Your 4K TV Is Wasted On Euro 2024

Euro 2024 broadcasts are limited to Full HD resolution

The Euro 2024 soccer tournament is well under way, but if you’ve been watching games and thinking the picture quality doesn’t look quite right, don’t start fiddling with your TV settings. This summer’s football tournament is not being broadcast in 4K quality.

Euro 2024 matches are being broadcast in 1080p HDR, also known as Full HD, well below the capabilities of the TVs now in many people’s homes. Although the adverts in between matches are trying to convince football fans to upgrade their TVs to the latest high-definition models, the games are actually being broadcast at yesteryear’s resolution.

But why the backwards step?

Euro 2024 Broadcast Quality

The decision to limit Euro 2024 video quality to 1080p was taken by the European football governing body UEFA, not the broadcasters themselves.

It appears to be a cost-saving measure, with the costs of delivering 4K video streams for the tournament’s 51 matches proving prohibitive. People increasingly streaming matches on mobile devices that don’t take full advantage of the 4K resolution is reported to have been another factor in UEFA’s decision to limit the quality of the live broadcasts.

New data released by the BBC does seem to back up the fact that people are increasingly turning to streaming. Even though England’s first game in the tournament took place on Sunday evening U.K. time, when the vast majority of people would not be at work, the BBC’s streams still used almost 1,000 terabytes of data, a 186% increase on the average data volumes for that time of the week.

‘A Huge Step Backwards’

Even though some broadcasters would have stuck with Full HD feeds, even if 4K streams were on offer, industry analysts believe the decision to limit the quality of the Euro 2024 broadcasts is a disappointment.

“As an industry it feels like we are taking a huge step backwards, with sports broadcasting no longer at the cutting edge of innovation,” wrote Paolo Pescatore, founder of PP Foresight, in his TMT Picks newsletter.

“For a global event such as Euro 2024 that is watched by millions, maybe even billions, of fans around the world, not to offer a native 4K feed is a travesty.”

“We should be providing viewers with more choice regarding how they watch live sports on the best screens possible,” Pescatore added. “It is perhaps worth noting that most, if not all, users now have a 4K-enabled TV. In some households, there’s likely to be more than one.”

The 8K Olympics

The summer Olympics will be part broadcast in 8K

Not all sports are turning their back on high quality broadcast feeds, though. Quite the opposite, in fact.

As Pescatore points out in his newsletter, this summer’s Olympics in Paris will see some sports broadcast in 8K, even though there are very few televisions in homes capable of handling such high resolutions.

The tennis from Wimbledon, which begins the week after next, will also be broadcast in 4K HDR.

All that money sports fans spent on upgrading their TVs to the promised detailed delights of 4K might not have completely gone to waste.

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