The Ultra HD Alliance is one week old. But according to a report in GigaOm, the cooperative effort already has significant fault lines.
Central to this dynamic, according to the tech blog, is member company Dolby, which is actively promoting common standards built around its Dolby Vision technology. This tech already works with the Red cameras that are shooting a lot of the early 4K content, as well as a number of Dolby Vision-certified TV sets. Dolby wants to see it expanded across the entire emerging 4K/Ultra HD ecosystem.
Dolby has partnered with TV makers including Philips, Toshiba, Hisense and TCL to build TVs with the Dolby Vision technology, but it hasn't tied down the biggest CE brands in 4K, Samsung and LG.
Meanwhile, within the alliance, GigaOm reports there are powerful voices privately saying that they don't want to end up paying Dolby licensing fees for this technology.
This was perhaps overtly illustrated in the press release announcing the Ultra HD Alliance, which stated the coalition was looking for technologies that "meet the identified premium quality standards, whilst embracing standards that are open and allow flexibility in the market ..."
Zaved Shamsuddin, director of business strategies for Dolby, told GigaOm that Dolby is confident that any dissonance will soon evaporate, comparing the disparate 4K/HDR solutions popping up to mushrooms quickly popping up and going away.
"As with any fungus, it has a life span, and then it dies," he said.
For more:
- read this GigaOm story
Related links:
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