4K Blu-ray Confirmed, Coming in

[David M]

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.

1. $$$
2. 66gb may be enough for most purposes.

You forget that 25gb BDs are fine for a lot of movies.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

I'm interested in seeing how this pans out. I probably won't be getting a 4K TV for a long time since I just got a Samsung f8500 plasma set. But in the interest of 'future proofing' my collection, I'll likely opt for 4K BD releases.

My hope in this regard is two fold...

1. I hope the 4K BD players will work with 1080p HDTV sets. They most likely will. And as an extention of this, while the content will of course likely look a lot better on an actual 4K TV, I hope the difference is at least noticable on quality HDTV sets. I would imagine that it would be to some extent. While the end picture will be bound by the limits of what the HDTV can do, I would think putting a much better signal into it would still help. While not a night and day difference, there when comparing the pq of a BD and DVD of the same movie on an older standard def TV, the improved quality of BD is still noticable to a degree. Hopefully this holds even more true this time around.

2. I hope the 4K discs come in combo packs that also include a regular BD copy. Even if I upgrade my main living room player to a 4K BD player, I have no immediayt plans (if any plans at all) to do that with all of my players. I don't want to be limited to only watching the movies in my living room without separately buying the movie twice. Plus if for some odd reason #1 doesn't pan out and I can't use the 4K discs with my current TV, I can just watch the standard bd in the mean time.


I don't see myself rebuying movies again to the same extent that I have in upgrading from DVD to BD. I'll definately upgrade some favorites, but there are any that I won''t bother with if they get released in the format.

[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?

[Tok]

It remains to be seen how much most titles will really benefit from 4K upgrades. BD is already a premium format. I just don't see the market supporting another premium format.

[saprano]

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.

Yeah they definitely should be doing 100GB or more. 4K resolution and increased color space needs all the space it can get.

[AudioWarrior]

I'm excited, but I hope they use BDXL 128gb discs, so bandwidth isn't hit that hard! At least till those 300GB discs come out!

[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.

[David M]

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?

No, you do not need to upgrade anything. Your existing discs will still play.

[David M]

Originally Posted by AudioWarrior

I'm excited, but I hope they use BDXL 128gb discs, so bandwidth isn't hit that hard! At least till those 300GB discs come out!

There are no 300gb BDs. You're thinking of the Sony/Panasonic professional archival disc that was widely misreported by the tech press as being BD-related.

[GenPion]

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.

Well, it's in essence doubling the current standards of storage capacity while giving a little extra padding. Think of 66 GB discs as the answer to today's 25 GB releases whereas 100 GB discs will be the response to today's 50 GB discs.

I don't disagree that an even higher data storage amount would be neat, but I think this should probably be fine. You'll be getting a higher resolution image and the bit-rates will be better than ever made available before, so high that unless viewing on 100" plus screens I doubt anyone will find major issues to complain. As long as the encoding techniques are as good as they claim to be, this should be an easy step up.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

I am almost willing to spend about 30 minutes so that I can quote myself with two posts from a few years ago. But Penton has already patented this practice

Pro-B

lol, not spending anything like 30 min. The key is to have a good memory as to what you've said in the past and use certain key words to do a quick search.

Anyway, the self-quoting bit is an old (and accepted, if relevant) practice from authoring and co-authoring papers I've submitted for publication in peer reviewed technical journals which I just carried over to the internet forum platform. Headed to IBC Amsterdam next week, so I’ll be on your continent.

[BozQ]

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?

You don't have to. Why is it ever necessary to do this? Just get the ones that genuinely justify the cost of purchasing a 4KBD. Hell, not every BD had a good upgrade from DVD either.

[AudioWarrior]

Originally Posted by Lyris

There are no 300gb BDs. You're thinking of the Sony/Panasonic professional archival disc that was widely misreported by the tech press as being BD-related.

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! Most uncompressed 4k movies fall between 150GB - 200GB "average" with some as high as 300GB, but with HEVC that could be cut down drastically while preserving data "picture quality" so they can fit on BDXL discs.

That's the only logical and cheap option they have available, with most Blu-ray players being able to support it and older one's through firmware. Every Blu-ray player since 2010 has been able to play them, even PS3's! "which a lot of people own"

[BozQ]

I hope to see BDXL being used too.
That technology is available, so the BDA should spend more time finalizing the tech specs.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

I'm interested in seeing how this pans out. I probably won't be getting a 4K TV for a long time since I just got a Samsung f8500 plasma set. But in the interest of 'future proofing' my collection, I'll likely opt for 4K BD releases.

My hope in this regard is two fold...

1. I hope the 4K BD players will work with 1080p HDTV sets. They most likely will. And as an extention of this, while the content will of course likely look a lot better on an actual 4K TV, I hope the difference is at least noticable on quality HDTV sets. I would imagine that it would be to some extent. While the end picture will be bound by the limits of what the HDTV can do, I would think putting a much better signal into it would still help. While not a night and day difference, there when comparing the pq of a BD and DVD of the same movie on an older standard def TV, the improved quality of BD is still noticable to a degree. Hopefully this holds even more true this time around.

2. I hope the 4K discs come in combo packs that also include a regular BD copy. Even if I upgrade my main living room player to a 4K BD player, I have no immediayt plans (if any plans at all) to do that with all of my players. I don't want to be limited to only watching the movies in my living room without separately buying the movie twice. Plus if for some odd reason #1 doesn't pan out and I can't use the 4K discs with my current TV, I can just watch the standard bd in the mean time.


I don't see myself rebuying movies again to the same extent that I have in upgrading from DVD to BD. I'll definately upgrade some favorites, but there are any that I won''t bother with if they get released in the format.

Nah, I don't want a crappy Blu-ray Disc bundled in with my 4K disc!

[PenguinMaster]

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?

Why would you have to upgrade your entire collection?

While film is natively a higher resolution than Blu-ray with most movies currently in existence the 4K version will barely look any better than the Blu-ray. If you look at a lot of old movies (even the ones with high quality masters) they can't match the quality of top-of-the-line recent Blu-ray movies so the likelihood those movies will get a big upgrade on 4K Blu-ray is extremely low.

I'm very excited about new movies coming to 4K Blu-ray but I can't see myself upgrading many of the movies I already have. A couple dozen of my movies may get great upgrades but I highly doubt that most of them will (and that's just fine).

[reanimator]

Originally Posted by blurayjunkie

Why even bother with a 66GB disc? Why not have 100GB as the bare min for 4K video and bump it up from there.

I’m no tech expert, but I’m not sure why anyone would feel the 66-100GB disc capacity is insufficient. I’ve viewed BDs blown up to 30 feet, and felt they compared very favorably to the 2K DCP - which is a much larger file size.

Based on Penton’s recent post, the 4K DCP for EXPENDABLES 3 was 138GB in file size – that’s a 4K movie with a 126 minute running time. Factoring the more efficient HEVC compression, it’s very possible that a 100GB 4KBD of EXPENDABLES 3 would be nearly indistinguishable from the file used in theaters. Depending on the projector, I’m willing to bet the 4KBD might look better.

In some cases, like NO GOOD DEED, a 100GB 4KBD could hold the exact same file delivered to movie theaters and still have room to spare.

Like I said, I’m no techie – but it seems to me that superior compression on 4KBD is being overlooked, and that 66-100GB is plenty for most feature films.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by reanimator

I’m no tech expert, but I’m not sure why anyone would feel the 66-100GB disc capacity is insufficient. I’ve viewed BDs blown up to 30 feet, and felt they compared very favorably to the 2K DCP - which is a much larger file size.

Based on Penton’s recent post, the 4K DCP for EXPENDABLES 3 was 138GB in file size – that’s a 4K movie with a 126 minute running time. Factoring the more efficient HEVC compression, it’s very possible that a 100GB 4KBD of EXPENDABLES 3 would be nearly indistinguishable from the file used in theaters. Depending on the projector, I’m willing to bet the 4KBD might look better.

In some cases, like NO GOOD DEED, a 100GB 4KBD could hold the exact same file delivered to movie theaters and still have room to spare.

Like I said, I’m no techie – but it seems to me that superior compression on 4KBD is being overlooked, and that 66-100GB is plenty for most feature films.

I think a lot of people are also thinking that current Blu-ray movies are 50GB (because that's what the discs can hold) when most movies are actually 20-30GB. So logically at 4 times the resolution, but twice as efficient of codec most 4K movies should be 40-60GB.

[KRW1]

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.

I think DVD will always be with us, in one form or another, it's cheap and incredibly well established but I think this will guarantee the lifespan of bluray for many, many years to come.

It's the first format, as I remember, that works well with the next level of technology; I don't see me replacing many of my discs, as I'm pretty sure 99% of them will look good upscaled but I will replace a select few and buy plenty of 4k discs going forward.

[AudioWarrior]

Originally Posted by reanimator

I’m no tech expert, but I’m not sure why anyone would feel the 66-100GB disc capacity is insufficient. I’ve viewed BDs blown up to 30 feet, and felt they compared very favorably to the 2K DCP - which is a much larger file size.

Based on Penton’s recent post, the 4K DCP for EXPENDABLES 3 was 138GB in file size – that’s a 4K movie with a 126 minute running time. Factoring the more efficient HEVC compression, it’s very possible that a 100GB 4KBD of EXPENDABLES 3 would be nearly indistinguishable from the file used in theaters. Depending on the projector, I’m willing to bet the 4KBD might look better.

In some cases, like NO GOOD DEED, a 100GB 4KBD could hold the exact same file delivered to movie theaters and still have room to spare.

Like I said, I’m no techie – but it seems to me that superior compression on 4KBD is being overlooked, and that 66-100GB is plenty for most feature films.

Again, refer to my comment about BDXL 128GB, which is currently available now, so Expendables 3 with advanced HEVC compression would look indistinguishable from the original raw 4k DCP, granted if they used BDXL 128GB! Current BDXL is fine, but not for fully uncompressed 3hr films like the Lord of the Ring Trilogy, without them being cut again in two discs! It sucks, but that's life!