4K TV. What is it in the first place? While most of you may be familiar with LCD and LED TV’s being sold out there, you would also know that they are available in three variants—HD Ready, Full HD and 3D.
While HD Ready TVs have a resolution of 720 pixels, a full HD TV can produce 1080 pixels. 3D televisions are usually full HD, but have a capability of producing picture frames on the screen at twice the speed of conventional LCD televisions.
Television broadcasting all over the world is beaming out HD (720p) and Full HD (1080p) content as a basic feed. However, India is still receiving 1080i and not full true HD as yet. All DTH providers in India are presently offering HD content since most households today own an LCD TV which is capable of HD and Full HD resolutions and feature the HDMI port.
The next generation televisions available today are curved OLED televisions and 4K UHD televisions. 4K TV, or UHD ultra high-definition television, can produce four times the picture resolution than what today's Full HD offers. This means, four times the number of pixels on the screen, the tiny points that make up the entire image, a greater array of colours and a sharper contrast. Viewing 4K content on a 4K display is mind-blowing.
However, the cost of the television is not as cheap as a large-screen Full HD 3D TV. A regular, large-screen 4K television from leading brands costs nothing less than an average 3.5 lakhs. Affording one at home is as good as opting for a small hatchback. Nevertheless, opting for a 4K television may be great, and you feel that you have bought the best viewing panel for your home. But look around you—do you have 4K content available as easily as your 4K TV?
The answer is no—4K content is available, but is limited. YouTube has opened up a 4K stream a while back and there are a few movies and videos that you could watch from some online websites. Also pirated movies can offer 4K videos and flicks. However, it won’t come in cheap either. In order to 4K enjoy content on the web, you would require a minimum of 15 Mb/s broadband connection.
A 4K TV does not have an affordable price tag as yet. The technology is relatively new and hence the sky-high prices they demand. Television manufacturers are backing the next-generation 4K television technology since it does not require any special glasses, like 3D, for viewing the content. Those who would opt for a 4K TV today will definitely have a set that is future-proof for a couple of years at least.
Similar to the Full-HD revolution, it will take time for 4K content to be readily available, and it will be coming in for sure. At the pace of internet speeds going up and the broadband prices coming down, it wont be surprising if 4K makes its way into the households faster than Blue-ray and Full HD did.
Videocon DTH and Tata Sky, both announced 4K television broadcasts and 4K DTH Set-top-boxes on the 3rd and 4th of July 2014 respectively. While Sony gave out a demo of the live broadcast of the FIFA World Cup at the launch event, Sony Six was the broadcaster to give the 4K link feed. Tata Sky announced that the 4K service will go live around January 2015.
So are you ready for 4K as yet? Well, we say, if you have the money, go ahead. If you have the patience, we suggest you wait for a while. Let all DTH service providers and channel broadcasters get their systems upgrade to 4K with sufficient content. And also since the technology is fairly new, the costs of the 4K television sets will also go down by time. Competition and sales will definitely make the prices of the 4K TVs dip. So if you want to be smart, hold on to those horses and save on the money as long as you can.
