Why Isn't Cable TV In 4K?

It's easy to stream videos in 4K - so why is there so little 4K content available on traditional cable and satellite?

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[diehardman]

Working in cable TV industry, majority of customers will just say "what's 4k" when you mention UHD or 4k tv package add ons it so its really not a focus, would be nice if It was though :(

[kFY]

"Who cares" is surprisingly solid argument here. Especially considering that the demographic who watches a lot of traditional TV isn't the most tech savvy. My dad always insisted that he didn't see a difference between SD and HD, even (though I'm European, so SD = 576i here, rather than 480i). And when I tried really hard to point out the difference, he always said he actually preferred SD, insisting that too much sharpness caused him eyestrain.
So, yeah. Good luck profiting from 4K off such a demographic.
That being said, 4K broadcasts are somewhat common in Europe, and there is enough sports in 4K to fill a round-the-clock schedule for a channel or two.

[grandemage]

Considering I’m like 1 of two people in my family with a decent hdr 4K tv, I actually see the arguments as valid proposed by service providers. I think for the general purposes, 1080p normalization with HDR and 60+fps should definitely be the first goal to hit. 4K, much like in gaming, is niche and there are far more impactful goals to be hit first.

[ElijahCiali]

As somebody who works in the live event industry I can tell you that 4K is astronomically more expensive and typically doesn’t even fix the image quality issues viewers typically complain about. In live events, each camera feed goes through several production and DVE equipment, up to hundreds if it’s a really intense broadcast. Each link in the chain must be upgraded to 4K (6G-SDI or 12G-SDI) which means an astronomical cost. Every switcher, every router, every cable channel under the venue, literally EVERYTHING has to be upgraded. If you built your broadcasting room in a lazy way, even your monitoring equipment has to be upgraded! It’s incredibly expensive.

[ChadCourtneyTAZ]

The last part, cable companies having the bandwidth, is the real key to this. Going digital, they were able to squeeze 4-6 480p channels per 6 MHz band (physical cable channel), and 1 - 1080p or 2 720p channels per 6 MHz band. And even at the max usable range 54 MHz - 1000 MHz that's only 158 physical channels, now if they did 4K TV, they'd need to consume 2-4 of those physical channels for one based on the QAM they use for cable digital broadcast. And a number of those physical channels actually have to be used to support Cable Modem and Streaming services on top. W/o a change away from the traditional QAM (modulation technique) they will never realistically be able to support 4K content w/o wiping over half their other channels. And FWIW, I would say that most people are more than satisfied with 1080p feeds at their sitting distance and it looks pretty darn good. Especially if you get rid of the Soap Opera Effect of most new TVs by killing the 'True Motion' and dropping the 'Sharpness' setting down to normal. Which to be honest really screws up good content.

[savagepro]

Techquickie: Why Isn't Cable TV In 4K?
Everybody: Because Cable TV is already 4gotten!

[doctordothraki]

4:15 Unfortunately, broadcasters requested a DRM implementation into ATSC 3.0, meaning early adopter devices will not support broadcasts for most of 3.0's lifespan

[iggysixx]

I think the quality of the cameras and lenses makes more of a difference than pixel count.
(For starters;
Compare the footage of your smartphone to that of a decent DSLR with a good lens).

Also, for live events, it would probably require a wired connection to broadcast in 4K, right?
I'm guessing they're pushing the limits as is, with 60fps.

Until very recently, one of the biggest tv providers in the Netherlands (KPN) had issues when ESPN switched to 60fps at Full HD.

Not too sure why, but the problems came when you would pause a live broadcast, and then start it again (or try to watch a live broadcast from the start..)
It would hang / crap out every few minutes. Consistently.

They fixed it by now..
Still wondering what the problem was..
Judging by the problem - (plus the fact that it took like 15 mins after the programme had finished to unlock the ability to watch it after the airing time) - I'm guessing they were simultaneously encoding the footage in different qualities...?

Seriously wondering how this works with digital TV nowadays.

So if anyone knows; I would love to learn about it :)

Maybe the UK is ahead of the curve, but I get satellite TV (via Sky) with a HUGE selection of 4K/UHD content available.
I will say some of this is delivered on demand via download over your internet connection to the Sky box, but a lot of sport/new drama etc is live broadcast in 4K/UHD over satellite. And the fact so much more is offered on demand as well suggests studios here are creating a lot of 4K/UHD content.
As a result of this (and Netflix/YouTube making up a reasonable proportion of my viewing) I’d say at least 90% of what I watch is in 4K/UHD.
If I’m watching HD content I can definitely tell (but maybe a 75 inch TV makes it more obvious than on an average TV size).

[xelasoccer]

In the US Comcast and Spectrum are focusing on multi gig internet over cable which is going to require them to switch to IP video anyway. They also just announced a joint venture to develop a "next gen" streaming platform. That's probably where their 4K focus will be.

[Nicholas_Chris]

In Europe cable and satellite companies have 4K channels and not only for presentations but do have entertainment, movies, sports (Eurosport 4K) . If you have a 4K TV you only need a CI+ module to watch the scrambled channels from your subscription. They also give you a 4K cable box if you don't want the CI+ Module.

[xxnikexx]

Honestly, it isn't going to matter considering that traditional 'TV' watching is on the decline and more people are just streaming 4K media and getting their news online as well.
I'm pretty sure that we're going to see a future where more bandwidth will be reserved for Internet and less and less (til there is none) for TV broadcasts.

[DJ]

Its actually insane that modern cable STILL broadcasts in 1080i/720p as a standard. Havent had a cable subscription in over 5 years. Crazy

[Ghozer]

Our 'cable' over here in the UK (Virgin Media) is 4K, all their Settop boxes support 4K and HDR!

They even have dedicated channels for UHD/4K content, as well as 4K content from other providers.

[fungo]

RAI, the Italian public broadcaster, has been actually broadcasting a 4K channel on satellite for some time now, and will probably start on terrestrial once Italy switches to DVB-T2. One 4K60 channel can fit inside about 35 Mbps with HEVC encoding and look pretty good. This will easily fit on one 8PSK 27 MHz satellite channel.

[HexerPsy]

Imagine LTT Cable. Multi gigabit internet, floatplane, and TV shows all in one package.... Was this the goal all along?

[thepenguin]

As someone who works for a UK ISP, we offer 4k as UHD, and I believe there is a UHD satellite channel that gets rolled out for the Olympics and stuff.
The vast majority of the uhd stuff in the package comes through the on demand stuff or Netflix if you have that on it too

[ianhrp]

In the UK we can get live football, f1 and other sports in 4K UHD HDR over satellite and cable. Films in 4k, most new dramas in 4k so to far you are just behind the curve! 😊

[sebaspi]

I work for a local news station in Argentina, and despite the fact that we produce everything in HD internally, the cable operators in this zone still work in Standard Definition 576p, so we have to downsample our signal to send them that, which is crazy considering HD has been around for like 20 years. I understand that our problems aren't equal as those in other richer countries, but it appears that you are in a similar situation regarding 4k. However, the number of individuals who still watch cable may be zero in the future.

[BlackHoleForge]

Always thought it was a technical limitation because of the way that cable is set up. Because all the streams are broadcasting at the same time, would 4K eat up the bandwidth that's available?