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Originally Posted by HDTV1080P
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.
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Streaming is breaking home video traditions in front of our very eyes. You can't keep using the same 10 year cycle to justify that 8K disc will simply happen, as all bets are off thanks to Hastings et al. People keep mentioning laserdisc over and over and over and over and over again but it's not 1987 any more, the market for physical video media has fallen off a cliff (DVD sales having declined a staggering 86 percent since their record highs of 2004-2007) and although Blu-ray sales haven't declined at the same pace, remaining steady-ish over the last decade or so, they were never a massive seller to begin with.
What keeps a niche format going in the background, like Laserdisc did during the VHS era and now Blu-ray with DVD, is that the mass-market format pulls in enough cash to permit the studios to indulge the weirdos who want the best format. We're still in there fighting our Blu-ray corner but DVD is going to be all but dead in 2026, and will the studios see enough value to keep BD and 4K UHD going by then? Maybe, maybe not, but they are not going to invest the many millions needed just to rejig the 4K UHD format to hold 8K content at any kind of reasonable quality, never mind create some unicorn format that holds 2TB. Again: just applying the same rationales as before and scaling them up is extremely myopic and doesn't take into account what's actually going on around us.
Even if they switch from discs to some kind of flash drive, it will still cost millions upon millions to develop, not the storage medium itself but everything that goes with it: playback devices, new encryption methods, advanced compression schemes and so on. And I can't see any studio in their right mind wanting to do that in an age where streaming is already king, never mind another 6 years down the line. 4K disc itself came perilously close to missing the boat IMO, delayed because of the need to actually add something to the experience rather than just bumping the resolution yet again, that 'something' being HDR. But where's 8K's USP as a playback medium, apart from yet more pixels? I think that's another reason why 8K disc isn't going to happen.