REDRAY 4K Player Unveiled.

[Spicoli]

REDRAY from the company that makes the RED camera has the first 4k media player. Looks to do what Blu can't .

Thoughts?


http://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php...&id=1354605554
http://www.red.com/store/products/redray-player

[DavePS3]

I would imagine, that by the time 4K hits an actual disc, all newer players will make that change. Sony says that although many films are now shooting in 4 to 8K, getting that information onto a disc means the disc will need to be triple to quad' layered.

If you think about it, this is a pretty good reason to believe hard disc will continue for a long time. Even though many like to download movies these days, they wont be able to stream 4K any time soon because of the tiny pipe diameter of current bandwidth. Hell, they can barely get 1080p with 7.1 to stream properly.

(4K can also be run from a hard drive of course, like the material Sony is currently running on it's 84" LED)

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by DavePS3

I would imagine, that by the time 4K hits an actual disc, all newer players will make that change. Sony says that although many films are now shooting in 4 to 8K, getting that information onto a disc means the disc will need to be triple to quad' layered.

If you think about it, this is a pretty good reason to believe hard disc will continue for a long time. Even though many like to download movies these days, they wont be able to stream 4K any time soon because of the tiny pipe diameter of current bandwidth. Hell, they can barely get 1080p with 7.1 to stream properly.

(4K can also be run from a hard drive of course, like the material Sony is currently running on it's 84" LED)

Didn't Blu-ray promise that back in 2005/2006.

[Kirk Out]

Damn that player above looks hidious. Yuck

[5th Of November]

I'm not sure what to make of this. On one hand, it will be visually superior when compared to Blu-ray. On the other hand, getting content to the consumer isn't going to be an easy task. It's really just an exotic media player that plays a proprietary format. Will movies be sold on hard disks or flash drives? Do I have to download them from the internet? That won't be feasible for people with capped ISP's. Blu-ray is still evolving as well. I just don't see this being anything to worry about for awhile, if ever. RED cameras aren't going anywhere, but will there be enough demand for a media player like this in the home? It looks like something you'd find in Tony Stark's living room. I'll gladly adopt it if the content is there and it's affordable.

[frogmort]

It looks like HAL from 2001:

[pagemaster]

I highly doubt this will catch on.

[Quinthoopachiefy]

Originally Posted by frogmort

It looks like HAL from 2001:

It Does LOL!!

[Spicoli]

If we progress with technology and I am pretty sure we will, higher resolution images and screens will require much larger files which I doubt a disc will be able to handle.

[HDMe]

Originally Posted by Spicoli

If we progress with technology and I am pretty sure we will, higher resolution images and screens will require much larger files which I doubt a disc will be able to handle.

How are you going to get it to consumers then? It is still more likely to figure out a way to store more data on a physical disc and deliver that... than to keep increasing the bandwidth and bitrates far beyond what people already can't get reliably today for much lower resolutions.

IF they keep bumping up the data requirements... physical media will be the only way to effectively get such movies into the most consumers hands.

[Spicoli]

Originally Posted by HDMe

How are you going to get it to consumers then? It is still more likely to figure out a way to store more data on a physical disc and deliver that... than to keep increasing the bandwidth and bitrates far beyond what people already can't get reliably today for much lower resolutions.

IF they keep bumping up the data requirements... physical media will be the only way to effectively get such movies into the most consumers hands.

Looks like portable hard drives will be our library maybe? You are right, some sort of physical copy will be needed. Issued on thumbs transfered to hard drives?

[HDMe]

Originally Posted by Spicoli

Looks like portable hard drives will be our library maybe? You are right, some sort of physical copy will be needed. Issued on thumbs transfered to hard drives?

IF the price ever comes down... I see the day when "thumb drives" could be the delivery method as opposed to optical disc. It would kill cover art collectors and steelbooks and whatnot... but it would be easy to store a collection of thumb drives for a lot of movies.

I don't know when that day will come, though... when the thumb drives are cheap enough to be say half a TB and cheap enough to be throw-away basically.

[stratford]

how dose any one propose selling this sort of quality to sun readers more used to 10p scart cables and grainy downloads of doubtfull legality

[Spicoli]

Originally Posted by stratford

how dose any one propose selling this sort of quality to sun readers more used to 10p scart cables and grainy downloads of doubtfull legality

Doses, sun readers and scart cables doubtful legality has me quite puzzled indeed.

[Flatnate]

The verdict is out for me until I hear some reports on how Red's proprietary compression scheme actually looks in the real world on some 4k projectors with larger screens. Promising.

[Prox]

Here's the part I'm iffy on:

But there is a twist. The Redray Player will only playback 4K content if it is encoded in RED’s own RED format that Hollywood already has access to. The RED format supports up to 4K resolution and 7.1 surround sound in 24-bit 48KHz. This requires approximately 2.5MB per second, according to RED which means that you can store around 100 hours of 4K content on the hard disc or stream in full quality from the Internet with an Internet connection faster than 25 Mbit/s.

I worry about their proprietary format because a) we don't know how good it will be and b) it may give them too much control over the price.

25 Mbps internet is crazy fast for most of the US. This is especially true when that's the minimum speed. Getting that level of download consistently for two hours is rough. ISPs have a ways to go before this is really usable.

Also, I just don't get the six HDMI out thing. How would this actually be used/wired up?

[Kirsty_Mc]

There is always the possibility that in future we will still be buying physical media (I've never been a strong believer in downloads and streaming for large video files). One way to cope with the data rate would be to load the physical media, this could be securely dumped to an internal hard drive and the file would be played from here rather than directly from the disc. This way existing blu ray technology could be used for 4K, you movie would maybe just come on four discs.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Well, we know at least 1 or 2 (Sony and Disney) of the big 6 studios won't put content on it.

[vargo]

Originally Posted by Prox

Here's the part I'm iffy on:

I worry about their proprietary format because a) we don't know how good it will be and b) it may give them too much control over the price.

25 Mbps internet is crazy fast for most of the US. This is especially true when that's the minimum speed. Getting that level of download consistently for two hours is rough. ISPs have a ways to go before this is really usable.

Also, I just don't get the six HDMI out thing. How would this actually be used/wired up?

LOL, they have shifted their goalposts again. Several years ago they talked about 10Mbps for 4K. Then it was 15Mbps. More recently it was 20Mbps. Now they are telling people 25Mbps.

It seems their codec is getting worse as it matures (!). Or more likely their original 10Mbps demos were falsified.

I can do great looking 4k right now using H.264 Hi10p @ 25Mbps for many source types.

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by vargo

LOL, they have shifted their goalposts again. Several years ago they talked about 10Mbps for 4K. Then it was 15Mbps. More recently it was 20Mbps. Now they are telling people 25Mbps.

It seems their codec is getting worse as it matures (!). Or more likely their original 10Mbps demos were falsified.

I can do great looking 4k right now using H.264 Hi10p @ 25Mbps for many source types.

ding ding ding, we have a winner!!!!, no way has HVEC that much better. I can see 20-25 mbps, but 10???? not unless you REALLY want it to look like a Divx file