Video Breakthroughs

See Sharp Aquos 4K UltraHD LED TV presentation at 4 minutes in the video.

LG Electronics is introducing 12 new Ultra HD television models, and all of them will be able to stream content in Ultra HD 4K format from Netflix later this year — providing four times the resolution of regular HD.

LG’s 2014 Ultra HD TVs include an HEVC codec chip, for decoding video signals in both MPEG-4 H.264 and HEVC H.265 formats, in either 30 or 60 frames per second. The company didn’t announce pricing or availability. Its current 4K TVs range from $5,200 for a 65-inch TV up to $20,000 for the 85-inch model.

With Netflix having announced plans for 4K streaming in 2014, it was only a matter of time before YouTube responded.

And, sure enough, YouTube is reportedly planning to demo its own improved, low-bandwidth 4K streaming technology at tech trade show CES next week, according to GigaOM.

YouTube won't be using the same H.265 video codec that's at the heart ofNetflix's 4K streaming plan – instead, it'll use parent company Google's royalty-free VP9 codec to blast Ultra HD video down your internet pipes.

Google’s VP9 video codec is getting a major boost today. While Mozilla, Google’s own Chrome browser and a few video players like FFmpeg started supporting VP9 over the course of the last year, what was mostly missing from Google’s ecosystem for this highly efficient video codec was hardware support. As Google announced today, however, virtually all major hardware vendors will soon support VP9 natively in their products and allow Google’s YouTube to stream HD content up to 4K directly to computers, TVs and mobile devices.

These new hardware partners include ARM, Broadcom, Intel, LG, Marvell, MediaTek, Nvidia, Panasonic, Philips, Qualcomm, RealTek, Samsung, Sigma, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba.

A lot of stuff happened in 2013, and it was an especially eventful year in the TV market.

For the first time mainstream TVs with 4K resolution, all of them LED LCDs, appeared--and then promptly fell in price. After years of fits and starts, the first OLED TVs went on sale -- and stayed expensive. 3D TV basically died with the ESPN pullout, and Evolution Kits, input lag and projectors were all newcomers to CNET's ever-evolving TV reviews process.

The biggest change happened on October 31, however, when Panasonic solemnly announced that it would no longer manufacture plasma TVs. For picture quality enthusiasts the world over, the question immediately became "What's next?"

CES 2014 will have the immediate answers.

From January 7 to January 10, CES 2014 will invade the Las Vegas Convention Center per usual, and we're gearing up to see everything from "must have" to "please, get that away from me." There are the usual Day One keynotes and press events on January 6, plus several pre-show going-ons on January 5 that we'll be covering, too.

Below you'll find the latest inklings of what we expect from the quickly approaching show. We'll regularly refresh this page, so check back during the coming days for all the latest about the most high-profile tech show of the year

We're not sure if our eyes are ready to gaze upon the glory of a 105in curved display, but Samsung and LG don't seem to care – they've just announced an insanely-specced 4K UHD TV each, and they look jaw-dropping.

Both behemoths feature a curved 105in 5120x2160 LCD screen (that's 11 million pixels if you're counting) and their 21:9 aspect ratios will be heaven for movie-fiends who despise black bars.

Have you ever wished it was possible to extend your PC screen to your TV or projector without a HDMI cable? Have you ever wished you could duplicate or extend your computer screen to your TV, monitor or projectors wirelessly? Then meet AirTame wireless HDMI dongle. With AirTame wireless HDMI dongle you won’t have to worry about cables like HDMI, DVI, VGA or Displayport and converters to extend or duplicate your PC screen to a TV or monitor or projector.

AirTame wireless HDMI dongle can allow you to display your PC screen to not just one but multiple screens at once. Simply plug in your AirTame wireless NDMI dongle into the HDMI port of your TV, monitor or projector and power it up via the USB cable.

MPEG DASH was created to deal with a highly fragmented media streaming ecosystem struggling with fragmentation and lack of interoperability of many proprietary solutions. Still that fragmentation has not stopped video to grow to being over half of mobile, and almost three-quarters of fixed traffic (YE2012). But this situation very negatively impacts on the one hand technology scale and cost advantages in the industry, and on the other hand the end user experience, engagement and (advertising) revenues that keep the media wheel spinning.

Enter MPEG DASH - the industry-defined open standard for media streaming that has gained strong industry support. Many suppliers have announced support for MPEG DASH though broad, real-world deployment is still a few years out. 

“This may be the icing that makes the UHD cake work.”

The Dolby demo, showing a 1080p HD picture with pumped-up brightness and color, was a startling improvement over even the best TVs available today, including the early UHD models. Metallic surfaces gleam like mirrors. Colors glow, luminous and rich. Highlights and shadows alike keep their detail. What’s more, unlike 4K TV, that improvement is visible even at a distance from the screen.

Fresh off the CES grapevine is Polaroid’s foray into the TV arena to show off two television sets at the Las Vegas show next week. One’s a 50in 4K set priced at a bargain US$1000 (£607), a mere portion of what TVs in the same category usually cost. The set also comes with three HDMI inputs for extra connectivity.

If that’s still too steep for you, there’s also a non-4K 50in set that comes with a built-in Roku Streaming Stick and HDMI outputs for just US$600.

ViXS et Wyplay annoncent en partenariat la première solution home media gateway du marché qui supporte les contenus Ultra HD 4K et le HEVC avec processing 10-bit qui favorise une réduction de 50% de bande passante. Au centre de cette nouvelle architecture se trouve Frog, la plateforme système middleware open source de Wyplay, tout propulsé par le SoC XCode 6400 de ViXS.

4K, Ultra HD, 4K Ultra HD – call it what you want – the 'four times HD' TV technology has finally arrived with some purpose in 2013, with more 4K TVs, the first broadcast trials and even some content. And with CES 2014 around the corner, we're expecting yet more noise about the next-gen TV resolution.

So, what's it all about? On this page we'll run through the basics, get you up to date on 4K TVs and 4K content, take a look at the 4K Ultra HD TVs on the market – and how the sizes and prices are – hopefully – coming down.

You will also find a round-up all of our 4K TV reviews to date. We'll be keeping this page updated as your one-stop for everything 4K Ultra HD, so check back if you're in the market to buy a 4K TV...

Panasonic will debut its first 4K projector at the upcoming International CES. The news was confirmed by Assistant General Manager Tetsuya Itani during an exclusive briefing with Inside CI at the brand's Kadoma facility in Osaka

4K is becoming increasingly important to Panasonic as a focus for its display development. The brand is also expected to show an update on its first entirely in-house 4K OLED screen at the Vegas Tech Fest , produced with its proprietary RGB all-printing method manufacturing process. At the 2013 CES, Panasonic  showed a collaborative effort utilising prototype panels provided by Sony. Panasonic would not be drawn on whether it planned to follow rivals LG and Samsung with a curved OLED product offering.

Television is evolving. 4K Ultra High Definition is rewriting the rulebook when it comes to image quality, and in the process is beginning to fundamentally change everything from programme production to distribution technology.

4K capable TV sets are now available from most of the major TV manufacturers, but they're merely the tip of a very cool technology iceberg. So what, we hear you ask, is 4K really all about?

Read on for greater clarity…

Samsung is back again, this time to make good on a 4K TV promise they made at the 2013 International CES. They promised a 110-inch 4K Ultra HDTV before the end of the year, and here it is, with only one day to spare.

The Samsung 110-inch 4K Ultra HDTV (110S9) is finally for sale at $150,000 in select regions, including China, The Middle East, and Europe. 

Ultra HD was a star with great promise at last year’s CES. The big question for this coming CES 2014 is, “When will Ultra HD make good on that promise?”

We know that Ultra HD could the next big thing for TV. At the same time, there is concern that too much hype could lead to disappointment.

Will consumers be able to see a difference? Will they care? Will there be a “wow factor”? What about content and distribution? Will it be too expensive for studios and service providers? What needs to happen before an end-to-end ecosystem can display the improved capabilities of 4K displays?

2014 will have some exciting new developments in store, kicking off with the announcements of the International CES in January. We take a look at what 2014 will bring...

Stream TV Networks is excited to showcase its consumer-ready 4KTVs featuring breakthrough Ultra-D glasses-free adjustable 3D technology during WCES 2014. Of the various sizes to be brought to market by the company's brand partners in 2014, the 50" and 55" models will be on display.

Some of the TVs will be accompanied by the seeCube-4K, an external device that converts a wide range of content 2D or 3D stereoscopic sources to 2160p glasses-free 3D in real time. Stream TV has successfully ported its realtime conversion technology to the new Qualcomm 8074 processor, and a second version of the TV will carry the conversion technology built into a chip, significantly reducing costs. Using complex algorithms, the Ultra-D technology converts 1080p/2 million pixel content into a 4K/8 million pixel viewing experience.