How many of your streaming services offer 4K HDR? These days it’s getting to the point where they pretty much all do, even if you have to pay extra, assuming you’re not still stuck with Now TV and its shocking adherence to 720p. Well we’re clearly at the point where we should start thinking ahead to the future, for the TVs we don’t have and can’t afford that will be playing the content that doesn’t really exist.
That’s right, I’m talking about 8K, because Samsung has just announced it’s going to offer HDR10+ support on its 8K TVs.
Samsung currently offers two 8K TVs in the UK, a 75-inch costing £4,499 ($8,107) and an 82-inch costing £8,999 ($16,217). In other words more than pretty much every sane-minded person can afford. Which means this is the perfect time to start pushing for 8K content. That’s only half sarcastic, because let’s be honest no sane person wants an 8K TV if they can only watch 4K content on it.
Editor’s Note: In Australia, Samsung stocks three sizes of 8K TVs, a $6,995 65-inch, a $9,995 75-inch and a $14,495 82-inch.
But apparently three “key” European streaming services will be adopting 8K HDR10+ to go with a range of 4K HDR10+ content.
Editor’s Note: No word on whether there’ll be any supported services in Australia.
There’s Chili, a film rental service that is available in the UK and may actually be of interest to some people, plus Megogo which is based in Eastern Europe, and The Explorers. That last one is a bit of a mystery, and the closest I can find is a social network that’s built on cataloguing video of the natural world.
So Samsung is really stretching the definition of the word “key” there, but I suppose all this has to start somewhere. Heck, if David Attenborough taught us anything it’s that 8K HDR video of the natural world is probably a really good way to begin.
Samsung says this is the first use of 8K HDR10+, though that isn’t surprising since HDR10+ is a Samsung invention. It’s not the first 8K HDR standard, since Dolby Vision has already gained the support of the likes of LG.
It’s probably going to be a long time before 8K TVs become anything close to affordable, but at least this way there will be some content for you to enjoy when they do. How much some means isn’t exactly clear yet, for obvious reasons.
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.