Tag Archive for: Ultra High Definition

4K TV – Don’t Do It (Right Now)!

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To 4K TV or not to 4K TV?

It’s a case of caveat emptor on 4K TV right now.

NZ will see HDMI HDCP 2.2 later in the year but it is very important to note that very few manufacturers advertising 4K on their screens are actually HDCP2.2 compliant, and those that are often only activate it on one port.  If you have brought the big 4K TV, it very well may not work with the new 4K content coming out (read: rugby world cup)

If you are in the market for a 4K TV, please check that it will support the new HD copy protection standards that 4K will run on.

If the answer yes and it is going on a wall, be sure that the back port is the one that gets the 2.2 love.

If you cant be bothered with all that click here and one of our friendly home automation technology consultants will arrange for a 4K HDCP 2.2 compliant TV to be delivered and installed ready for the HD wonderment that will be 4K!

Read more on this here

Cheers and Happy Viewing –  Brendon

Understanding 4K TV

4K resolution is 4096 pixels wide and 2160 pixels deep.  Multiply these two numbers and you will see that there is approximately 8.8 million pixels being transmitted!   Aspect ratio is calculated by dividing the width by the depth – 4096 divided by 2160 = 1:9:1 or 17:9.  This means that the image is 1.9 times wider than it is tall.   The TV’s that we use however are 16:9 and if we put a 17:9 image on a 16:9 display we get black bars on the top and bottom.  In order to correct this our industry has invented a new format called UHD or UltraHD.  The resolution for UHD is 16:9 or, 1.78 times the height.  This is still 8.3 million pixels!  However 7% of the full 4K resolution has been removed.  99% of products used  in consumer electronics use this format.

4K TV

HDCP 2.2 issues with 4K/UHD content

Potential issues with HDMI and HDCP 2.2 connectivity with upcoming 4K/UHD content

HDCP (high bandwidth digital content protection) is embedded into high definition content, created by content developers (e.g Hollywood) to help ensure content can only be sent and received by approved products from approved manufactures. This prevents an unapproved company producing a ‘e.g blu-ray disc burner’, thus preventing content of that blu-ray disc being delivered to an unknown device.

For example if I want to play a Blu-Ray disc on a television, I would need HDCP built-in to both the Blu-Ray player and the TV.  Once they are connected they ‘handshake’ with each other to decide whether the protected content is approved to play.

Periodically HDCP is released in newer versions to protect newer formats of content (e.g 4K/UHD), which means equipment manufactures need to keep up-to-date with the in-built HDCP chips.

HDCP version 2.2 is due to be released with upcoming 4K/UHD content for UltraHD Blu-Ray discs and some streaming services to NZ.  This release means that all HDMI compliant products (between the source and display) would need to be HDCP 2.2 compliant for the content to play.

A lot of television manufactures prematurely released their 4K/UHD televisions before the HDCP 2.2 standard was finalised and these TVs will not ‘handshake’ with the new UltraHD Blu-Ray Players and 4K/UHD disc content resulting in blank screen on the television. Furthermore, these TVs cannot be upgraded by way of a firmware update as physical HDCP chip switch-out would be required.

There may be a future ‘work around’ for this issue – such as a HDCP emulator or stripper – but when purchasing your displays r screens we recommend you double check that it’s an approved 4K/UHD HDCP 2.2 compliant television, or better yet click here to buy a 4K/UHD television that you know is HDCP 2.2 compliant!

Words by Sam