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Amazon announces 4K streaming partners including Samsung, Warner Bros., and Lionsgate

Amazon announces 4K streaming partners including Samsung, Warner Bros., and Lionsgate

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Samsung S9 UHD TV
Samsung S9 UHD TV

We've seen a slew of beautiful 4K TVs unveiled over the last day at CES, but the question has always been how we'll get native 4K content onto those screens. We're finally starting to get an idea — Amazon has just announced a partnership with Samsung and a slew of content providers, including Warner Bros., Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox, and Discovery. Under this new partnership, Amazon's Instant Video service will provide 4K content from its partner studios — and those who buy Samsung's new 4K TVs will have access to this video catalog.

It's an important piece of the puzzle for Samsung — until now, mainstream 4K content has been hard to come by, but with the support of Amazon and its studio partners, the library of 4K video should start growing rapidly. There aren't any other details yet on exactly when Amazon's 4K streaming services will be available to Samsung owners (or how much that content will cost), but we imagine it'll be ready to go when its new lineup of 4K TVs start shipping to consumers.

Fortunately for Samsung buyers, Amazon isn't the only content provider they'll have access to — in a separate announcement, Samsung just confirmed that Netflix, Technicolor's M-Go, Comcast, and DirecTV will also be bringing 4K content to its screens. Of course, 4K questions remain, particularly around how much bandwidth these 4K streaming services are going to use — but the kind of people who are living on the bleeding edge with 4K can also probably afford a strong internet connection.