If you didn’t know where the next Olympics will take place then you certainly would have found out when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared at the closing ceremony in Rio last week dressed as Mario. The country’s biggest tech companies have now set their sights on the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo to properly commercialize 8K TVs.
Even 4K TVs are not as popular given that most content is still being offered in 1080p or 2K resolution. 8K is four times as sharp as 4K and a staggering 16 times sharper than 1080p, a high-res standard we are all quite familiar with.
It won’t be enough to just make 8K TVs, that will be the relatively easy part for companies like Sony and Panasonic, they will also need to work with broadcaster NHK to create new broadcast technology that’s capable of transmitting 8K video in all its glory.
Japanese broadcaster NHK has already tested 8K broadcasts with content from the Olympics this year. 8K TVs are hard to come by at this point in time and they are super expensive – like in the six figure range – so Sony and Panasonic have to bring the costs down to at least a level where consumers can consider splurging on an expensive TV.
They have four years to make all of that happen, commercialize 8K TVs at price points that are not outrageous and work with NHK to create new broadcast technology that can handle 8K video. Tokyo, Japan hosts the next Olympic Games in 2020.
