Palo Alto, Calif. — EyeIO said Friday that Sony Pictures has licensed its Ultra High-Definition compression-encoding technology to support native 4K movie downloads to the home.
Sony Electronics plans to use the technology as the backbone to its previously announced 4K Ultra HD entertainment service that will deliver native 4K movies to owners of Sony’s new 4K Ultra HD TV sets via a new Sony 4K media player, which launches this summer.
EyeIO said its 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.
“We are honored to play an integral part in the first commercial, worldwide use of 4K UltraHD with Sony Pictures,” said Rodolfo Vargas, EyeIO CEO. “We are confident that EyeIO’s capabilities are perfectly matched with Sony’s commitment to high-quality viewing experiences as well as creating and delivering captivating content to enhance the viewing experience of audiences everywhere.”
“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. 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,” said Chris Cookson, Sony Pictures Technologies president.
Movies will be encoded at EyeIO’s Palo Alto headquarters in Full 4K Ultra HD, 3,840 by 2,160 resolution and include support for extended gamut color (xvYCC), the company said.
EyeIO’s technology is said to offer a simplified workflow and ultra-high quality at high speed to improve cost efficiency and establish a standard for the industry at large.
Films available at launch are scheduled to include: “Bad Teacher,” “Battle: Los Angeles,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “The Karate Kid (2010),” “Salt,” “Taxi Driver,” “That’s My Boy,” “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “The Other Guys” and “Total Recall (2012).”
