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NHL should be the first to 4k

Drury_Sakic

Registered User
Jul 25, 2003
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www.avalanchedb.com
I picked up a 4k TV this holiday and have been enjoying the heck out of it thus far, but outside of a few netflix and amazon prime shows, there is not much out there. Youtube has some 4k content, mostly produced by go-pro funded events/specials, and some proof of concept content from others. But outside of that there are not any mainstream programs or sports being produced/filmed/distributed at the resolution.

4k TVs are the hotness right now and will be going forward. Tons of people are buying 4k TVs with nothing to watch on them right now. Some networks are toying with it and from what I have read the NFL is considering getting there in a year or two.....probably partnering with ESPN to do so...but that is still a ways away.

The NHL, probably partnering with NBC, should push to be the first to get the content going. From a business standpoint, they would be able to advertise that they are first to the market and by default people would check out games just to see the new power of their TVs.

Watching a few videos filmed on 4k GoPro cameras, which are super tiny scaled down cameras, of hockey you instantly see the benefit. The extra clarity and detail is amazing. It would make it a lot easier to follow the puck and identify players on the ice. I can only imagine what a full set of top end cameras would do.

The NHL and NBC should throw in together to beat the NFL and ESPN to the punch and get the content out there. I presume it would require an additional channel via cable to run....which they should do every thing in their power to get added to the major providers for FREE as part of a standard sports tier package -- even if they have to subsidize the cost....though I imagine the networks would be super happy to have something in 4k to make people turn cable back on with.

The other option is to go the netflix route and stream it online or via an app if getting out via cable TV would take too long...though the cable route would be a more pure video quality and the app would have to be designed for several brands of TVs. The more interesting partnership would be to set up something with netflix or amazon to stream a game or two of hockey every week via their services.

Point being...NHL....get on the tech wagon! It would be a good reward for the dedicated hockey fan and help bring some new eyeballs to the game.
 
Except with the current technology, it takes some brands of 4K UHD devices up to a full minute to decode the signal... kinda takes the "live" out of live sports.
 
zyllyx said:
Except with the current technology, it takes some brands of 4K UHD devices up to a full minute to decode the signal... kinda takes the "live" out of live sports.
Click to expand...

There's already a delay of a few seconds with current technology. Try simulcasting a radio feed over a TV image and you'll see. Or HD broadcast vs SD broadcast for that matter.

Fenway said:
NESN has been testing 4K cameras on replay but it takes longer to process.

http://nesn.com/2014/09/nesn-demos-new-sony-stitch-video-technology-during-red-sox-game-photos/
Click to expand...


Issue isn't going to be the processing on either end as it will be transmitting that much bandwidth cleanly over current delivery systems (like cable). I have enough issues with HD programming over Cox Cable now. Fiber-optics are coming, but it's only in relatively small areas.
 
TheLegend said:
Issue isn't going to be the processing on either end as it will be transmitting that much bandwidth cleanly over current delivery systems (like cable). I have enough issues with HD programming over Cox Cable now. Fiber-optics are coming, but it's only in relatively small areas.
Click to expand...

Exactly, broadcast television isn't even in 1080p, nevermind 4k. There isn't the bandwith.
 
Drury_Sakic said:
I picked up a 4k TV this holiday and have been enjoying the heck out of it thus far, but outside of a few netflix and amazon prime shows, there is not much out there. Youtube has some 4k content, mostly produced by go-pro funded events/specials, and some proof of concept content from others. But outside of that there are not any mainstream programs or sports being produced/filmed/distributed at the resolution.

4k TVs are the hotness right now and will be going forward. Tons of people are buying 4k TVs with nothing to watch on them right now. Some networks are toying with it and from what I have read the NFL is considering getting there in a year or two.....probably partnering with ESPN to do so...but that is still a ways away.

The NHL, probably partnering with NBC, should push to be the first to get the content going. From a business standpoint, they would be able to advertise that they are first to the market and by default people would check out games just to see the new power of their TVs.

Watching a few videos filmed on 4k GoPro cameras, which are super tiny scaled down cameras, of hockey you instantly see the benefit. The extra clarity and detail is amazing. It would make it a lot easier to follow the puck and identify players on the ice. I can only imagine what a full set of top end cameras would do.

The NHL and NBC should throw in together to beat the NFL and ESPN to the punch and get the content out there. I presume it would require an additional channel via cable to run....which they should do every thing in their power to get added to the major providers for FREE as part of a standard sports tier package -- even if they have to subsidize the cost....though I imagine the networks would be super happy to have something in 4k to make people turn cable back on with.

The other option is to go the netflix route and stream it online or via an app if getting out via cable TV would take too long...though the cable route would be a more pure video quality and the app would have to be designed for several brands of TVs. The more interesting partnership would be to set up something with netflix or amazon to stream a game or two of hockey every week via their services.

Point being...NHL....get on the tech wagon! It would be a good reward for the dedicated hockey fan and help bring some new eyeballs to the game.
Click to expand...

just wondering, which 4K TV do you have ( I have the 55 inch el cheepo Seiki) ?
And as other have said, it not the recording but the broadcasting, blurays are getting kinda old and there are not many channels that are broadcast in 1080 progressive.
most "HD" channels are 1080i or 720p.

with SD and HD a lot of the cable providers are moving to switched digital in order to conserve bandwith. if you start pushing 4K from the head end, you MIGHT be able to add this overhead without a problem, provided not a lot of people are requesting it. if a lot of people start requesting it, it gums up the works pretty well.

i dont have a projector, but to me 60 Hz 1080p on a 55 inch LED is plenty clear. and if they do go 4K, my guess that the number of new fans that they pull in who turn up their noses at current HD broadcasts is minimal at best.
 
As others have said cable cannot deal with 4k. You would have to compress the signal bigtime to get it to people's sets. This sort of defeats the purpose.

It's also too early in the technology cycle for the NHL to get on board. Right now the 4K target audience is early adopters with roughly 7% of the US flat screen sales revenue being UHD. Far to small a group to invest the resources this would require. They will wait until the delivery problem is solved and the screens are far more prevalent.
 
Fourier said:
As others have said cable cannot deal with 4k. You would have to compress the signal bigtime to get it to people's sets. This sort of defeats the purpose.

It's also too early in the technology cycle for the NHL to get on board. Right now the 4K target audience is early adopters with roughly 7% of the US flat screen sales revenue being UHD. Far to small a group to invest the resources this would require. They will wait until the delivery problem is solved and the screens are far more prevalent.
Click to expand...

remember when espn 3D said they were going to lead at the bleeding edge of technology ? how did that work out ?

Right now there just is no content. eventually the market for this ( and perhaps this market exclusively) is for 4K blurray players playing off of physical discs. so if you get one now its really more for "future" proofing. today however the limits of hdmi are going to be important. I can drive my TV at 4K from a PC but only at 30Hz and my TV doesnt have a DP. the "better: UHD TV's will allow ( and might allow now, i'm too cheap to care) higher refresh rates.

I rememebr when 3D tv came out and everyone said how great they were, I know people who have them, it might be me but the novelty wears off pretty quick.

4K over cable is, I suspect, a long way away
 
Fourier said:
It's also too early in the technology cycle for the NHL to get on board. Right now the 4K target audience is early adopters with roughly 7% of the US flat screen sales revenue being UHD. Far to small a group to invest the resources this would require. They will wait until the delivery problem is solved and the screens are far more prevalent.
Click to expand...

The vibe I'm getting from the 4K UHD thing is the same I got WAYYYY back in the day when Beta and VHS were battling it out, only to get demolished by DVD. There's no real standard and there probably won't be until the Next Big Thing comes out (holograms? Yes, please).
 
zyllyx said:
The vibe I'm getting from the 4K UHD thing is the same I got WAYYYY back in the day when Beta and VHS were battling it out, only to get demolished by DVD. There's no real standard and there probably won't be until the Next Big Thing comes out (holograms? Yes, please).
Click to expand...

its not the lack of standards, i don't see this as beta vs vhs or bluray vs HD-DVD. those were all PLAYERS. your TV doesnt care what the source is, it will play both.

and as much as sellers might not likely this, this is more evolutionary and less revolutionary than 3D TV's. hell tv's went to 480 hz without a lot of hooplah and going hd to UHD is something that is only going to be perceived by videophiles and people in very specific viewing conditions. but that might be from the eyes of an old guy.

based on the sizes ( if i remember right a blue ray is a bout 25 Gb uncompressed, so about 75 for the uncompressed 4K blu ray disks f they ever materialize) my guess is that the steaming possibilities are really limited. The chain of theaters that Marc cuban owns for movies, you know what infrastructure they use to stream their movies ? federal express as they ship the movies on hard drives directly.
 
Fourier said:
As others have said cable cannot deal with 4k. You would have to compress the signal bigtime to get it to people's sets. This sort of defeats the purpose.

It's also too early in the technology cycle for the NHL to get on board. Right now the 4K target audience is early adopters with roughly 7% of the US flat screen sales revenue being UHD. Far to small a group to invest the resources this would require. They will wait until the delivery problem is solved and the screens are far more prevalent.
Click to expand...
They are not going to try to improve things until that 7% increases. That 7% is not going to increase until the price of 4k tv's comes down.
 
patnyrnyg said:
They are not going to try to improve things until that 7% increases. That 7% is not going to increase until the price of 4k tv's comes down.
Click to expand...

4k tv's are not that much more expensive that 1080p sets*, and as the delta continues to shrink, people will go " MOAR PIXELS" irrespective of whether the difference is perceptible.

(*again I'm cheap and im referring to the elcheepo seiki sets which cost a LOT less than most of the name brand 1080p sets of the same size)
 
Hockey benefits the most out of better visuals. HD was so huge for seeing the puck. I was used to how it was before, but seeing it in HD was amazing, and I think a lot of how I used to watch hockey was that I would constantly deduce where the puck was based on how the players acted (SD was often that obscured imo). I'm sure 4k would be even better
 
This technology isn't even standardized yet.

You can spend money on a nice 1080p T.V that will blow the doors off most 4k t.v's when it comes to picture quality. Yes even if you managed to get 4k content vs 1080p.

T.V's are more about contrast,color accuracy, motion rate then resolution since we hit 1080p.

I can't get 1080p from my cable provider here in Edmonton. it's 1080I which isn't much different from 720p.

I'd love to see it take off but most of the t.v's I've examined motion jutter like mad when you get them off those slow demo's.

I don't know if it will ever take or perhaps even go the way of 3d and just stay a novelty item.

I don't think they even have a physical medium that could handle this to help with content delivery.

Quick google search show's that it's coming though.
http://www.cnet.com/news/4k-blu-ray-discs-arriving-in-2015-to-fight-streaming-media/

That should provide for some nice confusion. got it on blu ray? 4k or reg?
 
Lacaar said:
This technology isn't even standardized yet.

You can spend money on a nice 1080p T.V that will blow the doors off most 4k t.v's when it comes to picture quality. Yes even if you managed to get 4k content vs 1080p.

T.V's are more about contrast,color accuracy, motion rate then resolution since we hit 1080p.

I can't get 1080p from my cable provider here in Edmonton. it's 1080I which isn't much different from 720p.

I'd love to see it take off but most of the t.v's I've examined motion jutter like mad when you get them off those slow demo's.

I don't know if it will ever take or perhaps even go the way of 3d and just stay a novelty item.

I don't think they even have a physical medium that could handle this to help with content delivery.

Quick google search show's that it's coming though.
http://www.cnet.com/news/4k-blu-ray-discs-arriving-in-2015-to-fight-streaming-media/

That should provide for some nice confusion. got it on blu ray? 4k or reg?
Click to expand...

well to be truthful, sony has a 4K player right now, but its hard drive based, only contains PRE LOADED sony movies and costs 700 bucks. you could build A HTPC with a 4K video card for about that.

but I agree a good 1080p TV would almost certainly best my seiki in pretty much everything you mentioned, pq, blacks, refresh rate, etc. once the 4K tv's become standard I am sure we will see 16XHD.

Last I heard the 4K bluray discs are to be released en masse by next christmas.
 
No 4K content is provided for anything other than in-home media or streaming at this point, and both DirecTV and Comcast's streaming services only support certain Samsung TVs. Both of those providers only support a handful of shows in 4K currently. The infrastructure simply isn't there for a widespread roll-out.
 
It's really as simple as this 4K is not for regular TV viewing. It is for home theater and watching movies.
As many have pointed out the bandwidth isn't there.
 
In North America we're getting screwed with ISPs and Cable providers. Lately i've been seing fricking poor Romania going Google-quality fiber and people posting all over internet their amazingly high down/up speeds for like 10 euros a month.

Here in North America, if you didn't get a Google Test package, you pay probably north of $100 for a rather aged cable at 50mbits (if lucky).
 
Lacaar said:
This technology isn't even standardized yet.

You can spend money on a nice 1080p T.V that will blow the doors off most 4k t.v's when it comes to picture quality. Yes even if you managed to get 4k content vs 1080p.

T.V's are more about contrast,color accuracy, motion rate then resolution since we hit 1080p.

I can't get 1080p from my cable provider here in Edmonton. it's 1080I which isn't much different from 720p.

I'd love to see it take off but most of the t.v's I've examined motion jutter like mad when you get them off those slow demo's.

I don't know if it will ever take or perhaps even go the way of 3d and just stay a novelty item.

I don't think they even have a physical medium that could handle this to help with content delivery.

Quick google search show's that it's coming though.
http://www.cnet.com/news/4k-blu-ray-discs-arriving-in-2015-to-fight-streaming-media/

That should provide for some nice confusion. got it on blu ray? 4k or reg?
Click to expand...

When OLED is optimized (e.g., better blue OLED lifetimes, improved encapsulation of display) it will be much better than any current LCD or LED display. It will take time (just like LCD and LED) to work the bugs out of the display platform. One exciting thing is that OLEDs combined with next-generation back planes will open the door to completely flexible displays in 5-10 years.
 
Hockey would benefit more from higher refresh rates over cable more than anything else. 60 fps+
 
sandysan said:
just wondering, which 4K TV do you have ( I have the 55 inch el cheepo Seiki) ?
And as other have said, it not the recording but the broadcasting, blurays are getting kinda old and there are not many channels that are broadcast in 1080 progressive.
most "HD" channels are 1080i or 720p.

with SD and HD a lot of the cable providers are moving to switched digital in order to conserve bandwith. if you start pushing 4K from the head end, you MIGHT be able to add this overhead without a problem, provided not a lot of people are requesting it. if a lot of people start requesting it, it gums up the works pretty well.

i dont have a projector, but to me 60 Hz 1080p on a 55 inch LED is plenty clear. and if they do go 4K, my guess that the number of new fans that they pull in who turn up their noses at current HD broadcasts is minimal at best.
Click to expand...


I bought an LG 55ub8500, super happy with it, I got a killer deal at best buy, 1299 on sale a few weeks back. Super happy with the purchase. On sale now it is at 1699, the rep at best buy was shocked it was so low when I picked it up.

I am not a huge 3D fan, but 3D blurays look amazing. 1080p content also likewise is amazing on it. I also upgraded my PC with a new processor and a new graphics card so I can game in 4k, which is amazing as well.

From my understanding the 55ub8500 is a middle-upper tier 4k, having the image quality of some higher end sets but lacking a few connections and bells and whistles. The smart TV OS on the LG is also top notch.

The only sets that are better from my understanding are the top tier Sony units, which are in that 1800-2400 range for a 55 inch.
 
Last edited:
Muckr said:
So basically this is like 3D, a new gimmick to try and get us to spend on something unnecessary?
Click to expand...

There is some gimickyness to it, as it is not a huge of a jump from SD to HD...but the only content I have seen thus far in 4k has been streaming content, which is probably about the same quality as we would see from cable....and that is enough to impress me, and I am not easily impressed by tech. It may also just be I bought a great TV and my old one was a few years ago, but the color contrast is also improved in 4k vs HD.

As for the delay in broadcasting. I would gladly suffer a minute or two delay to see the game at a higher quality. As for broadcasting/cable feeds, the NHL would need to be the one to take the stand here. Get a truck or two set with the equipment to handle the feed to start, same with getting a set or two of cameras. The goal would be to start with a game or two a week, slowly building the supply so more games are shot in 4k. Eventually you get 4k cameras in all rinks...not that every game would be broadcast in 4k.

Cable networks are desperate for something to keep viewers or add new ones. 4k is going to be a thing they all try to leverage to do so.
 
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