14 DAY TRIAL // The 4K resolution, 3840 x 2160 pixels, is one that makers of TVs and monitors have been experimenting with lately, since 3D support and Full HD are old news now. Those experiments are bearing much more fruit now.
We usually take reports from Digitimes with a healthy dose of skepticism, but the website manages to get things right quite often.
Given what else we have been hearing about the 4K display technology, we are tempted to believe it is quite probable for the latest assumptions to be valid.
Most notably, we have previously learned that 4K UHD TV shipments are going to rise 40 times in 2013, so we are quite inclined to think that the image technology is doing better than anyone expected.
The newer Digitimes report says that market observers expect display panels used in UHD 4K to account for 20% of HDTV panel shipments in 2013.
That is a huge percentage really. 4K is a luxury technology, both in quality and price, so the idea that a fifth of all TVs made this year would be UHD models is mindboggling.
Nonetheless, this is what market observers, albeit admittedly anonymous ones, have come to believe.
China-based TV vendors will account for most of the early demand (Innolux and AUO will account for much of the early demand).
Now all that remains to be seen is if the price gap between UHD and Full HD narrows down any.
At present, Ultra HD panels cost twice as much as comparable 1080p displays. Naturally, this is a problem.
Then again, people inclined to buy top-end Full HD TVs are often the sort that don't have money constraints, so many could just decide they may as well pay the extra sum for a 4K television set and be done with it.
If enough people show this mentality, that 20% share may just be attained before the year is out. In any case, even if 2013 doesn't prove so lucrative, 2014 probably will.