Eye IO, LLC (eyeIO) announced on Friday that its Ultra HD compression encoding technology has been licensed by Sony Pictures to help the studio offer content on Sony 4K Ultra HD TVs in the home. Owners of Sony 4K TVs will be able to access a number of movies via Sony’s 4K media player, which will launch this summer. The eyeIO technology processes, compresses and encodes 4K source files into a format that requires less bandwidth.

“From the cinema to the home, Sony Pictures Technologies strives to deliver the audience an experience that is as close as possible to the filmmaker’s original vision,” says Chris Cookson, president of Sony Pictures Technologies. “eyeIO’s technology makes it practical to deliver movies to the home in unprecedented 4K quality, and we are proud to partner with them on this groundbreaking launch.”

At January’s CES in Las Vegas, Palo Alto-based eyeIO said its software suite was “studio grade” 4K ready. This summer will be the first commercial test when Sony delivers movies via the FMP-X1 4K media player.

“Sony didn’t have any more details to reveal about its 4K delivery plans just yet, but eyeIO’s press release claims its tech is being used on 4K video (3,840 x 2,160) encodes with support for extended color gamut,” notes Engadget.

According to the press release: “eyeIO’s core video technology efficiently processes, compresses and encodes the enormous 4K source files into a format that requires significantly less bandwidth, making distribution more efficient and conserving storage space on devices as well as bandwidth costs.”

“Netflix is another recent licensee of the tech, and while not all responses to some of its new streams have been positive, we’ll wait and see what it can push to Sony’s $699 box and the Sony 4K TVs it attaches to,” concludes Engadget.