The consumer experience before 4K, up for debate

Rubén Mellado (Movistar), Álvaro Villegas (Nokia) and Kevin King (AJA) analyze the user experience when consuming Ultra High Definition content in a panel of experts at the 4K Summit.

The afternoon session of the second day of the 4K Summit has brought together a panel of experts made up of Ruben Mellado (Movistar), Alvaro Villegas (Nokia) y Kevin King (AJA).

Mellado began his speech by highlighting the massive replacement of set top boxes for more than 4 million Movistar+ customers who from now on will have an STB with 4K UHD support, Ethernet connectivity and integration with Aura, Telefónica's intelligent voice assistant. After this first experience in Spain, Movistar will extend the decorate 4K to other Latin American territories in which it operates.

To offer a good experience it is important to have a good network, both access and internal at home via WiFi. “We cannot fill the house with cables, which is why Wi-Fi is important,” he assured.

On the other hand, it has also highlighted the importance of offering content of the highest quality in mobility through the mobile access network, achieving an excellent user experience.

The objective is “to bring maximum quality content to the customer, even on mobile networks,” he acknowledged. Telefónica is thus committed to offering a high quality experience both at home, through the access network and the video platform.

“Content is king but functionalities are queen, such as catch-up or viewing of the last seven days,” he stated.

For his part, Álvaro Villegas has reviewed the technological development that Nokia has carried out over the last two years. “When we started working on 4K two years ago it was a technology for the future… today, users are beginning to experience it as a reality,” he commented.

In line with what Mellado pointed out, Villegas has also stressed that it is necessary to have a good platform at home to enjoy these 4K contents at home through Wifi and 5G networks in order to facilitate new experiences in terms of mobility.

In this line of work, he has shared the experience carried out a few weeks ago in Segovia with the distribution of 4K content through a mobile network with excellent results.

Finally, he announced that Ultra High Definition (4K, 8K and beyond) will be essential when developing immersive experiences. At the 4K Summit, Nokia is carrying out demonstrations along these lines with 16K resolution videos.

The person in charge of closing this panel of experts was Kevin King, who began his speech by reviewing the history of AJA, which throughout its 25 years of life has manufactured all types of components that have allowed the transition from SD to HD and now to 4K.

King commented that AJA has a great team of engineers who work to stay ahead of technological trends, allowing users to modify video content or metadata and push them for editing or for delivery platforms such as Movistar. “AJA helps to speed up these processes by drawing bridges,” he commented.

To close his speech, Kevin King has recognized the role that streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon have played in accelerating the arrival of 4K with high dynamic range HDR.

“Building a transmission system from scratch requires a great human effort and investment, and AJA technology helps professionals move towards new challenges,” he noted.

Finally, he has been convinced that "my generation will probably be the last one that will massively consume linear programming. The new generations want to watch programs anywhere and in the way and at the time they want."