New box: Swisscom shows EM matches in UHD
Thanks to a new TV box, Swisscom TV will broadcast select matches from the European Soccer Championship on «SRF zwei» on SRF 2 for the first time in Ultra High Definition (UHD) quality. The box also offers voice search in Swiss dialects.
Swisscom will show the opening match and all matches from the quarter-finals onwards in 4K resolution. In addition, in cooperation with Teleclub, two Raiffeisen Super League matches will be broadcast in UHD quality every week from the 2016/17 season. This is made possible by the launch of the new UHD-capable TV box for Swisscom TV2.0, which can be ordered from all Swisscom sales outlets from April 14, 2016.
Movies, Live TV and YouTube content in UHD
With the new box, a selection of UHD titles (movies and documentaries) will also be available for rent at launch. According to the announcement, the offer will be expanded continuously: From probably the end of May, the first live TV channels will also be available in UHD. Soon, customers will also be able to stream YouTube content in UHD with the new box. As of now, they can also watch their own videos, for example filmed with their smartphone, in the highest resolution thanks to the newly integrated media player VLC. "The new box is even smaller, faster and more economical, and shows customers images as sharp and brilliant as never before. As a football fan, I'm already looking forward to watching the games in the very best picture quality," said Dirk Wierzbitzki, Head of Swisscom Products & Marketing, in a statement.
New customers will receive the new box from April 14 when they take out a Vivo package with Swisscom TV 2.0. Existing TV 2.0 customers can buy the new box for 119 Swiss francs. In addition to the new TV box from Swisscom, the prerequisites for using content in UHD quality are a UHD-capable TV set and a minimum bandwidth of 40 Mbit/s. UHD is the successor technology to Full HD and is also called 4K because it displays four times more pixels at 3840 x 2160. The new TV box also supports High Dynamic Range (HDR), which enables more color depth thanks to higher contrasts and thus a more natural and significantly better picture quality.
Voice search - also in Swiss German
The new box also comes with a new remote control with integrated microphone. Customers can use voice input to simplify the search and no longer have to type in the terms. They can search for movie or program titles, actors, sports clubs or other keywords. In addition to High German, the voice search function supports all Swiss-German dialects and French - Italian will follow later this year.
