ITU adopts two ultra-high def TV specs

4K and 8K both get UHDTV moniker

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has “agreed a draft new Recommendation on the technical details for ‘Ultra High Definition Television’,” but has decided that both 3840x2160 tellies, and future 7680 x4320 screens, both get the name UHDTV.

You'd think the ITU would have learned from global confusion around just what constitutes a 4G network, but the respective respective resolutions will be known as 4K and 8K respectively. And just to make sure there are more chances for confusion, the 4K standard packs a resolution of eight megapixels and the 8K version is 32 megapixels.

Christoph Dosch, Chairman of ITU's R Study Group 6 said in a statement that “This is clearly a major achievement for ITU-R Study Group 6 of which we can be proud. The Recommendation means that organizations around the world can safely begin work to make UHDTV a reality.”

It's hard to imagine tellie-makers among those “organizations” aren't slavering at the prospect of a roadmap that offers them the chance to sell two new generations of screens to Reg readers and other punters,

Perhaps that's why David Wood, Chairman of ITU-R Working Party 6C (WP 6C), which developed the draft new Recommendation, allowed himself to be quoted as saying “This is the dawn of a new age for television that will bring unprecedented levels of realism and viewer enjoyment. It’s a historic moment.  Some years will pass before we see these systems in our homes, but come they will.  The die is now cast, thanks to the untiring efforts of the international experts participating in WP6C.”

The recommendations must still be signed off by “Administrators”. No details of niceties like frame frequency, colour depth or sound schemes are mentioned in the statement, or offered on the ITU's website. ®