February 2015
From July 2014 through December 2014 The Future of 4K/8K Televisions and Content Access Services
Keiko Murakami
The year 2014 was an unprecedented epoch-making year for television and broadcasting: broadcasters, which had rather lagged behind manufacturers and telecom carriers, finally moved forward in earnest.
Notably, the latter half of 2014 saw a series of new movements in 4K/8K televisions and content access services. Examining them from a bird’s eye view, it is found out that the former is “TV-first” moves, or the technological sophistication of actual television sets, and the latter “mobile-first” moves, or the ingenuity in making people access broadcast content via terminals other than television sets. That these polarized moves develop simultaneously is another notable feature observed in recent years. What services will be chosen by the viewers/consumers and what the new roles of television and broadcasters will be deserve much attention.
This article series reports research findings in an effort to continuously study television’s future roles in the age of convergence of broadcasting and telecommunications. In this issue the author reviews and discusses the latest moves from July 2014 through December 2014.