Comcast has announced that it is delaying the introduction of its 4K HDR set-top boxes. The company is deliberately doing this until the 4K content landscape becomes clearer. Joshua Seiden, executive director at Comcast Innovation Labs, explained the company’s reasoning in more detail during the Cable Next-Gen Technologies and Strategies summit in Denver, Colorado. He stated that the rapid evolution of 4K UHD content in combination with HDR developments has made Comcast decide to slow down on their upcoming developments and deployments. He also stated that the company does however recognise the crucial importance of HDR, and that 4K for Comcast will not be introduced without HDR.
Comcast previously announced the release of set-top boxes with both 4K and HDR display capacity in time for the Summer Olympics in 2016. This plan was then completely shelved in order to let the standards for 10-bit HEVC and others become more concrete.
Given how rapidly sales of 4K TVs and even HDR 4K TVs are rising, Comcast has even more reason than ever to introduce its 4K HDR set-top boxes.
