No 4K Production Investment Until Pricing Nears HD Levels, HBO CTO Says

"When I speak with producers, they say, ‘if I had more money I could get an extra episode out of season and I would prefer to do that unless there was a business reason to spend the money,'” Zitter said. “I don’t see a reason” for investing in 4K production “unless I am protecting the downside in case I am wrong. It would have to be an amount of money that would be trivial."

But with the arrival of 4K TVs, programmers are experimenting with the technology and laying the initial groundwork for adding to it to broadcast studios if it gains a foothold in the market, executives at the conference said. ESPN’s new 193,000-square-foot broadcast studio that’s under construction in Bristol, Conn., and scheduled to open in 2014, will have the “plumbing” needed to add a 4K control room, said Chuck Pagano, executive vice president of technology at ESPN. The new facility is largely designed for native 1080p, which ESPN is readying in case there’s customer demand for it to upgrade from its 720p transmissions, Pagano said. ESPN “experimented” with using Sony 4K cameras to test capturing footage at the X Games in July and an Atlanta Braves spring training game, Pagano said. The Sony cameras are priced around $60,000.

"We will be ready for 4K whenever that happens from a routing and distribution perspective,” Pagano said. “I won’t be building control rooms that are 4K because production gear is so expensive. But that will change in the not to distant future and at least I will be able to attach a control room” when ESPN needs it.

The premium experience would be enhanced by the introduction of autostereoscopic 3D 4K TVs that could best display the glasses-free technology, Zitter said. “3D hasn’t worked in America because consumers just don’t like wearing 3D glasses,” he said. “If someone could make 3D work without glasses they should be 4K. It is the same analogy with HD. Consumers weren’t buying HD, they were buying flat-screen TVs. I don’t see 4K as a linear network, but rather as an on-demand service. And it will have to be 60-inch TVs” because with 55-inch and under sets “you can’t tell the difference” in resolution, he said.

Steve Hellmuth, executive vice president of operations and technology for NBA Entertainment, sees the potential for 4K finding inroads “as a premium experience in bars and large venues like sports arenas,” he said. The $20,000 to $25,000 prices for 84-inch models from LG and Sony are an impediment, he said. Companies might be better served boosting HD performance before moving to 4K, Hellmuth said.

With 4K expected to be highlighted at CES in January, industry officials worry that it will be a repeat of the hoopla that surrounded the arrival of 3DTV a few years ago, where little content was available to display on the new sets. The 3D technology remains a “science experiment” at ESPN, with its 3D channel having been deployed with Comcast and DirecTV, Pagano said. It was dropped by AT&T’s U-verse earlier this fall. HBO has made 3D movies available free to subscribers through its on-demand service, Zitter said. But, in introducing 3D on-demand movies in early 2011 with Verizon’s FiOS, there has been “very little viewership,” Zitter said. Less than one percent of viewers using HBO on Demand access 3D movies, he said.

HBO began promoting its HBO Go mobile service in recent weeks, after finding reluctance among cable customers, Zitter said. HBO Go -- free to subscribers -- has about 5 million customers, Zitter said. “The reason you are seeing some advertising is our distributors aren’t interested in their subscribers using HBO Go so they aren’t promoting it,” Zitter said.