3D is dead, but will you buy a 4K TV in 2015?

HD, with its 1080p picture took off, albeit a bit slowly at first. But in the long run, almost all content moved to the format and customers bought sets. It was a boon for manufacturers, but it was one that ended quicker than they hoped. Once everyone had that new TV, the rush came to a screeching halt and companies began puzzling over what to do next, desperate to get back those sales figures that had become a bygone era.

Enter 3D, people must want that experience, right? Not so fast. The platform fell flat on its face when nobody rushed to buy a TV that required wearing glasses -- worse, expensive ones at that. To quote my colleague Derrick Wlodarz, "the hurdles for 3D TV are plentiful. By far, the biggest, nastiest one has no doubt got to be content. And more specifically, breadth and reach of such content. Not just across movies, but television channels too. And this is one nagging factor that 3D TV proponents can't seem to come to grips with".

So now the industry moves on, attempting to sell you a new TV that brings Ultra HD, or 4K, to your home. The sets are on the market and, like all electronics, prices slowly drop as the item in question becomes more ubiquitous.

This seems like one that has the potential to catch fire, just as HD did. 3D left people shaking their heads, but 4K feels intriguing. Of course, once again, content is king. It will need to be there to succeed, but that was a hurdle HD cleared and Ultra HD seems set to do that same feat. In fact, some is already out there from sources like Netflix.

This all begs the question that I pose to you -- will you invest in 4K this year? Have you considered it? Are you waiting for price drops and more content? For that matter, do you even see it as the future for TV, as 3D was not?

Those are all questions that need to be answered and 2015 will likely provide clues regarding all of this. Now it's just a matter of wondering where the industry heads for next.

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