UHD Blu-ray Disc Association Completes Ultra HD Blu-ray™ Specification and Releases New Logo (1 Viewer)

[bruceames]

Hi Bruce!


Not including the option for DVD playback would be a sales killer, to be sure, at least while 4K UHD BD is in its infancy!


On the other hand, should the UHD BD format somehow gain more than a foothold, I don't know that an eventual phasing out of DVD playback from newer devices could be ruled out?


I would hope that the latter never comes to pass, at least for a very long time!


CHEERS!


Tony

Hi Tony, I can't imagine them ever not including it. The level of DVD saturation and title depth is just too enormous. Even now DVD releases 4 times as many titles per year as Blu-ray. So even if/when DVD sales falter below that of Blu-ray/UHD, you just can't ignore what's already been released. Besides, it won't add much to the cost of the player anyway.


I think the BDA making DVD playback an option is just wishful thinking on their part, hoping that DVD eventually goes away.

 

[DavidMiller]

I could see the early models supporting DVD, Bluray and UHD why wouldn't they? My first DVD player was also Laserdisc. I think there are plenty of titles they "could" release on UHD in fact more then DVD or Bluray at launch. If there is real support for the format. That will be the real question.

 

[ROclockCK]

From what I've seen via in-store BD-to-UHDTV demos, the inclusion of a DVD playback option would likely only serve one purpose...Marketing...to convince even the least discerning viewer that they need to replace that title with a native UHD or Blu-ray disc. And if the upscaled DVD was a legacy letterbox transfer requiring additional zooming to eliminate the windowbox...well...pretty gnarly stuff from where I...uhm...stood.


FWIW, most upscaled Blu-rays looked fine though, especially anything recently remastered from a 4k source. Personally, I'll own a UHDTV l-o-n-g before even considering a player.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I have already purchased the display and am waiting for the players and movies to arrive at local retailers. Some people are already not interested and some are waiting to see what happens. We are about 3 months away from seeing movies on store shelves and there is nothing out on what titles will be in round one of UHD bluray releases. No news on what the packaging will look like and no news on the price points of the UHD content. Also no companies have come out and said anything about there players. You would think that if hardware and software only being a few months out there would be actual news and examples of what the packaging would look like. We now see trailers in some cases about 1 year out but no one can tell us what the packaging will look like and what movies will be the first to be available on UHD blu-ray. This is not how you promote a new product in a still difficult and sluggish economy! What they are not doing is building excitement regarding the new format they are actually making it forgettable because there is almost no news or commercials print or in video form.

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[Sam Favate]

What does "Expanded Color" mean?

 

[TravisR]

What does "Expanded Color" mean?

The banners at the top and bottom are from Sony's "Mastered In 4K" line (the Superbit of Blu-ray) so it basically means nothing.

 

[FoxyMulder]

The banners at the top and bottom are from Sony's "Mastered In 4K" line (the Superbit of Blu-ray) so it basically means nothing.

On Sony televisions you will get the benefit of xvYCC expanded colour, it's compatible with Rec.709 and those who have calibrated their display for Rec.709 won't see the benefits, for those who have the tools there is a benefit if they have calibrated their Sony sets or projectors to take advantage of the more saturated colours available, this is not just Superbit, it works.


xvYCC only works with Sony equipment, codes that only their displays can decipher to give you the expanded colour.


Now for UHD they will hopefully look at using the DCI-P3 colourspace at least until the displays can reliably hit the Rec.2020 gamut.

 

[bruceames]

On Sony televisions you will get the benefit of xvYCC expanded colour, it's compatible with Rec.709 and those who have calibrated their display for Rec.709 won't see the benefits, for those who have the tools there is a benefit if they have calibrated their Sony sets or projectors to take advantage of the more saturated colours available, this is not just Superbit, it works.


xvYCC only works with Sony equipment, codes that only their displays can decipher to give you the expanded colour.


Now for UHD they will hopefully look at using the DCI-P3 colourspace at least until the displays can reliably hit the Rec.2020 gamut.

I believe you not only have to have a Sony TV, but also a Sony Blu-ray player. Pretty stringent requirement that makes it rather misleading for those who buy it expecting it to look better.

 

[Persianimmortal]

I'm pretty certain that xvYCC has been supported by Samsung and Panasonic displays for many years now - e.g. do a web search for 'xvYCC Samsung' and you'll see several models that explicitly have an xvYCC setting. I believe Panasonic markets xvYCC support as the 'Color Remaster' setting on their displays too.

So the hardware support has been there for a while, and not just limited to Sony products. The real issue has been a complete lack of movies encoded in xvYCC color until very recently. Going forward, the bigger issue is that the average consumer will never notice or care about an expanded color gamut, certainly not enough to embrace UHD Blu-ray for that reason.

 

[FoxyMulder]

So the hardware support has been there for a while, and not just limited to Sony products.

Yes other television displays have it but Sony owns Columbia and made it so expanded colour only works on their displays, xvYCC will not be used for UHD, it may be that early discs just adopt the same Rec.709 standard but the future is Rec.2020, in the meantime they could provide DCI-P3 colours, did you know the colour of a red UK telephone box cannot be accurately displayed using Rec.709, it may look red onscreen but it doesn't match the red you see in real life, these expanded colour gamuts will allow for more natural colours and should make movies even more enjoyable if you have the display and calibrate it.


If you think about perceived colours in human vision then it works like this.


Rec.709 i think ( can't remember exactly ) covers around 35% of human colour vision.

Rec.2020 covers around 75% of human colour vision.

DCI-P3 covers around 53% of human colour vision.

 

[Mike Boone]

I'm pretty certain that xvYCC has been supported by Samsung and Panasonic displays for many years now - e.g. do a web search for 'xvYCC Samsung' and you'll see several models that explicitly have an xvYCC setting. I believe Panasonic markets xvYCC support as the 'Color Remaster' setting on their displays too.

So the hardware support has been there for a while, and not just limited to Sony products. The real issue has been a complete lack of movies encoded in xvYCC color until very recently. Going forward, the bigger issue is that the average consumer will never notice or care about an expanded color gamut, certainly not enough to embrace UHD Blu-ray for that reason.

I sure agree with what you said about expanded color gamut. For example, my well tweaked 1080p displays are so accurate in faithfully reproducing the real life look of vegetables and fruits in a scene of a salad bar, that I have to laugh when people on the, somewhat fanatical, AVS forum, rave in their posts about what a huge and obvious visual difference an expanded color gamut will make. But the thing is, the people making this claim admit that they have not even yet been afforded the opportunity to see any video material with an expanded color gamut.


Recently I compared some broccoli in a salad bar scene with the actual broccoli that I was about to eat. Everything about my "video broccoli" from its deep green flower, to the light green of the stalks which gradually transitions to white at the ends of the stalks, was virtually a perfect reproduction of the broccoli that I was "seeing in the flesh."


And on our displays, a fire engine seen in daylight looks just like the real thing, as do the colors on cans of Pepsi, Coke, or Budweiser. Also the color of a Ritz cracker box, French's mustard bottle, Lays potato chips bag, or a package of Oreo cookies all look as real in the commercials as the actual things we have in the pantry.


Yeah, I know I have belabored this, but was just basically making the point that, IMO, realism can only look so real, and improvements beyond a certain level of realism, are going to be very subtle.


So it's not that I wanted to rain on anyone's parade, but I honestly think that the folks who are looking forward to expanded color gamut offering some major breakthrough in achieving greater realism, are in for one big disappointment.

 

[FoxyMulder]

So it's not that I wanted to rain on anyone's parade, but I honestly think that the folks who are looking forward to expanded color gamut offering some major breakthrough in achieving greater realism, are in for one big disappointment.

See my post above regarding percentages and human colour vision, also take into account it's not just expanded colour it's that they will use 10 bit or 12 bit depth, that will eliminate banding from the discs, banding is a real problem when using 8 bit depth.

 

[davidmatychuk]

All I want to know is if "expanded colour" means that Miami Dolphins uniforms will finally be the same aqua-green colour on TV as they are in real life. I've been waiting for that for over forty years. Or is every TV I've ever owned colour-blind?

 

[Persianimmortal]

See my post above regarding percentages and human colour vision, also take into account it's not just expanded colour it's that they will use 10 bit or 12 bit depth, that will eliminate banding from the discs, banding is a real problem when using 8 bit depth.

I certainly agree that an expanded color gamut will improve color reproduction, and greater bit depth will improve banding. But neither are features unique to UHD Blu-ray - they can and will be implemented in UHD digital download/streaming.


Sadly, the vast majority of the population will not care about the relatively subtle difference, as it requires reasonable sensitivity to color accuracy to notice. Put it this way: if most people happily ignore the often noticeable color banding on DVDs or streaming, and most people are currently using uncalibrated displays - typically LCDs with neon-bright inaccurate colors - then I don't expect expanded color to be any sort of major selling point for UHD Blu-ray. Combined with the fact that HDR only applies to new movies mastered with HDR, not catalog titles, and the (as discussed ad-nauseam) lack of substantial visible improvement from 4K resolution on standard screen sizes, UHD Blu-ray offers a package of subtle improvements on a dying medium that consumers will not find enticing in the least.


Add to that all of the various points repeatedly raised earlier regarding enthusiasts suffering from format fatigue; the fact that even when supported wholeheartedly and marketed heavily by studios for years, Blu-ray failed to capture more than a quarter of the disc market; that it's taken many, many years to see the release of major classics on Blu-ray; that boutique providers often struggle to sell even 3,000 copies of superb classics on Blu-ray, etc. etc. I really can't see how anyone could consider UHD Blu-ray to be a viable format. It won't even continue as a niche, it'll be a brief format focused primarily on new releases, then it will quietly fizzle out in a couple of years.

 

[Mike Boone]

Hi Tony, I can't imagine them ever not including it. The level of DVD saturation and title depth is just too enormous. Even now DVD releases 4 times as many titles per year as Blu-ray. So even if/when DVD sales falter below that of Blu-ray/UHD, you just can't ignore what's already been released. Besides, it won't add much to the cost of the player anyway.


I think the BDA making DVD playback an option is just wishful thinking on their part, hoping that DVD eventually goes away.

Bruce, your mention of 4 times as many titles being released each year on DVD as are released on Blu-ray, is a very interesting piece of information that I hadn't been aware of. Perhaps, almost coincidentally, if you check out customer reviews of movies sold on Amazon, for most releases, the number of customers who report watching the movies on DVD generally seems to outnumber the Blu-ray customers by about a 4 to 1 ratio, also. And then when you notice that the number of people who report watching these movie releases via streaming, is even greater than the number of folks who mention watching on DVD, you realize how far off from the mainstream that Blu-ray really is.


And a few weeks ago I read what Netflix had reported as the total amount of revenue that was generated in 2014 by its streaming division, as well as its DVD/Blu-ray disc rental division.


Netflix's streaming division brought in $4.7 billion in 2014, while its disc rental division brought in $765 million.


So in 2014 Netflix pulled in 6.14 times as much money from streaming, as it did from disc rentals. Also, it was recently reported that last year was the first year where the total of Blu-ray sales for the entire industry was lower than it was the year before. So it seems likely that the lopsided streaming to disc ratio that Netflix reported for 2014, could widen considerably for 2015.


Considering all of the preceding, plus the fact that virtually all video reviewers have stated that the jump in quality from Blu-ray to UHD Blu-ray will be less noticeable than the jump from DVD to 1080p Blu-ray, I'm just wondering if the electronics industry is just too late in trying to launch another disc format. I hope that the backers of UHD BD can beat the odds because watching movies via disc is the only way we like to enjoy our home theater. And even if we aren't early adopters of UHD BD, like we were with DVD in 1997, and Blu-ray in 2007, I'm glad that a success for UHD BD could certainly also help extend the life-span of 1080p Blu-ray, because any excitement surrounding UHD BD is bound to help raise public awareness about both Blu-ray formats. Maybe upon hearing about UHD BD, some people who watch movies on DVD will feel a little too out of step with progress by being 2 formats behind the times, and at least start feeding their 1080p TVs a diet of 1080p Blu-rays, instead of watching DVDs.


But it sure would have been helpful for UHD BD's prospects if the electronics industry would have been a lot more timely in developing new video advancements like High Dynamic Range. (HDR) Many say that the enhancement that HDR could offer, in combination with the higher resolution of UHD, could really make for UHD Blu-ray discs that would be a big improvement over today's 1080p Blu-rays. But, unfortunately, HDR will play almost no role in the early months of UHD BD's launch. Because, although we are 3 years after the introduction of UHD TV, the first HDR capable UHD TV models were only introduced a couple months ago. And the few available TV models that can do HDR are simply more expensive than the prices that most buyers of UHD TVs are willing to pay. For example, few people want to pay $4000 or $5000 for one of Samsung's 65 inch HDR capable UHD TVs when they see a non-HDR capable Samsung 65 inch UHD TV advertised for $1999 in almost every Sunday's paper. Plus, if folks ask about the HDR feature they may find out that movies processed in HDR are much more of a promise, than a reality, at this point in time. And if potential UHD TV buyers do some research they may read that a number of experts have said that Dolby Vision is the most impressive looking HDR format by a pretty good margin, but Samsung HDR capable TVs, for example, utilize a different format.


Yeah, I'd like to see UHD Blu-ray have great success, but with problems on the horizon like several not totally compatible HDR formats that are bound to cause consumer confusion, I'm afraid the people promoting UHD BD are going to need an awful lot of luck to see the new format providing much profit for their companies.

 

[DavidMiller]

This article paints a different picture of your doom and gloom persianimmortal. Yes, I think that 62% is a lot of Bluray players and I'm guessing that as the new game console numbers increase that number will grow. Now will that mean that UHD will be a success maybe not. However, I will say that streaming has many challenges to since there are so many options. Not like Netflix or Prime has that great of content.


Positive news for Samsung owners the Samsung SEK-3500U/ZA Evolution Kit upgrades your TV to HDR. So I will get one of these when I get a UHD Bluray player maybe sooner now that I'm seeing 4K streaming movies with HDR as well.


http://www.cnet.com/news/4k-blu-ray-discs-arriving-in-2015-to-fight-streaming-media/

 

[Mike Boone]

See my post above regarding percentages and human colour vision, also take into account it's not just expanded colour it's that they will use 10 bit or 12 bit depth, that will eliminate banding from the discs, banding is a real problem when using 8 bit depth.

But Malcolm, isn't it true that some pretty critical reviewers (even RAH, if memory serves) have evaluated some high quality, pristine, Blu-ray transfers where these critics commented in their reviews that those particular Blu-rays were found to contain no trace of any banding?


And if the statement I just made is true, then that would seem to indicate that even with today's 1080p Blu-ray technology, if a lot of care is taken with the mastering of a release, banding need not impair our enjoyment of a movie, at all.

 

[Persianimmortal]

This article paints a different picture of your doom and gloom persianimmortal. Yes, I think that 62% is a lot of Bluray players and I'm guessing that as the new game console numbers increase that number will grow. Now will that mean that UHD will be a success maybe not. However, I will say that streaming has many challenges to since there are so many options. Not like Netflix or Prime has that great of content.


Positive news for Samsung owners the Samsung SEK-3500U/ZA Evolution Kit upgrades your TV to HDR. So I will get one of these when I get a UHD Bluray player maybe sooner now that I'm seeing 4K streaming movies with HDR as well.


http://www.cnet.com/news/4k-blu-ray-discs-arriving-in-2015-to-fight-streaming-media/

The article you're citing is a year old (Sept. 2014) and is comprised almost entirely of direct quotes from Victor Matsuda, chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association global promotions committee - so of course it paints an entirely different, largely marketing fantasy-based picture.


The 62% of households owning Blu-ray players is (a) misleading, because a significant proportion of those would rarely if ever be used to play Blu-ray movies (i.e. playstation3, 4 and xbox one gaming consoles with BD drives), and (b) largely irrelevant in any case, as Blu-ray disc sales are a much better gauge of Blu-ray's popularity. Blu-ray disc sales comprise approximately 25% of total physical disc sales, and in turn total physical disc sales are now less than 50% of total consumer spending on home video (as discussed here).


In other words, nine years after its introduction, and seven years after it emerged from the HD-DVD vs. BD format war as the clear winner, Blu-ray is now approximately less than 13% of the total home video market and declining fast in the face of rapidly rising streaming and digital download. In this environment, it's not "doom and gloom" to deduce that yet another, even more niche, physical disc format offering even more subtle image quality benefits will fail to gain any foothold, it's simple logic.

 

[Mike Boone]

Persianimmortal, I clicked on the like tab of your post not because I like the idea you are conveying that disc formats for movies are basically headed downhill, (I happen to think streaming devalues movies, making people consider them as common everyday commodities) but because you were not deterred from presenting a hard truth, that you must have known would not be warmly greeted in many quarters.

 

[Mike Boone]

I have already purchased the display and am waiting for the players and movies to arrive at local retailers. Some people are already not interested and some are waiting to see what happens. We are about 3 months away from seeing movies on store shelves and there is nothing out on what titles will be in round one of UHD bluray releases. No news on what the packaging will look like and no news on the price points of the UHD content. Also no companies have come out and said anything about there players. You would think that if hardware and software only being a few months out there would be actual news and examples of what the packaging would look like. We now see trailers in some cases about 1 year out but no one can tell us what the packaging will look like and what movies will be the first to be available on UHD blu-ray. This is not how you promote a new product in a still difficult and sluggish economy! What they are not doing is building excitement regarding the new format they are actually making it forgettable because there is almost no news or commercials print or in video form.

Oklahoma is a terrific choice, IMO, Dave.


I know that the 1080p Blu-ray of the film is certainly one of the most stunning in our collection.


Last Christmas we received an unexpected visit from a couple who always act like nothing impresses them.


But these 2 people (who are also tight with a buck) were so amazed by the image that the Blu-ray of Oklahoma created

on the 80 inch screen of our home theater, that they asked how much our whole set-up cost. When I told them what we had

spent, rather than them commenting on it being too much, the way I had expected, they both said that it was a relative bargain

considering the high quality they were seeing with Oklahoma.