4K television ownership is rising in the US, but most of these panels aren’t being used to their full potential. Media industry market data leader Hub Entertainment Research recently surveyed 5,131 US TV consumers and found that only 55% of 4K television owners use their displays for UHD (2160p) content.
There are two likely reasons for this. One is that there simply isn’t enough 4K content in the wild. The other is that many viewers are indifferent about the quality between 4K and FHD (1080p), or can’t tell due to sophisticated scaling technologies.
IHS’s Paul Gray points out that more people will continue buying televisions they won’t fully benefit from. That’s because there’s no other choice. Most 55-inch TV sets and larger will be 4K by the end of the year, for instance.
Hub Entertainment Research also discovered that 68% of US TV households have at least one smart TV, but 14% are not connected to the internet.
The Entertainment in the Connected Home Study co-author, David Tice expounded, “With 4K TV sets, we see the classic case of capability leading content, similar to what was seen with high definition and 3D sets.” He went on, “With 8K TV sets and ‘Next Gen TV’ broadcast TV sets soon to debut, manufacturers must be careful that their technological ambitions don’t outstrip the ability of content creators and distributors to serve new platforms – otherwise consumers will tune innovation out.”