4K Blu-ray Confirmed, Coming in

[bailey1987]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

I don't see any way they would not restrict it. Otherwise you could just sell the disc after copying it to your hard drive using digital bridge.

Curious as to whether copying the movie means just 1080 HD or full UHD. But the wording in the article indicates that it would be just HD. If so, it wouldn't be a very useful feature for me.

Only the trailer would be beneficial to me, I watch them on the bus, I have just recently bought Immediate Music's entire commercially available catalogue of trailer music If I can't decide what to watch I will just stick my trailer reel on. Anyway it doesn't matter if I use it or not it's there some will have a use for it, although I can't deny that it just sounds like there trying to entice pirates with it.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

I don't see any way they would not restrict it. Otherwise you could just sell the disc after copying it to your hard drive using digital bridge.

It wouldn't be that much different than combo packs now. People can buy a BD + DVD + DC combo pack, keep whichever one of those things that they want, and sell off the others.

The disc might also be needed for future reauthentication and creating a new digital copy... i.e. if the player that the digital version is tied to breaks, the disc may need to be re-registered with a new player to transfer the license and copy the movie again (in addition to being tied to some kind of account)... while still allowing the disc, itself, to be played offline with no restriction.

By having the restoration of digital copies tied to the disc, it would be an incentive to force people to keep the discs, or potentially lose access to all of their content if they choose to sell them off and something goes wrong down the road.

[Kirsty_Mc]

I saw it mooted at one stage that the disc may have a chip in it. If this was the case it may go like this:-

If this was the case then a disc that had been "bridged" would maybe have an attribute tying it to the player. If it were sold on the new player would interrogate it and find that it was already "bridged" and refuse to play or play at a reduced resolution.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Kirsty_Mc

I saw it mooted at one stage that the disc may have a chip in it. If this was the case it may go like this:-

If this was the case then a disc that had been "bridged" would maybe have an attribute tying it to the player. If it were sold on the new player would interrogate it and find that it was already "bridged" and refuse to play or play at a reduced resolution.

Anything that either prevents the disc, itself, from playing on another player... or only plays it at a reduced resolution... would be a non-starter for me.

Just in the time that I've been on board with Blu-Ray, what I use as my "main" player has changed a few times. At one time or another it was:

- a Samsung BD player (which ended up having a lot of problems, so I stopped using it)

-two different PS3s (both of which I still have and use for gaming... I'm not using them as much for movie watching these days)

-a stand alone Sony player (which now resides in the bedroom as that room's BD player)

-and currently in my main living room set up it is my Sony home theater system with BD player built into it.

I also have a PS4, which I don't really use for watching movies, but I like having the option the desire to need to use it for that function occurs.

Anything that exclusively ties a disc to one player would not appeal to me at all.

[Geoff D]

From memory I'm up to 20 BD players bought and sold over the last, ooh, 7 years or so.

Samsung (can't remember model)
PS3 fat
PS3 slim
Sony 350
Sony 550
Sony 370
Sony 470
Sony 760
Sony 790
Sony A6000
Philips x2 (can't remember the models)
Panasonic BDT110 x2
Panasonic BBT01
Panasonic BBT310
Panasonic BDT320
Panasonic BDT330
Panasonic BDT120
Oppo 95

[jono3000]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

From memory I'm up to 20 BD players bought and sold over the last, ooh, 7 years or so

I have to ask...why?

[Geoff D]

Early doors, it was about getting a better, faster player. Later on, for a variety of reasons: some were upgrades for their features (better video/audio processing, then 3D, and I needed a player with subtitle shift (the Philipses) because I had a 21:9 TV at one point), some were upgrades due to multi-region issues (the Sony 470 had a hardware mod which was terrible so I changed to alternate Panny BDT110's, one UK and one US), some because I wanted to try out their 4K upscaling (though now I've gone with an outboard DVDO iScan Mini, which itself triggered another upgrade because I then needed a player with 2x HDMI outs), and I bought the Oppo 95 because I wanted to see one of their legendary players for myself. I was not impressed. Got my money back on it though.

Out of that list I'm currently rocking the Panny BDT310 with a firmware multi-region mod.

[Richard Paul]

Sony made a document on bit depth called 12-bit pictures in a 10-bit world. 10-bit HDR is dithered to avoid banding and Sony proposed the option to change a 10-bit HDR signal into a 12-bit HDR signal by adding a 3-bit layer (which would also replace the dithered bit).

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

It wouldn't be that much different than combo packs now. People can buy a BD + DVD + DC combo pack, keep whichever one of those things that they want, and sell off the others.

The disc might also be needed for future reauthentication and creating a new digital copy... i.e. if the player that the digital version is tied to breaks, the disc may need to be re-registered with a new player to transfer the license and copy the movie again (in addition to being tied to some kind of account)... while still allowing the disc, itself, to be played offline with no restriction.

By having the restoration of digital copies tied to the disc, it would be an incentive to force people to keep the discs, or potentially lose access to all of their content if they choose to sell them off and something goes wrong down the road.

Depends on if the Digital Bridge lets you download an exact 1:1 copy of the UHD movie. If so, then strings will be attached. If not, if DB is just a modest 6gb HDx-quality download, then it'll be pretty much a joke because you can just stream it just the same.

The download is really only necessary for files that aren't practical for streaming (or if you have horrible internet), such as full blown UHD.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

Depends on if the Digital Bridge lets you download an exact 1:1 copy of the UHD movie. If so, then strings will be attached. If not, if DB is just a modest 6gb HDx-quality download, then it'll be pretty much a joke because you can just stream it just the same.

The download is really only necessary for files that aren't practical for streaming (or if you have horrible internet), such as full blown UHD.

The digital bridge concept doesn't need to necessarily be limited to just downloading a 1:1 copy of a movie although it could. It could also copy an existing BD from the disc drive to make a 1:1 copy which would save a lot of people a lot of bandwidth. But, as an example, Kaleidescape currently does both so this wouldn't be a new concept.

I'm not as concerned if the 1:1 copy is tried to specific equipment as long as I can transfer it to new equipment if and when the old equipment is replaced. I don't want to have to make 1:1 copies of my movies each time I replace or add new equipment. The time alone to do that would be prohibitive and unnecessary.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

The digital bridge concept doesn't need to necessarily be limited to just downloading a 1:1 copy of a movie although it could. It could also copy an existing BD from the disc drive to make a 1:1 copy which would save a lot of people a lot of bandwidth. But, as an example, Kaleidescape currently does both so this wouldn't be a new concept.

I'm not as concerned if the 1:1 copy is tried to specific equipment as long as I can transfer it to new equipment if and when the old equipment is replaced. I don't want to have to make 1:1 copies of my movies each time I replace or add new equipment. The time alone to do that would be prohibitive and unnecessary.

I like the digital bridge concept because it has the convenience of digital. But if quality is sacrificed (meaning less than a 1:1 transfer) then what's the point if you're not going to have the best of both worlds (quality of disc with the convenience of digital). I can always stream my UV movies without having to bother with going through a digital bridge copy/wait routine.

[vargo]

Digital Bridge export function will rip the video 1:1 from the disc to the device storage. Transcoding is not permitted.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

Depends on if the Digital Bridge lets you download an exact 1:1 copy of the UHD movie. If so, then strings will be attached. If not, if DB is just a modest 6gb HDx-quality download, then it'll be pretty much a joke because you can just stream it just the same.

The download is really only necessary for files that aren't practical for streaming (or if you have horrible internet), such as full blown UHD.

I don't see why the quality of the digital file created necessarily dictates what the freedom (or lack there of) will be in using the disc the same old way as any other past disc based formats. Entusiasts will likely evetually get 4k BD players in other rooms of their homes and so forth. Having the ability to simply pop in the disc and play it will be essential.

Hanging onto the disc likely will be essential, too, if ever the digital file needs to be restored. Even if simply tansfering the intact digital files from one player to another when and if someone decides to upgrade/change their equipment doesn't require the discs to be used, if a hard drive containing the files ever crashes, the discs will be needed to restore the content since the files will be prohibitively large for downloading. So there will be reason to hang on to the discs and not just sell them off after transfering the digital version anyway.


The bottom line is that if they don't give people who buy into it the same freedom that all past physical formats have given in being able to take the physical copy and use it in any compatible player without restriction or online authentication, this 4k BD format will likely be doomed to fail.

Sure, there are some, like yourself, who are willing to put up with that kind of ridiculous nonsense. However, there are many more who will not. This format is likely going to be niche as it is, being aimed more at enthusiasts than the general public. And while there are many excited about the prospects of 4K, I've seen more skepticism amongst many people (who otherwise are enthusiasts) who have happily upgraded in the past as to whether or not the extra quality of 4k will be a big enough leap over HD to even bother with. So, that's already not a great thing for a new 4k BD format.

So when it comes to people who ARE interested in upgrading to 4K, they need to be careful to not implement something that will drive would-be customers away. They will need every customer that they can get. Most hard core enthusiast movie collectors are not going to want their collections completely tied down to an online authentication system that could go belly-up at any time, rendering their entire collection useless. Many would be fine with a comprimise between authentication for the convenience of a full-UHD digital copy in one location tied down to a specific player, with the freedom to otherwise watch directly from the disc in any compatible player with no authentication needed. That way if the online authentication ever goes belly-up and their hard drive crashes, they at least can still watch the movies directly from the discs. But most people who currently have thousands of Blu-Rays probably wouldn't have a collection anywhere near that size if they were 100% completely tied to an authentication system that, if shut down, would render their entire collection useless in one fell swoop.

This will be an Xbox One boycott all over again, combined with that failed divx format that Circuit City was pushing in the late 90s.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Richard Paul

Sony made a document on bit depth called 12-bit pictures in a 10-bit world. 10-bit HDR is dithered to avoid banding and Sony proposed the option to change a 10-bit HDR signal into a 12-bit HDR signal by adding a 3-bit layer (which would also replace the dithered bit).

Those leaks are becoming pretty revealing in regards to developer activities/proposals. But, thankfully, I’d bet that none of them reveal, for instance, the log-in\password credentials for a certain Standards organization for access to things like the tool to convert material originally in a P3D65 container directly into a BT.2020 container in order to evaluate the value of various HDR proposals.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

I like the digital bridge concept because it has the convenience of digital. But if quality is sacrificed (meaning less than a 1:1 transfer) then what's the point if you're not going to have the best of both worlds (quality of disc with the convenience of digital). I can always stream my UV movies without having to bother with going through a digital bridge copy/wait routine.

The digital bridge option has potential if implemented correctly. The downside to UV is that not all discs come with a UV copy nor do they have a D2D option. But what if UHD allowed you to make a digital copy from the disc regardless as to whether or not it came with a UV copy? This potentially opens the door for consumers to have their entire collection stored on a NAS (bit for bit) rather than only a portion of their collection stores online in the UV ecosystem.

[bailey1987]

More DRM PlayReady 3.0 here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/29080...o-your-pc.html

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by bailey1987

More DRM PlayReady 3.0 here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/29080...o-your-pc.html

Wow, that all just sounds like a tremendous mess. I won't go on one of my full blown usual rants, but I will address two quotes from that article:

According to Parks Associates, 68 percent of all American households watch streaming video on PCs, with about 53 percent of all streaming video consumed on computers.

Is the statistic referring to full length movies through Netflix, or any and all streaming videos including short videos from Youtube and the like?

I will sometimes watch youtube videos on my PC or my Wii U gamepad (and sometimes on my smart TV, though I find navigating the app combersome on it, hence why I tend to go with the aforementioned options more often).

Also some streaming video services, like Blip, I can't watch through most other devices, so if there's a video through Blip that I want to watch, I pretty much have to watch it from my computer. I doubt that even half of the people in the percentages listed in the above quote regularly, if ever watch full lengh movies from their computers (unless they have their computers connected to their HDTVs).

For all of the paranoia the industry has about securing content, some argue that Hollywood is trying to close the barn door after the horse left long ago.

This is so, so very true. They want to secure content and stop/prevent piracy. They aren't going to stop it. At best they will maybe slightly slow it down. The people who are going to pirate are going to pirate. And the legitimate customers are the ones who will suffer because they keep implementing new measures that are inconvenient to the people paying for the content that don't do much to stop the people that they are trying to stop.

If anything, it will do more to drive many legit customers to pirating just to not have to hassle with with nonsense hassles that they are attaching to paying for the legit product.

[Richard Paul]

Here is a link to a Sony document that covers the first meeting votes from BDA companies on Ultra HD Blu-ray. It sounds like the main reason the BDA didn't go with 12-bit decoding was timing (time until the mass production of 12-bit decoders) since the cost difference was considered small. The document also talks about chroma subsampling (higher cost and little visible difference), HDR (they mention several of the proposals), and WCG (BT.2020 was chosen since XYZ would have increased video encoding quantization errors and the cost of the video processor). The first meeting was held in 2013 so some of the opinions likely changed but it is neat to see behind the curtains.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Richard Paul

...that covers the first meeting votes from BDA companies on Ultra HD Blu-ray. It sounds like the main reason the BDA didn't go with 12-bit decoding was timing (time until the mass production of 12-bit decoders...

Last paragraph….https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...2#post10266565

[Wendell R. Breland]

This may have already been posted, if so, just skip over it.

Sony hack reveals AACS 2.0 Ultra HD Blu-ray copy protection details

The more content that I check out via the Sony FMP-X10 the less enthused I become of movies on UHD BD.

I will say the Sony FDR-AX1 pictures (YouTube shorts) just knocks me off my feet for a $4,500 camera system. This is from someone who was accustomed to pro HD camera viewfinders costing more than this. Even the $1,700 Sony FDR-AX100/B does an amazing job.