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Last week, the Bilibili Creation Center announced that Station B has entered the 8K era, and all users of the platform can upload 8K ultra-high-definition videos. This move has made "8K" once again cause heated discussions inside and outside the industry, and more media believe that 2022 will be the first year of the 8K video outbreak.
But there's a basin of cold water here, and the prospects for 8K may not be as optimistic as we think. At the recent 4K HDR Summit, Omdia, a globally renowned analytics company, shared the latest data on 8K and 4K.
In terms of TV sales, the development of 8K will be very slow, even slower than Omdia predicted last year. Even in Japan, the only country in the world to open 8K broadcasting, the penetration rate of 8K TV is ultra-low, and there is no obvious sign of improvement. Japan's BS8K channel has been broadcasting since 2018, transmitting signals by satellite, and NHK also broadcast 8K of some events at the Tokyo Olympic Games. However, this channel is still experimental rather than commercial, and the actual audience is rare.
Globally, 8K TV shipments in the second quarter of 2021 were about 90,600 units, even lower than the 96,000 units in the first quarter. In terms of total shipments of all TVs, 8K TVs accounted for only 0.2%. In the medium term, this is unlikely to change. Omdia predicts that by 2025, the total global shipment of 8K TVs will only be about 1.5 million units, and only about 9 million households can be covered by 8K TVs worldwide. Therefore, Omdia believes that 8K prefers a public screening format to a home format.
In the 8K ecosystem, the playback terminal is an extremely important part, and many studies have shown that if you watch 8K content on a 2K or 4K screen, there will be no substantial improvement in the experience. In other words, the continued downturn in 8K TV sales is greatly dragging down the development prospects of 8K – not to mention that it will not explode next year, and after four or five years, the vast majority of people will still not be able to watch real 8K video at home, whether it is 8K TV channels or 8K video websites, it is meaningless to them.
As for 4K, Omdia is optimistic, and now for every two TVs sold in the world, one of them is a 4K TV. China is in the lead, with more than 70% of new TVs being 4K. In Western Europe, the demand for 4K TVs is also high, and there have even been some shortages under the influence of the Covid epidemic. As for the United States, 4K TV ownership will reach 77% by 2025. In short, more and more people are watching 4K, and now they need more 4K content.
Although the research institute's predictions are only for reference, what do they say for video producers? It is expensive to build a complete 8K workflow, and for most operators, instead of blindly pursuing 8K, it is better to do 4K well. Especially in the purchase of models, we must comprehensively consider our own needs and application scenarios. In today's faster and faster equipment updates, the 8K camera in your hand may have been replaced in a few years, and the demand for 8K production is likely to have not yet exploded.
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