plans to expand into new markets, but it’s still pushing ahead with new products for its pay TV offering.

Google Fiber, which introduced a fresh interface for Fiber TV and an updated mobile app for its pay TV service, is testing a new box that supports 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR),9to5 Google reported.

RELATED: Google Fiber Upgrades TV Interface

Though the new model (GFHD254) looks like the current model (GFHD200), the report said the new version does away with some legacy ports because the device will support wireless connectivity – something that AT&T has been doing with U-verse TV and Comcast is starting to do with some new devices for its X1 platform, starting with the Xi5 client box, which communicates with the primary gateway via WiFi.

Similarly, the new Fiber TV box will connect to the Network Box over WiFi, the report said.

Google’s been asked for comment on the product plan, but the shift to 4K would follow the path being forged by AT&T/DirecTV, Comcast and other pay TV providers, and would also enter play amid YouTube’s recent support for 4K and HDR.

UPDATE: Google isn't commenting on the report. 

RELATED: YouTube Streams in Support for HDR

Keeping pace with next-gen image quality, YouTube this week has added support for High Dynamic Range (HDR), a technology that delivers brighter, more colorful pixels.

“HDR videos have higher contrast, revealing precise, detailed shadows and stunning highlights with more clarity than ever,” Steven Robertson, YouTube software engineer, announced Monday in this blog post. “Support for wide color gamut means colors are more vibrant. Simply put, HDR unlocks the most spectacular image quality we've ever streamed.”

YouTube, which already supports 4K and 360-degree video, noted that HDR streaming will require TVs that support the technology. Supported devices include the new Chromecast Ultra, a $69 streaming adapter for TVs that is capable of 4K and HDR streaming, and “soon” for all 2016 Samsung SUHD and UHD TVs.

RELATED: Google At Home With WiFi, Smart Hub, 4K Chromecast

“As more HDR devices become available, YouTube will work with partners to enable streaming of the HDR version,” Robertson wrote.  

YouTube has introduced an HDR playlist, which features content in the format from creators and partners such as MysteryGuitarMan, Jacob + Katie Schwarz, and Abandon Visuals.

He said YouTube is working with DaVinci Resolve to make uploading HDR as simple as uploading standard dynamic range videos on the OTT platform.

Among other major OTT players, Netflix expects to offer 150 hours of content in HDR format by year-end, and Amazon expects to have about 200 hours of HDR fare available by early 2017.

Comcast has been testing the Xi5, the first device from the MSO that will support HDR.

China-based CE giant Xiaomi has launched the Mi Box, its 4K-capable Android TV device in the U.S. for $69, a move that applies some competitive pressure to an OTT device sector that includes a new set of 4K streamers from Roku as well as the current-gen Amazon Fire TV box.

RELATED: Roku Revamps Streaming Player Lineup

Xiaomi is initially selling the Mi Box at Mi.com, with plans to offer it at Walmart stores and at Walmart.com later this month.

RELATED: Amazon Lights Up Fire TV With 4K

Xiaomi said the device delivers 4K video at 60 frames per second along with support for the latest HDR10 standard and integrated Google voice search and Google Cast. Android TV gives the device access to apps from some usual suspects from the OTT world, including Netflix, Sling TV, HBO, Showtime and VUDU, among others.

To help prime the pump, Xiaomi is tossing in some perks such as a $50 credit toward a subscription to Sling TV, a three-month free trial to Pandora, and a $5 credit toward a rental or purchase via VUDU.

Xiaomi  said the device packs a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU and Mali 450 GPU, as well as 2GB DDR3 RAM and 8GB eMMC flash. Users can also add additional storage to Mi Box using its USB port.

The MiBox joins a mix of other Android TV devices, including connected TVs from Sharp and Sony, the Nvidia Shield, and Razer Forge TV. Google stopped selling the first Android TV-based device, the Nexus Player, earlier this year.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016

Philadelphia -- 4K video and High Dynamic Range (HDR) represent what’s next in video quality, but the technology ecosystem required to support them are still in catch-up mode.

While 4K packs about four times the pixels into a picture than what’s seen with HD, HDR expands the color gamut and the luminance of those pixels by going to 10-bit technology and supporting billions of colors, including blacker blacks and whiter whites.

RELATED: SCTE/ISBE Adds 4K, HDR Focus to Cable-Tec Expo

But both are complex to support with legacy systems, Jeremy Morrison, vice president of solutions engineering at Deluxe OnDemand, said here Monday during a Cable-Tec Expo workshop focused on “Advanced Encoding Meets IP Video Delivery.”

Operators are also faced with competing formats, such as HDR10 and Dolby Vision, he said, labeling this  as the “21st Century Version of VHS vs. Betamax.”

Deluxe OnDemand is helping pay TV providers get around these challenges with a platform that manages those complexities, including elements such as backend scheduling, encoding, content acquisition, ingest, delivery and reporting and management.

In an outline of a case study with an unnamed pay TV operator, Deluxe OnDemand is enabling this with a managed system adapted from the standard- and high-def video world that  delivered 4K content at bit rates ranging from 15 Mbps to 3 Mbps, while also supporting legacy set-top boxes as well as apps running on new OTT platforms.

Arris, meanwhile, is also investigating these issues, with a particularly focus on adaptive bit rate (ABR) technologies in tandem with Big Data and predictive analytics systems.   

ABR isn’t new. Well known in the OTT world, It adapts the video stream in real time with the current network conditions, and switches to a lower or high bit rates based on those conditions. ABR continues to grow in popularity because it’s agile enough to deliver content to mobile devices as well as traditional TV screens, and can support HD and 4K fare as well as lower-resolution video.

However, many of those services run in silos and lack a “unified dashboard,” Sridhar Kunisetty, distinguished engineer at Arris, explained, noting that his company has been working on a platform that can work across devices and show a combined view to the operator that reduces costs and enables them to better manage the network.

Arris is also focused on an approach it calls Cloud-Assisted ABR, which takes the decision from the ABR client on a smartphone, for example, and manages that in the cloud. ABR clients are “greedy” in that they want to consume as much bandwidth as it can.  A cloud-assisted approach, he said, is a fairer way to distribute content and works well with an MSO’s managed network environment.

Arris is also working on Multicast-Assisted ABR approaches that are more bandwidth-efficient than unicast streaming platforms because it allows for more than one person to share a stream. In concert with real-time usage data, it’s possible for an operator to identify the 20 to 30 channels that consumers use most, making them good candidates for which content to deliver in a multicast setting, Kunisetty noted. 

Roku has launched a revamped and partially renamed streaming video device lineup as the OTT specialist gears up for the all-important buying season and a competitive field that includes rivals such as Apple, Amazon and Google.

Looking to appeal to different consumer segements, the new lineup factors in a range of pricing and capabilities that aim to run the gamut, including entry-level devices to models that support 4K and HDR and other bells and whistles.

-Roku Express: About 75% smaller while doubling the processing power of the product it’s replacing, this one for TVs with HDMI connectors fetches $29.99, supports 1080p video, WiFi (802.11b/g/n), support for Roku’s mobile app, and an IR remote. Notably, Roku is now providing its private listening feature (integrated with the remote control) across its product line.

-Roku Express+: This $39.99 version includes composite connectors for older TVs.

-Roku Streaming Stick: Of the group, this model is the same one that Roku introduced in April 2016. And the price remains unchanged, at $49.99.

-Roku Premiere: Supports 4K, plus an IR-based remote, and costs $79.99. It’s about 40% smaller than the 4K-capable Roku 4 that was introduced last fall, and includes a new quad-core processor, 802.11ac dual-band WiFi with MIMO, and removes the fan that was part of the Roku 4. The device also supplies access to Roku’s 4K spotlight channel.

-Roku Premiere+: Includes the features of Premiere, but adds support for HDR, RF-based remote with a headphone jack, a microSD card slot for added storage, and Ethernet for wired connectivity. Sells for $99.99.

-Roku Ultra: At $129, it represents the fully-loaded option of Roku’s lot, tacking on a voice-capable remote, headphone jack, and gaming buttons, audio optical out port (to connect to a receiver or soundbar), USB port for local media playback, and a lost remote finder feature.

All of Roku’s new 4K-capable players also feature a dynamic, night listening mode that will dampen the sounds of loud noises.

The new Roku Express, Premiere, Premiere+ and Ultra streaming players will be available for pre-order beginning today from Roku, Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon and other retailers, and are expected to be in stores by Oct. 9. The Roku Express+ will be available exclusively at Walmart, Roku said.

Roku’s players complement integrated Roku TVs from makers such as Hisense, TCL, Sharp, Haier, Insignia (Best Buy), and Hitachi.

About 4 billion hours of content was streamed on Roku devices in the first half of 2016, versus 5.5 billion hours for all of 2015, said Lloyd Klarke, Roku’s director of product management. “It’s a monumental time for television,” said.

Roku is privately held, but has said the company pulled in $300 million in revenues in 2015, a figure that includes player sales, licensing and advertising. Roku has about 10.6 million active accounts, meaning that they have done some streaming in the last 30 days.

Roku is also nearing the launch of an Xfinity TV app that support’s Comcast’s pay TV platform.

According to Parks Associates, Roku was the top-selling streaming media player in 2015, accounting for 30% of units purchased.

Comcast will be launching a beta version of its integration of Netflix on X1 in a matter of coming days, but the operator isn’t that far away from making it available to all its X1 customers. 

“We expect it to be [available] across the entire Comcast footprint before Thanksgiving,” Brian Roberts, Comcast’s chairman and CEO, said Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs 25th Annual Communacopia Conference.

Roberts demonstrated the X1-Netflix integration at the investor conference, noting that Netflix has content that Comcast subs don’t get with their traditional pay TV service.

Notably, customers can sign-up and sign-on to Netflix via X1. “This is exactly the Netflix experience” that a consumer would find on a third-party device, Roberts said.

Rather than telescoping and treating Netflix as a separate silo, Comcast will be integrating Netflix’s library into the X1 search and recommendation platform and tying Netflix into results derived via the X1 voice remote (Comcast has deployed about 10 million of those, Roberts said.)

Among other examples, X1 will feature an “Available on Netflix” row on the X1 guide, as well as in the X1’s Kids section. To facilitate binge-viewing, the next episode in a series will be auto-played – similar to how Netflix apps behave on other types of devices.

Comcast and Netflix haven’t detailed the financial arrangement of the integration, but Roberts confirmed that the two sides “have a marketing relationship.”

“We sell a lot of content to Netflix,” Roberts added.  “We’re now going to sell the subscriptions to customers of Netflix. I think it’s a big day.”

“I’m really pleased with the relationship,” Roberts said, while acknowledging earlier that the two companies did not always see eye-to-eye but have mutual respect.

Roberts also opened the door to similar relationships with other OTT providers. “We’re in discussions of doing that,” he said, hopeful that the Netflix integration will offer a “nice template” for others to follow.

Comcast focused on Netflix first, in part, because “it’s the biggest one, arguably the most important one to get right…I think our organization has made a conscious decision that we're going to aggregate other people's content, some of which we sell directly, and some that we don't."

He said Comcast would’ve liked to do that a year or two ago, but said the company was not technically ready to do so, and didn’t yet have the scale.

“We didn’t have enough X1s out there,” he said. Comcast is now rolling out about 40,000 X1 boxes per day, and expects to have about half its video sub base on X1 by the end of the year.

CPE Update

Roberts also announced some deployment updates for Comcast’s latest line of set-tops and gateways.

He said Comcast launched the Xi5, the MSO’s first HDR-capable client box for the X1 platform, last week. Notably, it doesn’t need a wired cable connection, but instead connects to the primary box over WiFi.

RELATED: Comcast’s First HDR Box in Employee Trials

“I think this is the future of how we’re making cable boxes,” Roberts said of the Xi5’s wireless connectivity.

He added that Comcast has also launched the XB6, a DOCSIS 3.1-powered gateway, that he dubbed, “as the world’s fastest router.”

RELATED: INTX 2016: Comcast Previews New Consumer Gear

“We’re taking this to retail,” Roberts said of the XB6, adding that it will also allow for customer self-installs.

Get complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2016.

With an eye on next-gen video formats, the SCTE/ISBE said it will feature two sessions dedicated to 4K/Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range at next week’s Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia.

Both sessions are set for Wednesday, Sept. 28:

--11:15 a.m. (Expo’s Innovation Theater): This “TV of the Near Future” session will be moderated by Mark Francisco, fellow, Comcast Innovation Labs, alongside panelists Craig Todd, senior vice president and CTO for Dolby; Thierry Fautier, vice president, video strategy for Harmonic and president of the UHD Forum; Jim Morrison, principal engineer for Rogers Communications; Alan Stein, vice president, technology development and standards for Technicolor and Technicolor Fellow; and Skip Pizzi, senior director of new media technologies, National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).

--1:45 p.m. (Room 121 BC) :  A two-hour session, “The Ecosystem Landscape for HDR,” will be led by Craig Cuttner, SVP, technology, development and standards for HBO, and chair of the SCTE/ISBE standard’s program’s Digital Video Subcommittee HDR Working Group. The session will also include a master class taught by Matthew Goldman, senior vice president, technology, television and media strategy for Ericsson; an SCTE/ISBE Standards update from HBO’s Cuttner; and presentations by Ultra HD Forum’s Fautier, Dolby’s Todd, the NAB’s Pizzi, Sean McCarthy, Arris fellow, and Josh Limor, vice president, technology and ecosystem development for Technicolor. 

“Just as television itself revolutionized entertainment 60 years ago, so, too, is 4K HDR driving superior content creation, content delivery and viewer experiences,” said Cuttner, in a statement.

Cable-Tec Expo is set to run Sept. 26-29.

As was the case last year with the Roku 4, it appears that the lid is being blown on a new lineup of Roku devices before they are officially introduced to the world.

Blending a mix of FCC data uncovered by Varietyand info located via two Canadian channels, gadget blog ZatzNotFunny has learned that Roku is in the process of moving away from its traditional numbered-based product system to a more branded approach as it prepares to introduce some new capabilities and features to its streaming lineup.

On the lower end of the device spectrum, Dave Zatz surmises in this blog post that the Roku 1 will be replaced by the Roku Express (3700) and Express Plus (3710), and further speculates that the Express Plus might add on additional ports or features such as a remote that supports headphones (for private listening) and Roku’s voice-navigation.

Further up the food chain appears to be the Roku Premiere (4620) and Roku Premiere Plus (4630), with Zatz seeing them replacing what has traditionally been known as the Roku 2 and Roku 3. But, in a new twist, the 2016 versions of this class will be capable of supporting 4K video – a feature that is supported by the company’s current top-of-the-line model, the Roku 4, which was launched last fall. Zatz noted that he believes the Plus model will include support for Ethernet and a microSD and High Dynamic Range (HDR), a format the supports brighter, more colorful pixels and images.  

The new Roku Ultra appears to be the model that will grace the high-end of the lineup, supporting 4K and HDR, along with other bells and whistles such as a remote control finder, optical out, and a USB element for accessing local media, Zatz said.

Pricing on the new lineup still isn’t known, though Zatz notes that one listing shows that new products could arrive on the scene “as early as September 7” as it gears up for the important holiday buying season.

Roku hasn’t announced its new fall product lineup and declined to comment on the report, but the debut of a new class of streamers and capabilities appear to be on the horizon as Roku looks to keep an edge on competitors that include the new app-friendly Apple TV, Chromecast adapter, Amazon Fire TV, and a batch of Android TV-powered devices.

According to Parks Associates, Roku was the top-selling streaming media player in 2015, accounting for 30% of units purchased.

Amazon said Samsung’s new Galaxy Note7 is the first smartphone that will support its small but growing streaming library of High Dynamic Range (HDR) content.

Samsung introduced the Android-powered Galaxy Note7 today, announcing that the device, which features a 5.7-inch curved screen, will become available in the U.S. on August 19.

Amazon started to offer titles in HDR, a format the delivers brighter, more vivid images, in May 2015, and recently started to offer select originals and movies from Sony in the Dolby Vision HDR format.

Amazon said it’s on track to offer more than 150 hours of HDR fare by the end of 2016. In addition to the new Samsung smartphone, Prime members can stream titles in Dolby Vision and HDR 10 at no additional cost on compatible Samsung, Sony and LG smart TVs, while Dolby Vision HDR titles are offered from Amazon on compatible LG smart TVs.

The following Amazon original series and pilots are offered in HDR: Bosch (season 1 and 2); Good Girls Revolt (pilot); Highston (pilot); Mad Dogs; The Man in the High Castle; Mozart in the Jungle (season 1 and 2);  One Mississippi (pilot); Patriot (pilot); Red Oaks; The Interestings (pilot);  The Last Tycoon (pilot); Transparent (season 1 and 2); and  Z: The Beginning of Everything (pilot).

Amazon also offers the following Sony movies in HDR: After Earth; Amazing Spiderman 2; Chappie;  Elysium; Fury; Hancock; Men in Black 3; Pineapple Express; Salt; and Smurfs 2.

Netflixintroduced anHDRlibraryApril, announcing then that it would offer more than 100 hours of HDR programming by August, and more than 150 hours by the end of 2016.

Comcast, meanwhile, is testing its first HDR-capable device, the Xi5, with employees in anticipation of a wider, commercial launch.

Comcast is currently testing the Xi5, the MSO’s first set-top box with support for High Dynamic Range (HDR), in employee trials and is still targeting customer deployments later this year.

The trials of the Xi5 are underway in a “few markets,” a company official said, but didn’t reveal those test sites.

Comcast showed off the Xi5, a device for its X1 platform, at the INTX in Boston, noting then that shipments were expected to get underway by July 4.

While those shipments are apparently going to employees first, they are getting out the door as corporate cousin, NBCUniversal, prepares to produce some content from the Summer Olympic Games in Rio in 4K and HDR. HDR is an emerging format that produces brighter, more colorful pixels and can be used to improve the pop of HD and 4K video.

Comcast, which plans to show off  HDR at some special screenings it will host during the Games, is also working on the Xi6, a device that will support both HDR and 4K.

Elsewhere, Comcast said it intends to rollout Xfinity Stream TV, its in-home IPTV skinny-bundle service that’s paired with a cloud DVR, across its footprint later this year or in early 2017.

That service, currently a mobile-first offering for cord-cutters and others that don’t want a full-freight pay TV service, is being tested in Chicago and the Greater Boston region, which includes eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

How Comcast markets and sells that offering could change or expand when it reaches the commercial deployment stage.

In an interview earlier this year, Matt Strauss, Comcast Cable’s executive vice president and general manager, video services, said Stream “is not really just about a skinny bundle.”

“In many respects, it's us looking at new ways at how we market, how we activate a video subscription, and, for instance, if you're a high-speed data customer and you are in one of the markets where we've deployed Stream you can instantly add Stream,” Strauss said. “It doesn’t require a truck roll, it doesn’t require additional equipment. We're able to instantly activate it for you.”

Amazon Video said it has begun to stream titles in Dolby Vision High Dynamic Range, marking an expansion to its initial foray into HDR streaming last year.

While 4K video delivers more pixels, HDR supports brighter and more colorful pixels, which can be applied to 4K as well as HD video.

Titles currently available from Amazon Video in Dolby Vision HDR include Amazon original series Bosch (season 2), along with a batch of movies from Sony Pictures Entertainment, including After Earth, The Amazing Spiderman 2, The Smurfs 2, Chappie, Elysium, Fury, Hancock, and Pineapple Express, now offered for rent or purchase in the format.

Amazon noted that Prime members can stream titles in Dolby Vision and HDR 10 at no additional cost to their membership. HDR 10 content is supported by Amazon’s app on compatible Samsung, Sony and LG smart TVs, while Dolby Vision HDR titles are offered from  Amazon on compatible LG smart TVs.

Amazon noted that it plans to offer more than 150 hours of HDR content by the end of the year.

Netflix entered the HDR mix in April, announcing then that it would offer more than 100 hours of HDR programming by August, and more than 150 hours by the end of 2016. Comcast, meanwhile, plans to start shipping its first set-top with HDR capabilities, the Xi5, by July 4, ensuring its availability for the Rio Olympics, where NBCUniversal will be producing some coverage in the format.

Adoption of 4K TVs has a way to go, but the good news for TV makers is that awareness of sets that use the pixel-packed format is on the rise.

According to a new report from NPD Connected Intelligence, 52% of people surveyed said they are aware of 4K/Ultra HD TV products, a stat that spikes to 73% among consumers who own an Internet-connected TV.

Those findings reflect a recent study from Leichtman Research Group that found that 41% of adults had heard of 4K/Ultra HD, up from 30% last year.

NPD, which based its results on a survey of more than 5,000 U.S. consumers 18 years old and older in late January/early February, said about one-third say they are very likely or somewhat likely to use a 4K TV in the future, with interest strongest among men, millennials and smart TV owners.

About 6 million 4K UHD TVs were sold through April 2016, according to NPD Group’s  Retailer Tracking Service.  Strategy Analytics issued a forecast last week that predicts 11 million homes in North America will own a 4K/Ultra HD TV by the end of 2016.

On the content side, 32% said they are aware of 4K streaming services (and 42% among 18-to-34 year-olds), thanks in part to offerings on widely adopted SVOD services from Netflix and Amazon.

 “While sales are spiking and demand is high, 4K UHD TVs remain an early adopter product,” John Buffone, executive director, industry analyst, NPD Connected Intelligence, said in a statement. “Our data shows that just eight percent of consumers say they have used a 4K UHD TV. But, all of the trends point towards rapid growth during 2016 and beyond.”

Though 4K TV awareness and adoption will likely go hand-in-hand as more content in the format becomes available, not everyone is quite as bullish. Comcast, for one, is emphasizing a strategy centered on High Dynamic Range (HDR), which supports pretty (not just more) pixels and can be applied to both HD and 4K platforms.  

NBC Olympics said it will provide select coverage of the Rio Olympics in the eye-popping 4K format to its various cable, satellite TV and telco TV distribution partners.

NBC Olympics, a unit of NBC Sports Group, said that coverage, provided on a one-day delay, will include 4K/Ultra HD footage from the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as coverage of several events, including swimming, track and field, basketball, the men’s soccer final, judo, with some “Rio scenic” mixed in.

One event from the previous day’s competition will be provided daily from August 6, the day following the opening ceremony, through August 22, the day after the Rio Games conclude.

NBC’s 4K coverage of the summer games will raise the bar on what it provided during the 2014 Sochi Winter games. Corporate cousin Comcast, for example, held several viewing parties to demonstrate 4K using clips from the games provided by NBC Sports.

Notably, NBC Olympics said its 4K UHD coverage of the opening ceremony in Rio will also support High Dynamic Range (HDR), providing richer, brighter pixels, as well as Dolby Atmos, an immersive three-dimensional audio platform.

NBC Olympics said it will distribute the 4K UHD coverage provided by Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) and Japan’s NHK to U.S. distribution partners, who will individually choose how they will make the content available to their customers.

Among U.S. MVPDs, Comcast has already announced that it will start to ship the Xi5, its first HDR-capable box, on July 4, ensuring it will be available in time for the Rio games. The Xi6, which will also support 4K, is also in the works. DirecTV, now owned by AT&T, recently launched three 4K channels, including one dedicated to live events shot in the format. Dish Network began to distribute its new 4K-capable Hopper 3 DVR in February.  TiVo, meanwhile, is working on a 4K-HDR platform that is optimized for its MVPD partners.

The Olympics have been a consistent driver of technological advancements, and Rio will be no different,” Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics, said in a statement. The stunning backdrop of Rio combined with the world-class competition of the Olympics will give the American audience a spectacular early look at this impressive new technology.”

“Since the London Games, OBS and NHK have been working together, experimenting on the future standard of 8K,” added Yiannis Exarchos, CEO of OBS. “Substantial recent technological advancements have allowed us to pursue this opportunity further for the Rio Games and to offer a 4K feed for a number of sports, down-converted from the original 8K, to NBC and other interested Rights Holding Broadcasters around the globe.”

According to a fresh forecast from Strategy Analytics, more than 11 million homes in North America will own an 4K/Ultra HD TV by the end of 2016.

For more details about the initiative, including the top tech challenges posed by it, please see Chris Tribbey’s expanded coverage at B&C. 

Bucking a trend amplified by a small but growing cord-cutting trend and the popularity of over-the-top video options, Comcast just came off first quarter in which the MSO added 53,000 subs, its best Q1 video result in nine years.

A sizable portion of the credit goes to X1, Comcast’s IP-capable next-gen video offering, but, according to Matt Strauss, Comcast Cable’s executive vice president and general manager, video services, the results are due to a confluence of efforts and initiatives that span not just the core product but also areas such as improved customer care.

Multichannel News technology editor and Next TV editor Jeff Baumgartner recently caught up with Strauss to discuss Comcast’s ever-expanding video strategy, including  X1, usage trends for mobile and TV everywhere applications, what’s next for the operator’s IP-delivered “Stream” product, some hints at the MSO’s ambitious plans for the Rio Games, and how Comcast is positioning itself as consumers continue to adopt new TVs that are capable of supporting 4K video and high dynamic range (HDR) formats.

The following edited transcript ran in two parts earlier in the week in Multichannel News dailies distributed at the INTX show in Boston.

Multichannel News: As you look at the second half of the year, what are your top priorities? 

Matt Strauss: We're really focused first and foremost on continuing to execute against the deployment of X1. We're seeing a lot of very positive benefits from X1, both on the churn and on the increased consumption side. We're now at about 35% penetrated, and it's even higher if you just look at triple-play subs -- about 50% of our triple-play subs now have X1. 

What goes hand-in-hand with that is that we also want to finish out the deployment of our cloud infrastructure. We've been deploying cloud across our footprint -- both cloud streaming and cloud DVR – and we are very close to getting 100% deployment. We want to finish that up by the middle-to-end of this year. 

Finally, we want to continue the penetration and usage of our products and services. We’ve got a very ambitious deployment for our new consolidated Xfinity app. With the upcoming Olympics [in Rio] we want to use that as an opportunity to shine a light on this new application, which we think is a tremendous value to our customers. 

MCN: For X1, you've been deploying about 40,000 boxes a day. Is that a comfortable clip for you or are you looking to push the needle even harder? 

MS: I think there are always opportunities where we want to accelerate. But at the same time, there's a bit of a cadence where we've gotten into where we want to make it easier for customers to get access to X1, which includes self-install kits. But there are segments that prefer a professional install.

I think we're at the right pace and speed based on what we're forecasting. We're installing between 40,000 to 50,000 [X1] boxes per day. At that run-rate, our goal is to get close to 50% by the end of this year. 

MCN: With respect to the pay TV momentum, how much credit does X1 get, even as you continue to improve other areas like customer care and customer experience? 

MS: It certainly is contributing. When you look at X1, we're seeing improvements in churn. X1 customers are also consuming more video. They also have a higher attachment rate to DVRs and typically they take additional outlets in their home. There's no doubt that X1 is contributing, but I don't know if there's any one silver bullet. 

When it comes to growing the video business, it's really a combination of several factors and investments that we've been making over the past few years, both in how we've been improving our infrastructure, moving more to IP.

We're also equally focusing on reducing call volume. We've had some of the lowest agent call-in rates in years. We've taken more than 11 million calls out of the system.

MCN: How is X1 impacting viewing habits? Comcast has talked about the impact on VOD usage, but how is it affecting viewing of live, linear TV?

With X1, we're now seeing 85% usage of on-demand among X1 subs. That equals about 25 hours of on demand consumption per month. We've expanded the number of series that are stacked where you can get access to all the episodes in a season. We went from a few series a few years ago to now over 700 series that we offer fully stacked. 

When you incorporate this seemingly infinite amount of content and ultimate control and you also marry in with this recommendations and voice navigation and a level of personalization, we actually have seen an increase across the board in video consumption -- live, on demand and DVR. 

When you track an X1 households from a year ago to 2015 to 2016 we've seen an increase of over 3% in total video consumption on average across the board. 

When you marry together those things together with choice and control, we're seeing a lift. That doesn't mean that viewing habits aren't changing and shifting. But we think X1 is becoming in many ways a better mousetrap. 

[READ MORE: Xfinity TV App Starts to Support NBC, ABC Live Feeds Out of Home]

MCN: What kind of usage patterns are you seeing with the Xfinity TV app? Is the big challenge getting the message out to customers so they understand the app's full capability? 

MS: I'd almost characterize it as we're in a moment in time because we have the Xfinity TV in-home app and we have our Xfinity TV Go app. We are in the process of consolidating those into just one app, which will be the Xfinity TV app. This unification…will provide this unprecedented access to content both in the home and out of the home. And I think those lines are going to continue to get more and more blurred. 

When you look at the usage of our app in general, we have about 42% penetration of our mobile app among our double-play customers on a monthly basis. On a quarterly basis, it's almost 60% who are using one of our apps, and that's up about 16% year-over-year. 

MCN: How far along are you with this app unification plan?

MS: If you download the Xfinity TV app today, we've already started. We've already incorporated all of the TV Everywhere content and the in-home content into the app. It's primarily been targeted at X1 customers. For the Rio Olympics this summer you'll see a much more concerted effort to increase awareness around the availability of that app to the broader base. 

MCN: What's next for Comcast with respect to 4K? You've got the app for Samsung TVs but we've seen some recent reports that you'll really be focusing more on a strategy that puts an emphasis on High Dynamic Range (HDR)? 

MS: We are highly focused on ensuring we're delivering the best video quality. The realty is we're at the very early stages of 4K. There's arguably more marketing and messaging going on around 4K than actual content and choice. 

When we evaluated this -- while there's hyper-attention on 4K, when we look at the total video experience, we think 4K is part of the offering. But HDR, which is not necessarily getting the same amount of attention, is in many ways more immersive and, we think, impactful.

When you marry that with Dolby Atmos [an immersive three-dimensional audio platform], it's the combination of 4K, HDR and sound that we think is really the right combination of transcending to an almost Ultra HD experience. That's what we determined was the right experience and focus that we want to lean into. 

Instead of deploying maybe a half-baked solution, which we're starting to see a little bit of in the market, we thought it was more prudent to deliver the complete experience... and that's what's being developed with our Xi6 box, which we'll be testing this year, but it's going to really be deployed next year. 

We will be experimenting with the Olympics with 4K. There's going to be a couple of hours a day of 4K content that we will be delivering. We're also sponsoring the opening ceremonies in 4K, but we're also shooting it in HDR with Dolby Atmos sound. [Note: Comcast showed off the wireless, HDR-capable Xi5 box at INTX, and plans to start shipping it on July 4. A 4K-capable HDR box, the Xi6, is also in the works].

MCN: The video market continues to be abuzz about skinny TV bundles. Comcast has been going after that segment with the Stream TV product in some select markets. What have you learned so far and what's next on the rollout plan? 

MS: In many ways X1, we think, is satisfying the demand for how many of watch television. The average person watches about 130 hours of video every month.

But there are changes in how other segments are consuming video. When we look at skinny bundles, we believe that they are in some ways a manifestation of the economy as anything else. It's rare that you hear someone say that they want fewer choices. What’s more likely is that you might hear someone say they want to pay less. 

We have been experimenting with skinny bundles and experimenting with ensuring we're getting the right product to the right customer at the right time in their life, whether that's Internet Plus or the Xfinity On Campus product, or Stream. 

Stream, though, in many ways is not really just about a skinny bundle. In many respects, it's us looking at new ways at how we market, how we activate a video subscription, and, for instance, if you're a high-speed data customer and you are in one of the markets where we've deployed Stream you can instantly add Stream. It doesn’t' require a truck roll, it doesn’t require additional equipment. We're able to instantly activate it for you. 

Stream has a different buy flow. You can cancel it at any time. You can use a credit card. The care is primarily self-help. 

MCN: So, it's designed to be low friction. 

MS: While Stream is, at the moment, comprised of a skinny bundle, the strategies behind Stream is much more around how we're going to transform the overall end-to-end customer experience, and Stream is just one example of how we are expanding into that terrain. 

You will not only see us deploy Stream into additional markets, but we'll also evolve the Stream product which will include additional tiers of content and you'll also see us expand streams to additional platforms. 

It was initially launched for mobile and Web, but we've always known that access to the TV is going to be critical. [On April 20], we announced a deal with Roku. As part of that you will see us enabling Stream and other parts of our video subscription onto Internet-connected TV devices. 

It would be a mistake to think of Stream as a skinny bundle. It's much more comprehensive strategy in how we're looking to evolve that over time. 

MCN: Let's talk a bit about the results you’ve seen with electronic-sell through, which you launched in 2013. Also, Fandango (part of NBCUniversal) just bought M-Go and rebranded that EST service as FandangoNow. Do you see some opportunities for Comcast to align its EST product with that? 

MS: Since we've launched electronic sell-through, we've had over 5 million customers make digital purchases and it has also unlocked the ability for us to access content in earlier windows. It's not uncommon for studios to release movies digitally, in some cases, three or four weeks before physical. It's given us the ability to market to those customers in advance of some other distributor's that have not launched electronic sell-through. 

We continue  to refine the product; we're introducing bundling and pre-buys. You'll see us test different ways to add value. For example, we're testing these enhanced content offerings that when you purchase  movie digitally it unlocks companion experiences. And we're looking at gaming as another way that we can add more value to digital purchases. We're working closely with the studios to continue to find ways to evolve the product and look at ways to [support ] earlier windows. 

There certainly may be opportunities where we collaborate at some point [with Fandango], but my sense is that Fandango is interested  in exploring ways to expand and enhance their ticketing business and electronic sell-through may provide new models for them like super tickets. That has not been as high a priority for us.

Who knows? There could be some shared learnings that allow us to find ways where we could better work together. 

Like the industry it serves, the only constant is change at CableLabs.

After decades as cable’s R&D and interoperability house, the organization has been shifting its focus and more of its resources into filling an innovation pipeline for the industry. Though projects like DOCSIS certification testing are still key to the organization, CableLabs is also looking around corners to keep a close eye on what’s coming next, and what its constituents will need to be bracing for.

Multichannel News technology editor Jeff Baumgartner recently caught up with CableLabs CEO Phil McKinney to get an update on the current game plan, what innovation projects he’s focused on, and his thoughts on emerging platforms such as virtual reality and 8K video.

An edited transcript follows (this feature originally appeared Monday in  the show daily distribute Monday (March 16) at the INTX show in Boston.). For more about Kyrio, the recently rebranded CableLabs-run for-profit unit, and its recent work around software-defined networking and network functions virtualization, please see this sidebar discussion with McKinney and Mitch Ashley, president and general manager of Kyrio.

Multichannel News: In January, you announced “CableLabs 2.0,” an initiative that included a restructuring and refocusing of the organization. Can you get us up to speed on the main goals and the progress you’ve made?

Phil McKinney: The CableLabs 2.0 initiative is something that's been in the works for probably over three years. When I first came to CableLabs [in 2012], the charter that the board wanted to put in place for CableLabs was for it to become the industry’s innovation lab. We spent the last three years getting the organization ready. 

In addition, we did not have a multi-gigabit strategy in place for the industry. Rather than trying to transform an organization and at the same time kick off what turned into being DOCSIS 3.1, I made the call to really keep the organization focused on DOCSIS 3.1, while we started to progress the organization toward being much more focused on longer-range innovation. 

If you look to our financial numbers through last year or even up through January of this year, roughly about 14% of our spend was focused on longer-range innovation -- things that are three-plus years out. The rest of it is in the three-year timeframe, what I'd call applied research. 

Our total technical spend is not changing...in terms of total dollars spent on our programs; it's really this rebalancing of the priorities such that 50% of our spend is in applied research, and  50% of our spend is on longer-range innovation work. 

The best example of a project with a longer range...is the result of Full Duplex DOCSIS, symmetrical DOCSIS over HFC. 

MCN: What’s the status on Full Duplex, and the timing on when you'd expect it to become an official extension of DOCSIS 3.1? 

PM: We're still working on it and progress is looking very, very promising. Our current...plan is that Full Duplex DOCSIS will transition from an innovation project to moving it into a full R&D project. When that happens, the funding scales up significantly, the resourcing for that project scales up significantly, working groups get established, and that's when vendors get engaged.

We're anticipating that to be mid-summer timeframe...around the time of Summer Conference [CableLabs has that event scheduled for August 7-9 in Keystone, Colo.].  

MCN: Outside of CableLabs 2.0, what do you see as the big focus areas for CableLabs heading into the second half of 2016?

PM: Again, it's 50/50 from a funding and resourcing commitment. We’ve made good progress in getting that balance in place. We just had our Inform[ED] conference focused on our wireless work. Wireless work continues to be important. Wireless is not constrained to being R&D or innovation...we float [those resources] back and forth.

For us, it's about pushing the organization to look beyond the horizon and be the scouts for the industry about what's coming next. And that we are doing the ground work on developing those technologies, getting the intellectual property in place such that when those get within range of having an impact on the industry you're not starting from ground zero. 

The other key is to make sure we have that robust innovation pipeline. We had a good pipeline, but we're putting more emphasis on researching and experimenting and looking at co-innovation partners. 

MCN: What other areas that are on the radar for the innovation projects? Would virtual reality fall into that? 

PM: We have not discussed specific projects. In fact, Full Duplex is the only project we talk about specifically. But as far as broad areas that we're interested in, it falls into the categories of active networks [HFC and fiber], a lot of work going on in wireless, and security, as well as what we call next-generation experiences...specifically when you get into multi-gigabit kind of networks to homes and businesses.  VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) fall into what we consider are these next-generation kinds of experiences. 

MCN: DOCSIS 3.1 appears to be humming right along as equipment gets certified and MSOs like Comcast prepare for commercial deployments. What’s your sense these days on the use cases that will require speeds of 1-gig or more.

PM: The joke in the ISP world is when someone asks what's the app you run on a multi-gig network...today it's only Speed Test. 

MCN: That says a lot, doesn't it? 

PM:  It’s not about sustained multi-gigabit speeds, it's about what I call "fast synch" -- you get on the network and you've got some cloud service and, boom, everything is synchronized. You want to download the move into your iPad because you're catching an airplane, boom, it's on there. 

It's not about that I'm going to draw 2-gigs on the network continuously; it's really around the periodic apps where you're looking to get data movement back and forth very, very quickly. 

If you look out a few more years, and you look at autonomous vehicles, then our conversations are with the major auto manufacturers around what the bandwidth requirements are going to be.

With autonomous vehicles, you bring them home and park them in your garage, there's a lot of data that gets synchronized between the vehicle and the auto companies for things like updating the driving information, road conditions, all those sorts of things.  They [the auto makers] are estimating that they're going to need between 200 to 300 gigabytes per month to go back and forth between the vehicle. 

MCN: How does VR factor into the potential use cases?

With VR, the experiences today are okay. We think that they're too low resolution and too low of a frame rate. They need to be at least 120 frames and at least be 4K in what we call the viewing space -- where you're actually looking. 

Today VR is 4K, but it's 4K wrapped across the entire 360-degree space. When you get it up to a resolution with a 4K viewing area and you have 120 frames…you're looking in the neighborhood of 150 to 250 Mbps to stream that. On top of that, three people in your house watching VR simultaneously streamed and you're coming up on a gigabit pretty fast. 

MCN: VR continues to get buzz as new higher end headsets come out and more content and services are developed for them. But when do you think adoption will become mainstream? 

PM: My guess is we'll probably hit holiday season 2018 when we reach the true mainstream.

We're still in this novelty, nichey kind of thing. Unity [Technologies] is doing some interesting work on engines to make it easier to create content. There are some great tools that are coming online in the next six months. There are some movies in early stage production to be fully developed as 360 dramatic, but you basically have to change the whole format of storytelling.

MCN: We've been tracking 4K developments as they progress, but how soon before your constituents need to be thinking about 8K? 

PM: For 8K, the project at CableLabs is being driven by [Japan's] J:COM, our second-largest international member behind Liberty Global. J:COM has a regulatory obligation to be broadcasting 8K by 2020, in time for the [Olympic] Games in Tokyo.  

In the reality in our testing, consumers can't tell resolution. We put a 4K set up and an HD set up, and only 61% of consumers could even figure out which TV was 4K and which TV was HD, at proper distance.

However, what we have seen is High Dynamic Range and what the many of the TV guys refer to as Ultra HD. With better color, consumers will perceive it as being a higher resolution. 

MCN: Focusing on mobile, different MSOs will have different strategies with respect to wireless and mobility, but how do you see cable’s role in this area evolving in the next few years?  Will it become a key priority?

PM: It's already a pretty big priority if you look at what the bigger guys are doing, such as Comcast and Charter and Cablevision [Systems] in terms of footprint that they've built out [with WiFi]. Let's face it, consumers want to take their broadband with them, they don't want to leave it at home. 

All of the MSOs are saying wireless is important now. They’re all going about it in different ways in terms of: "What does wireless mean?"  Shaw [Communications] buys Wind [Mobile] and is in the middle of an upgrade to 4G/LTE as part of that expansion, and you've already got Rogers [Communications]. Then we have the MNOs [mobile network operators] buying cable operators in the form of  Vodafone having bought ONO in Spain and KDG in Germany. Why? Because they need access to that network, particularly for backhaul for their small cell strategies.  

So you see this convergence where you've got the MNOs are looking to cable as a great infrastructure play and you've got cable looking at wireless, saying it's a great service offering to be able to extend the reach of their broadband services no matter where they're at.

You're seeing this convergence with the cable operators with a great fixed network that's been built up over decades and you've got the MNOs that need to go to a small cell strategy to create the bandwidth and to deliver better services, and they need access to those assets. Everybody wants to offer broadband services to their customers where they might be -- meet the customers where they're at, not force those customers to come to some location. 

Boston -- TiVo has entered the 4K game with the Bolt, a connected DVR focused on retail, but it’s also hard at work with set-top partners on  “operator-optimized” products that also support 4K as well as High Dynamic Range, which supports brighter, more colorful video images.

“We are big believers of it, the value proposition” of HDR, Thomas Elam, vice president and general manager of TiVo’s North American service provider business, said here.

And differing from the strategy with Bolt, which will also support HDR when TiVo flips on that capability, TiVo won’t make the MSO-optimized hardware, but will rely instead on set-top makers that have signed on to use its Hardware Porting Kit, a group that includes Arris/Pace, Evolution Digital, Technicolor and Kaon, among others. TiVo, as a reminder, is in the process of merging with Rovi.

Here at the show, Comcast continued to amplify its interest in HDR, showing off a new Xi5 device that will support the format and start shipping in July and complement the Xi6, which will support both HDR and 4K.

Boston – Comcast plans to start shipping its first box with on-board High Dynamic Range (HDR) capabilities on July 4, according to Tony Werner, Comcast’s EVP and chief technology officer, said here Wednesday during a session with other industry CTOs.

That will ensure that the Xi5 will be available in time for the Rio Olympics, where NBCUniversal will be producing some coverage in the HDR format. Comcast also offer a taste of HDR during the games at some special screenings that will showcase the format. 

Werner said he has more personal interest in HDR, a technology that enables brighter and more colorful pixels, than 4K, a format that packs about four times the number of pixels than today’s HDTV images.

He said upconverted 1080p looks good, but HDR makes it “noticeably better.”

Here at the show, Comcast showed off the Xi5, its first HDR-capable box that will be wireless and work with the company’s IP-capable X1 platform. Comcast is also developing the Xi6, which will support both HDR and 4K.

Comcast plans to demo HDR in some hosted events it will arrange during the summer games in Rio.

As for 4K, Werner said Comcast won’t “roadblock” access to it, but said there’s need for more content in that format .

The wide-ranging discussion also touched on Comcast’s X1 platform, which is being licensed by Cox Communications and Shaw Communications and uses the Reference Design Kit (RDK), a preintegrated software platform for video and broadband devices being managed by Comcast, Liberty Global and Time Warner Cable (now part of Charter Communications).

Licensing X1 for Cox’s new “Contour” product, “was a key part of our strategy to gain scale, scale around innovation,” Kevin Hart, Cox’s EVP and CTO, said, stressing that there’s a need for more collaboration in the industry.

“The early success is off the charts,” Hart said of Cox’s new X1-based Contour product, which has been deployed to most of the MSO's markets. He added that Cox is looking to update its capital models next year in order to keep up with demand this year and into 2017.

“Once we got this locked and loaded, these guy went,” Werner said.

 The panel also discussed the evolving world of advertising and the shift to more targeted and interactive ads.

Comcast, Werner said, expanded on Comcast’s strategy to integrate interactive ads with the X1 guide environment.

Though advertisers weren’t interested in the early phases of X1 when few customers were on the service, that’s no longer true as Comcast aims to get 50% of its video base on it by the end of the year.  “They are doing the limbo under our door to get ad spots on there,” Werner said, noting earlier that he has “warmed up” to the idea of offering interactive ads on the X1 guide.  

Comcast has supported interactive ads on legacy boxes using EBIF (Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format) (EBIF), but plans to bring it back in a “big way” to X1 using more advanced technology.

Roku, meanwhile, is also pushing hard into this arena, and recently struck a deal with Viacom to help the programmer make its ads more relevant, said Steve Shannon, GM of content and services at Roku.

Darcy Antonellis, CEO of Vubiquity, noted that targeted advertising technologies continue to improve, but are still in the “nascent stages” when it comes to refinement, noting that her getting an for Deadpool is a “tell-tale sign” of that because she’s not in the demographic for that particular movie.

The talk also touched on the potential for virtual reality and 360 video.

Discovery Communications, which launched a VR unit last year, is “still searching for that consistent user experience,” company CTO John Honeycutt said.

And though mobile video is grabbing lots of attention and headlines, there’s a “revenge of the TV” occurring as more of those big screens get connected to the Internet, Roku’s Shannon said. “It is roaring back to be the predominant streaming platform.”

Werner said Comcast is finding tablets and other second screens to be accretive, and not a displacement of TV viewing. “They can fill gaps with it,” he said, noting that Comcast, for example,  has seen many viewers pause a show on the set-top at 10:15 p.m.  and then soon resume it on a tablet. 

BOSTON -- Comcast is using this week’s INTX confab here to show off several new consumer products that will debut soon, including a new wireless video client device, called the Xi5, that will support High Dynamic Range (HDR), a format that enables a richer image through brighter and more colorful pixels.

That device (the one in the middle shown here) will work in tandem with the XB6, a multi-service gigabit wireless gateway that will also support the MSO’s Xfinity Home service.  The Xi5 is currently in small field trials.

To facilitate whole-home coverage, Comcast is also showing a network extender product (far right) that supports several platforms including WiFi, Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) and Ethernet.  That product is expected to start shipping in 2017.

Also on show is a sleeker remote control that emphasizes the MSO’s voice search/navigation platform. That will start to ship by the end of this year and reach volume shipments sometime in 2017.

More to come…

Bucking a trend amplified by a small but growing cord-cutting trend and the popularity of over-the-top video options, Comcast just came off a first quarter in which the MSO added 53,000 subscribers, its best first-quarter video result in nine years.

While a portion of the credit goes to X1, Comcast’s Internet protocol-capable next-generation video offering, those results are due to a confluence of efforts and initiatives that span not just the core product but also areas such as improved customer care, according to Matt Strauss, Comcast Cable’s executive vice president and general manager, video services.

Multichannel News technology editor and Next TV editor Jeff Baumgartner recently caught up with Strauss to discuss Comcast’s new video products and strategies involving X1, TV Everywhere, its new IP-delivered “Stream” product, and future 4K plans.

Editor's Note: An expanded version of this interview will appear in Multichannel News’s show dailies at this week’s INTX show in Boston.

MCN:As you look at the second half of the year, what are your top priorities?

Matt Strauss: We’re really focused first and foremost on continuing to execute against the deployment of X1. We’re seeing a lot of very positive benefits from X1, both on the churn and on the increased consumption side. We’re now at about 35% penetrated, and it’s even higher if you just look at triple-play subs — about 50% of our triple-play subscribers now have X1.

What goes hand in hand with that is that we also want to finish out the deployment of our cloud infrastructure. We’ve been deploying cloud across our footprint — both cloud streaming and cloud DVR — and we are very close to getting 100% deployment. We want to finish that up by the middle to end of this year.

Finally, we want to continue the penetration and usage of our products and services. We’ve got a very ambitious deployment for our new consolidated Xfinity app. With the upcoming Olympics [in Rio] we want to use that as an opportunity to shine a light on this new application, which we think is a tremendous value to our customers.

Related:INTX 2016: Comcast's Roberts Says No Plans to Take Pay TV Over-the-Top

MCN:With respect to the pay TV momentum, how much credit does X1 get, even as you continue to improve other areas like customer care and customer experience?

MS: It certainly is contributing. When you look at X1, we’re seeing improvements in churn. X1 customers are also consuming more video. They also have a higher attachment rate to DVRs and typically they take additional outlets in their home. There’s no doubt that X1 is contributing, but I don’t know if there’s any one silver bullet.

When it comes to growing the video business, it’s really a combination of several factors and investments that we’ve been making over the past few years, in how we’ve been improving our infrastructure, moving more to IP.

MCN:What kind of usage patterns are you seeing with the Xfinity TV app? Is the big challenge getting the message out to customers so they understand the app’s full capability?

MS: I’d almost characterize it as we’re in a moment in time because we have the Xfinity TV in-home app and we have our Xfinity TV Go app. We are in the process of consolidating those into just one app, which will be the Xfinity TV app. This unification … will provide this unprecedented access to content both in the home and out of the home. And I think those lines are going to continue to get more and more blurred.

When you look at the usage of our app in general, we have about 42% penetration of our mobile app among our double-play customers on a monthly basis. On a quarterly basis, it’s almost 60% who are using one of our apps, and that’s up about 16% year-over-year.

Related:CEO Roberts: Comcast, X1 Ready for Olympics

MCN:What’s next for Comcast with respect to 4K? You’ve got the app for Samsung TVs but we’ve seen some recent reports that you’ll really be focusing more on a strategy that puts an emphasis on High Dynamic Range (HDR)?

MS: While there’s hyper-attention on 4K, when we look at the total video experience, we think 4K is part of the offering. But HDR, which is not necessarily getting the same amount of attention, is in many ways more immersive and, we think, impactful.

Instead of deploying maybe a half-baked solution, which we’re starting to see a little bit of in the market, we thought it was more prudent to deliver the complete experience … and that’s what’s being developed with our Xi6 box, which we’ll be testing this year, but it’s going to really be deployed next year.

MCN:The video market continues to be abuzz about skinny TV bundles. Comcast has been going after that segment with the Stream TV product in some select markets. What have you learned so far, and what’s next on the rollout plan?

MS: In many ways X1, we think, is satisfying the demand for how many of us watch television. The average person watches about 130 hours of video every month.

But there are changes in how other segments are consuming video. When we look at skinny bundles, we believe that they are in some ways a manifestation of the economy as anything else. It’s rare that you hear someone say that they want fewer choices. What’s more likely is that you might hear someone say they want to pay less.

We have been experimenting with skinny bundles and experimenting with ensuring we’re getting the right product to the right customer at the right time in their life, whether that’s Internet Plus or the Xfinity On Campus product, or Stream.

While Stream is, at the moment, comprised of a skinny bundle, the strategies behind Stream are much more around how we’re going to transform the overall end-to-end customer experience, and Stream is just one example of how we are expanding into that terrain.

Netflix is making a big bet on high dynamic range (HDR), a format that delivers “better” pixels by making them brighter and enabling a richer gamut of colors.

Netflix’s foray into HDR plan is underway with support for season one of original series Marco Polo, offered to subs on Netflix’s $11.99 per month Ultra HD/four-stream plan who also have a compatible 2016 Dolby Vision or HDR-enabled TV.

Netflix plans to add over 100 hours of HDR programming by August, with more than 150 hours slated by the end of 2016, Neil Hunt, Netflix’s chief product officer, announced Tuesday in this blog post.

“While 4k offers more pixels, HDR offers better pixels that have greater depth, and on HDR screens you get brighter highlights, more detail in dark scenes, and a wider color range that more closely matches the real world,” he wrote.

Hunt also shed some light on titles that Netflix will offer in both Dolby Vision and HDR formats: A Series of Unfortunate Events; Bloodline; Chef’s Table; Hibana; Knights of Sidonia; Marvel’s Daredevil; Marvel’s Iron Fist; Marvel’s Jessica Jones; Marvel’s Luke Cage;Marvel’s The Defenders; The Do-Over; and The Ridiculous Six.

Netflix streaming rival Amazon, which this week added a standalone streaming video subscription option for U.S. members, began to offer select originals in HDR format last year, including Mozart in the Jungle and the pilot episode of Red Oaks, in markets such as the U.S., U.K. and Germany.

Update: Amazon said it now has about 100 hours of HDR available now and expects to double that by early 2017. 

We’ll know more about the 4K TV market trends following the holiday buying frenzy, but through the middle of 2015 Samsung led the way among U.S. broadband homes, according to new data from Parks Associates.

Samsung, the firm said, accounted for 28% of 4K TV purchases made within the past year by U.S. broadband homes, while Best Buy was the top retailer, capturing more than 40% of 4K TV purchases.

Among other brands, 17% of consumers who bought a 4K TV in the past 12 months got one from LG Electronics, followed by Sony (13%), and Vizio (11%).

As for consumer pickup, 8% of U.S. broadband homes will buy a 4K TV this year, Parks Associates predicts.

Broken down further, 19% of U.S. broadband homes intend to buy a flat-panel TV by the end of 2015, and about 40% of that group are looking to score a 4K TV, while 42% of U.S. broadband homes indicate that they aren’t familiar with the new eye-popping platform.

“For both flat-panel purchasers and the subgroup of 4K TV purchasers, 44% made the purchase after seeing the product for a good price, so the major purchase motivator for flat-panel and 4K TVs was not substantially different,” Barbara Kraus, director of research at Parks Associates, said in a statement. “However, 11% of 4K TV purchasers were motivated to buy after learning about the TV’s features, compared to 3% of flat-panel TV purchasers.”

Kraus said content remains a “key inhibitor” for 4K adoption, noting that she also expects to see lower cost 4K TV technologies, including 4K-capable disc players and sets with on-board high dynamic range (HDR), emerge next month at CES 2016 in Las Vegas. 

Paving the way for a new video platform for HD and 4K/Ultra HD that promises to pump out brighter, more colorful pixels and create more realistic, eye-popping visuals, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has released the CE industry’s definition for high dynamic range (HDR)-compatible video displays.

The CEA said the definitions aim to assist retailers and consumers in identifying display products that incorporate the interface and processing technology needed to display HDR-enabled content properly.

The definitions also enter play as OTT providers such as Netflix and  Amazon start to embrace HDR. Comcast, meanwhile, announced in May that it is developing the Xi5, a video device for its X1 platform that will support HDR. 

The CEA noted that many 4K sets support early implementations of HDR support wider color gamut and higher frame rates, but now provides the organization's Video Division Board-approved definitions. A TV, monitor or projector may be referred to as a HDR Compatible Display if it meets the following minimum attributes:

-Includes at least one interface that supports HDR signaling as defined in CEA-861-F, as extended by CEA-861.3.

-Receives and processes static HDR metadata compliant with CEA-861.3 for uncompressed video.

-Receives and processes HDR10 Media Profile from IP, HDMI or other video delivery sources., though other media profiles may be supported.

-Applies an appropriate Electro-Optical Transfer Function (EOTF), before rendering the image.

“HDR provides a significant step-up in delivering an incredible viewing experience for the consumer,” said Brian Markwalter, senior vice president, research and standards, CEA, in a statement. “We encourage manufacturers and our industry partners to use this voluntary compatibility guideline to provide greater consistency and clarity while ensuring compatibility and interoperability across the full content development to display ecosystem.”

He said the definitions complement work of other organizations that are developing HDR-related performance parameters and guidance, such as the UHD  Alliance. 

For those of us headed to the annual International CES, which happens a scant four days after the New Year, the holiday season necessarily includes shaking the network to get a better look at what’s planned.

Here’s what we found under the tree.

Ultra HD/4K is the new 3D, which had been the new HD before the marketplace thud that hastened it out the door. The refrain this year, albeit not necessarily from the CE side: There’s more to better pictures and sound than “just” the television set.

This year, watch for UHD lingo studded with impressively nerdy terms like “high dynamic range” (see Jeff Baumgartner’s piece on page 15 for lots more on that), “color gamut” and “bit depth.”

All of those terms explain additional ways in which innovation is happening throughout the rest of the video ecosystem — think cameras, production gear and the technologies of storytelling. If you go, you’ll see it in the way colors look. Blacks look downright velvety, reds look royal, greens mossy. The picture overall is brighter. Much brighter.

(Talk to any hardcore video engineer — HDR and what’s happening with color and brightness is as “wow” as when standard definition video went high def.)

Wearables, coupled with a new-ish term — “cognitive computing” — described as “mobile devices that anticipate your actions based on who you are, who you’re with, and make decisions for you.” (Great.)

While it’s rare that the dazzle and pop of CES fare is directly relevant to this industry, wearables and cognitive computing do open a plausible stream of thought: What decisions could be made for us, that improve our media-centric life?

Note that it’s likely we’ll see more “smart clothing” this year. Already we’ve seen a blazer, designed for tourists in New York and Paris, and equipped with LED lights on the sleeves, and buzzers in the shoulder pads. The thinking: Stop looking at the blue dot on the screen! Your right arm will blink and buzz when you need to turn right.

Again. CES is CES.

Smart homes, smart cars, driverless cars, smart things — sensors will sustain in show floor glitz. Entire pavilions will be cordoned off to showcase the Internet of Things, always a source of weird and interesting gadgetry, but rarely directly relevant to whatever it is we’re calling the cable industry these days.

Regardless, there’s nothing quite like the International CES. This will be my 15th consecutive year as (trés dorky) guide for the Cable & Telecommuncations Association for Marketing’s tours, and while I generally dread it beforehand, I’m always glad about how it went at the end.

We’ll keep the highlights coming.

Stumped by gibberish? Visit Leslie Ellis attranslation-please.comormultichannel.com/blog.