Today, live from Imagine Park, there was no shortage of exciting discussion around continued enhancements to the consumer viewing experience. A roster of guest speakers at the session “Better TV: At the Intersection of UltraHD & OTT” took the audience through a series of intriguing technology demonstrations and a glimpse of the very near future of TV.
The quality of TV content is constantly getting better
While video and images on 4K television sets already look stunning, we heard from leading solutions experts – like Technicolor, Philips and Dolby – who are leveraging HDR and other enhancements to make your favorite shows look more crisp, clear and smooth than you’ve seen before. Of course gorgeous content looks the best when produced with cutting edge technology. But you can expect to see HDR content coming out later this year not just for 4K sets, but also optimized for standard HD. Technologies are working hard not to overwhelm the eye, but to enhance the luminosity of every image.
A sports fan’s dream
Tech firm, NeuLion, is doing amazing things in the sports content space by bringing never-before-seen fluidity and detail to game footage. Sports viewing is being taken to a whole new level when the experience is paired with highly customizable features such as camera angles and audio tracks. NeuLin even offers a live timeline feature that allows users to jump to key moments in the game, like scores, hits, and, for hockey fans, brawls on the ice. This year, NeuLion will be one of the primary companies bringing true 4K experiences to sports fans.
The Internet and TV continue to collide
As a tech company, Wurl, an Internet content aggregator, has a core technology offering that’s all about making the connection; Wurl is working to bridge the divide between the cable box and the web. Watching the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on-demand? Wurl will serve up curated, high-quality, relevant clips of additional content from sites like WIRED – cued up via web, and watchable right through your cable box in a frictionless experience. Their ‘zero click discovery’ solution seamlessly surfaces relevant supplemental content like trailers, interviews with the director, behind the scenes footage and more, for the shows and movies you love.
When you consider the possibilities presented, it feels safe to say that the second half of 2015 will be a very exciting time for TV viewers!