Michael,

There are carriers moving towards 200Mb-1Gb connections already. Reliability will always be an issue, but one that can be managed in certain installations. It will take time for 4K videos in real time to enable full worldwide coverage, but I don’t see this as issue #1 at the moment.

As for mobile and prepaid – who cares? Videos are still mostly watched from the home and over DSL or WiFi – even when done over a smartphone or a tablet. In many countries, this still entails a flat monthly fee for access with no discernible limit on the amount of monthly data.

you forgot the biggest one

the average user doesn’t yet have enough *reliable* bandwidth to do the lower resolutions, let alone anything better.

that will probably still take decades – the infrastructure just isn’t there yet

video streams on mobile?
forget it – that prepaid will be out of credit within hours

your dreamingt if you think a lot of users are in any hurry to pay much more than $30 a month for their mobile plan

and is there any research into how intolerant users might be of streams that drop out often?

the user experience is way too often one of frustration

4K/UHD, even streaming 4K, can be achieved using a variety of codecs. In fact, it is being achieved using a variety of codecs, if you consider new entries like Thira & Perseus.

The players involved may want/need higher compression efficiency, but HEVC is not the only game in town, just the current leader.

I don’t see 4K as being all that useful in the home. 1080p at higher frame rates and HDR are more impactful to the consumer. However, those benefits likely can’t be separated from newer 4K UHDTVs, with faster HDMI interconnects.

Michael,

Thanks, but there really is a correlation between a codec and the resolution.

The more the codec can compress at a given quality, the less bandwidth it will need for a given resolution. In most cases, there’s no feasibility in streaming 4K videos in H.264 whereas doing that with a better codec can and does work.

There are also issues like the range allowed by the motion estimation built into a codec and other nuances that may render older codecs obsolete. In the same token, video companies resolved to H.264 when going HD instead of using the older (but at the time popular) H.263 codec.

As for what can be done with more resolution – much. But that’s hardly the point for a device located in the living room with the sole intent of making us couch potatoes. 4K is currently being touted as the best live sport experience out there. There’s not much content, but then again, that was the case with HD. Until all content was HD. 4K content is available today (or next year) by high end smartphones… and yes – you’ll need more storage and better codecs to handle it properly.

4K as a streaming format may be enabled/enhanced by more efficient codecs, but that’s entirely another matter. There is literally no requirement for 4K streaming at present.

Today the opportunity presented by 4K is more about display applications. 4K displays will be unavoidable soon enough. How to best leverage that screen real estate?

Consider the idea of rendering to a canvas as presented at your recent Kranky Geek event. How about we do something sensible about allowing a screen share and a presenter to viewed simultaneously, both at optimal resolution?

Similarly, let’s not beat up traditional vendors about having or not having 4K video capability. There’s just no point. OTOH, if they’re selling 80″ displays that only resolve 1080p that’s pretty short term thinking.

The codec wars will continue to be sure, but they needn’t get in the way. The display aspects of 4K can be enjoyed without requiring HEVC or VP9.

Now, 8K…where just the display is currently $133,000. That’s the new frontier….for theaters.