4K Blu-ray Confirmed, Coming in

[bailey1987]

Originally Posted by Derb

That's gonna be the key to 4K's success right there, what ja said.

If manufacturing only pumps out 4K sets from 26" & beyond while declining in price then it becomes more about mainstream attention for 4K & Native 4K Sources from that point for videophiles & newer generations.

I don't think size is an issue Sony already has the Sony Experia Z5 Premium which has a 4K screen. It won't take long for the others to have them, with any luck the mobiles will drive the cost down.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by Derb

That's gonna be the key to 4K's success right there, what ja said.

If manufacturing only pumps out 4K sets from 26" & beyond while declining in price then it becomes more about mainstream attention for 4K & Native 4K Sources from that point for videophiles & newer generations.

Sure generations past don't give a crap about anything better then DVD & people keep bringing up that format is still king (including my folks) because it's about cost & their internal disregard that anything could possibly look better than 480p but what it's really about is they only care about the content that is in front of their eyes.

I'm not worried at all about 4K TVs surviving. Regardless of 4K content, all other sources outshine native 1080 sets on 4K sets, especially current gen console gaming systems. All Blu-ray's upscale great too.

People who want UHD now need to chill. IMO, it's only purpose will be to drive the TV market forward faster with better tech to make us go DAM! That looks impressive!

lol. What? This is not true. All scalers are not created equal. But even with good scalers It's alway best to avoid it. You're also missing some other pretty important parameters that defines a picture besides resolution. There's a reason some 1080p TV's look better than 4K TV's.

[Dex Robinson]

Let's not forget what thread we are posting in.

This isn't a general thread about 4K TV.

This thread is " 4K Blu-ray Confirmed, Coming in Late 2015".

The fact is that the inevitability of 4K TV won't drive UHD BD. For the last 8 years or so, we have all been involved in the largest consumer format study ever conducted. TV switched, en masse, to high definition. Would consumers tolerate a lower resolution format when they all had HDTVs?

Eight years ago, I honestly beleived that they would not. With all my heart, I was convinced that people would demand only HD content for their new TVs. I knew that Blu-ray would drive DVD into oblivion by 2012.

Well that didn't happen.

People kept buying DVDs...and watching TV on tiny screens. Generally, the population had little if any interest in the resolution of the content. They bought 60" TVs and bought DVDs to watch on them.

And now, people think that 4K TV sets will move people to purchase of UHD BD (remember...this is not a 4K TV thread, it's a 4k disc thread)? That won't happen.

People will buy 4K TVs and they will watch whatever they want with no regard to resolution or HDR. 4K sets will drive the disc market for about 2% of us.

[Geoff D]

Absolutely spot on, Dexy. 4K displays are here to stay. 4K Blu-ray...not so much.

sap: you'd be surprised at how seamless 4K scaling actually is, especially with 1080p to 2160p because it's directly proportional, it'd be harder to **** it up than to get it right! 1080p looks astonishing on my 4K set, not so much because the upscaling itself is adding any special sauce but because A) I've set it up properly and B) the increased pixel density means I can sit much closer than I could with an equivalent 1080p set, it's incredibly immersive.

[Rocklandsboy]

Originally Posted by saprano

lol. What? This is not true. All scalers are not created equal. But even with good scalers It's alway best to avoid it. You're also missing some other pretty important parameters that defines a picture besides resolution. There's a reason some 1080p TV's look better than 4K TV's.

This is very true and poses a difficult question. Since only 10% (a VERY generous estimate) of what we watch on disc going forward (certainly over the next few years) will be native 4K, do we really want to watch 90% of our "core" material filtered through an upscaler? BD might upscale fine... but what about DVD? What about 60s and 70s television?

4K TV is pretty in demos, but does it actually make the majority of our stuff look better?!

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

4K TV is pretty in demos, but does it actually make the majority of our stuff look better?!

See post above yours. The increased pixel density allows you to sit closer and for me, sitting closer without looking at a grid = looking better. You can get that immersive experience that normally you could only get with a projector. It's not only not seeing pixels, but the picture looks smoother as well with more uniform lighting. So yeah, ALL my stuff looks better on a 4K TV.

Since I bought my TV, I've been sitting about 2 feet closer (about 78" away) than I used to and the new TV is 65" vs. 58" for the old plasma.

[Rocklandsboy]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

See post above yours. The increased pixel density allows you to sit closer and for me, sitting closer without looking at a grid = looking better. You can get that immersive experience that normally you could only get with a projector. It's not only not seeing pixels, but the picture looks smoother as well with more uniform lighting. So yeah, ALL my stuff looks better on a 4K TV.

Since I bought my TV, I've been sitting about 2 feet closer (about 78" away) than I used to and the new TV is 65" vs. 58" for the old plasma.

But how does, say, a DVD of classic 1970 Doctor Who look on it? That requires a whopping amount of upscaling.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

But how does, say, a DVD of classic 1970 Doctor Who look on it? That requires a whopping amount of upscaling.

I rarely watch DVDs on it, but I think they will still look better...proportionally speaking anyway. I may have to sit further back though, since as it is, I'm only about 1.2:1 away from my TV, and that's a little too close for most 480p material.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

But how does, say, a DVD of classic 1970 Doctor Who look on it? That requires a whopping amount of upscaling.

I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous post on this matter: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...g#post11212075

Basically an old episode of Dr Who shot on noisy old analogue video will still look like an old episode of Dr Who shot on noisy old analogue video, but a well-mastered DVD (a rarity from the majors these days, admittedly) looks fine to me on my 4K TV.

[raygendreau]

Panasonic comments on their prototype UHD BR player in this new article from Whathifi:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...4&postcount=50

[Derb]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Absolutely spot on, Dexy. 4K displays are here to stay. 4K Blu-ray...not so much.

sap: you'd be surprised at how seamless 4K scaling actually is, especially with 1080p to 2160p because it's directly proportional, it'd be harder to **** it up than to get it right! 1080p looks astonishing on my 4K set, not so much because the upscaling itself is adding any special sauce but because A) I've set it up properly and B) the increased pixel density means I can sit much closer than I could with an equivalent 1080p set, it's incredibly immersive.

I notice colour is better too when watching upscaled.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by Dex Robinson

Let's not forget what thread we are posting in.

This isn't a general thread about 4K TV.

This thread is "4K Blu-ray talked about, Coming hopefully Late 2016".

People will buy 4K TVs and they will watch whatever they want with no regard to resolution or HDR. 4K sets will drive the disc market for about 2% of us.

I love the thread title. I fixed it for you.

Who's gonna run out & buy a Panasonic or Samsung 4K UHD player the day of release? I'm not. Those players will be buggy as hell & probably cost upward of $1,000. Name a format that didn't launch around a thousand bucks since DVD.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Derb

I love the thread title. I fixed it for you.

Who's gonna run out & buy a Panasonic or Samsung 4K UHD player the day of release? I'm not. Those players will be buggy as hell & probably cost upward of $1,000. Name a format that didn't launch around a thousand bucks since DVD.

This isn't 2006.


Buggy? UHD-BD is just that, an extension of BD. UHD-BD authoring won't be much different from BD, even with the HDR metadata. I don't recall issues with 2D/3D discs.


Samsung has already said its player will be about $500


Not sure why you participate in this thread other than to be relentlessly negative.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Derb

I love the thread title. I fixed it for you.

Who's gonna run out & buy a Panasonic or Samsung 4K UHD player the day of release? I'm not. Those players will be buggy as hell & probably cost upward of $1,000. Name a format that didn't launch around a thousand bucks since DVD.

Day one, but for the first Sony player with dual hdmi

[Geoff D]

Really mike? Wow.

[Eny-]

I will wait for Oppo.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

Panasonic comments on their prototype UHD BR player in this new article from Whathifi:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...4&postcount=50

Sounds like there's still a lot of issues with making the hardware affordable, getting the content, deciding upon standards within the industry and so on. At the rate this format is going it won't come out until next Christmas, never mind this one. And every day that ticks by UHD streaming is eating into that market share.

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Sounds like there's still a lot of issues with making the hardware affordable, getting the content, deciding upon standards within the industry and so on. At the rate this format is going it won't come out until next Christmas, never mind this one. And every day that ticks by UHD streaming is eating into that market share.

For those interested in quality over convenience, UHD BR competition will be more from downloading than streaming and of course the continuation of early digital release.

What is troublesome in that Panasonic interview is the slippage in release of hardware due to an expected lack of content and studio indifference.

In that news release from Sony posted earlier, there really wasn't that much emphasis on physical disk. I wonder if FMP-X10 owners have an HDR update for streaming in their future? It will be interesting to see if Sony adds a premium to UHD HDR. M-GO VIDITY UHD downloads are around $20 and UHD HDR are $30.

[Dex Robinson]

It seems to me that we are getting a trickle of announcements, press releases and interviews...but little tangible progress.

It seemed like real progress was being made early in the year when Panasonic showed it's prototype UHD BD player. That looked encouraging. Where are we now? Panasonic has just shown another prototype player. "We have a prototype 2016 model...It needs more testing and development". Really? We went from a 2015 prototype to a 2016 prototype?

Samsung? OK. We'll give them some credit. Samsung does tend to be an early participant (although my reading of popular opinion is that most of us don't like Samsung disc players).

Content? We knew Fox would be first out of the gate. They've been the most vocal studio in support of this since day one. So now we have some titles with preliminary CGI art. But, again, is this genuine progress? We knew Fox would announce the launch titles but what do we know about the discs other than what we see in the computer generated art? For many months, I have been trying to find out where we stand in regards to the manufacture of production standard discs...I can read the specifications and the plans...I want to know the state of production equipment and the quality of production standard discs. What have we heard from Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal or any independents? They seem to have been rather quiet.

Early in the year, we had a prototype player and a commitment from Fox. Now, we have three prototype players and a commitment from Fox.

I'll say this again: I want to see a corporate representative standing on the stage with a working UHD BD player. I want to see him load a UHD BD (produced from production equipment) into that player and display the results for all to see.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

This isn't 2006.


Buggy? UHD-BD is just that, an extension of BD. UHD-BD authoring won't be much different from BD, even with the HDR metadata. I don't recall issues with 2D/3D discs.


Samsung has already said its player will be about $500


Not sure why you participate in this thread other than to be relentlessly negative.

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/en/index.aspx

You know I kinda wish 4K was mentioned on their official site. Then I would believe they are taking this format seriously.

Until that happens..

I'll come back with positive buzz.