A Leader in 8K TVs
Samsung Electronics announced on Sep. 1 that it has prepared the performance standards and specifications for 8K TVs on behalf of the 8K Association.
8K TVs are ultra-high definition televisions that can achieve the highest resolution of about 8,000 pixels. The 8K Association is a global non-profit organization that aims to establish 8K-related standards and expand the 8K ecosystem. The group has a total of 16 companies including Samsung Electronics, TV and panel makers, System-on-Chip (SoC) chip makers and those in the content industry.
The 8K Association has set standards on major specifications, signal inputs, input terminal specifications, media formats among others. The resolution was set at 7680 x 4320 and frame rates at 24p, 30p and 60p.
The 8K Association defined that displays’ maximum brightness should be more than 600 nits. The video transmission interface is HDMI 2.1, and the video compression method Codec is High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC).
Samsung Electronics which introduced the world's first QLED 8K TV to the market last year, is leading the premium TV market. At the time, some TV industry watchers said that it was premature to launch the 8K TV at the time but Samsung Electronics eliminated the market's concerns with its own AI-based upscaling technology. Since then, rivals such as LG Electronics and Sony are also pursuing Samsung Electronics through the launches of their own 8K TV models.
Thanks to this aggressive strategy, Samsung Electronics showed its overwhelming competitiveness in the market of TVs costing over US$2,500 a unit in the third quarter with a 53.8 percent market share in terms of sales amounts, IHS Markit said. With the opening of the 8K TV era, a trend for larger TV is getting much stronger in the TV market.
Samsung Electronics is striving to expand the number of 8K Association members in order to inject vitality into the TV market and maintain its leadership in the TV market. The 8K Association started with five members -- Samsung Electronics, Panasonic, Hisense, TCL, and AUO in January of this year. Since then, Samsung Display, Innolux, Intel, Novatek, V-Silicon, Xperi, AstroDesign, Louis Pictures, ATEME, Tencent and Chili have joined the association, raising the number of 8K Association members to 16.
The 8K Association plans to secure not only TV and panel manufacturers but various companies including contents producers and distributors as members.