CES 2016 is shaping up to be the year of HDR, and one of the most vocal proponents behind high dynamic range imagery has announced a pair of new content partners and a new line of televisions from TCL to help move the ball forward. Dolby has announced that this year both Universal Pictures and MGM will be releasing movies in Dolby Vision, the company's forward-thinking, high dynamic range system that helps display images that are brighter and sharper than traditional televisions, with better contrast and a strikingly improved range of colors. Ready to display those titles will be the newly-announced X1 line of televisions from TCL, which follow LG's new 4K OLED TVs as the latest devices to incorporate the technology — what already appears to be a clear trend at CES this year. The 65-inch X1, set to launch in the US later this year, features a 4K UHD screen utilizing quantum dot technology, with a peak brightness of 1,000 nits. For point of comparison, the Vizio Reference displays that have impressed us in the past max out at around 800 nits, and your normal modern television display clocks in at around 500 nits. (This brightness is important when dealing with things like sun glinting off a car's bumper; in Dolby Vision, those highlights pop just like they do in real life.) Matched with 288 zones of local dimming, the direct-lit television also supports a much wider color gamut, a built-in Harmon Kardon sound system, and a curved screen. When all of the Dolby Vision pieces fit together, the result is an image that is sharper, clearer, and more lifelike than what we've grown accustomed to from traditional displays. So much so that high dynamic range has been seen as the vital technology that could finally make 4K a must-have upgrade for consumers — but as with anything, there have been wrinkles. Like many things on the bleeding technological edge, high dynamic range has found itself the subject of a sort of mini format war. Dolby first started showing off its system several years ago — we were impressed after seeing Dolby Vision demos at the end of 2013 — and last year Vudu started adding Dolby Vision titles like Mad Max: Fury Road. But at the same time, companies like Samsung and Fox announced that they would be rolling out content and systems using a slightly different flavor of HDR, one that could work with televisions that weren't as bright as those Dolby required. When the official specification for Ultra HD Blu-rays was settled upon last year, it included that different, non-proprietary version of HDR as a standard, meaning that when Warner Bros. announced that it would be releasing 35 4K Blu-ray discs in HDR in 2016, those titles would have to support the non-Dolby version of HDR. But 4K Blu-rays still support Dolby Vision as an option, so with the landscape far from settled each new content and hardware partnership becomes even more vital. Dolby's long-term strategy is for as many titles to be mastered in its format as possible — something mastered in Dolby Vision can still gracefully degrade into the non-proprietary version of HDR if needed — hopefully making it the de facto choice on the post-production side of the industry even if it doesn't win in all of the television sets out there. Making the situation even more fluid, Dolby has also been bringing high dynamic range imagery into movie theaters with Dolby Cinema, a laser-based projection system that takes advantage of many of the same strengths as Dolby Vision and arguably creates a more organic, fluid pipeline from theater to home release, particularly for filmmakers like Pete Docter who have been quite enthusiastic about Dolby's solution. Of course, as with most television news at CES, it should all be considered a work in progress until customers can actually sit down at home with their new television and watch 4K HDR content for themselves. With the 65-inch X1 just the first in a line of Dolby Vision televisions from TCL — and the LG model already catching our eye as a contender for best television of the show — this may be the year that Dolby Vision finally starts to shine.See all of our CES 2016 news right here!
Television makers like Sony, Samsung Electronics and Panasonic will be working overtime this week to sell you on so-called ultra high-definition 4K television.
My advice: Wait at least another year or two before buying it — the hype and the TV sets themselves.
Keep that bottom line in mind as you hear more about 4K TV, named for the high-definition resolution display. Plenty of announcements about the technology are expected this week at International CES, the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas that is one of the tech industry’s largest tradeshows. The high-definition televisions will be a featured attraction at the four-day event, alongside virtual reality devices, drones and new smartphones.
4K TVs began surfacing about three years ago. To decode the marketing jargon: 4K is the successor to 1080p, the current high-definition resolution found on modern TV sets. The term 4K, also called Ultra HD, refers to screens with two times the vertical resolution and twice the horizontal resolution of current high-definition TVs.
The 4K resolution and other new TV technologies “take a television screen picture much closer to the capabilities of the human visual system,” said Neil Hunt, Netflix’s chief product officer, in an interview. “They are big steps forward in delivering better quality.”
But after interviewing several technology companies and testing a premium Samsung 4K TV for more than a week, I was less than convinced that 2016 would be a good year to buy one of the sets. Televisions with the 4K feature remain expensive, ranging from $1,000 to tens of thousands of dollars. More important, the content available in the new 4K video resolution is sparse. And while images encoded in 4K do look better than normal high-definition ones, the differences aren’t jaw-dropping.
Consider the available catalog of 4K content. Netflix has just 25 programs to watch in Ultra HD, including its original TV shows like “Jessica Jones” and “Daredevil.” Amazon has a bit more — hundreds of titles are in 4K, but many of them are older movies (like “Jerry Maguire”) that you may have little desire to watch again. Amazon’s original series, like “Transparent” and “The Man in the High Castle,” are also in 4K. Both Netflix and Amazon said they expect all the original content that they produce this year to be available in 4K.
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Still, even with more 4K content coming, the higher resolution may not be worth it. In my tests, I compared Samsung’s flagship 4K television, the JS9500, which costs $4,500, side by side with my three-year-old Panasonic 1080p plasma TV. On the 4K version of “Jerry Maguire,” I could see some details that were lost in the 1080p version, such as Cuba Gooding Jr.’s pores, along with some details in the shadows of his face and horizontal lines on a television screen showing a football game. In other words, not breathtaking.
More profound differences could be seen in newer content that was produced with 4K in mind, like Amazon’s TV series “Mozart in the Jungle.” The colors in that show looked especially vibrant and vivid, and the picture was noticeably clearer in 4K than in 1080p. Amazon declined to make an executive available for comment on its 4K offerings.
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What makes “Mozart in the Jungle” look exceptional is a new color technology called H.D.R., or high dynamic range. This software feature enhances the contrast and color profile of a picture. In bright colors, you will see brighter highlights; in dark colors, you will see more details. In my side-by-side comparisons, 4K content with high dynamic range was noticeably superior to 1080p content, whereas 4K content without high dynamic range had a negligible difference in picture quality compared with 1080p.
Yet only a small number of 4K televisions include high dynamic range, and only a sliver of 4K content so far is encoded with the richer color profile. Amazon started offering 4K content with high dynamic range last year, and Netflix plans to begin offering titles supporting the feature this year, starting with its show “Marco Polo.” Those two features combined — 4K and high dynamic range — will probably be the gamechanger for television. But that is still coming later rather than sooner.
Right now, there isn’t much to watch in 4K on cable TV. Comcast in 2014 began offering its first 4K-capable streaming app, and this year the cable provider will release a new box, the Xi6, that also supports high dynamic range. Despite these efforts, a Comcast spokesman said the total number of shows and movies produced in 4K is “still pretty small.”
A telltale sign that it’s too early to buy a fancy television is you still won’t be able to enjoy arguably the biggest show on television in ultra high definition: “Game of Thrones.” Jeff Cusson, a spokesman for HBO, which airs the show, said the company had “no plans at this time” to begin supporting 4K content. So fans who were hoping to gaze at the pores of characters like Daenerys Targaryen this year are out of luck. Other popular HBO shows like “Girls,” “Silicon Valley” and the “The Leftovers” will not be offered in 4K either.
Over all, sales of 4K TVs are picking up, which should incentivize content providers to make more shows and movies in Ultra HD. Amazon said that in 2015, sales of 4K televisions tripled compared with the previous year, though it declined to reveal underlying sales numbers. Samsung, the No. 1 TV manufacturer, said it hoped that 60 percent of its TV sales in the United States this year would be 4K televisions, up from 30 percent last year. IHS, a research firm, predicts that 34 percent of American households will have big-screen 4K TVs by 2019, up from about 10 percent this year.
“4K adoption has been phenomenally quick,” said Dave Das, a Samsung executive, in an interview. “Adoption has been as fast, or faster, than when we launched 1080p.”
Samsung estimates that altogether there are now 800 titles to watch in Ultra HD. Mr. Das said Samsung this quarter will begin selling its first 4K-capable Blu-ray players, which will give consumers another avenue for obtaining 4K content other than streaming.
At CES, all the big TV manufacturers, including Sony, Samsung and Panasonic, will be highlighting their 4K televisions. Many new sets this year will include high dynamic range. Samsung on Tuesday will highlight its next flagship TV, the KS9500, which it says will deliver the most realistic color range it has ever offered. Roku, the TV streaming device maker, said on Monday that it was working with TV manufacturers to introduce 60 Ultra HD television sets including Roku’s software this year.
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And there is new branding for 4K television sets, too. The TVs that include high dynamic range will be called Ultra HD Premium. The Consumer Technology Association, a trade group that represents the electronics industry, said on Monday that the new specification would help consumers understand the differences between various Ultra HD technologies and navigate the growing marketplace.
Beware: The sets will take a bite out of your wallet. Well-reviewed TV sets, like Vizio’s M60-C3 or Samsung’s JU7100, cost $1,000 to $1,600. Because the software included on television sets is typically terrible, you will probably also want to buy a 4K-capable media player, like the Roku 4 streaming box ($130). If you’re streaming content, you may also want to make sure your Internet connection is fast enough: You’ll need roughly 20 megabits a second to consistently stream content in 4K resolution, according to Amazon and Netflix.
If you’re happy with your current high-definition TV, do yourself a favor and wait at least a year or two before buying an Ultra HD television. By then, there should be plenty more 4K content to watch. Plus TV prices drop rapidly as their features become more commoditized — if you buy a 4K television set today, a TV with the same features will probably cost less than $1,000 in 2017 or 2018.
Sony's PlayStation Vue TV streaming service has always been a bit of an odd sell. The subscription service lets users pick between different TV packages (the basic $50 a month plan including channels like CNN, Fox, and NBC) and acts as DVR for favorite shows, but it originally launched on the PS3 and PS4 only. Since then, Sony has been working on making the service more widely available, adding support for the Amazon Fire TV, iPhone, and iPad, and now, Google's Chromecast as well. However, in somewhat typical fashion, the service will only work with iOS devices, as it's not yet available on Android. Still, if you're subscribed to Vue and are looking for a cheap way to see you favorite shows on another TV, buying a Chromecast and connecting it up might be a good way to go.
