A few small cable companies are getting the first 4K Ultra HD trials this year

By Kris Wouk Updated July 27, 2016

samsung launching three new services help personalize tv experience un60js7000 60 4k ultra hd smart led

While owners of 4K TVs aren’t entirely starved for content, there is still a long way to go. While DirecTV offers a few Ultra HD channels, most 4K content comes from streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Vudu.

It will still be a while before cable subscribers can expect 4K across the bulk of their channels, but a small number of cable providers will begin offering a handful of Ultra HD channels later this year. Satellite company SES announced on Wednesday that it is shipping HEVC 4K IP set-top boxes to cable operators to prepare for customer trials of 4K service.

Unless customers of the participating cable companies are space or fashion buffs, chances are the 4K channels won’t include their favorites. SES will supply four channels at first: NASA TV UHD, Fashion One 44, High 4K TV, and the company’s own UHD1 channel.

As with the channel lineup, the locations of participating cable providers probably wouldn’t be your first guess either. The cable companies that have signed agreements with SES so far are Cable America in Missouri, Golden West Telecommunications in South Dakota, MTC Cable in New York, Sjoberg’s Cable TV in Minnesota, and ATMC in North Carolina. None of those companies are huge names, and that seems to be intentional.

“As millions of cable subscribers increasingly press for 4K content on their new Ultra HD TVs, some of the smallest cable operators in the U.S. are now leading the way to bringing Ultra HD to homes across the country,” SES vice president of business development Steve Corda said in a statement.

“SES’s breakthrough, fully-managed Ultra HD platform is enabling us to conduct the first-ever trials, which are bound to play a key role in the national and global rollout of Ultra HD.”

SES delivers its managed Ultra HD content over the standard DOCSIS 3.0 cable format, which it claims is superior to internet-based 4K content due to dedicated bandwidth. As for when customers will get the chance to see this for themselves, there is no word so far on a potential rollout date for the Ultra HD trials.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

Audio / Video

Go ahead and spend the extra $20 on the good Apple TV 4K

Apple TV 4K 2021.

Apple has announced two new versions of the Apple TV 4K. Both are good for all kinds of reasons. Better internals. New features. And prices that are much more likely to be competitive, even if they're still a good bit north of what folks are spending on the likes of Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices.

But two new Apple TV 4K boxes -- and the death of the lower-resolution Apple TV HD -- means you've got a decision to make. Which Apple TV 4K is right for you?

Audio / Video

New Apple TV 4K tweaks the internals and the price

Apple TV 4K 2022.

Apple today announced a new version of Apple TV 4K. It's the third generation of what we consider to be the best streaming device you can buy, and Apple's not really messing with things too much. Same general design. Same general function. But the internals have been tweaked that allow this 2022 model (which follows the models released in September 2017 and May 2021) to work better with more TVs — and to allow for a little more flexibility in price.

Here are the big deals: There are now two versions of Apple TV 4K (or SKUs, for those of you who prefer inside-baseball terms). There's a model that's Wi-Fi only with 64GB of storage for $130, or a model with Wi-Fi and Ethernet with 128GB of storage for $150. For our money, we'd just go ahead and spend the extra $20.

Audio / Video

Optoma’s CinemaX 4K laser projectors now have faster response times for gamers

People using the Optoma CinemaX D2 outdoors.

Optoma is expanding its 4K UHD home theater projector line by introducing the CinemaX D2 Series. Optoma says this is an upgrade from the previous CinemaX P2 projector, and the improvements are based on user feedback. The series includes the CinemaX D2, a 4K UHD ultra short throw laser home projector, and the CinemaX D2 Smart, which adds smart TV features courtesy of an included Android TV dongle.
Ultra short throw projectors are ideal for people with limited space in their room as they can cast an image on the screen from small distances. Traditional short throw projectors need at least four feet to eight feet of distance from the screen to be able to produce high-quality images, but not all rooms have this much area to spare. That's where ultra short throw projectors can help. The CinemaX D2 Series, for example, can cast up to 100-inch images from less than a foot away from the screen. If you increase the distance a bit more, you get up to 120-inch images.
The CinemaX D2 Series features 3,000 lumens and a 1,800,000:1 contrast ratio, which, oddly, is a bit of a step down from their predecessor, the CinemaX P2 projector, which offers the same brightness, but with a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

The biggest boost this series offers is an Enhanced Gaming Mode that claims "blur-free visuals and low lag" with the help of its 16ms response time in 4K at 60Hz and 4ms in 1080P at 240Hz. The 30,000-hour life span (same as its predecessor) seems to be slightly higher than other ultra short throw projectors in this price range as well. Both D2 models have three HDMI 2.0 inputs, instead of the P2's double-HDMI 2.0 and single HDMI 1.4 inputs.