4K Blu-ray Has Arrived
September 7, 2014 at 8:47 pm
(This post was last modified: September 7, 2014 at 9:00 pm by StealthySkeptic.)
4K (4x HD quality) Blu-ray coming 2015: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=14923
*****
![[Image: bluray-vs-hddvd.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.hightech-edge.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fbluray-vs-hddvd.jpg)
Oh man, format wars are just GREAT for tech, aren't they? During the Blu-ray/HD DVD war way back in the time of the dinosaurs (2006), my parents hedged their bets by buying both. Now, our HD DVD collection gathers dust and if we buy any physical media at all, it's Blu-ray (with a DVD in a combo every once in a while). However, Blu-ray is only just beginning to eat away at the market share for DVD, while the new 4K Blu-rays will go up against an assortment of digital services (Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, etc.) that mostly don't play nice with each other either.
The main advantage that digital services have is convenience to buy or rent, lower pricing (unless you want to walk to Redbox), and portability. Plus a lot of people don't really care about video quality as long as they can have the inherent flexibility of, say, playing a movie on the train on their iPad. But I still have dozens of DVDs, Blu-rays, and even CDs, because if iTunes goes out of business or my hard drive or Internet connection craps out, a bunch of my movies and songs become inaccessible (plus I can't keep them all in one place- fuck you UltraViolet), whereas my discs if well maintained can last for up to 30 years.
I think that both media formats can coexist (in another example, digital sales of music only JUST outpaced CDs), and will continue to do so for a long time, but it will still be a bloody war between disc and digital, which people will try to cast as to the death. However, 4K video will be at least 100 gigabytes in size, and that will be very hard to stream, especially in areas with slow or throttled Internet connection (it could be decades before the entire country will have decent Internet!), and Blu-ray won't have that problem. Plus, 4K Blu-rays could easily be used to store larger and more complex games on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (both of which can support 4K video and 3D Blu-rays).
I think that sales of 4K TVs, and adoption of 4K in general, can be spurred by newer movies on 4K Blu-ray (like Star Wars Episode VII, Avengers Age of Ultron, and Jurassic World). On the other hand, especially if UltraViolet continues to irritate people by forcing people to redeem digital copies of their 4K or regular Blu-rays in a non-iTunes service, average consumers like I said may be more concerned with price vs video and audio quality for TVs, players, and discs and just choose to stay with what's comparatively easier
What do you guys think?
*****
Oh man, format wars are just GREAT for tech, aren't they? During the Blu-ray/HD DVD war way back in the time of the dinosaurs (2006), my parents hedged their bets by buying both. Now, our HD DVD collection gathers dust and if we buy any physical media at all, it's Blu-ray (with a DVD in a combo every once in a while). However, Blu-ray is only just beginning to eat away at the market share for DVD, while the new 4K Blu-rays will go up against an assortment of digital services (Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, etc.) that mostly don't play nice with each other either.
The main advantage that digital services have is convenience to buy or rent, lower pricing (unless you want to walk to Redbox), and portability. Plus a lot of people don't really care about video quality as long as they can have the inherent flexibility of, say, playing a movie on the train on their iPad. But I still have dozens of DVDs, Blu-rays, and even CDs, because if iTunes goes out of business or my hard drive or Internet connection craps out, a bunch of my movies and songs become inaccessible (plus I can't keep them all in one place- fuck you UltraViolet), whereas my discs if well maintained can last for up to 30 years.
I think that both media formats can coexist (in another example, digital sales of music only JUST outpaced CDs), and will continue to do so for a long time, but it will still be a bloody war between disc and digital, which people will try to cast as to the death. However, 4K video will be at least 100 gigabytes in size, and that will be very hard to stream, especially in areas with slow or throttled Internet connection (it could be decades before the entire country will have decent Internet!), and Blu-ray won't have that problem. Plus, 4K Blu-rays could easily be used to store larger and more complex games on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (both of which can support 4K video and 3D Blu-rays).
I think that sales of 4K TVs, and adoption of 4K in general, can be spurred by newer movies on 4K Blu-ray (like Star Wars Episode VII, Avengers Age of Ultron, and Jurassic World). On the other hand, especially if UltraViolet continues to irritate people by forcing people to redeem digital copies of their 4K or regular Blu-rays in a non-iTunes service, average consumers like I said may be more concerned with price vs video and audio quality for TVs, players, and discs and just choose to stay with what's comparatively easier
What do you guys think?
Luke: You don't believe in the Force, do you?
Han Solo: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
Han Solo: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
![[Image: disc-plus-generic-tcg-1._V168937056_.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=g-ecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FG%2F01%2Fdigital%2Fvideo%2Fdisc_plus%2Fmerch%2Fdisc-plus-generic-tcg-1._V168937056_.jpg)
