UHD Blu-ray sees healthy gains

[Canada]

UHD Blu-ray sees healthy gains.

[Majestyk]

I'm surprised. Most people I know don't even have Blu-Ray players.

[oddbox83]

3D saw excellent player support but with TVs you generally had to hunt it down, and it was in the main limited to more expensive sets.

4K on the other hand has gained incredibly quick panel support, a lot of price options, with the players catching up this time!

This might have been one of the important differences besides the whole glasses thing. Anyway, I'm off on a tangent but delighted for 4K UHD Blu-ray.

[Zoland2020]

I think 4K Blu-rays will do just fine, it may even be as successful as Blu-rays and DVDs someday. Now if most manufacturers would drop support with DVD, 4K Blu-rays may do even better.

[KRW1]

I'm not that surprised, UHD is a very specific upgrade path. Bluray was less clear and had a slightly confusing first few years.

[Canada]

Originally Posted by KRW1

I'm not that surprised, UHD is a very specific upgrade path. Bluray was less clear and had a slightly confusing first few years.

Yeah the whole Blu-ray vs HD-DVD thing was a debacle, for the first couple of years.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by Zoland2020

I think 4K Blu-rays will do just fine, it may even be as successful as Blu-rays and DVDs someday. Now if most manufacturers would drop support with DVD, 4K Blu-rays may do even better.

Look you are only thinking of the simplifying of the marketplace for pushing UHD BD's rather then promoting backwards compatibility of media. I get it, but you are choosing to ignore the huge amount of DVD's releases, more then all the BD releases so far.

Yes there was a ton of older movie/show content converted from old formats to 480i content. DVD players been around from early 2000. Now BD's started to appear Mid 2006. A lot of the old content has not been converted to BD's, only so much percentage has. Now you have UHD BD's showing up since March 2016. I seen titles released on DVD/BD, and UHD BD such as Fifth Element but each time you are re-releasing content against a higher resolution media standard it gets that much more expensive.

So why would any UHD BD vendor drop support for DVD? Obviously customers know the differences!

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Zoland2020

I think 4K Blu-rays will do just fine, it may even be as successful as Blu-rays and DVDs someday. Now if most manufacturers would drop support with DVD, 4K Blu-rays may do even better.

If you're suggesting that manufacturers should stop making DVD-only players, I agree. BD players are have become inexpensive enough - as little as $50 (and less for refurbished) and UHD players for not that much water, all of which also play DVD's.

But if you're suggesting that the studios should stop producing DVD's, that's totally unrealistic. The marketplace has spoken and while DVD's are experiencing serious decline, in 2017, Blu had only a 40.1% revenue share (of physical media) and a 26% unit share. No one is going to give up the rest of that revenue and only a small percentage would translate to BD.

So after all this time, 74% of the units sold are DVD. Part of that is because more titles are still released on DVD, but it's also because a large part of the consumer population really doesn't care or doesn't understand the benefit of Blu over DVD and they certainly don't know/care about UHD.

Having said that, there has been some progress. Not that long ago, only the top 10 titles with the largest BD share achieved 50% or higher share. Now, the top 20 titles bottom out at a 62% share. And the top titles have a very high share: For the week ending 1/27, Kong: Skull Island had an 83% BD share and Atomic Blonde had an 80% share. And Hacksaw Ridge and Fantastic Beasts had a 47% and 45% UHD share respectively.

But in a few years, this all may be moot as consumers move en masse to streaming. The U.S. music business is already over 64% streaming (in $).

[elwaylite]

Blu-ray was great, but with rentals I did not buy as much.

3D was OK, wasn't great until I got an OLED.

4K, more so HDR, is great and I am buying more discs now that ever.

[Clark Kent]

I think some people are starting to buy UHDs for futureproofing even if they haven't switched over yet. It's what I've been doing since October.

[chad_1138]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

I think some people are starting to buy UHDs for futureproofing even if they haven't switched over yet. It's what I've been doing since October.

Agree. I purchased my first 4K disc in July of 2016, the OPPO 203 and Onkyo 656 in March of 2017, and will be finally purchasing my first 4K display this year as soon as the TCL 6 series hits the shelves

[Canada]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

I think some people are starting to buy UHDs for futureproofing even if they haven't switched over yet. It's what I've been doing since October.

Exactly what I am doing at the minute.

[SexySamSosa67]

Originally Posted by chad_1138

Agree. I purchased my first 4K disc in July of 2016, the OPPO 203 and Onkyo 656 in March of 2017, and will be finally purchasing my first 4K display this year as soon as the TCL 6 series hits the shelves

You getting the 55" or 65"?

[The Duke]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

I think some people are starting to buy UHDs for futureproofing even if they haven't switched over yet. It's what I've been doing since October.

I have a friend who bought HD-DVDs for future proofing, didn't work out so well for him. But he usually bought the combos with DVDs, so at least he has DVDs he can still play.

I bought my first 4k TV in November 2016, great Cyber Monday deal to replace my aging 1080p TV. But 4k players & BDs were too expensive so I held off. I snagged one of the cheap LG BBP870 players from Walmart in early January, and I've already bought a dozen 4k BDs, can't go back now.

[chad_1138]

Originally Posted by sexysamsosa67

you getting the 55" or 65"?

65"