Glenn Hower, a research analyst at Parks Associates, was more bullish about Ultra HD's short-term prospects than his two counterparts on the panel. But even Hower, whose firm projects that more than 46 million households worldwide will subscribe to an UHD pay-TV service by 2018, conceded that 4K has not yet taken off as anticipated among TV programmers and other content providers.

Case in point: Both Home Box Office Inc. (HBO) and ESPN, which usually pioneer new video formats, have been "missing in action" on 4K so far, as Light Reading Senior Editor and panel moderator Mari Silbey put it. As a result, much of the 4K content produced so far has been nature shows. (See BTE 2015: 4K All the Way.)

"The content isn't quite there yet," Hower acknowledged. He mused that the "level of risk aversion" among programmers may be higher after their failed forays into 3D TV content a couple of years ago. "Nobody wants to be the first to get burned," he said. "So nobody wants to be the first to jump in."

From the article "Fuzzy Outlook for Ultra HD" by Alan Breznick.

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