4K TVs are selling like hotcakes in Australia, but we’re still somewhat starved of good Ultra HD content to show on them. Until 4K Blu-ray launches locally in a few weeks, your only real choice is the top-tier Netflix package. But Netflix’s strongest rival, Stan, has just switched on behind-the-scenes support for 4K TV and movies through its partnership with Brightcove.
The news comes in video delivery service Brightcove’s announcement today of new 4K video transcoding through Zencoder, which comes alongside new support for the high-efficiency HEVC and VP9 video codec, 10-bit colour and BT.2020 colour space — all important for 4K and high dynamic range video. The new technology means that Stan can, in the future, increase the quality of its streams by adding 4K content by default as it purchases it from international rights-holders and content creators.
Stan hasn’t announced any explicit plans to use the new Brightcove transcoding, but it does open the door for the Aussie-owned and run streaming service to add 4K videos easily. According to Stan’s head of technology, John Hogan, “high quality video is very important to us, and we think that UHD is an exciting step forward.” We’ve contacted Stan to ask if it has any concrete plans to add 4K TV or movies for customers to stream in the near future.
Disclosure: Stan is a 50/50 joint venture between Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media. Allure Media, the company which publishes Gizmodo Australia, is also owned by Fairfax.