4K televisions look great in demos, but seeing as we currently live in a 1080p world, there isn’t yet much on TV that takes advantage of all those pixels. The UHD Alliance seeks to change that.
As reported by The Verge, the UHD Alliance is a working group made up of some of the biggest HDTV manufacturers and content producers. It currently consists of Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, and Sharp, along with companies like Netflix, DirecTV, Disney, and Fox, to name a few.
The idea here is for the biggest names in television to address issues surrounding 4k TV by “set[ting] standards for 4K content, terminology, and delivery,” according to The Verge.
Why this matters: Typical HDTV tops out at 1920 by 1080-pixel resolution, but “4K” refers to a screen or video with a resolution that measures roughly 4000 pixels by 2000 pixels.
There are actually two video resolutions referred to as “4K”—the Ultra High Definition standard (3840 by 2160 pixels) and a second 4k standard that measures 4096 pixels by 2160 pixels. Confused yet? You probably now understand why the UHD Alliance came to be.
The other issue, of, course, is that there isn’t much that supports 4k TV yet. But having a number of industry giants come together in the name of 4k should help settle any confusion that may exist and start a concerted push to make 4k TV and content as widespread in the not-too-distant future as 1080p is today.
There’s still plenty of work to do, but the UHD Alliance looks to be a good place to start.