WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH 8K?

Not a whole lot, seems the answer to this question. These TVs were thin on the ground at CES, even from those who have previously pronounced 8K as a viable future. Sharp, TCL, Hisense — no new 8K offerings announced from any of them, though Hisense did tease an 8K short-throw projector, aka Laser TV. No new 8K from Panasonic, either, which may have withdrawn its TVs from Australia but continues to be a quality leader elsewhere, including 8K.

We wrote last month in News about new power requirements for TVs in the EU, coming into effect from 1 March 2023. The 8K Association has warned that that the new limits on energy efficiency are so badly written that essentially no 8K TV will pass, and 8K TVs in the EU will require ‘hobbling’ to meet the requirements, to an extent that nullifies any reason for buying 8K.

But there’s more to it than Euro-legislation, it seems. Sales simply haven’t taken off as expected. Omnia is a research organisation which encompasses our favourite source of display info, IHS Markit, and its report at the end of April 2022 showed shipments of 8K TVs accounting for a mere 0.15% of all TV shipments in 2021. No regions, not even Japan, which has a dedicated 8K TV channel, has hit the level of 1% of households going 8K, the level at which an audience is considered large enough to become “commercially interesting”.

Omnia’s Maria Rua Aguete suggests that with no convincing reason to buy 8K TVs (very little native content is available), the marketing has been failing, numbers-wise. Omnia noted that by the end of 2021 shipments were actually weaker than in 4Q20 and even 1Q21, with Samsung shipping 18% fewer 8K TVs than a year earlier.

When 8K first arrived, we were pretty dubious given the lack of 8K source material, but we confess that after our various reviews of 8K TVs, we’ve grown to appreciate their upscaling skills, and their ability to deliver close-up bigscreen viewing. But will 8K last the distance, now that most companies seem to be focusing their efforts more on improvements to 4K delivery?