4K Blu-ray being finalized by BDA!!

[Jack Zhang]

Originally Posted by Paulo Teixeira

And yet, Adobe wont make a Creative Cloud version of Encore. Heck, the least they should do is offer simple DVD or Blu-Ray authoring in eighter Premiere Pro CC or Media Encoder CC even it's very low featured. Better than not being able to author discs unless you want to go through some hoops to go from Premier Pro CC to Encore CS6. Discs aren't dead yet.

Not to mention the additional license required to encode AND decode Dolby. It's part of AVCHD... Why did they make it so you have to purchase another license just to get audio from AVCHD cameras!?!

[Roshdi Alkadri]

Don't believe the hype. 4K is nice for cropping and specific large screen applications. 99% of my clients still ask for DVD and the odd one will add blu-ray. Consumers are not all into the 4k hype, just the manufacturers are. It took 40-50 years for broadcasters to switch from SD to HD, and they're not going to spend millions of dollars in infrastructure to suddenly upgrade unless it's mandated, but that would take a very long time. 4K may have it's niche audience but i doubt it will pick up the way DVD did over VHS.

[Mark Fry]

As well as supporting 4K formats, I hope that a wider range of HD formats will be added to the standards read by Blu-ray disc players, specifically 1080/50p and 1080/60p. It would also be good if 10-bit 4:2:2 is supported, though perhaps that's less likely at 1080?

[Tim Polster]

Ugh, another format that some people might have and most will not. Not worth the expense to even offer it for me. As other have stated, Blu-ray is a low percentage of delivery. 4k Blu-ray will be another fraction of that...almost never.

By the end 2015 streaming will have totally taken over any hopes of this format being mainstream. The more time that passes the less anybody is going to want to invest in physical media. Haven't they learned you need to have the standards and players ready when the format is ready to go? Buy the TV and the player at the same time...

DVD had the format war, BD had too high of pricing for mass adoption and 4k BD will only be for technofiles who also own expensive record players! BD disc is the best method for high quality delivery and the least used. Just like MP3, people favor convenience over quality and 1080p still looks very good. Even when you give somebody a digital file you have to be aware of the possibility of them trying to play the file on a phone or tablet. So it is safer to lower the bitrate. It is a shame because optical formats give us the chance to use a decent bitrate with high quality playback given the player standards.

[Jon Fairhurst]

I think people are missing the point. 4K BD isn't for wedding and corporate videographers. It's for Hollywood film distribution to home consumers.

And it's not just 4K. It will include HDR, play back at up to 60 fps for sports docs, and support Rec.2020 wide color gamut. I think once people start seeing HDR in person, they will definitely want the upgrade.

And regarding the price of BD players, you can get new ones in the $30 range. You will need a TV with an HDMI input, but all TVs have had that feature for years. If people want multiple copies to pass around, yeah, give them a DVD as it will play in all systems, including PCs. If its for their own use, give them various files on a data DVD as well as a video BD - and throw in a player for free. :)

Friends don't let friends watch 480i.

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

If it was that easily solvable, SMPTE would have fixed it for HD.

LOL! From Wikipedia: "Drop frame timecode dates to a compromise invented when color NTSC video was invented. The NTSC designers wanted to retain compatibility with existing monochrome TVs."

Dropframe was a kludge from the analog era, that had to do only with the introduction of the color subcarrier over the top of the existing B&W and audio subcarriers. The addition of the color subcarrier caused a visual artifact at the beat frequency between the color subcarrier frequency and the audio subcarrier frequency. This artifact was eliminated by reducing the color subcarrier frequency, and thus the line scan frequency and the frame rate, by 0.1%. That, is drop frame.

Drop frame was a kludge! and an analog kludge! Analog broadcasting doesn't even exist any more! Yet this damnable kludge, this utterly useless, pointless, senseless kludge, continues to zombie along. Because "we've always done it this way". When in fact, we haven't. PAL has never had this problem, or this stupidity. It's only NTSC, and it was done for analog which no longer exists.

So yes, this really is that easily solvable. And yes, it certainly should have been killed off with the transition to digital broadcasting. As should interlacing have been killed off. 4K is yet another opportunity to kill this off. One I have no doubt that we'll ignore, again.

[Jon Fairhurst]

But it won't go away. Broadcasters have millions of hours of 60/1.001 content and broadcasters often share content and there are existing contracts that restrict reformatting.

Mixing and matching 59.94 and 60.0 would be a true headache. It's like driving on the left hand or right hand side of the street. Both systems work, but if we're going to transition between one and another, don't go for a slow, gradual transition!

BTW, the other NTSC kludge was setup. It raised the black level over the "back porch" (the signal right after the sync pulse) by 0.7 V. Why did they do this? It eliminated a single tube from the TV set design. And because of this, the black level of NTSC signals was never predictable as analog systems drifted. Long live the "tweaker tool"!

Fortunately, setup was eliminated when we went to digital. Eliminating fractional frame rates would be a much bigger challenge.

[Roshdi Alkadri]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

I think people are missing the point. 4K BD isn't for wedding and corporate videographers. It's for Hollywood film distribution to home consumers.

And it's not just 4K. It will include HDR, play back at up to 60 fps for sports docs, and support Rec.2020 wide color gamut. I think once people start seeing HDR in person, they will definitely want the upgrade.

And regarding the price of BD players, you can get new ones in the $30 range. You will need a TV with an HDMI input, but all TVs have had that feature for years. If people want multiple copies to pass around, yeah, give them a DVD as it will play in all systems, including PCs. If its for their own use, give them various files on a data DVD as well as a video BD - and throw in a player for free. :)

Friends don't let friends watch 480i.

With Netflix, Amazon and other large online distributors, 4k can still be delivered. As you know, physical media is mostly found at outlets such as walmart, costco etc. Video stores rarely exist, except a few like Red Box. It's not just about wedding or corporate videographers. Most cinemas still project at 2k with major blockbusters at 4k, but it is said that realistically only about 720p is reached on the silver screen except for formats like IMAX, but that's another argument.

I projected my film provincially here in Canada, on Blu-Ray. Someone asked if i had shot on 35mm when i actually used a Panny HVX and Canon 7D, but that's also another argument.

Physical media doesn't have the same power it did since it's inception.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

I think people are missing the point. 4K BD isn't for wedding and corporate videographers. It's for Hollywood film distribution to home consumers. .........

And regarding the price of BD players, you can get new ones in the $30 range.

Exactly, and two other points are being missed.

Firstly, that this looks to make use of fundamentally the same HARDWARE as HD Blu-Ray, as least as far as the drive goes - possible even the same blank discs (?) - just different codecs etc. As such, there is little technical reason to expect 4k Blu-Ray players to cost much more than HD Blu-Ray.

Secondly, then it can't be said too many times that such a new player will happily play all your existing DVD or HD Blu-Ray library. It won't make it obsolete in the way DVD players did for VHS.

I foresee the time relatively soon when all you'll be able to buy in the shops are 4k Blu-Ray players - no DVD or HD Blu-Ray only. And if they cost the same, so what if they spend most of their life playing DVDs or HD Blu-Rays?

[Jon Fairhurst]

A question in Hollywood is "will you re-buy your favorite film on 4K BD?"

Imagine that you owned The Wizard of Oz on VHS, then DVD, then BD. Will you buy the 80th Anniversary High Dynamic Range Edition on 4K Blu-ray in 2019?

Some people I've spoken with believe that if it was for 4K only, the shiny, gold box would collect dust on the shelves. But with HDR, the film will sparkle in a way that you've never, ever seen it. Ever. If this leads you to upgrade older titles, you'll also seek the HDR version for newer titles and the format will more than pay for itself.

The thing about good HDR is that you can see it from across the store. No pixel peeping required. It will be interesting to see if it's strong enough to entice sales.

BTW, keep your RAW masters. You might just want to re-grade them after HDR gains steam. ;)

[John C. Chu]

I just hope the unskippable trailers and FBI warnings one has to be forced to watch to get to the movie is tempered. That should be part of the specification!

Just let me watch the movie!

"Coming soon to Bluray!" ----At least it will be in 4K,

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

A question in Hollywood is "will you re-buy your favorite film on 4K BD?"

Maybe not - but I may buy films in the future in that format. And I may pay a supplement for such.

[James Manford]

Originally Posted by John C. Chu

I just hope the unskippable trailers and FBI warnings one has to be forced to watch to get to the movie is tempered. That should be part of the specification!

Just let me watch the movie!

"Coming soon to Bluray!" ----At least it will be in 4K,

One of the reasons why I regrettably still rip my films in 1080p and keep them on a external hard drive, even though I own the original Steelbooks/Limited editions etc

I WISH they got rid of the annoying advertisements. I've bloody paid for the disc!! let me just watch the film.

[Troy Lamont]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

I think people are missing the point. 4K BD isn't for wedding and corporate videographers. It's for Hollywood film distribution to home consumers.

And it's not just 4K. It will include HDR, play back at up to 60 fps for sports docs, and support Rec.2020 wide color gamut. I think once people start seeing HDR in person, they will definitely want the upgrade.

And regarding the price of BD players, you can get new ones in the $30 range. You will need a TV with an HDMI input, but all TVs have had that feature for years. If people want multiple copies to pass around, yeah, give them a DVD as it will play in all systems, including PCs. If its for their own use, give them various files on a data DVD as well as a video BD - and throw in a player for free. :)

Friends don't let friends watch 480i.

Great points! Big thumbs up for the last line! :D

[Tim Polster]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

And regarding the price of BD players, you can get new ones in the $30 range.

I should clarify my post - Blu-ray players were overpriced at the beginning of the rollout. This crucial time when streaming was still weak and the format still had a chance. But they missed the boat and priced them in the $150-$200+ range. People bought the HDTVs and many skipped the Blu-ray purchase. Streaming won and then they lowered the price of the players.

People love DVDs. They were such a tour de force back before and into 16:9 TVs. Blu-ray could have capitalized on this glow, kept things affordable and created a real user base. But no, they wanted to make it an elite format and wound up freezing it in time.