Netflix Orders Third Season of 'Orange,' Says Ultra-HD 4K Will Become Mainstream in Five Years

5 May, 2014 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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Netflix May 5 said it has approved a third-season production of Emmy-nominated women’s prison dramedy “Orange is the New Black.”

The ensemble-cast series stars Taylor Schilling, who plays a character based on the biography from Piper Kerman, who spent time in prison for drug smuggling.

Netflx confirmed production of a third season after actress Laura Prepon, who plays drug smuggler Alex Vause, leaked the news on Instagram.

Despite all the attention given “House of Cards,” Netflix executives have repeatedly said that “Orange” remains the streaming service’s most popular original series. Netflix, per policy, does not divulge viewer numbers for any of its programming.

Netflix will begin streaming all 13 episodes of the second season of “Orange” on June 6.

Meanwhile, Netflix May 2 began streaming the second season of “Cards” in Ultra-HD 4K resolution. As previously announced at CES in Las Vegas, Netflix has partnered with Samsung, which is streaming “Cards” on its UH8550 and UH9000 4K-compatible TVs.

To stream in Ultra-HD 4K resolution, which claims to be four-times clearer than HD, requires minimum bandwidth of 16 megabytes per second.

In a blog post, Netflix said it plans to stream “Breaking Bad” in 4K resolution later this year.

“Market researchers predict that consumers will buy a million Ultra-HD 4K TVs this year and even more in subsequent years. We expect it will likely take up to 5 years before Ultra-HD 4K becomes mainstream; when most of the TVs on store shelves are Ultra-HD 4K,” Netflix wrote.

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