4K Blu Ray On The Way. (1 Viewer)

Looks like the cats out of the bag, at last a 4KUHD Blu Ray disc is on the way.http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/4k-bluray-201309123318.htm

Hopefully the lame 4k downloading that Sony is pushing will be crushed when these discs come to market. I hope that this announcement means the widespread continuation of physical media.

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Was it ever "in the bag"?

Was it ever "in the bag"?

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Regarding how they were going to do it, yes. PS4 anyone............

They make it sound like streaming will have a competitor...but that's only if the public really wants to see Ultra HD films at home....which I doubt, seeing as how they barely give a shit about blu-ray.

I think Ultra HD and 4K for home use is going to arrive with a massive yawn. I was at CES last year and saw examples and was not impressed.

If consumers have a hard time being sold on Blu-ray, which is a distinct upgrade in quality from DVD, how will they respond to UHD, which isn't quite-so-noticeable? 150" screens are not the norm.

The industry should focus on making what we have now better. Sell the features of what is in the market right now, before moving on to something else. I'm a picture quality nut and if I'm questioning 4K for the home, what's the average consumer going to say? Another TV? Another physical disc player? C'mon. Consumers aren't even going to understand what 4K means.

Instead, make Blu-ray better. Bring out more titles that have a history of sales, more catalog, better transfers. If studios balk at the cost for a decent Blu-ray transfer, imagine the cost for new 4K masters of catalog titles. You think catalog now is lacking? Wait for 4K. It'll evaporate. Too expensive and not enough market. We'll be seeing 4K discs loaded with old laserdisc ports. That'll look good.

This won't compete with streaming, because there won't be enough people buying into it. Blu-ray right now has an installed base over 30 million. Sell that.

Just can't see 4K blu-ray making even the slightest dent in the market. So many people just don't care that much about the quality. I'm 50 but work in a place where the majority of folks are 35 and younger. Some of big movie fans but streaming suits them fine. When I say I own over 300 blu-rays, they ask "Why" and talk about all the online options they use to watch movies (many of them illegal). Generally speaking, the Milennial generation is unconcerned with owning physical media of any kind....they have become used to ITunes, Netflix, and using their mobile devices, game consoles, etc to watch movies. Sad,,,,

For me, streaming is ok, I use it mostly for TV shows. But even at it's highest quality, it doesn't come close to a fine blu-ray. But again, most people don't care and "HD-lite" is so much better than standard definition it's hard to make them see different.

Bottomline...if Twilight Time can't sell 3000 copies of a film in a country of 300 million people (and only a handful of TT's library has sold out), then they will have to change their model to 500 for 4K.

It's not so much that people don't care about quality, but the vast majority of people have lives that encompass things other than home theatre. In order to see the improvements that 4K will offer, you need need a large projection setup that most people have neither the space, time nor money required to implement. I just bought a 55" Panasonic plasma set that's gotten phenomenal reviews online, and I have to tell you that bluray looks as good to my eyes as I'll ever need in the home environment that I have now and will have for the foreseeable future. It will never be mainstream because there simply is no financially viable market nor a huge demand for it.

Rob_Ray said:

It's not so much that people don't care about quality, but the vast majority of people have lives that encompass things other than home theatre. In order to see the improvements that 4K will offer, you need need a large projection setup that most people have neither the space, time nor money required to implement. I just bought a 55" Panasonic plasma set that's gotten phenomenal reviews online, and I have to tell you that bluray looks as good to my eyes as I'll ever need in the home environment that I have now and will have for the foreseeable future. It will never be mainstream because there simply is no financially viable market nor a huge demand for it.

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So many of the 4k TVs marketed by Sony are far too small for appreciation of 4k. It just isn't a practical home viewing format at this point. I'm excited at further development of physical media, however.

4K will be a niche. When I hopefully upgrade to an 80" 4K OLED down the road, I will be very interested.

IF I ever upgrade, I will only buy certain titles. I'm serious. I can't keep re-buying my collection. So, maybe my favorite thirty or so films and that's it. I doubt I will upgrade though. I have a freaking cinema in my backyard! I'm happy just to have that!

Lets see...vhs, laserdisc, dvd, hd-dvd, blu-ray, ..there is always room for one more. The studios just love to make us buy more and more!

Cinescott said:

I think Ultra HD and 4K for home use is going to arrive with a massive yawn. I was at CES last year and saw examples and was not impressed.

If consumers have a hard time being sold on Blu-ray, which is a distinct upgrade in quality from DVD, how will they respond to UHD, which isn't quite-so-noticeable? 150" screens are not the norm.

The industry should focus on making what we have now better. Sell the features of what is in the market right now, before moving on to something else. I'm a picture quality nut and if I'm questioning 4K for the home, what's the average consumer going to say? Another TV? Another physical disc player? C'mon. Consumers aren't even going to understand what 4K means.

Instead, make Blu-ray better. Bring out more titles that have a history of sales, more catalog, better transfers. If studios balk at the cost for a decent Blu-ray transfer, imagine the cost for new 4K masters of catalog titles. You think catalog now is lacking? Wait for 4K. It'll evaporate. Too expensive and not enough market. We'll be seeing 4K discs loaded with old laserdisc ports. That'll look good.

This won't compete with streaming, because there won't be enough people buying into it. Blu-ray right now has an installed base over 30 million. Sell that.

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Well said, Scott.

Cinescott said:

I think Ultra HD and 4K for home use is going to arrive with a massive yawn. I was at CES last year and saw examples and was not impressed. If consumers have a hard time being sold on Blu-ray, which is a distinct upgrade in quality from DVD, how will they respond to UHD, which isn't quite-so-noticeable? 150" screens are not the norm. The industry should focus on making what we have now better. Sell the features of what is in the market right now, before moving on to something else. I'm a picture quality nut and if I'm questioning 4K for the home, what's the average consumer going to say? Another TV? Another physical disc player? C'mon. Consumers aren't even going to understand what 4K means. Instead, make Blu-ray better. Bring out more titles that have a history of sales, more catalog, better transfers. If studios balk at the cost for a decent Blu-ray transfer, imagine the cost for new 4K masters of catalog titles. You think catalog now is lacking? Wait for 4K. It'll evaporate. Too expensive and not enough market. We'll be seeing 4K discs loaded with old laserdisc ports. That'll look good. This won't compete with streaming, because there won't be enough people buying into it. Blu-ray right now has an installed base over 30 million. Sell that.

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4k pipelines for classic movies are the norm at several studios and 4k or better will be the norm with new releases at some point in the future. For these titles no added effort will be needed once a format is in place.It would be nice to have one format that can be 1080p or 4k/UHD depending on the title and that way everybody will be happy. Everybody in the hardware industry seems to be betting on 4k now so with this big push (insert your favorite LoA quote here) I hope that the software will follow sooner rather than later and with more than one studio behind it.

What we see with (some) studios now is 4K and sometimes 8K for archival purposes of classic films (ala Lawrence of Arabia). Once that initial cost is absorbed, a Blu-ray is a simple afterthought. However, these resolutions are far from the "norm" for non-culturally-historic or non-significant titles. We couldn't even get the chopped-up versions of Star Wars at anything over 2K.

The problem begins with the vast majority of every studio's library: the films that were a hit in their day, but never quite earned the name "masterwork." What is to be done with those? Collectors want them, but studios are not going to spend tens of thousands for a 4K scan, let alone any restorative work, without a guaranteed profit. 2K scans for Blu-ray without any restorative work beyond simple automated dirt removal might be the best we can hope for in the next decade or more.

Also, whatever happened to the principle I read for years that studios don't want near-duplicates of their OCNs floating around on a virtually transparent, non-degrading platform, as 4K UHD would be. Hell, Blu-ray comes close with displays under 80", which are over 99% of them.That paranoia is not completely unfounded, since I am sure there are bit-for-bit duplicates of very high quality Blu-rays floating about the internet-o-sphere for free. Doesn't fill me with confidence for the future of 4K in the home or for the output of Blu-ray to increase beyond the flatline we're seeing now.

Lastly, the world just experienced a tremendous wave of new HD flatscreen purchases over the past several years. Consumers had a reason to do so: HD-compatibility and a much more appealing, lightweight profile. 4K makes them obsolete, but only for 4K content. Will people care? I'm not sure, but I believe the smart money is on no. There's no such thing as "niche" 4K. The hardware will fly or it won't, making the software a mute point.

Whatever consumer form 4k eventually takes, the DRM will be stricter than visitors hours at a nunnery.

I'd be interested in 4K because I have a projector, although I'd have to upgrade. If I only had a 70" or less TV then I don't think it would matter that much. Blu-Rays look great now on my 70" Sharp. But I would hold off on upgrading to 4K at all until I see if the studios will step up their game in quality. I'm upset enough now for many of the Blu-Ray's I paid good money for that aren't at a quality level good enough for a new DVD release let alone Blu-Ray. I think restoration to some degree will be a necessary step for catalog titles or I'm not interested - and I'm the type that usually jumps on the new technology bandwagon. (Unless it has to do with streaming my content).

Cinescott said:

...Also, whatever happened to the principle I read for years that studios don't want near-duplicates of their OCNs floating around on a virtually transparent, non-degrading platform, as 4K UHD would be. Hell, Blu-ray comes close with displays under 80", which are over 99% of them.That paranoia is not completely unfounded, since I am sure there are bit-for-bit duplicates of very high quality Blu-rays floating about the internet-o-sphere for free. Doesn't fill me with confidence for the future of 4K in the home or for the output of Blu-ray to increase beyond the flatline we're seeing now....

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My guess is that going forward, movie playback will be restricted to internet connected devices that verify some kind of proof of payment.