Hisense, which holds a five-year sublease for the Sharp TV brand in the U.S., released pricing in an emailed news release Monday for the Sharp Aquos N7000 series TVs. The HDR-enabled TVs are the first 2016 Sharp 4K UHD TVs to hit retail stores nationwide, Hisense said. The sets incorporate AquoMotion backlight scanning technology, developed by Sharp to enhance motion scenes, and Sharp’s AquoDimming that's said to boost contrast. The smart TV platform includes Netflix, Vudu and YouTube, which consumers can access to display 4K content in its original form, Hisense said. Suggested retail prices for the five models: 43-inch LC-43N7000U ($499), LC-50N7000U ($699), LC-55N7000U ($799), LC-60N7000U ($1,199) and LC-65N7000U ($1,499), it said.

P&F USA “has no announcement to make at this time about any software bundles” it might offer in support of its rollout next month of a Philips-brand Ultra HD Blu-ray player at $399 with a choice of two finishes (see 1605170043), a spokesman emailed us Wednesday. The spokesman didn’t comment on whether P&F, the Funai-affiliated Philips licensee in Alpharetta, Georgia, will seek for its Ultra HD Blu-ray player the UHD Alliance’s Ultra HD Premium certification logo, which Samsung’s $399 UBD-K8500 deck attained earlier this month (see 1605030038).

Philips will become the second brand to field an Ultra HD Blu-ray player in the U.S. if P&F USA, the Funai-affiliated Philips licensee in Alpharetta, Georgia, follows through on plans announced Tuesday for delivering the product beginning next month. Though Panasonic and Samsung have commercialized Ultra HD Blu-ray players in markets outside the U.S. (see 1602290064), Samsung has maintained the sole U.S. presence in the category with the $399 UBD-K8500 deck it introduced in March. P&F will position the Philips deck at the same $399 price point as the Samsung, the company said. The product will be available in two finishes -- the BDP7501 in “real brushed aluminum,” and the BDP7301 in “piano black,” it said. P&F representatives didn’t comment on whether the product will be offered with a software bundle or whether it will vie for the UHD Alliance’s Ultra HD Premium certification logo, which Samsung’s UBD-K8500 attained earlier this month (see 1605030038).

ViaSat will use capacity on SES-5 at 5 degrees east to broadcast its first Ultra HD channel in four Nordic markets, SES said in a Friday announcement. The channel, to be called ViaSat Ultra HD, will be launched after the summer in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, SES said. ViaSat customers with Ultra HD TVs and with ViaSat’s new Ultra HD set-tops to debut this summer will able to receive live Champions League soccer matches and other content, it said. The addition of ViaSat Ultra HD will bring to 24 the global number of SES-backed Ultra HD channels, or 46 percent of all channels broadcast in Ultra HD via satellite worldwide, SES said. “With more and more Ultra HD channels expected in the future, satellite will remain the optimal infrastructure to deliver this new and substantially improved viewing experience.”

TVs of various shapes and sizes, many touting 4K resolution, were on display in great abundance when we browsed the Broadway CE store in the Mong Kok shopping district of Hong Kong during a recent excursion. This region of the world has been known for years as the global leader in 4K TV consumer penetration, and it showed in the form of product offerings that were stacked high and tightly packed, all working and arranged in no obvious order by brand or screen size. We were immediately struck by the number of small screen 4K sets, starting at 40 inches and ranging up to 79 inches. We also noted that 3D apparently is still alive and doing reasonably well in Hong Kong, judging from the number of sets on display that openly trumpeted the 3D feature. In the 4K segment, we observed a wide spectrum of pricing, ranging from HK$5,799 ($747) for a Skyworth-brand 40-inch model to HK$59,980 ($7,728) for the largest set we found in the mix, a 79-inch Ultra HD TV from LG. But Hong Kong seems no discount haven for premium Ultra HD sets, if the comparative pricing we observed was any indication. Another LG Ultra HD model, a 55-inch set listed with LG's HDR Super designation, including Dolby Vision, was advertised at HK$21,800 ($2,809). A comparably featured LG model was featured Saturday at Best Buy for the sale price of $1,299.

Global LCD TV unit shipments jumped 4.8 percent in March to 16.2 million sets after three months of declines, IHS said in a Monday report. The rebound was partly because every Chinese brand experienced shipment growth in March, offsetting the decline in shipments in February, the research firm said. Chinese brands had 28 percent of all LCD TV shipments in March, an increase of 11 percentage points from February, IHS said. But year-over-year shipments from South Korean TV brands declined 7.8 percent in March, it said. The proportion of LCD TV shipments 50 inches and larger was more than 6 percentage points higher in March, at 22.4 percent, than a year earlier, IHS said. March shipments of 4K TVs were 20.9 percent of global LCD TV unit shipments, it said, without providing a comparison with a year earlier. The migration to larger screen sizes and to 4K resolution are the two biggest factors “driving worldwide growth as consumers upgrade from older TVs,” IHS said.

Samsung’s UBD-K8500 Ultra HD Blu-ray player landed the UHD Premium certification from the UHD Alliance under specs announced for TVs and content at CES (see 1601030003) and later expanded to include Ultra HD Blu-ray players (see 1604120017), the company said in a Tuesday announcement. The UBD-K8500 is the first Ultra HD Blu-ray player sold in the U.S. to earn the certification, Samsung said. Panasonic previously got the certification for its DMP-UB900 Ultra HD Blu-ray player (see 1604130001), but that deck isn't available in the U.S.

Interoperability problems with HDMI “never really went away,” when HDCP became part of the HDMI equation more than a decade ago, said an email blast to CEDIA members Monday. Now with 4K and high dynamic range, problems are multiplying for custom installers, and that is the basis for a 6 p.m. EDT May 19 webinar on taking the guesswork out of designing an Ultra HD system, to be moderated by industry veteran David Meyer. HDCP 2.2 is a “key component” of installation headaches in the 4K era and “to date there have been far more questions than answers as to what its ramifications may be,” Meyer said. Since HDCP 1.4 was announced as "broken" in 2010, “most of us still don’t really know how HDCP works, what the real differences are with HDCP 2.2, what will or won’t work, or why,” he said. Among topics: HDCP 2.2’s authentication and encryption process; HDCP 2.2 and HDMI 1.4 interoperability; and why peripheral converters aren’t a viable option. The three-part CEDIA webinar series will cover “the full story of HDCP 2.2,” including the evolution of HDCP, how it works, and what installers can expect in deploying a content-ready Ultra HD system.

Worldwide shipments of 4K Ultra HD TVs jumped 160 percent in 2015 to 32 million units, although overall TV shipments last year declined 2 percent for the year, a Futuresource report said Monday. Declines were due to flat-panel TV saturation in most markets and exchange rate and economic difficulties in Russia and Brazil, the report said. The biggest decline was in Europe, where TV shipments fell by more than 15 percent in 2015, it said. Futuresource predicts worldwide shipments will increase 2 percent this year on gains in emerging markets including Africa, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region where TV ownership is relatively low. Global 4K TV shipments are expected to reach 140 million units by 2020, when 4K UHD TV shipments will be 52 percent of the market, vs. 14 percent in 2015, the report said. OLED and 4K Ultra HD will help “restore value” in the global TV market on an expected rise in average selling prices, Futuresource said. OLED is forecast to be 7 percent of shipments by 2020, compared with just 0.2 percent last year. Curved screens remain a focus for Samsung but other manufacturers have largely reduced their lineups of curved models, Futuresource said. High dynamic range will be a feature in all 4K UHD TVs shipped in North America and Europe by 2020, it said.

Intelsat's and Harmonic's joint linear 4K ultra-HD demonstration channel, HVN Intelsat UHD, is available in Latin America, the companies said in a news release Monday. The channel already had been broadcast in North America via Galaxy 13, and now is available in Latin America via the Intelsat 14 satellite, they said. The free-to-air linear channel will enable multichannel video programming distributors and cable programmers "operating in Latin America to test their consumers’ appetite for varying forms of high-quality content," said Peter Ostapiuk, Intelsat head-media product services.