Sony's 4K movie streaming service compatible with PlayStation 4
Sony tries to destroy bandwidth caps everywhere with 100 GB downloads
At this year's CES, Sony showed its next future technology drive: 4K television displays running at a resolution of 3840 × 2160. The company realizes that you can't sell a TV without content, so Sony also announced that it was working on a 4K video distribution service. Sony Electronics president Phil Molyneux told The Verge that the service will eventually be compatible with the upcoming PlayStation 4. The problem? The size of the films.
"The size of a typical movie, depending on the length of the movie, you're talking a 100 GB plus," said Molyneux. "Then you come into variables: how fast is your broadband at home or do you have optical broadband like they do in Houston, Texas, where you can get the movie down pretty quickly. So, that is one of the challenges that we have to work through. Looking to the future, we need to develop as an industry new compression ratios and technologies. That dialogue is an active process for us at the moment."
Surprisingly enough, Sony is launching its 4K televisions this summer with download-only infrastructure. The TVs will ship alongside a special 4K content server. The problem with 4K physical media is there currently isn't an industry standard for discs that can handle 4K content.
"Consumers are used to download and streaming. I don't want to discount the good work that's going into potential physical media distribution, but that's an industry association and they're working hard," he added.
Sony has already revealed that the PlayStation 4 would support 4K photos and videos, but not 4K-enabled games.
[Image via ComputerActive]
About the author
Mike Williams
M.H. Williams has been writing in some form or another for ten years and has been a hardcore gamer since the NES first graced American shores. You can catch him on Twitter as @AutomaticZen.
It just wouldn't be Sony if they didn't take this opportunity to force on people a "brand new format" *yawn* and push the price of the kit up. It took me about 10-12 BluRay's before I gave up on that and refused to buy another one due to being sick of downloading updates to my player when I really wanted to watch a new film.
Gonna instapass on this one and save myself much pain. Not that it's an option in most of the UK anyway...
Posted:22 hours ago