Why is Directv creating a 24/7 UHD channel? Is linear TV not on the way out, with increased use of on demand? I know linear TV is still most popular. But no new linear channel are launching in the US at all. Why not just have an on demand service?
Why is Directv having a 24/7 UHD channel?
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Per recent news articles, DirecTV is also looking at expanding bandwidth on their birds in the sky to eventually accommodate more channels.
The challenge is (which I always take the opportunity to opine) that having any production house going from HD to 4K requires millions of dollars in new sunk costs. In other words, it's not just an issue of "flipping a bit;" it's an issue of a bunch of new hardware as well as the right bandwidth wiring to connect everything.
As the recent news article stated, one hour of 4K content requires 500GB in uncompressed space. This is what's known as an order of magnitude greater bandwidth requirements than plain old HD (though I wouldn't call that tech "old"). This is a tremendous amount of data to push down and ISP pipe or certainly send across the air.
The bottom line is that while 4K is definitely coming, it's going to take a number of years before it's anywhere near the viewing standard that HD currently enjoys because of the costs and infrastructure required to handle it.
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