4K Ultra HD Coming to Blu-ray

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laststop311

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the problem with 4k is that there is so little content most of what you watch will end up being 1080 which means the tv will have to upconvert and interpolate the extra pixels that it still is required to fill as the tv cant change how many pixels it has. This can lead to artifacts in the normal 1080 programming. Remember images always look their very best at native resolution, so currently you will actually get a better looking picture on 99% of the available content with a 1920x1080 tv since that matches the resolution of the content which is the optimum situation for an lcd screen. OLED is way more exciting tech then 4k. I'm hoping for 60" 1920x1080 oled tv's to hit the 2000 dollar mark in the next few years. 1920x1080 on oled beats out 3840x2160 on lcd no doubt about it. It's just a shame the cheapest you can find an oled set in only 1080 res is 8000 dollars and thats only 55 inches. Probably going to be another 5 years before it even comes close to a reasonable price. Luckily I'll be enjoying my panasonic 65st60 which should easily last me a good 6-10 years if need be till oled becomes sanely priced.
 

RealBeast

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That will be a problem for most users, even high speed -- last month I got a warning that I was 221GB over the 400GB/month cap on my cable Internet with all the Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime streaming constantly from the relatives. 100GB movie would be difficult on my connection.

 

MTXE

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I just heard a very interesting seminar at my university where work was being done on polymeric films that could be used to store information like a blu-ray disk. His team was able to put 1 terabyte of info onto a multi-layered disk. I hope that research continues and doesn't fall off.
 
The problem that lies with multiple layers is loss of bandwidth and it also has a larger risk of failure.I am sure there will be something else but to say disc technology will be the best method is a folly as there are plenty of other mediums that can handle 4K resolution files such as TB, USB 3.0/3.1 or eSATA.4K has a lot of repeated pixels. When even under a lossless compression 4K is not typically going to be much larger than 1080p from a resolution standpoint. Adding HDR and the rest may add a bit of size to the content though.At any rate, BluRay discs are 25GB per disc, and in professional archival storage they have had 100GB 4 layer discs for several years now. I am guessing that they will just start making 3-4 layer movie discs for the masses to make up for the file size issues.
 

p05esto

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100+gig bluray discs have been talked about for quite some time now.When are they coming to market? who knows, who even uses discs these days?
Um, only people who don't give a crap about quality and resolution watch moies via netflix or whatever other crappy streaming services out there. If you have a huge tv and great system you WANT bluray or high quality downloads. Your ignorance is typical of most consumers that buy big fancy systems and then stream netflix to watch movies. It's okay for crap movies, but if you want to get the most out of your system you MUST go bluray or equivelant download.
 


The lack of content argument really needs to be put to a stop as it is quite rediculous.

1) Just about everything shot on film is archived in 4K or even 8K (iMAX footage) format. Granted, this is not the same 4K as UHD 16:9 4K (in fact it is slightly higher resolution and wider aspect ratio), but it should be fairly simple to convert and release this content once there are enough sets on the market to make it worthwhile. So that is just about everything shot before 1990, and most major productions shot afterwards.

2) In 2007 the RED camera became available and was quickly picked up by the indie community. There are tons of shorts, movies, and other media that was recorded and stored in 4K outside of mainstream content which can be rereleased in 4K. Heck, even Rooster Teeth Productions is releasing a bit of their content in 4K, and is talking about doing some form of 4K release of their shorts.

3) Many major movies made in the last 4 years were shot in 4K instead of film, and many major films today are being shot in 5K and 6K to allow for a zoom and stabilize or pan and oversampeling. These are all ready to be released in native 4K without a problem.

4) Uncompressed 1080p and 2K footage can be professionally upscaled to 4K with impressive results and detail. Sure, it will not be quite the same thing as native 4K content, but it will be a fair sight better than using the upscaler built into your future 4K TV.

5) Almost any video game made in the last 15 years on the computer can be run at 4K. Sure, the textures may be a bit lacking, but most of them will still look a lot sharper than they ever did at 1080p and lower resolutions. How many people have played older 3D console games like Mario64 on PC emulator. Most of them look and play fantastic at 1080p. Certainly a big step forward compared to their original 480i format. Also, while older desktop applications may have scaling issues with 'small' 30" monitors, a non-scaled larger monitor will give very impressive screen real estate, and not cause any grief to the user.

So what are we missing then? pretty much TV content shot on 720p or below, or on a video tape format of one type or another. All of those shows from the 1990's up until 2005 is going to have a rough time transitioning to these higher end formats... truth be told, most of them look pretty horrible even on DVD (to say nothing of HD conversions). That is 15 years worth of content that will simply not make sense to purchase at 4K. It is a lot of content to be sure... but there is still a ton more content out there that will make the transition just fine.


As for upscaling being crap... it entirely depends on who is doing it and what techniques are used. Upscaling form 480i video to 1080p was extremely difficult, because there is a ton of stuff that needs to be compensated for throughout the conversion process. This was especially true in the early days. But now even a decent TV can do that type of conversion pretty well, and professional conversions are surprisingly well done, almost always looking better (much better!) than their original counterparts. Upscaling from 1080p to UHD/4K is a much simpler conversion, and can be done very easily. Even upsaling from 720p to 4K is less difficult to do effectively than 480i to 1080p. The technology has come a long way, and continues to improve, and so it is really not a problem anymore.

As for OLED... that tech has got problems, which is exactly why it is not taking off. Don't get me wrong, I did have a chance to look at a set a few times at a local high end store, and it looks amazing when it is fresh and new! And I love phones that use various forms of the technology. But still, it is a technology that is still prone to fading and color shifting over time, and it will always be expensive to implement on larger screens. LCD tech is going to overcome their backlight and contrast issues way before OLED gets a chance to become popular, and it is still going to be cheaper. Heck, even straight LED pixels instead of OLED will probably become useful and cheap before OLED gets a chance. Until one of those high contrast technologies matures enough to implement, 4K is something that is relatively cheap and easy to do that offers real benefits for most people and most content. It is low hanging fruit ripe for the picking. So rather than complaining about an improvement, how about you embrace it and implement it, and enjoy it for what it is?

Thankfully though, 4K is the last practical resolution standard for households. There is a chance that 6K may come eventually, but it would bring marginal benefits at best over 4K. 8K is another potential standard... but for most households you would need a screen taller than your average ceiling to view such content effectively when the screen is a mere 10' away. Even for your average living room viewing distance you need at least an 80" display, and preferably somewhere along the lines of 120" to really appreciate 4K. These are large displays, and going larger becomes physically problematic in most setups. This means that in another 10 years when TV manufacturers get hungry for the next cash grab then there will be more demand for things other than resolution and screen size. I think at that point we will see a push for more bit depth, higher contrast, and (sadly?) another resurrection of 3D content... but this time I think 3D is going to be done properly (without headgear) and will have a chance to stick.
 

bobske

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If BDA can push the UHD standard in terms of color space, then I'm all in for it. Right now the ambitions for the UHD standard is so horrible that it shouldn't be eligible to be called Ultra-HD. UHD-ready would be more accurate. But if BDA can squeeze a rec.2020 color standard in there - then we'll see some real improvements, and could push the TV products in the right directory.. toward REAL 4K!
 

teh_chem

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I couldn't care less about 4k. I actually don't even care about 1080p over 720p (though I acknowledge there is a visual difference, of course). I care about an adequate content delivery system that favors consumers, not recording or distribution companies. Give the consumers what they want, and let them decide what is good. Get rid of this aging cable TV mafia and embrace cord-cutters. I'd happily pay reasonable prices for access to shows. I don't want to pay for a bunch of TV channels I never even watch.
 

KidHorn

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CaedenV has everything right. 4x resolution does not mean 4x information. 4K is more compressible than 2K in terms of %. Also the new codec (H.265) looks at more than the next frame, so it's more efficient. It requires more hardware to construct the bitmaps that the TV uses, So your current Blu-ray player will likely choke on certain content, if it will play 4k at all, much like the way early DVD players choked on rapidly changing images like explosions.
 

invlem

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All I see from this article is that x265 is coming mainstream soon... yay!I doubt you'll see higher capacity BD discs so much as you'll see a new compression format for these 4k discs.More layers = more cost per item to produce, that cuts into margins and also makes backwards compatibility next to impossible. The physical medium has to stay the same. (Assuming they don't want to gouge the market with a super hd 'new disc format'
 

Samuel Marano

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The last two blu ray players I had we're so slow I couldn't stand it anymore, now they wanna throw more information into the mix? When I compared similar movies a while back on blu and hd dvd, by the time blu got to the menu hd was already playing the movie. Time for a better format....
 

demonhorde665

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streaming isn't the only option adn no blu ray movies do not really eat up 25 gigs of space much less 50. I own 4 all digital full 1080p movies , two are in the neighbor hood of 3.80 gigs , one is 4.90 gigs , the other two are both 5.60 gigs (longer movies), even if you tkae out download compression tech you still only come up with movies being in the range of 8-12 gigs at 1080p obviously much bigger than a dvd (4.5 gigs -9 gigs max with dual layers) but clearly no where near hitting blu ray's ceiling yet. i suspect 4k resolution movies with 7.1 surround sound will eat around 25-40 gigs at most. still leaving plenty of life span for blu ray. that said i think 4k is coming to early and no one wil have interest in it (mainstream) because many poeple haven't even jumped to 1080p yet.
 

demonhorde665

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i'd like to add , 4k resolution wont up movie file size no near near what double frame rates (48 fps ) will do. i think if media movies to 48 fps as standard we will see an enormous jump in movie file size as double the frames litteraly doubles the video's file size while resolution only ups it by 25% at most.
 

teh_chem

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I don't know about your movies, but I was just ripping our collection of harry potter blurays, and most of the decrypted discs took up around 35GB on my hard drive before encoding. Encoded to MP4/H.264 (variable bitrate)/AAC(160bitrate), the compressed files were around 3-4GB, but you could easily see the lossyness, specifically in the darks (though I'm not a stickler for that, it's still there). Regardless of where you compress the file to, 4K res is 4x the pixelcount of 1080p; Using the same type of on-media compression, that would easily push close to 100GB for a bluray disk. Consumers won't be happy with compressed files where image or audio quality are impacted. Not me, but so many people would throw a hissy fit if they bought a 4k bluray movie and it had macroblocking all throughout the movie.
 

mac2j

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Why is that any mention of 4K brings out the misinformed Luddites in droves:1) 4K Bluray is 100GB - 4 layer disks and will require a new player. These will be available Q2 this year.2) >50% of people noticed a "CLEAR IMPROVEMENT" between 4K and 1080P at normal viewing distances on any screen over 50" (not 80 - 50, FIVE-ZERO)3) You can currently get a crummy 30hz 4K TV for $800, by the end of this month you can get a major brand 65", HDMI 2.0 60HZ for ~$2500. Probably under 2000 by Q4.4) 4K monitors are available at 30HZ for $600 or 60Hz for $1200 - most games can be played at >40FPS with a single 290X graphics card or 2 x 280X5) 4K content is coming - this year. Netflix and some Japanese companies will start limited 4K streaming by summer. 4K blu-ray disks will arrive in Q2 and if you dont think people will but stuff like LOTR and Hobbit in native 4K by the millions you're out of touch with reality.If you dont think the better resolution is worth it - don't upgrade. Having seen 4K 60HZ TVs and 4K gaming monitors now it looks TREMENDOUSLY better than 1080p and much more worthwhile upgrade than 3D.
 
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