Smartphones Overtake DVD/Blu-ray For No. 2 Most-Owned Tech: CTA

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It is interesting that Smartphones are now in 80% of US homes. Possible the other 20% of people might either have a regular cell phone still, or they prefer landline phone service only. Landline phone service is popular in rural areas where cellphone and Smartphone coverage is poor. Also with 4K Ultra HD streaming and standard streaming services built into Smartphones and Smart TV's, one can understand why Blu-ray players and DVD players are not as popular as they once were.

http://www.twice.com/news/cta/smartphones-overtake-dvdblu-ray-no-2-most-owned-tech-cta/65142

We need studios to start using the secure managed copy feature that the Blu-ray format offers

Most consumers would rather watch their 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc on a 4K projector or 4K Ultra HD display at home. However some consumers also want to watch movies on their portable device. There is now super thin portable devices like tablet PC’s that have 12.5 inches or a larger screen that is 4K Ultra HD resolution. When one is only around 12 inches from the screen, they would be able to see the improved picture quality of 4K Ultra HD with HDR. Of course, a portable tablet PC allows one to plug in an external Blu-ray drive using USB 3.0. However, a consumer that is using a large screen Apple iPad might want to watch a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc. The Blu-ray format allows studios to activate the secure managed copy feature. Consumers could then copy a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc to a SDXC card and the picture and sound quality would be bit for bit exactly the same as the studio master.

SDXC cards have greatly fallen in price over the years. For example a 128GB SDXC card can be purchased as low as $36.45 with free shipping. 512GB SDXC cards are $237.37 and 2TB SDXC cards are being developed to be released in the future. Sure a blank optical disc is under 50 cents, however consumers could always erase their existing 128GB SDXC card or 512GB SDXC card to place different Blu-ray images on it. We are talking about fast transfer speeds with a 16 time BD-ROM drive that would make a studio authorized digital copy to the consumers SDXC card which would be up to 2TB in capacity.

The studios could get away from the lower quality Digital HD copy and activate peoples Windows PC’s to make a secure bit for bit digital Blu-ray image to a 2TB SDXC card. It would be neat to watch a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray image from a SDXC card on a portable device with a 13 to 20 inch screen. Then with a pair of headphones one could listen to lossless 2.0 stereo sound.

Its disappointing that all or most studios are not using the secure managed copy feature of the Blu-ray format. Instead most people with portable devices just use Netflix or VUDU streaming. Streaming is lower quality compared to optical discs and optical disc authorized copies.