Sony's 4K movie streaming service compatible with PlayStation 4

At this year's CES, Sony showed its next future technology drive: 4K television displays running at a resolution of 3840 × 2160. The company realizes that you can't sell a TV without content, so Sony also announced that it was working on a 4K video distribution service. Sony Electronics president Phil Molyneux told The Verge that the service will eventually be compatible with the upcoming PlayStation 4. The problem? The size of the films.

"The size of a typical movie, depending on the length of the movie, you're talking a 100 GB plus," said Molyneux. "Then you come into variables: how fast is your broadband at home or do you have optical broadband like they do in Houston, Texas, where you can get the movie down pretty quickly. So, that is one of the challenges that we have to work through. Looking to the future, we need to develop as an industry new compression ratios and technologies. That dialogue is an active process for us at the moment."

Surprisingly enough, Sony is launching its 4K televisions this summer with download-only infrastructure. The TVs will ship alongside a special 4K content server. The problem with 4K physical media is there currently isn't an industry standard for discs that can handle 4K content.

"Consumers are used to download and streaming. I don't want to discount the good work that's going into potential physical media distribution, but that's an industry association and they're working hard," he added.

Sony has already revealed that the PlayStation 4 would support 4K photos and videos, but not 4K-enabled games.

[Image via ComputerActive]