PEVE Entertainment 2013 – London. Sony is positive about the prospects for 4K despite the technology still being in its early days.
It also believes there is a niche for 3D, said Jim Underwood, executive VP, Worldwide Digital and Commercial strategy, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
In Underwood’s view, it is now entirely possible to have a full 4K experience at home, and 4K sets are becoming more affordable.
Although Sony is already providing 4K sets with Sony studio content, in the long term the challenge will be to have a rich dedicated hard drive. 3D, on the other hand, will not go away over time and is in fact an important element of the Blu-Ray story.
Speaking more generally, Underwood pointed out that consumer entertainment spend worldwide has fallen in the last few years, from $55 billion in 2005 to $44.2 billion in 2012, though there had been signs of stabilisation in 2011/12.
However, this did not apply to every market, with Germany and Belgium flat throughout and the Nordics, UK and France registering steady declines.
