4K UHD TVs Are Being Adopted Faster Than HDTVs (venturebeat.com)

Now this may surprise some: 4K Ultra HD televisions are expected to double sales to 15 million units in the U.S. in 2016, and the next-generation TVs are now being adopted at a faster rate than predecessor high-definition TVs. 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray players are also selling at a fast rate, according to Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, the big tech lobbying group, VentureBeat reports. From the report: At a press event in San Francisco, Shapiro said that 62 percent of consumers plan to buy a consumer electronics viewing device in the next 12 months; 33 percent plan to buy a smartphone, and 29 percent plan to buy a TV. "Consumers are showing a strong preference for 4K," which has four times as many on-screen pixels as HDTVs, Shapiro said. "It's faster and more robust than HDTV." By 2017, 4K UHD TV sales will hit 20 million a year in the U.S. That number will grow to 23 million in 2018, and 26 million by 2019, Shapiro said. The 2016 growth rate is 105 percent above the units sold for 2015.

Comments

Reasons

[Zan Lynx]

They look amazing even upscaled. They make great PC monitors. They're affordable. I recently saw several that were on sale cheaper than 1080 models.

duh, they are cheap

[known_coward_69]

in 2003 a 40" HDTV cost you right around $3000. You can get a nice 4K unit for less than half that in 2016 with Netflix, youtube and all kinds of other features built in and game consoles that already support it.

in 2003 cable companies either didn't have many HD channels or charged extra $$$ for them. and blu rays didn't come out until around 2006 so there wasn't much reason to buy a HDTV unless you really wanted one just to sit around, read the blogs and be ready for whenever it was supported

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[jcr]

Gaming.

-jcr

Re:Cool, and no 4K content

[Kjella]

As I understand this. 4K is what you get at many small theaters which use digital projection these days.

Yes, but cinema 4K is not the same as TV 4K. They use DCI 4K, either 4096x1716 for 2.39:1 or 3996x2160 for 1.85:1, while UHD 4K is 3840x2160 for 16:9. For extra confusion most 4K cameras capture at 4096x2160 and there's some speciality monitors in the 17:9 format too, but usually you'd crop down to one of the three above for delivery. Most of them frame/master for the DCI release, so what you get on TV is mostly an adaptation/rescale for UHD.