Marking a reach of 276 million TV homes worldwide, 85...

Marking a reach of 276 million TV homes worldwide, 85 million of them in Europe, satellite operator SES will use next month’s MIPTV conference in Cannes, France, to announce its plans to test Ultra HD channels, Norbert Hoelzle, SES senior vice president, said Tuesday at a seminar in London. SES views Ultra HD 4K TV as the “next big thing,” Hoelzle said, predicting that Ultra HD growth will be more “linear and faster than the uptake of HD.” SES thinks the CE industry will drive Ultra HD growth, and the SES “fleet” of satellites will be “ready” for the explosion, he said. “Sports events like soccer in London are already being shot in Ultra HD. So the broadcasters already have Ultra HD on their tapes, though they don’t publicize it. We want to help and enable the smaller broadcasters, by providing access to specific channels for testing this year. We will announce details at MIPTV and I don’t want to give the details ahead of then. But there will be some help on costings.” Hoelzle predicts the start of 4K Ultra HD services next year, with World Cup soccer in Brazil and Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Russia as the main drivers, followed by the Rugby World Cup in 2015. “Ultra HD TVs are already available,” he said. Encoding and modulation is developing, with H.265, he said. Set-top boxes will be easy to do, and game consoles need to differentiate against IP-based services by offering Ultra HD, he said. “The big advantage of Ultra HD for consumers is that they can sit anywhere in the room. Big screens look good even in small rooms. People can sit close which is very attractive for small living rooms. So Ultra HD will be driven by manufacturers and by consumers, which is why it will come much faster than HD.”