While Ultra HD is clearly a leading theme at CES this week, numerous members of the engineering community believe the technology will require wider color gamut, higher dynamic range and higher frame rates to succeed. Dolby, Technicolor and Sony all presented plans to address these needs, while the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, the consortium behind UltraViolet, is looking at support for 4K as well as higher dynamic range and related features.

“4K (Ultra HD) is on our roadmap, and this will need to be a standard since it needs to work on a variety of devices and platforms,” DECE GM Mark Teitell told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re also looking at high dynamic range, color space and frame rate. It’s likely to be a combination of those attributes that will represent the next generation. We are looking at what we need to do and take the best combination.”

The cloud-based UltraViolet service currently has an estimated 15 million accounts. According to Teitell, there are also 12,000 supported movies and TV programs.

Blu-ray discs with 4K support could be available by the end of 2014, suggested Victor Matsuda, the Blu-Ray Disc Association’s global promotions committee chair.

“Talking to THR at CES, he noted that the BDA board recently approved work to extend Blu-ray to include 4K and will be exploring the best possible technical blueprint,” writes Carolyn Giardina. “Driving this work are members of a task force made up of representatives from 17 companies including Sony, Technicolor, Dolby, Fox and Disney.”