4K Blu-ray Confirmed, Coming in

[blurayfriend]

Someone aware me, does this mean they're going to release all the movies again in a "4K disc" format and we'll have to re-buy our entire collection much like we did with going from DVD to BD? In other words, will they make new 4K movie discs that are incompatible with regular blu-ray players and tv's so on release day they'll say "Get it on blu-ray, blu-ray 3d or blu-ray 4K today!"

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by blurayfriend

Someone aware me, does this mean they're going to release all the movies again in a "4K disc" format and we'll have to re-buy our entire collection much like we did with going from DVD to BD? In other words, will they make new 4K movie discs that are incompatible with regular blu-ray players and tv's so on release day they'll say "Get it on blu-ray, blu-ray 3d or blu-ray 4K today!"

I'm sick of hearing people complain that they have to re-buy everything. All players are backwards compatible: all of your Blu-ray discs will continue to work just as all of your DVDs continued to work.

You will need a new player to play 4K discs, but all 4K players will also play regular Blu-ray and DVDs.

[KRW1]

I seriously doubt they'll release all the movies again anyway. I think I've bought my last ever copy of Fast Company and Killer Nun (which sits next to Zombie Flesh-eaters which will inevitably have an eventual 4k release)

[kristoffer]

10 bit. Rec 2020 sounds good.

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

Originally Posted by Jason One

That's great about 60fps, but I really hope it also supports a lot of other possible frame rates, to hopefully eliminate the conversion issues BD has had with non-24fps material. It should at least have:

23.976
24
25
29.97
30
48
50
59.94
60

That would be fantastic.

Do want

[Jimmy Smith]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

I'm sick of hearing people complain that they have to re-buy everything. All players are backwards compatible: all of your Blu-ray discs will continue to work just as all of your DVDs continued to work.

You will need a new player to play 4K discs, but all 4K players will also play regular Blu-ray and DVDs.

Right. The way technophobes complain about new technology you would think that everytime a new format comes out a virus is unleashed that destroys their collection.

Nobody expects anyone to trash their Blu-Ray collection. Chances are your 1080p copies will be the best looking copies of most of your movies for many years to come. Particularly since many HD shot programs wouldn't benefit from the higher resolution anyway. Mostly I'm looking forward to this for new release titles though I'm sure some of my favorites will be worth an upgrade depending on my financial situation.

[space blaster]

I'm convinced this format will fail.

The only reason the 4K disc format is being finalized is to push new TV adoption and that just isn't going to happen. Ever since the TV sector finally took off with HDTV they were making huge profits but then prices (profits) started to fall, the industry has tried to do everything in their power to push more sales to an already saturated market. You could get a top tier 50" HDTV for $1,000 but they put out the 3D model and tried to charge 3,000 for it then 2,000 and finally gave up and sold them for $1,000 a year later. The same thing happen with TV that had apps. Why they thought a TV that could natively stream netflix would be worth an extra $1,000 is beyond me - especially since streaming boxes are about $100.

So now there's 4k. They want to get a physical media out there to convince people to start buying new TV's again. This too will fail. 55" 1080p watched from 8-10 feet away looks just as good as 4k. You either have to have a small room or get an even larger TV for this to matter. Yeah I've seen 4K displays at Best Buy and yes they look great. I love how it looks but when I'm looking at a display in a store my nose might as well be touching the screen because that's nothing like the viewing conditions at my house.

After making the mistake of early adopting HD-DVD, I will not be early adopting this format. If I'm wrong and the format survives then fine, I'll buy into it. If they have combo packs with 4k discs packed in I'll buy those instead of the regular versions as well (unless they are absurdly expensive). I won't be going out of my way to buy a brand new TV when my current one is really great and blu ray looks fantastic.

Oh and as for the SDTV channels? My wife watches SDTV all the time even though we have HD versions, it drives me nuts. Considering the standard content we watch is cable TV and it is usually 720p and my game systems don't even do 1080p, who cares? I can't imagine how crappy the 480p SDTV will look if my wife watched that on a 4k TV.

edit:
Oh yeah and I'm not in a huge hurry to upgrade my surround sound system again. Yeah, a 4k receiver will be required. Yet MORE hardware to buy.

[DangeRuss]

Originally Posted by space blaster

I'm convinced this format will fail.

The only reason the 4K disc format is being finalized is to push new TV adoption and that just isn't going to happen. Ever since the TV sector finally took off with HDTV they were making huge profits but then prices (profits) started to fall, the industry has tried to do everything in their power to push more sales to an already saturated market. You could get a top tier 50" HDTV for $1,000 but they put out the 3D model and tried to charge 3,000 for it then 2,000 and finally gave up and sold them for $1,000 a year later. The same thing happen with TV that had apps. Why they thought a TV that could natively stream netflix would be worth an extra $1,000 is beyond me - especially since streaming boxes are about $100.

So now there's 4k. They want to get a physical media out there to convince people to start buying new TV's again. This too will fail. 55" 1080p watched from 8-10 feet away looks just as good as 4k. You either have to have a small room or get an even larger TV for this to matter. Yeah I've seen 4K displays at Best Buy and yes they look great. I love how it looks but when I'm looking at a display in a store my nose might as well be touching the screen because that's nothing like the viewing conditions at my house.

After making the mistake of early adopting HD-DVD, I will not be early adopting this format. If I'm wrong and the format survives then fine, I'll buy into it. If they have combo packs with 4k discs packed in I'll buy those instead of the regular versions as well (unless they are absurdly expensive). I won't be going out of my way to buy a brand new TV when my current one is really great and blu ray looks fantastic.

Oh and as for the SDTV channels? My wife watches SDTV all the time even though we have HD versions, it drives me nuts. Considering the standard content we watch is cable TV and it is usually 720p and my game systems don't even do 1080p, who cares? I can't imagine how crappy the 480p SDTV will look if my wife watched that on a 4k TV.

edit:
Oh yeah and I'm not in a huge hurry to upgrade my surround sound system again. Yeah, a 4k receiver will be required. Yet MORE hardware to buy.

Agreed

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Teazle

"Dual sided" discs for back compat so presumably flippers.

I doubt we will see it. Ever since DVD (which only needed 1/2 a disk) flippers have been possible.

There are four major issues with them (the way I see it)

1) Aesthetics- a bit odd that we start with this, but it is more than just a fancy pic, but also now you are forcing someone to pay attention possibly in a relatively dark room) to that small writing around the center. I know I already , inadvertently, put in the disk the wrong side up)

2) no real advantage to consumers- if the players could read both sides there is an advantage since you doubled the capacity but if the user needs to get up and flip it (even worst with a disk changer) there is the same amount of work as changing disks

3) safe side- what is the first thing you teach a kid? don't touch the shiny side since even finger prints can cause playback issues, there is no safe side on a flipper (unless you don't care if one side is playable)

4) cost - the rest all have to do with why consumers hated them, but because flippers have a much higher fault rate the studio does not see the full benefit of one disk is better than two. That is why even with DVD where flippers were easy most packages had two disks instead of a flipper. If the cost difference was worthy it studios would have said "who cares about 1-3" consumers don't have a choice.


Also let's face it if we were going to see flippers we could have had 2D/3D on different sides of a BD, why would it be any more likely to see 2k/4k on different sides?

My guess like we do with 3D we will see a 2k and a 4k disk in the same package.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by blurayjunkie

I am excited about this new, as one day I will have a 4KTV and will buy Blu-Ray 4K media. What I am not so excited about is the 66-100GB disc limit, I thought the disc space limit would be bigger. Why even bother with a 66GB disc? Why not have 100GB as the bare min for 4K video and bump it up from there.

why not? 25GB is in the BD spec but barely anyone uses it any more for content. Why not have a 2 layer disk for content that needs between 50 and 66? there is no cost to adding it to the spec.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Stefan1

so wait...theyre gonna re-release every blu ray but in 4k................??
I just sold all my dvds and upgraded to blu ray, now I need to upgrade again?

probably not, first of all for many films in the past 20 years they were either shot digitally or extensively manipulated digitally (edited, effects....) in 2k so 4k would add very little.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by mredman

Anyone else think this will likely be the death blow to DVD. That Blu Ray will be become the dominant format and 4K will be niche. It sure looks like with 2 premium HD formats. DVD will be going the way out and Blu Ray can finally be the dominant one.

well studios did decide to drop VHS the year HD disks came out.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

well studios did decide to drop VHS the year HD disks came out.

But hardly any were being made by that point anyway. There are still new releases that come out only on DVD, it isn't going away any time soon.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by AudioWarrior

Whether or not they do come out with new discs that can hold more data, they still can use those BDXL 128GB discs right now if they wanted too!

there is a huge difference between a data disk and a rom disk.

1)There is no replicator lines that can produce a 128GB disk, there are lines that can produce 100GB disk https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=12140

2) replicator lines need relatively low reject rates and extreme speed to make an inexpensive disk, a R or Re manufacturer does not care because the person interested in a BDXL will pay what ever is needed

3) let's face it, I am sure if someone wanted (like you pointed out) they could put a film on BDXL and it would play on almost all BD players (be it 1080p or 4k BD content) , but in the end when you are building a format you need to be reasonable, how could a studio make $ when the disk itself costs more to buy than most films sell for at stores? and then add the high cost in time and equipment use of transferring over 100GB of data. There is no use adding it to the specs (like HD-DVD did with their TL disk) just to pretend it can do more when there is no chance it will ever be used.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

I knew that one day I would have to change my name to UHD Goofnut.

Originally Posted by crazyBLUE

We don't do that anymore HD

Ahhh. I guess that, after the emergence of 4K Blu-ray discs, changing my username to "The Great Bankrupt Owl" will be out of the question.

[Pondosinatra]

I'm holding out for 32K Blu-ray....

[welcometothepartypal]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

probably not, first of all for many films in the past 20 years they were either shot digitally or extensively manipulated digitally (edited, effects....) in 2k so 4k would add very little.

I really hope this is true. There's no way I'm re-buying everything again.

[Mr.Poindexter]

Originally Posted by space blaster

I'm convinced this format will fail.

The only reason the 4K disc format is being finalized is to push new TV adoption and that just isn't going to happen. Ever since the TV sector finally took off with HDTV they were making huge profits but then prices (profits) started to fall, the industry has tried to do everything in their power to push more sales to an already saturated market. You could get a top tier 50" HDTV for $1,000 but they put out the 3D model and tried to charge 3,000 for it then 2,000 and finally gave up and sold them for $1,000 a year later. The same thing happen with TV that had apps. Why they thought a TV that could natively stream netflix would be worth an extra $1,000 is beyond me - especially since streaming boxes are about $100.

So now there's 4k. They want to get a physical media out there to convince people to start buying new TV's again. This too will fail. 55" 1080p watched from 8-10 feet away looks just as good as 4k. You either have to have a small room or get an even larger TV for this to matter. Yeah I've seen 4K displays at Best Buy and yes they look great. I love how it looks but when I'm looking at a display in a store my nose might as well be touching the screen because that's nothing like the viewing conditions at my house.

After making the mistake of early adopting HD-DVD, I will not be early adopting this format. If I'm wrong and the format survives then fine, I'll buy into it. If they have combo packs with 4k discs packed in I'll buy those instead of the regular versions as well (unless they are absurdly expensive). I won't be going out of my way to buy a brand new TV when my current one is really great and blu ray looks fantastic.

Oh and as for the SDTV channels? My wife watches SDTV all the time even though we have HD versions, it drives me nuts. Considering the standard content we watch is cable TV and it is usually 720p and my game systems don't even do 1080p, who cares? I can't imagine how crappy the 480p SDTV will look if my wife watched that on a 4k TV.

edit:
Oh yeah and I'm not in a huge hurry to upgrade my surround sound system again. Yeah, a 4k receiver will be required. Yet MORE hardware to buy.

First, let's not assume that the end of the TV revolution is the 55" panel. If you had a 120" TV, you might want some additional resolution and if the industry can figure out a way to sell you a 120" screen you can roll up into a tube, carry it through your doorways and unroll it onto your wall, they will make it and eventually you and nearly everybody else will want one. I remember when I bought a 27" TV in college and was excited about that. I only own one TV smaller than 55" now and that is the 32" set in the bathroom - not exactly a theater type setting. Displays are continuing to get better and cheaper and eventually we will have low cost 4k displays much larger than 55" and will need improved content quality.

Remember the original Total Recall. When you saw that wall TV, didn't you want it? Even if it was to play a video of a guy fishing on a lake, it was awesome. We are headed that direction still and I suspect we will have those long before I see people driving flying cars around my neighborhood.

[Wman1996]

Well, I probably won't be getting a 4K tv and 4K Blu-ray until about 2019-2020. The new technology will be so expensive.

[jjdpw50]

Originally Posted by space blaster

I'm convinced this format will fail.

The only reason the 4K disc format is being finalized is to push new TV adoption and that just isn't going to happen. Ever since the TV sector finally took off with HDTV they were making huge profits but then prices (profits) started to fall, the industry has tried to do everything in their power to push more sales to an already saturated market. You could get a top tier 50" HDTV for $1,000 but they put out the 3D model and tried to charge 3,000 for it then 2,000 and finally gave up and sold them for $1,000 a year later. The same thing happen with TV that had apps. Why they thought a TV that could natively stream netflix would be worth an extra $1,000 is beyond me - especially since streaming boxes are about $100.

So now there's 4k. They want to get a physical media out there to convince people to start buying new TV's again. This too will fail. 55" 1080p watched from 8-10 feet away looks just as good as 4k. You either have to have a small room or get an even larger TV for this to matter. Yeah I've seen 4K displays at Best Buy and yes they look great. I love how it looks but when I'm looking at a display in a store my nose might as well be touching the screen because that's nothing like the viewing conditions at my house.

After making the mistake of early adopting HD-DVD, I will not be early adopting this format. If I'm wrong and the format survives then fine, I'll buy into it. If they have combo packs with 4k discs packed in I'll buy those instead of the regular versions as well (unless they are absurdly expensive). I won't be going out of my way to buy a brand new TV when my current one is really great and blu ray looks fantastic.

Oh and as for the SDTV channels? My wife watches SDTV all the time even though we have HD versions, it drives me nuts. Considering the standard content we watch is cable TV and it is usually 720p and my game systems don't even do 1080p, who cares? I can't imagine how crappy the 480p SDTV will look if my wife watched that on a 4k TV.

edit:
Oh yeah and I'm not in a huge hurry to upgrade my surround sound system again. Yeah, a 4k receiver will be required. Yet MORE hardware to buy.

Excellent post. I would need a 70 or 80 in panel and that's not happening. The public likes going to Walmart and spending $500 on a TV on Black Friday, not 1000s. I got a few friends to adopt blu-ray, if not for me they were happy with DVDs and Netflixing. None of them have a receiver. If the format succeeds ill hop on. I like the combo pack idea, but it can't more than a $10 jump.