I know what you're getting at but that's not a good comparison. The reason you can't buy SD TV's anymore is because all broadcasts are digital now. There will be no 4k OTA broadcasts (at least for the foreseeable future). So 4k streaming/4k Blu-Ray (and 4k cable TV) is going to have to drive that market entirely.
True but Korea wants to broadcast (Antenna TV) the Olympics in 4K Feb 2018. 4K is candidate status in the US now which allows some TV stations to experiment with it. 4K (ATSC 3) is going to come faster as it is a world wide standard and will allow Mobile TV and Cell phones to have TV. Cell phones use what used to be TV bands and use what will be 4K TV modulation (QFDM).
Just as the blu-ray codec and specs will be used for ATSC 2 (PS3), the UHD Blu-ray codec and software stack will be used for 4K TV. This is why the PS4 and XB1 will support UHD Blu-ray a few years before 4K TV hits the airwaves. The Yukon version of the XB1 had ATSC (1&2) and 3G cell phone support which can be used for ATSC 3.
Sony just purchased a company ($212 million) that helped develop and has their own 4G chipset (QFDM) design and patents. The articles are convinced it's for IoT which I don't disagree with but it's also likely for Combo ATSC 1 through 3 network tuners which all current 4K TVs will eventually need and can be used with a PS4 or XB1 to allow 1080P TVs to use ATSC 3 broadcasts where most of the channels will still be 1080P, just more of them for each 6 Mhz band (4 times what ATSC 1 can support now and twice what ATSC 2 could support). This is why the FCC feels they can sell more of the TV spectrum. They can't unless they get the ATSC 2 or ATSC 3 roadmap advanced. ATSC 2 can be supported by Vidipath Smart TVs and STBs with a network tuner (PS3, PS4, XB1 and more).
Yes, it's my opinion that the XB1 and PS4 will support UHD blu-ray.
The drive for UHD is the same for HD with some firmware changes. If you can read technical you can see for yourself.
The 2013 Microsoft employee quote supports this:
The Xbox One supports both 3D and 4K Blu-ray discs at present.
“There’s no hardware restriction at all,” said Microsoft’s
Yusuf Mehdi at the time to Forbes. One of the other touted reasons for the XB1 NOT supporting UHD blu-ray was the lack of a HEVC hardware codec. Microsoft announced support for HEVC profile 10 June 2015 which is what UHD blu-ray, UHD IPTV (Neflix) and 4K TV will use. 4K TV needs HEVC Multiview and 3D needs multi-view plus depth map. HEVC profile 10 has the hooks to support both. There are plans for 3D 4K TV and UHD Blu-ray. HEVC Multi-view plus depth can be used for the 5 or so views that eye glass free 3D (Auto-stereoscopic) needs.
Sony employees (3 different people) say in 2013: 1) The PS4 can support 4K media, 2) The PS4 has a HDMI 2 port, 3) The PS4 hardware is feature proved to support many new coming features.
"Mr. Yusuf Mehdi who serves as Head of Xbox Business Strategy and Marketing at Microsoft Corporation. Mr. Mehdi served as Senior Vice President of Online Audience Business at Microsoft Corporation and led global product management, strategic partnerships, business development and U.S. marketing execution. He served as Senior Vice President of Microsoft Corporation and as its Senior Vice President of MSN Information Services and Chief Advertising Strategist.
