Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart
I believe in a couple of years you will see 8K content - streamed, not on a physical format.
As of today, neither Christie nor Barco sell 8K Cinema projectors. Only 4K.
Once again, shooting in 8K gives headroom in the editing process, not with the intention of producing an 8K film, though there will probably be a few made with a 4K DI.
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It is a possibility that around the year 2023 that at least one major streaming company might offer native 8K movies. And yes there is a possibility that a new 8K optical disc format
might not be released around the year 2026, which would break with the around 10 year tradition. In the year 1997 the 480i DVD format came out. 9 years later in 2006 the standard 2D 1080P Blu-ray format came out (2010 saw the launch of the 1080P Blu-ray 3D format), and then in 2016 the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format was launched. So based on the 10 year cycle for optical disc resolution improvements maybe a new optical disc that is between 200GB to 2TB would be possible in the year 2026. Maybe it would be launched by the DVD association of companies and be called “8K DVD” with a mandatory 480i DVD layer for existing DVD players made since 1997. The Laserdisc format lasted between 1978-2000 in the USA until the DVD format in 3 short years replaced Laserdiscs. My point is the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format is more successful when compared to the Laserdisc format which only had around 2 million active users with a total of around 16.8 million Laserdisc players sold worldwide. There has been over 50 million XBOX systems sold and a certain percentage of those systems are the Xbox one S and X model with a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive.
If the consumer electronics industry does around the year 2026 come out with a 8K optical disc format, it most likely will get around the same support as the Laserdisc format. However, if VUDU and Netflix start offering high bit rate 8K streaming with lossless audio then launching a new 8K optical disc format might not happen. Instead a 8K download service to ones 100TB hard drive server might experience a popular launch. But if the streaming companies think they can offer slightly better 8K video streams with lossy audio when compared to 4K Blu-ray with lossless audio, then the demand for a 8K optical format should exist, unless the consumer decides that 8K streaming quality with lossy audio is acceptable sound quality (offering 8K with lossless audio streaming would most likely be the deal breaker that might kill the demand for optical disc formats).
People forget that streaming is a super powerful format that one day could kill off all physical media including DVD once 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray do not exist. I guess people will see what happens within the next 6 years or so.