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Home / News / 4K TV broadcasting coming soon – thanks to Sony

4K TV broadcasting coming soon – thanks to Sony

A new compression technique could mean that broadcasters won’t need to upgrade kit to stream 4K TV right now

Sony, fresh from revealing its 84in 4K TV, has got its brainiacs to work on compressing 4K information for easier broadcasting.

Thanks to some clever compression using the current H.264 tech, Sony has managed to broadcast 4K footage in a broadcast-friendly 50Mbps stream. That means people like the BBC could start streaming 4K without the need to upgrade physical infrastructure – meaning 4K broadcasts could come sooner than we thought.

Sony is still ploughing on with a new compression called HEVC – High Efficiency Video Coding – which should have 4K down to a 20Mbps stream soon for sending multiple signals. With EE offering fibre optic broadband and Virgin aiming to hit 200Mbps, it might be time to buy a 4K TV. Sony or LG 4K is the question.

[Via Gizmodo]

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Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home

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