4K TVs

4K Ultra HD (UHD) as a home entertainment format has firmly planted its stake in the market, according to Futuresource Consulting, but it remains some way off reaching levels of mass market adoption.

Futuresource Consulting have been monitoring the 4K UHD format for over two years as part of its media and entertainment tracking services. This latest edition highlights that UHD Blu-ray has built a leading position in the software market in 2016, with sales elevated by the disjointed approach of digital service providers including limited availability and marketing of content as well as poorer quality of playback compared to UHD Blu-ray.

Over the past 12 months there has been strong progression across the Ultra HD hardware markets, particularly 4K UHD TVs which were prominent within the 2016 Black Friday ‘Door Busting’ promotions, which retailers used to drive consumers into the shops. However, many of the sets on offer had either none or a poor quality/early development of HDR. Nevertheless, the focus from the industry is now firmly on HDR. Tristan Veale, Market Analyst, Futuresource Consulting commented that, “Unlike the upgrade to UHD resolution, which was a quantifiable improvement, HDR is subjective feature and the Consumer Electronics Show highlighted this is the key industry focus as manufacturers are continuing to push the boundaries in terms of peak brightness, peak black levels and a wider colour spectrum represented.”