A conversation during CES about the future of 4K UHD TV quickly settled on a single point: 4K without HDR is not a winning proposition. “4K married with HDR will be adopted a lot faster than just plain 4K,” said Technicolor executive Mark Turner. “4K is a binary function: you either have 4K or you’re at 1080p. 4K hasn’t really fired passions in the creative community. HDR does, because then you have a wider color palette and have more detail in the shadows and more highlights.” But both 4K and HDR present challenges.

“The whole 4K ecosystem is still developing,” said LG executive Tim Alessi, who says his company is focusing on its Smart TV webOS 3.0 content site with partners such as Netflix rather than building a 4K Blu-ray player.

Starz CSO John Penney reports that, “with 4K, if you’re doing anything VFX driven it is extraordinarily expensive.”

“And if you kludge it together, it’s not really 4K,” he said. “With HDR, the visual quality is absolutely stunning and it’s affordable for almost all TV formats except the lowest budget. We have to figure out how to make it work for the content business.”

Dish Network exec Mitch Weinraub notes that the Hopper 3 is 4K-capable, and allows the user to split the screen into four simultaneous HD channels to watch sports. “There’s a limited amount of content in 4K,” he said. “Four HD screens at once gives people a good reason to fill up that big screen and take advantage of it.”

Not everyone is sure of the burning need for 4K content. Weinraub notes that HD’s new aspect ratio forced the production of HD content to “fill up the screen.” But HD content fills up 4K screens quite nicely, and networks are waiting for consumer demand for the higher-res content.

Penney points to live sports as the killer app for 4K and HDR content. “Sports is the one area of content where people are willing to gather around the big screen, even if they’re under 14,” he said. “We have to think of ourselves in a much broader ecosystem [with more devices] and sports is the way in.” An audience member pointed out, however, that live production in HDR is “virtually impossible” and that 4K sports “has only recently become possible.”

Turner notes that Technicolor has unveiled upscaling technology. “This kind of technology is key,” he said. “We need to be able to get to it cost effectively with an up-resed version for resolution and HDR.”