Comcast has integrated YouTube’s 4K catalog into its X1 video platform.

X1 users can now speak into their voice remotes to access the add-supported platform’s collection of movies, nature videos and video game trailers in 4K resolution. Comcast previously integrated 4K content from Netflix and Amazon Prime Video into X1.

Related: Comcast Set to Launch Amazon Prime on X1 Next Week

To access YouTube’s 4K content, Comcast subscribers need compatible X1 CPE and a 4K-capable television.

Comcast’s announcement comes on the heels of its integration of Amazon Prime Video—along with its associated 4K catalog—earlier this month.

Comcast first integrated YouTube into its X1 portfolio of services in September 2017. The cable operator says “YouTube” is among the most popular commands for its voice remote. 

Researcher Parks Associates said that about 30% of Netflix customers subscribe to its premium service, up from 21% in late 2017 and despite a price increase in October.

At the same time, Parks says uptake of Netflix’s basic tier has fallen from 35% to 27%.

Netflix charges about $7.99 per month for its basic service, $10.99 per month for its most popular standard package and $13.99 monthly for its premium tier.   

"This shift reflects trends that we are seeing across the industry, beyond Netflix," said Parks senior director, research, Brett Sappington in a statement. "Netflix's basic tier is limited to one screen and SD quality, while the premium tier offers viewing on up to four screens and access to Ultra HD content. Many OTT-subscribing households have multiple people who want to watch similar content at the same time. Rather than competing for access, consumers are willing to pay extra for the convenience of multiple streams. At the same time, consumers want to watch on TVs, making HD viewing a must. Demand for Ultra HD TV is small but increasing."

Parks plans to detail this research and more at its upcoming conference the Future of Video: OTT, Pay TV and Digital Media, Dec. 10-12 in Marina del Rey, Calif.

Layer3 TV, the Denver-based MVPD, will be among a select group of pay TV providers that will offer Fox Sports’ live coverage of the 2018 World Cup tournament in 4K.  

Layer3 TV said it will make all 64 World Cup matches, starting with Thursday’s kick-off fixture between Saudi Arabia and host Russia, available in 4K, and will provide that coverage on two 4K channels.   

RELATED: World Cup 2018 Sets Stage for Video Tech Showcase  

Layer3 TV, acquired by T-Mobile in January, supports 4K on every set-top box and doesn’t charge extra for 4K content. To enjoy that content in its full, pixel-packed glory, Layer3 TV customers will also need a 4K-capable TV set. 

“The World Cup is one of those events that the entire world tunes in for, and our subscribers expect the best quality picture possible for every corner kick and goal,” Jeff Binder, executive vice president of T-Mobile Home + Entertainment, said in a statement. “Fox’s passionate soccer fans can get closer than ever to the fields this year with 4K resolution on Layer3 TV.”  

Layer3 TV began to offer live and VOD content in 4K in March 2017, and today offers channels in the format such as Insight UHD and Nasa TV UHD.  

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

Layer3 TV currently offers a managed, in-home-focused IPTV service in markets such as Washington, D.C.; Dallas; Longmont, Colo.; Los Angeles, Calif.; and Chicago. T-Mobile is also working on a national, OTT-delivered version of the service that’s expected to launch later this year.  

RELATED: T-Mobile’s Jeff Binder: 5G Is ‘Perfect Delivery Mechanism for Video’ 

Among other U.S.-based MVPDs, DirecTV will offer live 4K HDR coverage of World Cup 2018 to customers with the right tech set-up. Dish Network will offer the games in 4K format, according to TVAnswerman.com. 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.  

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.  

Las Vegas – SES now counts more than 30 U.S. cable operators, telcos and other pay TV partners that are now receiving TV signals in 4K as it starts to move those efforts into Latin American and begins to eye up some future activity in Canada.

SES is offering a dozen channels in 4K (four per transponder), including its own promotional channel to partners using a soup-to-nuts distribution platform that handles everything from ingest, encoding and distribution to the set-top box. SES also has access to a growth transponder that could expand its 4K lineup to 16 channels.

Those on SES’s 4K partner list include Armstrong Utilities, Aureon Network Services, Dish Network, enTouch Systems, EPG Chattanooga, Foothills Communications, Guadalupe Valley (GVTC), Highlands Cable Group, Hotwire Communications, Frontier Communications, Jackson Energy Authority, KPU Telecommunications, Sjoberg’s Cable TV, Buckeye Broadband, Margaretville Telephony Company, Marquette Adams, Midco, Midwest Video Solutions, Oneida Cablevision, Service Electric Cable TV, Skitter Inc., Wherever TV, and WideOpenWest.

Verizon Fios and Frontier Communications are also testing 4K TV with SES.

RELATED: Frontier Joins SES 4K Trials

For the commercial rollouts, SES and those partners have focused on 4K to the set-top box, using transport streams over QAM and over IP, depending on the service provider, and tests are underway to deliver 4K transport streams over DOCSIS, Steve Corda, vice president, media platforms North America at SES Video, said.

Works is also underway to provide IP video using adaptive bit rate (ABR) to deliver 4K streams to tablets and other types of IP streaming devices, he said.

Currently, SES is using HEVC to deliver 4K streams at 18 Mbps.

There’s no commitment from SES to support AV1, a new royalty-free next-gen codec that’s expected to play a bit role in OTT video, but Corda said its encoding system could be set up for AV1, which will start out in software and not likely to be baked into chips and hardware for a couple more years.

“We’re pretty agnostic. We would welcome being able to deliver the same quality at lower data rates,” he said.

As potential rollouts go, some MVPDs are looking to offer 4K in a premium tier or as part of a technology-focused service package.

With the rollout well underway in the U.S., SES is now starting to move 4K activity into Latin America, with the 2018 FIFA World Cup as a driver. No partners in that region have been announced, though SES will be looking to work with area cable operators as well as telcos and direct-to-home providers.

The solution for that market will kick off with four 4K channels, including NASA TV, SES’s Ultra HD demo channel, Fashion One, and another to be announced. It will also seek out new channels from content providers in that region.

The SES-6 satellite will provide dedicated delivery to Brazil, and SES’s NSS-806 satellite will serve the rest of the region until it is replaced by SES-14 later this year.

All of this 4K-facing work also ties into a broader strategy at the company to transform itself beyond being a satellite operator to a B2B services company that can help broadcasters and other partners accelerate and enable new services.

Part of that links into MX 1 (not NX1, as previously reported), a SES subsidiary created following the acquisition of RR Media, a digital media services company.

Though some large companies have that expertise in-house, SES can help others with integrated services that provide the “glue” for 4K and other types of services, including OTT and TV Everywhere offerings, explained Deepak Mathur, executive vice president of global sales at SES Video.

One example is Cell C in South Africa. SES is working with Vubiquity there to enable Cell C to offer a pay TV package for handsets. Using licensed programming from Vubiquity, content is delivered via satellite to cell towers and then distributed to customers. 

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Ahead of this week’s NAB show in Las Vegas, the Ultra HD Forum said it has released the Phase B Guidelines for UHD, spanning areas such as dynamic metadata, higher refresh rates, lower bandwidth requirements and next-gen audio. 

The Phase B Guidelines, covered in an 80-page technical document, aim to “de-mystify” five areas involving the future of UHD: Content-aware encoding, dual-layer HDR technologies, Dynamic HDR Metadata Systems (Dolby Vision and SL-HDR1), high-frame rate (100/120 frames per second0, and next-gen audio (Dolby AC-4 Audio and SL-HDR1).  

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

“Phase A Guidelines address technologies that were solidified in 2015 and 2016, then in the summer of 2017 we ran a survey with Operators to guide the choice of the next phase of technologies,” Madeleine Noland, chair of the Guidelines Work group, said in a statement.  

She added that the aim is to “remain strongly focused on backwards compatibility,” and that Phase B will soon add workflows for all distribution systems, including over-the-air, MVPD and OTT.  

The Ultra HD forum will show Phase B technologies in action at NAB at the Futures Park, located in the North Hall (booth N1131FP) at the Las Vegas Convention Center.  

Epix, the MGM-owned premium network, is making the leap into 4K by offering a mix of movies and series in the format on affiliate VOD platforms as well as via apps on TV-connected devices that support 4K/UHD resolution.

Those affiliates and Epix subscribers are getting access to a 4K library that includes films from the James Bond franchise, including Die Another Day, License to Kill, Goldfinger,From Russia With Love, alongside newer films that include Arrival,Star Trek Beyond, and Epix original series Get Shorty.

Epix has not yet identified which of its pay TV partners will offer the programmer's 4K content on their respective set-top box VOD platforms. 

“We are making it available to our distributors and will be making it available to all subscribers through our own site and apps," Epix said in a statement to Multichannel News, when asked if any MVPDs are already on board. 

Epix affiliates such as Layer3 TV (now part of T-Mobile) and Dish Network (via its Hopper 3 DVR) offer set-tops that support content. Comcast, which has a deal to start offering Epix in the early part of 2018, is starting to roll out boxes for its X1 platform that supports 4K. DirecTV offers 4K on its satellite TV platform, but doesn't currently carry Epix (AT&T offers Epix on its IPTV platform, U-verse, but doesn't yet offer 4K-capable boxes for that service).  

RELATED: Comcast Starts to Deploy 4K/HDR X1 Box

Even as the MVPD-supplied set-top box question gets sorted out, Epix has also launched apps for TV-connected platforms with models that support 4K capabilities, including Amazon Fire TV and Android TV devices, Chromecast streaming adapters, Apple TV boxes, and certain Roku players and Roku TVs. TiVo’s Bolt line of retail DVRs also support 4K, and some of TiVo's MVPD partners have begun to roll out 4K-ready Arris-made boxes that run TiVo's software and user interface. 

UPDATE: Though Epix is focused on its national reach with MVPDs, it’s also working on plans for a standalone, direct-to-consumer service, company VP and GM Monty Sarhan, told Variety. “It’s on our roadmap and we are working towards it,” he told the pub, but didn’t express an expected timetable.

“EPIX was created to meet changing viewer habits and to provide the best user experience for our viewers,” Sarhan said in the 4K announcement. “It starts with great content, but it’s also about the way our subscribers experience and engage with that content. We are excited to continue our history of innovation by adding 4K Ultra HD.  It is part of our continuing commitment to expand and enhance the EPIX experience, and to serve our viewers and distribution partners in new and innovative ways.”

At CES in January, the Consumer Technology Association forecast that 4K TVs will make up half of all total digital displays sold this year, with unit sales expected to reach 22 million, up 27% year-over-year.

RELATED: CES 2018: Consumer Spending on Streaming Services to Reach $19.5B

Consumer spending on music and video streaming services, which includes the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV, Spotify and Pandora, will reach $19.5 billion in revenue in 2018, a 35% jump over 2017, according to a new study from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).

From a broader point of view, the U.S. consumer tech industry is set to drive a record $351 billion in retail revenues in 2018, up 3.9% from 2017, the CTA found in its annual U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts report.  

RELATED: CES 2018: AR a

Excluding the addition of streaming services, total industry revenue will increase by 2.2% in 2018, CTA said, announcing the study to coincide with this week’s CES in Las Vegas.

The org also expects U.S. sales of connected devices to reach 715 million units this year, a 6.6% year-on-year increase.  Here’s how the CTA sees some subcategories in the “emerging technologies” arena breaking down:

Smart Speakers: Sales of voice-controlled smart speakers, including products such as Amazon Echo and Google Home, skyrocketed 279% in 2017, with unit sales expected to hit 43.6 million units and drive $3.8 billion in revenue in 2018.

Smart Home: CTA expects sales in this category, which includes products such as smart thermostats, smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, connected cameras, smart locks and doorbells, smart home systems, and smart switches, to reach 40.8 million units in 2018, a 41% increase over 2017, and ring in $4.5 billion in revenues.

Drones: Total drone sales are expected to reach record highs of 3.7 million units in 2018 (up 20%) and earn $1.2 billion in revenue (up 17%). Drones below 250 grams are expected to reach just over 2.2 million units this year, while drones above 250 grams will reach 1.5 million units shipped, CTA said.

In the “maturing technologies” arena, CTA said 4K TVs will make up half of all total digital displays sold in 2018, with unit sales expected to hit 22 million (up 27%) and drive $15.9 billion in revenue (up 14%).  

For the broader TV category, total unit sales of digital displays are projected to reach 44.2 million units, up 2%, and lock in $22.1 billion in revenues, up 2%.

Sales of standalone tablets, meanwhile, are on the decline, due in part to the rise of laptops that double as tablets. Tablet sales are expected to drop 12%, to 45.6 million units, in 2018, with revenues dipping 13%, to $12.5 billion, according to CTA’s forecast.

The largest MVPDs (Multichannel Video Programming Distributors) are often the first to unveil the big industry breakthroughs. But, as Tier 1 providers work toward new products such as TV everywhere, skinny bundles and OTT delivery, some of the smallest cable, telcos and IPTV operators are laser focused on accelerating their Ultra HD launches for an edge in highly competitive markets.  

These smaller telcos and cable systems have found the cost-effective advantage they needed in the content-rich, pre-packaged Ultra HD platform we began developing three years ago at SES. The end-to-end solution combines the world’s largest 4K channel lineup, secure satellite distribution and reception gear - enabling operators of all sizes to commercialize their Ultra HD services years ahead of industry forecasts.  As a result, a growing number of cable and IPTV operators are making television history in some of the most unexpected places.

Today, an increasing number of Tier 3 and Tier 4 MVPDs have already leveraged the platform to launch their commercial Ultra HD services in the U.S. Most of them have started deploying their 4K set top boxes to subscriber homes. Operators that have launched commercially include

-Marquette-Adams, an innovative operator based in Oxford, Wisconsin, 60 miles north of Madison, is meeting subscriber demand for Ultra HD content.
-Highlands Cable Group, a forward-thinking provider in Western North Carolina that first joined the trials last year and has started rolling out its Ultra HD subscriber packages.
-EPB.net of Chattanooga Tennessee, who broke out early with its Ultra HD plans and deployment, playing a key role in the acceleration of Ultra HD.

Lessons Learned

We recognized early on the “chicken and the egg” challenge of Ultra HD. Without compelling content, MVPDs would not quickly roll out 4K technology, and without MVPDs and their viewers able to receive Ultra HD, programmers would not develop 4K content.

By patiently driving content development as well as MVPD trials and deployments, always keeping in mind the need to be flexible to meet new opportunities in an evolving market, we have been able to circumvent the long time period that some predicted for the roll-out and commercialization of Ultra HD. In fact, we’ve been able to cut the time in half from concept to commercial linear Ultra HD delivery, when compared to HD.

As 4K set-top-boxes (STBs) and more content become increasingly available, more than 30 cable and IPTV operators are currently testing the pre-packaged Ultra HD solution. Participants include Hotwire, Cincinnati Bell, Verizon and Frontier Communications. Approaches to delivery include Ultra HD via DOCSIS as well as traditional delivery via QAM digital TV.  This dual strategy enables MVPDs to not only utilize existing infrastructure, but also begin to prepare for future linear IP video delivery.

The expanding bouquet of Ultra HD content, the largest in the world, features NASA TV UHD, Fashion One 4K, C4K360, 4KUNIVERSE, UHD1, Funbox UHD, Nature Relaxation 4K, a pivotal demonstration channel, and two HDR channels, Travelxp 4K and INSIGHT TV. We expect the 4K lineup of sports, general entertainment, and live event channels to double over the next 18 months.

Compelling content plus success among the smaller operators has helped open the door to some of the largest Pay TV providers in the world to begin initiating their own trials – bumping the representative subscriber base to well over 10 million.

Beyond Capacity

Over the course of creating the Ultra HD solution, we’ve accomplished 100% cable penetration aboard a trio of satellites that make up the go-to cable distribution platform at the center of the orbital arc over North America.

The roll-out of Ultra HD is on fast forward. As large operators also prepare to launch their own 4K offerings in the weeks and months ahead, it should not be long before Ultra HD via satellite is widely available across the U.S.

-Steve Corda is vice president of business development for SES in North America

Insight TV, a channel focused on sports, entertainment and lifestyle programming, said it has landed a 4K distribution deal with Layer3 TV, the Denver-based MVPD.

Insight TV billed this as its first 4K UHD distribution deal in the U.S. Insight TV is also part of a lineup of channels that SES is delivering for its 4K trails with several cable operators, telcos and IPTV service providers. Insight TV shows include sports reality series such as Running The World, adventure gameshow No Time To Lose, and sci-tech series Extraordinary Humans.

RELATED: Verizon Teams with SES on Ultra HD Trial

Layer3 TV, which uses only 4K-capable boxes, is offering Insight TV on channel 115 in a list of launch markets that includes Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Dallas; and Denver (Longmont), with New York among those that are next in line.

RELATED: New York Next on Layer3 TV’s Launch List

Layer3 TV also carries a 4K version of NASA TV, and has offered several events in the format, including Fox Sports’ 4K college football coverage, and the Bellator NYC mixed martial arts fight night in June. Layer3 TV estimates that more than half its subs have watched live or VOD content in 4K.

RELATED: Layer3 TV Cites Strong Demand for 4K Fare

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.

SES said 30 U.S. pay TV providers are using its platform to test the delivery of 4K programming to the home after adding nine cable MSOs and IPTV providers to the mix.

Read More: Get complete coverage of #TIS17.

The latest batch of trial participants includes Alliance Communications; Cincinnati Bell; Douglas County Community Network in Washington; Hotwire; Midco; Midwest Video Solutions (MVS); Oneida Telephone Exchange; Skitter TV; and South Dakota Networks (SDN), which delivers IPTV services in partnership with 19 telcos in South Dakota.

NAB 2017: Two MVPDs Roll Out 4K with SES, Vivicast

They’re on board to test out an integrated platform that offers a package of programming from content partners that include Fashion One 4K, Travelxp 4K, 4KUNIVERSE, NASA TV UHD, Insight TV, UHD1, C4K360, Funbox 4K, Nature Relaxation 4K, as well as SES’s UHD demo channel. SES is hosting the channels using a set of satellites (SES-1, SES-3, AMC-18).

RELATED: Verizon Teams with SES on Ultra HD Trial

“Momentum continues to build as SES accelerates the delivery and commercial availability of Ultra HD services throughout North America, and we expect more cable and IPTV providers to join the trio of operators who have already launched their commercial Ultra HD services using our platform,” Steve Corda, VP of business development at SES Video, said in a statement.

Other trial participants include Marquette-Adams Communications; Highlands Cable Group; EPB Fiber Optics; Verizon Communications; Frontier Communications; Buckeye Broadband;  Service Electric Cable TV; enTouch Systems; Cable America, Golden West Telecommunications; MTC Cable; Aureon; GVTC Communications; KPU Telecommunications; Shrewsbury Community Cable; and Sjoberg’s Cable TV.

SES has been delivering 4K TV at 18 Mbps using HEVC coding. In an earlier interview, Corda reasoned that that bit rate squares with cable operators, because it allows them to fit two 4K TV signals into a 6MHz-wide channel.

RELATED: SES: 18 Mbps Is the Right Rate for 4K TV (subscription required)

Most of the cable operators that in the pilot are delivering the signals over QAM transport to set-top boxes, but some are also considering deliver over DOCSIS networks using IP multicast technology.

DirecTV, Layer3 TV, Dish Network, and Comcast are among other U.S. MVPDs that have rolled out or are testing 4K services.

There’s still not a lot of 4K content available these days, but evidence is mounting that consumers who have TVs and boxes that are capable of supporting the new format are craving it.

Layer3 TV, the Denver-based next-gen cable op that supports 4K on all its set-tops, said that 20% of its customers have watched at least one episode of BBC America’s Planet Earth II in 4K via its VOD platform.

Granted, we don’t know a lot about the sample size, since Layer3 TV doesn’t say how many subs it has and it’s unclear what percentage of that base has a 4K-capble TV, but it’s still a nice, round number that speaks to the desire for content that’s delivered in the pixel-packed format.

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

And it also echoes what was mentioned by the company in April at NAB. At the time, company CTO and co-founder David Fellows noted that the NASA TV UHD channel was in the “mid-20s” among the most popular linear channels offered by Layer3 TV, and that the 4K version of Planet Earth II from BBC America was the MVPD’s second most-popular VOD asset, behind only NBC’s This Is Us. So, t’s been locked into the upper echelon of a VOD library that today exceeds 22,000 “assets,” according to the company.

"The impact that 4K content is having on BBC AMERICA’s awareness and Layer3 TV viewership serves as notice of 4K’s importance,” Layer3 TV chief content officer Lindsay Gardner, said in a statement.  “And, not only is BBC AMERICA enjoying higher viewership on Layer3 TV, but so are sister networks AMC, IFC, and SundanceTV.”  

For the purpose of this study, Layer3 TV said it defined each network’s rank by the total number of subscribers tuning into each network for at least one minute, regardless of market, during the two month viewing period following the addition of Planet Earth II. 

XITE, a Dutch music company, said it has launched a 4K music video offering in Canada following a new distribution deal with Rogers Communications.

Rogers is offering the new 4K service from XITE on channel 987. Access is limited to Rogers 4K subs who have a NextBox that supports the video format.

RELATED: Rogers Launches Big 4K Initiative

“The launch in Canada is a great first step for XITE in North America. I am very happy with this partnership and with all of our new Canadian viewers,” Cees Honig, CEO of XITE Networks U.S.A., said in a statement.

XITE, which launched its music television channel in 2008, said it is now distributed in 15 million-plus homes in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Qatar and, most recently, in Canada.

Video will account for about 82% of all global IP traffic by 2021, up from 73% in 2016, Cisco Systems concluded in its latest Visual Networking Index.  

The study, which forecasts key IP trends from 2016 to 2021, also expects to see gaming apps gain ground, rising to 4% of all global IP traffic by 2021, up from just 1% in 2016.

Back to video, the global IP networks will be pumping out 3 trillion Internet video minutes per month by 2021, equal to 5 million years of video per month, or about 1 million video minutes every second.

More than half (56%) of connected flat panel TVs will be 4K-capable and up by 2021, versus 15% in 2016, with the installed/in-service base of 4K sets set to rise from 85 million in 2016, to 663 million by 2021. Ultra HD video, meanwhile, is expected to account for 21% of global IP video traffic by 2021, compared to HD video (57%) and standard-def video (22%).

Among other notable video-related findings, Cisco said a global cord-cutting household will generated about 117 gigabytes per month  in 2017, compared to 63 GB per month for an average Internet household.

Virtual reality and augmented reality IP traffic are also set to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 82% over the five-year span of the study. Though VR and AR traffic will generate about 1.72 exabytes per month by 2021, it will represent just 1% of “entertainment” traffic, Cisco said.

Bigger picture, Cisco forecasts that Internet users will rise from 3.3 billion to 4.6 billion, or 58% of the global population, during that span, while the adoption of personal devices and machine-to-machine connections jump from 17.1 billion to 27.1 billion.

The forecast also sees global average broadband speeds rising from 27.5 Mbps in 2016, to 53 Mbps in 2021.

Total global IP traffic is also expected to reach an annual run rate of 3.3 zettabytes by 2021, up from 1.2 zettabytes in 2016. To provide a sense of that scope, Cisco estimates that 3.3 zettabytes is equal to 14 times all the IP traffic generated in 2010 (232 exabytes), and all the movies ever made crossing global IP networks every minutes.

On the wireless front, WiFi and mobile-connected devices will generate 73% of Internet traffic by 2021. Cisco also expects total WiFi hotspots  (including homespots) to surge from 94 million in 2016, to 541 million by 2021.

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.”

The Ultra HD Forum, a group that sets best practices for the pixel-packed video format, said it will support more than a dozen 4K and High Dynamic Range demos at NAB 2017 in Las Vegas.

The demos, at booth N1131FP, will include “Deployable Phase A” technologies that represent current challenges, including broadcaster HDR video delivery, SDR and HDR mixing and delivering quality HDR video.

Full Coverage of NAB 2017

For a glimpse future implementations, the “Phase B” tech demos will be comprised of three stations dedicated to dynamic HDR metadata; HDR and SDR improvements; and High Frame Rate Video.

Ultra HD Forum members that are on tap for the demos include BBright, Beamr, DirecTV, Dolby, Harmonic, Huawei, LG Electronics, NeuLion, PBS, Sigma Designs, Sony and Technicolor.

“The 2017 NAB Show sees the Forum’s most ambitious initiative to date of demonstrating UHD capabilities in public. It’s been an exciting challenge to work with our active members to get so many demonstrations up and running for NAB,” Thierry Fautier, a Harmonic exec and the Forum’s recently reelected president, said in a statement. “The Phase A demonstrations show what is really operationally ready today, while our phase B demonstrations show what UHD still has in store.”

Separately, the Ultra HD Forum said it has released the 1.3 version of the UHD Forum Guidelines, which include the additions dedicated to forensic watermarking.

It said several member companies initiated the creation of those security guidelines, including ContentArmor, Irdeto, MarkAny, NexGuard, and Verimatrix. Those guidelines, the Forum added, take the MovieLabs specification for Enhanced Content Protection “to the next level”, and have been vetted or reviewed by orgs such as MovieLabs, the Digital Watermarking Alliance, and the Streaming Video Alliance.

Adding a key MVPD to its 4K test group, SES S.A. said it has secured an agreement Verizon to trial the delivery of Ultra HD channels to Fios TV subscribers.

Verizon joins a growing mix of MVPDs that are on board for UHD trials with SES, which is using its satellite-based platform to deliver several linear channels in the format.

Under the program, Verizon will receive and test content from SES’s pre-packaged UHD platform.  

Other SES UHD trial participants include Frontier Communications, include Marquette-Adams, Buckeye Broadband, Service Electric Cable TV, enTouch Systems, Cable America, Golden West Telecommunications, MTC Cable, Aureon, GVTC Communications, Highlands Cable Group, KPU Telecommunications, Service Electric, Shrewsbury Community Cable, and Sjoberg’s Cable TV.

RELATED: Frontier Joins SES 4K Trials

SES introduced its UHD solution for cable systems in April 2015, and kicked off its first trial in June 2016.

“Verizon’s network is uniquely positioned to bring its customers the most innovative content solutions, including 4K/UHD.” Erin McPherson, VP of programming & content strategy at Verizon, said in a statement.

“With more than 4.5 million video subscribers, Verizon Fios represents an exciting addition to our overall effort aimed at making Ultra HD more affordable and faster to market for TV services providers across the region,” added Steve Corda, VP of business development for SES in North America.

RELATED: SES: 18 Mbps Is the Right Rate for 4K TV (subscription required)

For the trials, SES has been delivering 4K TV at 18 Mbps using HEVC coding. In an earlier interview, Corda reasoned that that bit rate squares with cable operators, because it allows them to fit two 4K TV signals into a 6MHz-wide channel. That bit rate also enables SES to balance video quality and cost, while allowing four UHD signals to fit into a satellite transponder, and up to 16 UHD channels to be remultiplexed on a satellite receiver.

Most of the cable operators that in the pilot are delivering the signals over QAM transport to set-top boxes, but some are also considering deliver over DOCSIS networks using IP multicast technology.

Channels offered via SES’s UHD MVPD trial include Fashion One 4K (reality shows, documentaries and entertainment news about fashion); Insight (reality, entertainment and sports content aimed at millennial audiences); Travelxp 4K (a travel channel dedicated to content in 4K and High Dynamic Range); Nature Relaxation (a nature channel produced in San Diego by film maker David Huting); C4K360 (extreme sports, drone races, dance and club music); 4K Universe (mix of movies, documentaries, and live sports); Nasa TV UHD;  UHD1 (an SES-programmed channel); and SES Demo Channel (test video sequences that MVPDs can use to conduct technical assessments).

Canada’s Cogeco Connexion has introduced a TiVo-powered 4K DVR that will enable customers in Quebec and Ontario to access programming in the pixel-packed format.

Cogeco also introduced TSN 4K, a channel that provides Ultra HD coverage of live sporting events and games featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Raptors,  and Toronto FC.

The operator said more 4K channels will be added in the “coming weeks.” In the meantime, the new TiVo-based platform also provides access to Netflix and the OTT provider’s growing library of 4K content.

RELATED: Rogers Launches Big 4K Initiative

“This evolution in our offering is consistent with our ongoing commitment to better meet the changing needs of our customers, who are adopting 4K technology in ever greater numbers," Daniel Boisvert, VP, marketing and innovation at Cogeco Connexion, said in a statement. "We have always made our customers' needs our top priority and we are proud to enhance their television entertainment experience."

RELATED: Videotron Tunes in Live 4K-TV

Cogeco completed its initial rollout of a TiVo-based video platform in March 2015.

Rogers Communications and Videotron are among the other Canadian MSOs that also have trotted out 4K video offerings.

Layer3 TV, the Denver-based next-gen cable operator, said it has begun to offer some live and on-demand video in 4K, noting that all of its deployed boxes support the format.

Early on, Layer3 TV is offering on-demand access to Planet Earth II (all six episodes as they become available each week through late April), as well as the Nasa TV channel, in 4K/Ultra HD.  

Those customers, who will also require a 4K-capable TV to view content in the format, can get Layer3 TV’s 4K content for no additional fees, the company said, noting that customers on its allHD Platinum package, can access Planet Earth II on demand through April 24, and can tune in any time to the Nasa TV UHD feed on channel 350.

RELATED: Layer3 TV Goes For The Big Bundle

Layer3 TV joins a growing mix of MVPDs that offer some 4K programming and content. Among examples are DirecTV, Dish Network and Comcast, which is sampling some 4K on-demand fare via an OTT app for select smart TVs from Samsung and LG but will expand on that when it introduces a 4K-capable box for its X1 service.

Additionally, more than a dozen telcos and cable operators, including Frontier Communications and Buckeye Broadband, are testing the delivery of nine UHD channels (including Nasa’s 4K channel) to a subset of customers working in tandem with SES.

RELATED: SES Adds Cable Operators to 4K Trial Mix

U.S. consumer adoption of 4K-capable TVs has been outpacing, and will continue to outpace, the transition to HDTV sets, according to a recent study from the Consumer Technology Association.

Layer3 TV has launched its IPTV service in the Chicago and Washington, D.C., metro areas. Its web site still says that the service is “coming soon” to Layer3 TV's hometown of Denver.

RELATED: Layer3 TV: A Different Kind of Animal

“Our planet and universe provide a perfect canvas to showcase Layer3 TV’s 4K capabilities,”  Lindsay Gardner, Layer3 TV’s chief content officer, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to bring Planet Earth II and NASA TV UHD to our customers and committed to adding more 4K linear channels and 4K VOD as content becomes available.”

SES. S.A. says more than 15 cable operators are now testing its managed 4K/Ultra HD after adding a handful of additional MSOs to the mix.

The latest to ink UHD trial agreements include Aureon in Iowa, GVTC Communications in Texas, Highlands Cable Group in North Carolina, KPU Telecommunications in Alaska, Service Electric in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and Shrewsbury Community Cable in Massachusetts.

Others announced trial partners include Armstrong, Buckeye Broadband, Cable America Missouri, Entouch Systems, Golden West Cablevision, Frontier Communications, KPU Telecommunications, MTC Cable, and Marquette Adams Communications.

RELATED: Frontier Joins SES 4K Trials

A “large tier 1” is also on board for a 4K trial, according to Steve Corda, VP of business development in North America for SES.

SES is delivering nine channels (see below for more details) for the 4K trials, with a tenth to be added soon, Corda said.

SES is using its managed satellite platform to get the 4K signals to its trial participants. Most of the cable operators that in the pilot are delivering the signals over QAM transport to set-top boxes, but some are also considering deliver over DOCSIS networks using IP multicast technology.

Corda acknowledged that the bandwidth required for 4K services and the trials have been a big concern to MVPDs from the get-go, so SES has focused on getting those signals to fit within an HEVC-encoded stream of about 18 Mbps. Boxes in the consumer’s home need an HEVC decoder to capture the signal and deliver it a 4K-capable TV.

18 Mbps was a key bit-rate target, he said, because cable operators stressed that it’s important that they can fit two 4K TV signals into a 6 MHz-wide channel. On SES’s end, that bit rate also enables the company to balance video quality and cost, while also allowing four UHD signals to fit into a satellite transponder, and up to 16 UHD channels to be re-multiplexed on a satellite receiver

Though SES’s 4K platform is still in trial mode, commercial readiness is a few weeks away, Corda estimated, adding that everything has reached a “tipping point.”

“The technology has clearly matured,” he said, noting that SES is making good progress on its plan to reduce the time for a 4K platform to go from trial to commercial in a period of about two years.

SES introduced its UHD solution for cable systems in April 2015, and kicked off its first trial in June 2016. Eight U.S. cable operators were on board by November 2016.

SES’s managed 4K offering currently offers nine channels: Fashion One 4K (reality shows, documentaries and entertainment news about fashion); Insight (reality, entertainment and sports content aimed at millennial audiences); Travelxp 4K (a travel channel dedicated to content in 4K and High Dynamic Range); Nature Relaxation (a nature channel produced in San Diego by film maker David Huting); C4K360 (extreme sports, drone races, dance and club music); 4K Universe (mix of movies, documentaries, and live sports); Nasa TV UHD;  UHD1 (an SES-programmed channel); and SES Demo Channel (test video sequences that MVPDs can use to conduct technical assessments).

SES S.A. said Frontier Communications has joined a growing mix of MVPDs that have begun to test 4K/Ultra HD video services on the company’s managed distribution platform.

For the tests, SES is delivering UHD content to its partners via dedicated satellite bandwidth, holding that the approach delivers 4K fare at higher quality than content delivered in the pixel-packed format via Internet connections.

"We are optimistic that SES’s innovative, pre-packaged Ultra HD solution will allow for a smooth transition of Ultra HD delivery to Frontier subscriber homes nationwide," Steve Ward, SVP of video technology & content for Frontier, said in a statement.

Other MVPDs working with SES on 4K trials include Marquette-Adams, Buckeye Broadband, Service Electric Cable TV, enTouch Systems, Cable America, Golden West Telecommunications, MTC Cable and Sjoberg’s Cable TV. Those operators are delivering 4K into homes using either managed IP multicast DOCSIS 3.0 streams (not over-the-top/public Internet) or on traditional digital QAM transport streams.  

RELATED: SES Expands 4K Cable Trials

SES’s managed platform currently offers nine linear Ultra HD channels, with 4K Universe joining the mix late last year.

Outside of SES’s partners, a growing group of other MVPDs have launched or are testing 4K services and apps, including DirecTV/AT&T, Dish Network and Comcast.

RELATED: Dish to Offer Live Broadcast of ‘Planet Earth II’ in 4K

AT&T and Fox Sports said they’ll offer what’s being billed as the first live college basketball game to be delivered in 4K when DirecTV offers Friday night’s NCAA men’s matchup between California and Stanford in the pixel-packed format. 

That game, set to tip-off at 10 p.m. ET on Feb. 17, will be a 4K simulcast of FS1’s coverage on DirecTV channel 106. They’ll get together to do the same on March 1, when Washington’s men’s basketball team plays at UCLA.

Those games are part of a broader distribution agreement between AT&T and Fox Networks Group announced in late 106 whereby DirecTV subs will have access to select 4K content from Fox's “marquee sports properties,” including coverage of MLB regular season and playoff games, college football and basketball games and NASCAR races.

DirecTV subs who want to watch require a Genie HD DVR (model HR54 or later) and a DirecTV 4K Ready TV, or a 4K TV connected to a 4K Genie Mini. They also need to be on DirecTV’s Entertainment package, or one that includes FS1.

Looking to catch up on a feature already supported by its OTT platform rivals, Apple is testing a new Apple TV that can stream video in UHD/4K, Bloomberg reported.

Apple hasn’t announced 4K plans, but support for that format was clearly lacking when the company introduced its apps-friendly, fourth-gen Apple TV device in the fall of 2015.  Bloomberg said Apple is expected to launch its new device, codenamed “J105,” later this year.

RELATED: Apple Launches New Apple TV

Adding 4K would add an element already offered on certain Roku player models, the latest Amazon Fire TV box, the new Chromecast Ultra streaming adapter from Google, and an expanding batch of Android TV-powered devices. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a next-gen Apple TV device also try to close the gap with support for High Dynamic Range, as the Bloomberg report noted that the new product will also enable more vivid colors.

Bloomberg suggested that Apple’s recent hiring of former Amazon Fire TV exec Timothy Twerdhal also indicates that Apple is looking to up the ante on video, and that it could enable his predecessor, Pete Distad, to resurrect Apple’s troubled plans to offer a national skinny bundle OTT TV service that focuses on access to broadcast TV networks.

Research shows that Apple TV is lagging the pack. Parks Associates reported last year that Roku was the most popular brand of streaming media players, accounting for 30% of the players purchased from 1Q 2015 to 1Q 2016. Amazon and Google were tied, with 22% of sales, with Apple TV at about 20%.

The market for UHD Blu-ray Discs is in the nascent stage, and a new forecast seem to agree.

 Futuresource predicts that 8.4 million UHD Blu-ray discs will be sold this year, equating to just 4% of global Blu-ray sales.

Prices for players are becoming more palatable. Sony Electronics, for example, recently set a $300 price point for the UBP-X800 UHD Blu-ray Disc player, which will also support high dynamic range, Dolby Atmos and DTS:X audio. 

The firm also notes that it has yet to see “significant traction” from UHD electronic sell-through even as a broader choice of titles in that format – from independents and major studios – emerge, but said that could change if major broadcast and telcos and other types of service providers latch on and begin to support and sell the format.  A potential “game changer” could emerge if Apple launches a 4K store, Future source said.

For now, streamed SVOD movies is the most commonly accessed source of 4K content, but holds that UHD Blu-rays are poised to be the “crème de la crème” with respect to quality experience and film choice.

At the end of 2016, about 17 million households across the globe had access to streamed 4K UHD content from an SVOD service and a TV capable of playing it back, Futuresource said.

NBC Sports Group and AT&T are connecting to offer a batch of Premier League games in 4K to eligible DirecTV subscribers, starting with the Saturday (Jan. 21) match between Manchester City and Tottenham, set to kick off at 12:30 p.m. ET.

DirecTV will offer that fixture in 4K on channel 106, and follow with Sunday’s match between Arsenal and Burnley, which starts at 9:15 a.m. ET.

For the rest of the current Premier League season, NBC Sports Group plans to offer “select” Premier League matches in 4K via DirecTV. The games will also be offered via DirecTV in SD and HD on NBC and on NBCSN.

NBC Sports Group and DirecTV previously offered several of Notre Dame football games and select coverage of the Rio Olympic Games in 4K.

RELATED: DirecTV To Offer Notre Dame Football Telecasts In 4K

To get the 4K feeds, DirecTV subs need a Genie HD DVR (model HR54 or later), a DirecTV Ready TV or a 4K TV connected to a 4K Genie Mini, and must be subscribed to DirecTV’s Select package or higher.

“We’re excited to continue our commitment to provide fans with unprecedented coverage of the Premier League by offering matches in 4K this season on DIRECTV,” Jon Miller, President of Programming for NBC Sports and NBCSN, said in a statement.

“Premier League action in the stunning detail and color of 4K UHD on DIRECTV will be a pitch perfect viewing experience, whether you’re a devoted or occasional fan of the game,” added Dan York, chief content officer for AT&T.

Las Vegas -- Indicating a slow but steady rise in an emerging format, virtual reality (VR) headsets are expected to reach 2.5 million units this year, up 79% versus 2016, while driving $660 million in revenues, a predicted year-on-year jump of 42%, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) found in a semi-annual industry report released Tuesday.

“This area is really, really new,” Dr. Shawn DuBravac, the CTA’s chief economist, stressed here during a presentation of the group’s top tech trends heading into the show, noting that Sony’s PS VR product didn’t even go on sale until toward the end of 2016.

“[VR] Hardware sales will come slowly, surely,” he said, noting that there will also be a push toward VR-capable PCs that cost less than $1,000, and pointing to Lenovo’s announcement that it’s getting into the business of selling relatively inexpensive VR viewers and VR-ready laptops.

From a broader standpoint, the CTA, in its latest U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts report, expects the U.S. consumer technology industry to produce $292 billion in retail revenues in 2017, and to be driven by emerging product categories such as 4K/Ultra HD, digital assistants, smart home products and wearables.

Here’s a snapshot on how CTA expects emerging CE segments to produce this year:

-Smart Home: The category, which includes products like smart thermostats, IP cameras, smart locks, lights and doorbells and smartwatches, will hit sales of 29 million units in 2017, up 63%, and bring in $3.5 billion, up 57%.

-Digital Assistant Devices: Aided by products like Amazon’s Echo and Google Home, unit sales are expected to reach 4.5 million units, up 52%, and $608 million in revenue, up 36%.

-4K/UHD TVs: 2017 shipments are expected to reach 15.6 million units, up 51%, and pump revenues of $14.6 billion, up 38%.

-Drones: Total sales will top 3.4 million units, up 40%, and, for the first time, eclipse $1 billion in revenues. And new use cases are emerging. DuBravac noted that Alarm.com and Qualcomm are working together on a home system that auto-deploys drones to provide a bird’s eye view when an alarm is tripped.

-Wearables: Driven by fitness activity trackers, the category will hit 48 million unit sales this year ,up 14%, and bring in revenues of $5.5 billion, up 3%.

Maturing technology categories (smartphones, TVs, tablets, laptops, and desktops) will contribute almost half of total industry revenue (48%). Among them, LCD TVs are expected to see a 2% decline in in unit volume (39 million units), while tablet sales drop 5%, and smartphones tick up 2%. Laptops will hold steady at 27 million units, with desktops dipping 7%.

During his talk, DuBravac emphasized the rise of voice-controlled computing and AI.

While the word error rate of voice recognition technologies were near 100% in 1995, it improved to about 23% in 2013, and will drop down to “human parity” – or about 5% to 6% -- in 2017, he said.

“The next computer interface is voice” as the technology hits an inflection point and makes the leap from “theoretical to practical,” DuBravac said, noting that he expects to see 700 new apps for Amazon Alexa introduced here over the next four days. 

SES S.A. said it has added 4KUniverse to its expanding Ultra HD lineup being delivered to a select batch cable operators and other TV platforms in North America.

4KUniverse, a 24/7 channel in the format, will offer a mix of documentariei, sporting events, movies and TV shows when it debuts in January on the SES-1 satellite – one of three (SES-1, SES-3, AMC-18) hosting  SES’s Ultra HD distribution platform.

4KUniverse was introduced in March.

RELATED: 4KUniverse Nets AVP Exclusive

SES its UHD platform will be home to eight linear 4K channels in January, and that it has distribution deals with more than 30 UHD channels globally.

SES has lined up several U.S. cable operators for UHD trials, including Marquette-Adams in Wisconsin; Buckeye Broadband; Service Electric Cable TV; enTouch Systems; Cable America; MTC Cable and Sjoberg’s Cable TV.

SES has said its 4K trial platform will use either managed IP multicast DOCSIS 3.0 streams (not “over-the-top”) or traditional digital QAM transport streams.

“We have been collaborating with the SES team for months, by testing with block programming on their promotional channel – all leading up to this exciting launch of our 24/7 Ultra HD channel with cable and telecom companies across the US. Our first carriage deals will be announced shortly,” Matthew Mancinelli, Founder and CEO of 4KUnivese said in a statement. 

Though the adoption of 4K video by programmers and service providers hasn’t occurred as quickly as some vendors were expecting, U.S. consumer adoption of 4K-capable TVs has been outpacing, and will continue to outpace, the transition to HDTV sets, according to the Consumer Technology Association.

RELATED: PlayStation 4 Goes ‘Pro’

CTA said Q4 shipments of 4K/Ultra HD TVs to the U.S. will hit 4.5 million units, driving total sales in the category for 2016 to 10 million, a 40% jump versus 2015. However, the CTA did acknowledge that current expected results will fall short of its earlier forecast that total unit sales for the year would reach 14.5 million.

CTA said the updated forecast reflects finalized Q2 data showing “a more gradual growth curve’ as TV makers shift to new models, "We also expected to see TV manufacturers move more quickly to a greater mix of 4K in screen sizes above 40 inches, which now appears to be shaping up as a 2017 trend," Steve Koenig, CTA's senior director, Market Research, said in a statement.

He added that the growth of the 4K market “continues to dwarf the transition to high-definition television.” To wit, cumulative sales of 4K displays are expects to reach 18.6 million units in the first three years of introduction, compared to 4.2 million for HDTVs.

The org said it expects 4K displays to account for 56% of all TV sales in Q4, and sees nearly half of total annual TV sales to be of 4K-capable sets.

RELATED: SES Expands 4K Cable Trials

Aiding consumer adoption is lower pricing, as CTA said the wholesale price of 4K TVs has dropped 22% since January.

"We've been bullish about 4K UHD since day one, and market growth continues to justify our enthusiasm," said Gary Shapiro, CTA president and CEO, in a statement, while also giving the nod to wider-spread use of High Dynamic Range and Wide Color Gamut systems.

2016, he said, has been a “banner year” for 4K, noting strong sales of other elements of the ecosystem, including the increasing introduction of 4K/UHD Blu-ray discs (much more on that part of the 4K sector will be featured in the Next TV section of the Nov. 14 issues of Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News) and 4K cameras. 

SES S.A. said four more U.S. cable operators are using its platform to test 4K/Ultra HD content delivery ahead of subscriber trials that are slated for later this year.

The latest to join the mix are Marquette-Adams in Wisconsin, Buckeye Broadband in Ohio and Southeast Michigan, Service Electric Cable TV in Pennsylvania, and enTouch Systems in Texas.

SES said the first wave of 4K trails got underway in the summer with Cable America in Missouri, Golden West Telecommunications in South Dakota, MTC Cable in New York, Sjoberg’s Cable TV in Minnesota. ATMC was also among the operators identified when SES announced its first round of 4K cable trials in July.

On the technical side, SES 4K platform will use either managed IP multicast DOCSIS 3.0 streams (not “over-the-top”) or traditional digital QAM transport streams. Its “pre-packaged” UHD platform, tailored to small- and mid-sized MSOs, includes the channels, 4K-capable set-tops and reception gear. SES said its global 4K lineup features 30 channels worldwide, including seven that are hosted on two SES satellites (SES-1, SES-3) that can serve nearly 100 million homes across North America. Fashion One 4K, NASA TV UHD, High 4K TV, and SES’s own UHD1 channel are among those being supported on the platform.

In an interview when the first round of 4K trials came to light, Steve Corda, SES’s vice president of business development in North America, said his company will initially be supplying cable MSO trial partners with IP set-tops from AirTies (the Air 7410X), though SES was also evaluating boxes from suppliers such as Entone (acquired by Amino) and Technicolor, as well as the new 4K-capable TiVo Bolt.

“We will soon be testing a great mix of 4K movies, cutting-edge TV shows, news and sporting event coverage from SES’s growing, satellite-based Ultra HD platform, with plans to deliver Ultra HD to subscriber homes on the horizon,” Brad Mefferd, chief administrative officer at Buckeye Broadband, said in a statement. “The fact that the SES solution works over existing, high-capacity DOCSIS 3.0 cable networks and traditional digital QAM will enable us to be flexible in how we distribute Ultra HD content in our markets.”

While SES’s approach is initially being targeted to tier 2/3 MSOs, several major MVPDs have launched or are testing 4K services and apps, including DirecTV/AT&T, Dish Network and Comcast. 

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.

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.

AT&T/DirecTV will add more live 4K sports fare to the mix heading into the weekend by delivering coverage of The World Series of Beach Volleyball in the pixel-packed format from Long Beach, Calif.

Here’s the 4K tournament coverage DirecTV has on tap (on channel 106):

-Friday, Aug. 26 from 8:30 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. ET: Women’s quarter finals #1 and #2

-Saturday, Aug. 27 from 3:00 p.m. -4:30 p.m. ET: Women’s semi-finals #1

-Saturday, Aug. 27 from 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.: Women’s semi-finals #1, and men’s semi-finals #1

-Sunday, Aug. 28 from 4:30 p.m. – 6 p.m.: Women’s finals

-Sunday, Aug. 28 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. – Men’s finals  

DirecTV, now part of AT&T, launched three dedicated 4K channels last year.

John Ward, senior VP of content operations at AT&T, used this blog post to shed more light on the company’s 4K activities and why he thinks the format helps to tell a “better story.”

DirecTV, he said, has broadcast more than 500 hours of sports in 4K, most of it live, thanks to coverage of events such as The Masters, UFC bouts, some of NBC’s coverage from the Summer Games in Rio (provided on a one-day delay), and several MLB matchups.

Ward also shared some technical factoids about 4K, noting that an hour of video in that format equals 400 to 500 gigabytes, and that the company uses a mix of fiber and satellite transmission technologies from each event to deliver video in IP with encode bit rates of up to Mbps. AT&T, he added, also deploys eight to 14 4K camas to each event, depending on its size.

 An average baseball game in 4K can soak up about 2 terabytes of storage, or about 500 GBs per hour, he said. 

As of the midway point of 2016, more than 8 million 4K Ultra HD TVs have been sold in the U.S., and second quarter sales were up 120% compared to a year ago, a good sign for a home entertainment industry looking toward 4K to boost physical and digital content sales, according to a new report from DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group.

Nearly 1.5 million 4K UHD TVs were sold during the quarter, while consumers purchased approximately 288,000 4K Blu-ray Disc copies of the 45-plus titles Hollywood studios have released on the next-gen format.

For the second quarter, home entertainment spending jumped 6% to $4.3 billion, with Blu-ray Disc sales up 35%. Sell-through of digital and physical content combined was $1.7 billion, up 4%, while digital sellthrough alone grew 9%.

Read more at B&C.

Dish Network and Comcast will be joining AT&T in offering access to NBCUniversal’s delayed 4K coverage of the Summer Olympics in Rio, albeit in different ways.

Comcast said it will make that content available on demand via its OTT-based Xfinity in UHD app for Samsung and LG smart TVs. Comcast is also working on a 4K-capable box for X1, the Xi6, which will also support high dynamic range (HDR). Dish will offer NBCU’s 4K coverage on linear channel linear channel 146 and via its VOD catalog via the Hopper 3 DVR and 4K Joey devices.

Dish will also enable the “sports bar mode” feature on Hopper 3 to view up to four channels of coverage on one screen.

For the games, Dish will also feature a sports hub, under the 2016 Rio Olympics banner, on channel 148 that provides accesstoNBCU’s coverage on NBCSN, Golf Channel, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, USA Network, Telemundo, NBC Universo and two linear sport-specific specialty channels.

Dish will also integrate the NBC Olympics app, which include real-time medal counts and the ability to tune to events or set up recordings,  on its family of Hopper set-tops and 4K Joey, Wireless Joey, Joey and Super Joey devices.

Sling TV, Dish’s OTT-TV service, will also carry a portion of NBCU’s coverage of the games via the recently launched Sling Blue service – Bravo and NBC (in select markets), NBC Sports Network and USA. Those who take the Sports Extra pack also have access to Rio coverage on the Golf Channel. Sling Blue’s “Best of Spanish TV” customers can watch Spanish coverage on NBC Universo.

MSNBC and CNBC are typically offered on Sling Blue with the World News Extra add-on, but, Sling Blue will provide a free preview of those nets starting August 1 through the last Olympics event featured on those channels.

SES S.A. said it has secured agreements with a handful of U.S. cable operators to trial the delivery of live, linear Ultra HD/4K channels later this year.

Operators that are on board to test SES’s managed UHD platform include Cable America in Missouri, Golden West Telecommunications in South Dakota, MTC Cable in New York, Sjoberg’s Cable TV in Minnesota, and ATMC in North Carolina.

SES said those operators will trial the delivery of 4K using managed IP multicast DOCSIS 3.0 streams, rather than over-the-top on public Internet connections.  

To prepare for the tests, SES is shipping 4K-capable IP set-tops equipped with HEVC/H.265, a new video codec that is 50% more bandwidth efficient than H.264/MPEG-4.

Steve Corda, SES’s vice president of business development in North America, said it will initially be supplying cable MSO trial partners with IP set-tops from AirTies (the Air 7410X), though SES has also been evaluating boxes from suppliers such as Entone (acquired last year by Amino) and Technicolor, as well as the new 4K-capable TiVo Bolt.

Corda said the participating operators are looking to trial 4K/UHD in several ways, including demos at their local offices as well as broader tests that will be advertised to subscribers with 4K-capable TVs. He noted that, in addition to IP deliver, some cable operators are also looking to test 4K using more traditional QAM transport streams.

As for content, SES is currently carrying four Ultra HD channels on satellites that, it says, reaches nearly 100 million homes across North America -- Fashion One 4K, NASA TV UHD, High 4K TV, and SES’s own UHD1 channel.

“As millions of cable subscribers increasingly press for 4K content on their new Ultra HD TVs, some of the smallest cable operators in the US are now leading the way to bringing Ultra HD to homes across the country,” Corda said, in a statement.

SES’s test partners are among a small but growing list of U.S. MVPDs to test or launch 4K. For example, DirecTV haslaunched a set of 4K channels, and Dish Network introduced the 4K-capable Hopper 3 earlier this year. Comcast offers a 4K OTT app on Samsung TVs, but is working on the Xi6, a set-top that supports both 4K and High Dynamic Range.

Following on hints dropped earlier this month, SeaChange International has issued a new release of its multiscreen video “Adrenalin” backoffice platform that adds support for 4K/Ultra HD content, binge-watching models, and a “geographic failover” element.

SeaChange said initial deployments of the latest Adrenalin is underway with “several large video service providers,” include those that are converting from the vendor’s previous-gen Axiom VOD systems.

On the binge-watching front, Adrenalin has added bookmarking and entitlements, which lets viewers pause a series on a mobile device and resume it in at the same fram on a set-top box, or share a TV series with family members using other devices.

To get a handle on video headends and networks that can be impacted by power failures and other disaster recovery events, Adrenalin can also be backed-up in a separate geographic location. SeaChange said this assures a complete multiscreen service function failover and resumption within 15 to 30 minutes, and is key for service providers that centralize their back office operations for multiple geographies.

"Using Adrenalin for centralized video operations, our service provider customers are expanding their offerings, adding content, and enabling rich user experiences seamlessly across networks and devices," said Paul Crann, SVP of product management, in a statement. "Adrenalin's latest features help our customers quickly deploy new services to stay ahead of consumer's shifting habits and capture incremental revenue opportunities with a highly scalable and unified video delivery back office."

DirecTV is providing partial coverage of the U.S. Open golf championships in 4K resolutiong, offering live broadcasts during all four rounds from the tournament in Oakmont, which gets underway today.

DirecTV, acquired by AT&T last summer, said it is providing 4K coverage of this week’s event from holes 3, 13 and 17.

DirecTV subs with the proper set up can tune into that 4K coverage on channel 106. To get it, those customers need the provider’s latest Genie HD DVR (model HR54), a DirecTV 4K-ready TV or a compatible 4K TV (HDMI 2.0-complaint interface and HDCP 2.2 content security) connected to DirecTV’s latest 4K-capable Genie Mini device, and subscribe to DirecTV’s Ultimate or Premier TV package.

AT&T’s U.S. Open offering in 4K follows similar sporting events coverage in the format that DirecTV provided during the AT&T Byron Nelson tournament, The Masters, and coverage of several Major League Baseball games.

In April, DirecTV launched three channels dedicated to 4K.

Confirming rumors that have been swirling for months, a top exec at Sony toldThe Financial Times that the CE giant is developing a “high-end” version of the PlayStation 4 that will support games and video in 4K resolution. 

Notably, Sony doesn’t plan to trot out the new device, codenamed “Neo,” at next week’s E3 show, but House said the new product will carry a heavier price tag than the current-gen PS4, which recently surpassed 40 million units sold worldwide.

"It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4," House told the publication, adding that Sony “will be selling both [versions of the console] through the life cycle."

Both the current-gen and Neo versions of PS4 will support the PlayStation VR headset, which will arrive in October and start at $399.

Sony has not announced any 4K content partners for the Neo console. However, Netflix and Amazon Video are examples of streaming apps that already offer libraries of 4K titles. It’s not yet known if PlayStation Vue, Sony’s OTT-TV service, will use Neo as an opportunity to add 4K content to its programming mix. 

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. 

More than 11 million homes in North America will own an 4K/Ultra HD TV by the end of 2016 amid falling prices and as 1080p sets continue to fade from the marketplace, Strategy Analytics said in a forecast released this week.

Under the current rate of growth, one in eight homes in the region will have a UHD TV, the research firm said.

Looking further ahead, Strategy Analytics expects all 40-inch or larger TVs sold in North America to be of the UHD variety, setting the stage for nearly one in every two homes in the region to have one.

"2160p resolution has almost become a given in the large screen TV market and attention is now turning to other attributes that fall under the Ultra HD umbrella such as high dynamic range, wide color gamut and high frame rates,” David Watkins, director of Strategy Analytics’ Connected Home Devices unit, said in a statement. “A high proportion of mid to high-end Ultra HD TVs sold this year will support HDR which in combination with higher resolution and enhanced color representation will deliver a significant step change improvement to the TV viewing experience beyond resolution alone."

"The uptake of Ultra HD bears many of the same hallmarks as the early days of ‘basic’ HD in that TV manufacturers have been very quick to seed the market with the necessary displays but there is very little in the way of content in order to take advantage of the full potential of the technology,” added Chirag Upadhyay, an analyst with the firm’s Connected Home Devices division.

While OTT services like Amazon and Netflix are early to the game with 4K content, MVPDs such as AT&T/DirecTV, Rogers Communications and Videotron have been getting into the act.

Comcast offers a small selection of 4K content through an app for Samsung smart TVs. While 4K will be part of Comcast’s mix going forward, the operator is placing more emphasis on HDR content that can be supported on both 4K and HD TVs. The Xi5, Comcast’s first box with HDR capabilities, is slated to start shipping on July 4. The Xi6, a device that supports both HDR and 4K, is also in development.

“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. Matt Strauss, Comcast Cable’s executive vice president and general manager, video services, said in a recent interview.

BOSTON -- The expected consumer appetite for virtual reality and high-quality video -- such as Ultra High Definition and High Dynamic Range content -- plus the eagerness of program producers to exploit the new display technologies will "drive the need for the gigabit home," says Charles Cheevers, chief technology officer-customer premises at Arris. He envisions data rates "could be as high as 500 Megabits per second: 100 times faster than current high definition TV technology." 

Cheevers's big bitstream dreams were part of his overview about the need to "widen the lanes to download the image" during his remarks at an INTX Imagine Park session on "Immersive Storytelling: How VR and Ultra HD are Mesmerizing Viewers."

His hardware and network management orientation capped an hour of presentations Tuesday morning from entertainment, reality and news producers who are pushing advanced video content into cable and OTT pipelines. Cheever also dealt with tricks to handle the massively greater bandwidth requirements -- such as "foveated rendering," a processing technique for displaying UHD and other signals. With viewers' eyes focused on the center of the screen, peripheral material (around the edges of the picture) can be displayed at a lesser resolution, thus conserving some bandwidth.

Whatever happens, Cheevers explained, the upgraded video demands "are going to affect the architecture" of the systems.

"We need to work with headset and device makers to assure a symbiotic relationship," he said.

Cheevers's remarks came on the heels of presentations that offered glimpses of the programming coming to cable from unexpected virtual reality producers such as the Associated Press as well as from familiar narrative producers.

Nora Ryan, executive VP and chief of staff at EPIX, focused on the "interactive overlay" that will be a key feature in the 10-episode Berlin Station series that will debut in September.

"We're using virtual reality and 360-degree experiences to engage fans in the show," Ryan said, emphasizing that the 360-degree views "get to a much broader audience without using headgear." The production used drones and other tools to explore the visual realm. "Where else can we take the viewer?" Ryan asked rhetorically.

In July, about two months before the series debuts, EPIX will begin offering "extended story telling" via BerlinStation.com, showing enhanced material -- not merely a second-screen experience, Ryan said. (See VR Adds Thrills to EPIX's 'Berlin Station' in the May 16 edition of Next TV, subscription required.)

Nathan Griffiths, interactive editor at the Associated Press, described the news agency's plans to delve deeper into VR and viewer-controlled immersive stories. "We think there's a big market for timely, newsy 360-degree content," he said, adding that AP is working with several large customers to create such content. He demonstrated a video that AP produced at the refugee camps in Calais, France, where people are awaiting transport to England.

He acknowledged that there was a "fairly high amount of post-production" which slowed down delivery of the video story. But he expects that new technology will make it possible to complete future productions overnight.

As for the value of such immersive reports, Griffith characterized it as "the first time you have the feeling of empathy, where you feel emotionally connected to the story." But he warned that developers should "prepare for it to be more work than you expected."

On another front, "bringing High Dynamic Range to the consumer," Craig Heiting, senior VP of business development at Deluxe OnDemand, also acknowledged that introducing the new technology will be "more complicated." Predictably he touted the value of using managed services -- such as the ones that Deluxe provides -- to facilitate the delivery of HDR, which he called "a game changer."

"We'll see improvements in HDR12, already in the works, that provides an even better color gamut," Heiting said. He stressed that "the MVPD industry will be faced with improvements in brightness and other factors" that consumers will demand as part of the ever-increasing roster of visually dynamic content.

Rian Bester, CTO of Insight Ultra HD, an entertainment reality network, reinforced that view with his demonstration of action-adventure videos, the core offering of his new network. It pushes out images at 25 Mbps -- a more demanding level than Netflix's 16 Mbps rate, Bester said.

Bester's comments -- along with the other immersive demonstrations -- queued up the opportunity for Arris's Cheevers to punch home his message about the need for faster, sturdier capabilities for the overwhelming video demands facing network operators.

(Photo of Imagine Park at INTX 2016 via intxshow.com/photos.)

Universal  Electronics, a maker of universal control and smart home technologies and products, said its full line of HDMI cables has been certified by the Premium HDMI Cable Certification Program.

Certification ensures that consumers using Universal Electronics’ HDMI cables to connect the latest 4K/UltraHD equipment can enjoy the full potential and feature-rich content of the new pixel-packed format, the company said.

The program tests HDMI cables to ensure that they can reliably support the full 18 Gbps bandwidth and delivery of features enabled by the most recent HDMI specification including advanced video formats such as 4K@60Hz, wide color gamut and High Dynamic Range (HDR).

“The launch of Universal Electronics’ new Premium High Speed HDMI Cables ensures its cables are ready for today’s new 4K/UltraHD products and content, and installations will be future-proof for when customers add new upgraded products,” Brad Bramy, HDMI Licensing, LLC marketing director, said in a statement.

Universal Electronics a supplier to a range of video service providers said the certified  HDMI cables are also available direct to consumers through the company’s e-commerce site, TVGear.com.

Get more #INTX2016 news.

You apparently won’t be able to swing a cat at next week’s INTX show in Boston without hitting an LG-made 4K TV.

LG Electronics said it has signed on as “Official Ultra HDTV Partner” at the annual confab put on by The National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA).

LG said dozens of its UHD sets – in 75-, 65- and 43-inch class screen sizes, are being installed at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The TV maker said the NCTA selected LG’s new Energy Star-certified UH6550 series and LG Signature G6 OLED 4K TVs for use at INTX.

The show’s “Disrupted Reality” and “It’s All TV” zones, for example, will feature  the 65UH6550 and 43UH6550 models, while its 75-inch class 4K Ultra HD TVs (model 75UH6550)  will flank the stage at Imagine Park.

Get more #INTX2016 news

Arris (booth 1214) will be teeing up virtual reality and IP video demos at next week’s INTX confab in Boston that will be running of the company’s growing family of DOCSIS 3.1 modems and E6000 Converged Cable Access Platform. 

The VR demo will feature content from a NASCAR track and inside the Arris Racing team garage and the use of three, separate screens showing videos being downloaded and viewed simultaneously.  Arris aid the demo will show how multi-gigabit technology can “deliver a consumer-ready VR experience in under a minute.”

On the IPTV front, Arris said it will show how its networking technology can support six, simultaneous HD video streams on a single Ultra HD screen – with one primary channel and five others in smaller playing windows, noting that running six of these  HD streams into a single video device on a TV would typically require in the range of 26 Mbps to 72 Mbps.

4KUNIVERSE, an SVOD “channel” from film and TV distribution company Mance Media that features content in the pixel-packed format, said its first original series, Model Turned Superstar, will debut on June 28.

The show, billed as an international reality series, will challenge over 100 models to become “the next superstar model.  A series of photo shoots and runway challenges will determine which of the top 13 will emerge as the winner of the show’s $1 million grand prize.

The series, comprised of 18, 30-minute episodes filmed in areas such as Bora Bora, Thailand, Mexico, Dubai, the Bahamas and Hong Kong, is hosted by fitness expert April Scott along with guest judges Alessandra Ambrosio, Irina Shayk, and Ana Beatriz Barros. One episode will be released every week on Tuesdays on 4KUNIVERSE.

Andy Khawaja executive produced the series, with Rudy Dekermenjian and Matthew Mancinelli serving as producers. Mance Media is the series’ global distributor.

Mance Media introduced 4KUNIVERSE in March. The multiplatform channel, which costs $5.99 per month, is initially available over-the-top via YouTube and Vimeo, though the aim is to also seek carriage deals with cable operators, IPTV providers and other types of MVPDs.

Mance Media has not announced any MVPD deals for 4KUNIVERSE, but it wasone of the content partners identified by Dish Network for an initial slate of 4K VOD fare for its new Hopper 3 DVR and 4K Joey device.

After a couple of swings and misses, DirecTV says it’s ready to connect on its plan to broadcast tonight’s New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox matchup in 4K.

In partnership with MLB Network, the game from Fenway Park is set to start at 7 p.m., and will be offered in the 4K format to eligible subscribers on DirecTV channel 106.

The decision to go forward with tonight’s 4K broadcast comes after some recent set-backs.

Last week’s 4K broadcast of the Cubs-Cardinals game was relegated to an internal test, which followed a decision to postpone DirecTV’s first scheduled 4K MLB broadcast on April 15 between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers due to a “technical issue” with a third party’s field production truck.  

DirecTV, which recently  launched of three channels dedicated to 4K, originally planned to offer  25 MLB games in 4K during the regular season. The current 4K MLB broadcast schedule has eight games listed.

To get 4K, DirecTV subs need a Genie HD DVR (model HR54) or later and a 4K Genie Mini if they do not own a “DirecTV Ready” 4K TV. They’ll also need to pay for a professional install, which runs $50, and must be on the satellite TV provider’s Ultimate or Premiere package.

DirecTV subs who are itching to watch a Major League Baseball game in all of its 4K glory will have to wait a bit longer.

“To ensure the delivery of the best possible 4K Ultra HD signal for future live broadcasts, DIRECTV and MLB Network will conduct an internal test of the signal during tonight’s Cubs vs. Cardinals game,” AT&T, which acquired DirecTV last summer, said in a statement. “The game will be available to customers in HD, but not in 4K.  Moving forward, we are committed to delivering the best experience for our customers.”

The decision to run the internal test, rather than offer the 4K feed to DirecTV customers who have the capability to view it, comes after the satellite TV giant postponed its first scheduled 4K MLB broadcast last Friday (April 15) between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers due to a “technical issue” with a third party’s field production truck.  

DirecTV, acquired by AT&T last July, was originally scheduled to show the April 15 matchup between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers, and was to be the first of 25 MLB games to be shown in the format during the regular season. 

The decision to conduct an internal test of tonight's game in UHD is a a setback for DirecTV’s ambitious 4K initiative, which includes the recent  launch of three channels dedicated to 4K and an announced plan to offer25 MLB games to be shown in the pixel-packed format during the regular season. 

DirecTV’s next scheduled 4K MLB broadcast is the April 29 matchup between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

To get 4K, DirecTV subs need a Genie HD DVR (model HR54) or later and a 4K Genie Mini if they do not own a “DirecTV Ready” 4K TV. They’ll also need to pay for a professional install, which runs $50, and must be on the satellite TV provider’s Ultimate or Premiere package.