Vudu Launches 4K Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos Video Streams

[HDTV1080P]

While it’s awesome that VUDU is offering Dolby Vision 4K streams with Dolby Atmos soundtracks, keep in mind that these streaming Dolby Atmos soundtracks are lossy and not lossless. VUDU core audio for these Dolby ATMOS titles use lossy 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus, then Dolby ATMOS is added to the substream. The advantage of the Blu-ray Dolby ATMOS titles is that the core audio track is lossless 7.1 Dolby TrueHD before the Dolby ATMOS substream is added.

I hope that one day VUDU and Netflix would offer lossless audio tracks that are bit for bit exactly the same as the studio master. More cities are rolling out 100Gbps, 10Gbps, and 1Gbps Internet around the United States. There is plenty of bandwidth for streaming high bit rate 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray images with lossless audio.

http://www.twice.com/news/tv/vudu-launches-dolby-vision-dolby-atmos-video-streams/59490

Regardless of one’s current Internet speed, companies like Kaleidescape are offering both 1080P and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc downloads with lossless audio that is bit for bit exactly the same as the studio master soundtrack. Last time I checked Blu-ray image downloads are only available for purchase to a large several TB hard drive server. I hope that in the future the option to rent a Blu-ray image for download might become a reality (Say goodbye to REDBOX and Netflix Blu-ray disc rentals if that happens). As hard drive servers become cheaper and as Internet speeds increase, companies like Kaleidescape should become more popular for those consumers that demand the best in picture and sound quality (The only real difference is that one is watching their Blu-ray movies from a hard drive instead of a optical disc, the picture and sound quality is exactly the same).

http://www.kaleidescape.com/