4K TV broadcasting is still at the early stages, yet the Ultra HD Forum already has plans for what comes next-- including 100 and 120fps video, dynamic HDR and immersive audio formats.

The plans are part of the "Phase B" guidelines first presented at NAB 2018. An evolution of current Phase A technologies, Phase B covers dynamic metadata, next generation audio (NGA) and high frame rate (HFR). As such, one can expect the use of video formats such as Dolby Vision and SL-HDR, as well as Dolby AC-4 and MPEG-H audio.

The forum also addresses bandwidth concerns through the adoption of encoding technologies able to optimise for quality and reduce bit rates (and thus costs). One example is Content Aware Encoding, an approach already used in On-demand encoding and is now available for live content.

As for early 4K TV adopters, the UHD Forum promises the guidelines will be backwards compatible to ensure the new does not break what is already established.

Go UHD Forum Shows UHD Evolving to the Next Phase at NAB 2018