4K Blu-ray Confirmed, Coming in

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by spectre08

If the Panny is within $100 of the Samsung I'll be getting it day 1. If it turns out to be substantially more I'll bite the bullet and buy that stupid curved Samsung. either way, I'm getting it at the earliest possible date.

I wouldn't go near the Samsung even if you paid me (and it's nothing to do with the curve) but yeah, if the Panny is of a similar price then it's well worth considering. I've been eyeing up the big-bollocks 4K upscaling player from Panasonic for a while, so if the actual 4K deck is only £100 more, say, then I might just take the plunge anyway, kill two birds with one stone.

[elwaylite]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

The Samsung UHD Blu-ray player manual states it will downconvert UHD signals to 1080p if your equipment is not fully compliant.

Also, it and a couple others have been announced with dual HDMI ports. One fully HDMI 2.0a compliant and the other HDMI 1.4 compliant. This is helpful if your display is UHD ready and your surround receiver is not.

I fully understand all that, but he asked about getting a 4K AVR and it upgrading image quality. A lot of that is based on whether you use the onboard chip for video processing. If you just use you AVR as a video pass thru device no PQ changes should take place, better or worse.

And I also keep seeing people say that if you play a UHD disc to a 1080p display it will look like a great blu-ray or even better than a 1080p blu-ray to the same display. I have a hard time buying that, but we will see.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

I spent some time today with Philips at CES. Very nice design and build quality on their 4K Ultra HD BD player. BTW, when I suggested they permit authorized dealers the to take pre-orders they agreed to do that.

The Philips high-end TVs look very good, back-lit LED, full array locally dimmed and one nice looking 65" 4K Laser TV, model # 65PFL8900.

-Robert

Good info so far, Robert!

Could you nail these guys down on UHD disc online authentication as was mentioned in the Sony leaks? That's a big sticking point for a lot of us potential buyers.

The more these guys know we don't want it, the better for consumers.

[elwaylite]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I wouldn't go near the Samsung even if you paid me (and it's nothing to do with the curve) but yeah, if the Panny is of a similar price then it's well worth considering. I've been eyeing up the big-bollocks 4K upscaling player from Panasonic for a while, so if the actual 4K deck is only £100 more, say, then I might just take the plunge anyway, kill two birds with one stone.

I feel the same way about Samsung, and may even end up with the Panny, but I am not waiting until Summer to get a player. Now if they come out and say The Martian, for example, won't ship until June, then Ill cancel the Samsung preorder.

But, if there are movies hitting March and July in UHD, I want the player now, not then. It also gives me a chance to see how good the Samsungs are, since they have been getting good reviews the last couple of generations. I used to buy players from Panny, Sony and LG every to try them out, and I stopped and just stuck with Sony the last 2 years. When Panny went to MediaTek in 2013 and dropped the Uniphier, those players would not pass certain video tests and were buggy. I was not happy about that because they were my go to player for a long time.

[elwaylite]

Originally Posted by eriaur

David Mackenzie:https://twitter.com/ultrahdbluray

Waiting on MediaTek...

[Dex Robinson]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Phew, no need to worry about whether UHD Blu will take off or not, as the slipcases alone will guarantee that collectors will be all over them.
...

I think the slipcase advantage is cancelled by the ECO-case!

[Pieter V]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

The front door opens down.

Robert are there any people on the CES floor, where you can ask and discuses the fact a lot of UHD Blu-ray launch titles are 2K finished movies? And those are in fact upscaled for UHD Blu-ray.

A lot of Warner and FOX titles are affected. Or did they keep 4K in mind during post-production and created a 4K copy as well for the archives. Hopefully you can find some people who can answer this critical point.

Native content = king.

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by elwaylite

Waiting on MediaTek...

Not sure if this has been posted before.

"The MediaTek MT8581 can support Blu-ray, DVD and CD playback, including the latest BD-ROM format, such as BD-Live and BonusView. It will allow consumers to both scale up to 4K from DVD and scale down to a non-4K screen to accommodate both legacy and cutting-edge screens and discs. It features HEVC, H.264 and VP9 4K 60p video decoder for 4K (3840x2160) video content and also MPEG-2, VP8 and VC-1 2K 60p video decoder for legacy 2K (1920x1080 video content). For audio decoding, it has capabilities for Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS, and DTS-HD master audio, via multi-format decoding, that can support high quality audio streaming.

With mass production set for the second half of 2016, MediaTek's MT8581 for UHD 4K Blu-ray players marks the latest in a series of leading home entertainment products. Examples of MediaTek's home entertainment customers include:"

read:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...300198479.html

[elwaylite]

Oppo would be waiting on the same thing most likely.

[Rocklandsboy]

You know what, though? I've never finished watching a blu-ray and then said "That was great, but I wish the colour had been sharper, brighter and more vivid".

[bruceames]

I was gonna wait a little while for sure, but that Samsung player is priced just low enough, and the movies just low enough ($24.99) to likely tempt me into buying day one. It's always fun to be an early adopter, especially when it won't cost an arm and a leg.

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

I was gonna wait a little while for sure, but that Samsung player is priced just low enough, and the movies just low enough ($24.99) to likely tempt me into buying day one. It's always fun to be an early adopter, especially when it won't cost an arm and a leg.

I think that these has been so delayed, that early adopters are going to really benefit. Prices will probably rebound not long after the initial roll out, and then wont' drop again to these levels until the holidays.

So I'm gonna get in while the gettin's good.

[elwaylite]

Originally Posted by spectre08

I think that these has been so delayed, that early adopters are going to really benefit. Prices will probably rebound not long after the initial roll out, and then wont' drop again to these levels until the holidays.

So I'm gonna get in while the gettin's good.

Kinda my thinking. I mean you already get $100 off the Samsung for preordering.

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by elwaylite

Kinda my thinking. I mean you already get $100 off the Samsung for preordering.

yeah, they'e saying "preordering," but I'm still expecting that price to stick for at least a few weeks after the launch.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by elwaylite

I feel the same way about Samsung, and may even end up with the Panny, but I am not waiting until Summer to get a player. Now if they come out and say The Martian, for example, won't ship until June, then Ill cancel the Samsung preorder.

But, if there are movies hitting March and July in UHD, I want the player now, not then. It also gives me a chance to see how good the Samsungs are, since they have been getting good reviews the last couple of generations. I used to buy players from Panny, Sony and LG every to try them out, and I stopped and just stuck with Sony the last 2 years. When Panny went to MediaTek in 2013 and dropped the Uniphier, those players would not pass certain video tests and were buggy. I was not happy about that because they were my go to player for a long time.

The £400 4K upscaler from Panny that I keep mentioning (BDT700) does in fact have the latest version of the Uniphier, so I'm hoping that their proper 4K spinner will also feature a Uniphier, even if it's just for DVD/BD playback. (Though with the MediaTek UHD solution not going into mass production until the latter half of the year, even the UHD playback may come from a proprietary Panny chip.)

If you've simply gotta have it as soon as possible then have at it good sir, but I'd rather wait anyway than put my faith in a Samsung. [edit] I don't think the prices will rebound either. If the 4K TVs have been any indication then the prices will drop like a ****ing stone, and with mass-market players no doubt getting slimmed down for the second gen & beyond they will only get cheaper from there.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by kristoffer

The pakaging of WB titles.

Call me picky but that's not enough differentiation. It's basically a bluray case but black. They could of went with something more stand out and noticeable for being a new format.

[Geoff D]

But what else could they really have done? Make the cases hexagonal or something? I'm being snarky, yes, but you get my point.

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

But what else could they really have done? Make the cases hexagonal or something? I'm being snarky, yes, but you get my point.

UltraHd blu-rays only come in Steelbooks

sploosh

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by saprano

Call me picky but that's not enough differentiation. It's basically a bluray case but black. They could of went with something more stand out and noticeable for being a new format.

As long as it's not some scratch prone case like with My Fair Lady or Warner's Diamond Luxe editions, I really care more about the content quality on the disc.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

But what else could they really have done? Make the cases hexagonal or something? I'm being snarky, yes, but you get my point.

I don't know. The cases just look too samey. Maybe go back to laser disc style cases?

I also hate when blurays use the same box art as DVD's. Sometimes i would buy the 3D version because it's different.