Will 4k blu-ray be badly limited? - Blu-ray Forum

ADWyatt · 09-09-2014, 08:25 PM

On another site, I asked members to list the movies they'd love to see in 4k when players become available, hopefully by the 2015 Holiday shopping season. One respondent said that few catalog titles would be made available, partly because there would be too small of a demand to justify the cost, but also because many such movies could never be transferred to 4k quality anyway.

As an example, he told me that two of my favorite movies, 'Avatar' and Peter Jackson's 'King Kong' could never be 4k releases because they were either shot in 2k or finalized in 2k. If that's true, I believe that that would badly cripple the new technology even before it got out of the gate. 4k Blu-ray almost certainly will never be more than a niche market, but many of the older people who can afford it would want the catalog titles in great 4k quality, with its 10-bit color gamut, sharper picture and increased dynamic range. As such, aside from the possibility that movies shot only in 4k would provide too limited a market, I think that catalog titles would be too big a cash cow to ignore.

And so that leaves me to ask: Can the older catalog titles actually be upscaled to 4k, and if so to a degree that provides the 'Wow!' factor that will result in a sale? On the surface we might think so, since studios seem to be capable of producing great videos if they throw enough money into doing so. But this may not be so easy with 4k. Transferring older movies to Blu-ray was easy enough, since they had a lot more detail than DVD brought out. But upscaling a Blu-ray title to sales worthy 4k might be asking too much. 'Lawrence of Arabia', for instance, looks wonderful in Blu-ray. Can studios produce a 4k version that would entice me to double dip? I'm not so sure.

I'd really like to hear your opinion on this. Can 4k Blu-ray effectively sell older movies as well as the new native 4k movies (downsampled from 8k)? Or will 4k Blu-ray be an even more narrow niche market than anyone may think right now?

Thanks for all your responses.

09-09-2014, 08:25 PM	#1
ADWyatt Active Member Member since:Jan 2007	Will 4k blu-ray be badly limited? On another site, I asked members to list the movies they'd love to see in 4k when players become available, hopefully by the 2015 Holiday shopping season. One respondent said that few catalog titles would be made available, partly because there would be too small of a demand to justify the cost, but also because many such movies could never be transferred to 4k quality anyway. As an example, he told me that two of my favorite movies, 'Avatar' and Peter Jackson's 'King Kong' could never be 4k releases because they were either shot in 2k or finalized in 2k. If that's true, I believe that that would badly cripple the new technology even before it got out of the gate. 4k Blu-ray almost certainly will never be more than a niche market, but many of the older people who can afford it would want the catalog titles in great 4k quality, with its 10-bit color gamut, sharper picture and increased dynamic range. As such, aside from the possibility that movies shot only in 4k would provide too limited a market, I think that catalog titles would be too big a cash cow to ignore. And so that leaves me to ask: Can the older catalog titles actually be upscaled to 4k, and if so to a degree that provides the 'Wow!' factor that will result in a sale? On the surface we might think so, since studios seem to be capable of producing great videos if they throw enough money into doing so. But this may not be so easy with 4k. Transferring older movies to Blu-ray was easy enough, since they had a lot more detail than DVD brought out. But upscaling a Blu-ray title to sales worthy 4k might be asking too much. 'Lawrence of Arabia', for instance, looks wonderful in Blu-ray. Can studios produce a 4k version that would entice me to double dip? I'm not so sure. I'd really like to hear your opinion on this. Can 4k Blu-ray effectively sell older movies as well as the new native 4k movies (downsampled from 8k)? Or will 4k Blu-ray be an even more narrow niche market than anyone may think right now? Thanks for all your responses.

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