Since digital broadcasting took over, NTSC became something called ATSC: an HD standard which was in place right up until 4K televisions showed up, prompting the development of a new standard called ATSC 3.0, which is slated to transition broadcasting around 2016 or 2017. Everybody got that?
For the manufacturers at CES, this means putting out products that could very likely clash with the future system that ATSC lays out -- which is probably why Samsung, Disney, Netflix, Sony, LG, and several other companies used this year's CES event to announce their own content standardization, called the UHD Alliance. Like NTSC and ATSC before it, the UHD Alliance hopes to take 4K and streamline the terminology, technology, and broadcasting for Ultra HD programming. All the major companies coming together to agree on a uniform standard seems great, right? Well, the only problem is that Dolby got the exact same idea, and teamed up with Vizio (currently the largest TV manufacturer in the world) to develop their own completely different standard called Dolby Vision. It is unclear whether all broadcasts in this format will be introduced by Thomas Dolby, so it is our responsibility to assume that yes, they will.
Capitol Records
"So if I wear this, I can watch Game of Thrones?"
635 Comments