There isn’t a lot of 8K video content available outside of YouTube, Vimeo, and some select broadcasts in Japan, but Samsung is taking its first steps at rectifying that situation in a new collaboration with Sky, a major UK broadcaster. Starting this month, owners of Samsung’s 2020, 2021, and 2022 8K TVs in Germany will be able to stream the third season of Bavaria Fiction’s Das Boot series in glorious 8K (7,680 x 4,320) resolution via Samsung’s TV Plus App, a free streaming service that can be found in the company’s TVs, smartphones, and tablets. Das Boot was natively shot in 8K, meaning that Samsung and Sky’s stream isn’t upscaled and should properly demonstrate how great content can look at such an extreme resolution. The German series is produced by Sky One and follows an inexperienced U-boat crew who must “survive a secret mission and a young German woman [who] is torn between loyalty for her home country and the French resistance.” Netflix, HBO Max, and other streamers have yet to make the leap from 4K to 8K streaming.
Samsung has been involved in the development of the new TV technology since the first QLED 8K in 2018. 8K refers to the extremely high image resolution of 7,680 by 4,320 pixels, which totals over 33 million pixels. These ensure that even the smallest details can be finely resolved and sharply displayed, even on large TVs. This means that the resolution of an 8K TV is four times higher than that of 4K UHD TVs and even 16 times higher than that of Full HD TVs. In order to also display lower-resolution content at 8K level, Samsung uses its own 8K AI upscaling technology. A Quantum AI processor can also be used to upscale 4K or HD content to 8K. This makes the TV experience vivid and immersive – the audience can immerse themselves deeply in the film world.
Source: Samsung