Q. I finally bought a 4K TV this week and I want to watch some sports in 4K! Is there anything in 4K this weekend? — Eddie, Las Vegas.
Eddie, congratulations on your purchase. You’ll find, however, that there are still very few live sporting events in 4K. The networks are being very cautious about investing in 4K equipment and related infrastructure, as is the pay TV and live streaming providers that would deliver the shows and events to your set.
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Why is that? In their opinion, there isn’t a sufficient number of Americans who own 4K TVs and/or are demanding that programming be produced in the new picture format.
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The executives believe that even if they offered a sporting event in 4K, the audience would be so relatively small that it would not generate enough advertising dollars to offset the extra expense in producing it in 4K.
This will change, of course, when more people get 4K TVs. But the change is likely to be slow rather than fast.
That said, there are some sporting events you can watch in 4K this weekend, if you have DIRECTV, Dish or fuboTV.
DIRECTV, which has three 4K channels, is airing the California-Arizona college football game in 4K on Saturday (October 6) at 10 p.m. ET. The game will be on DIRECTV’s channel 105.
Also on Saturday night, on the satcaster’s channel 106, it will offer a 4K edition of the UFC 229 Pay-Per-View match between Conor McGregor and Khabig Nurmagomedov. Consult your on-screen guide for start time. The PPV event will cost $74.95.
DIRECTV on Sunday (October 7) will air a English Premier League soccer game between Liverpool and Manchester City in 4K at 11:15 a.m. ET on channel 106.
Finally, both Dish and fuboTV, the live streaming service, will also air the California-Arizona game in 4K. Dish will show it in 4K on channel 540 while fubo will offer the 4K edition on its FS14K channel.
Happy Viewing!
Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvpredictions.com. Please include your first name and hometown in your message.
— Phillip Swann
Photo credit: Free photo via Pexels.com.
just regular 4k/UHD on broadcast aren’t the big upgrade from regular broadcast. the real WOW and jump in quality is if/when 4k w/ HDR will be available in cable/satellite broadcasts. The wait is for the HLG spec is made available over these broadcasts. The spec will ‘show” these broadcasts in their full 4k/UHD glory, but smart enough to only show the broadcasts at the native resolution of the TV it’s sent to, ie 1080i or 720p. I haven’t seen much recently on when it’s available
:https://www.whathifi.com/advice/hdr-tv-what-it-how-can-you-get-it