HD/bluray is obsolete and is being replaced by 4K UHD standard

[martinaee]

It will be interesting to see if a disc form of media is still widely adopted for 4K video. Something interesting is that there are rumors that Nintendo may actually go with a cartridge form of media for it's next home console (think SD type cards in a different package). It may not happen, but would TOTALLY make sense for super high quality 4K and higher video in the future for players to use flash media instead of discs. They have no moving parts, have higher capacity and will continue to get even bigger, and can read much faster in some of the new formats. It would be perfect for 4k. Especially for the market of people who want to have a high quality home movie collection. Streaming video is awesome, but it's always going to be compressed. This would allow for huge uncompressed 4k movies and the players could be tiny. Probably won't ever happen for movies, but it's a though.

 

[Stream]

Not to mention not ever having to worry about scratches!

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Even though I prefer to have the physical disc, one of my complaints is the general sluggishness of the transport mechanism when trying to skip to various sections of a show. There isn't a good way around this as it takes time for the optical head to move around on the disc.

 

[etc]

We will not be going back to red... red is dvd... if we go anywhere in the visual spectrum it will be further towards uv so black - ray... or purple ray. The company red-ray is a Chinese company attempting to keep HD DVD alive that is what their proprietary red format is...


Here is some info
480p 640x480
720p or 1280x720
1080p or 1920x1080
1440p or 2k or 2560x1440
2160p or 4k or 4096 x 2160

Technically, 2560x1440 is 2.5K. It's an intermediate standard between 1080 and 4K.

I have a 27" monitor in 2.5K, very nice. A minor improvement over 1080p monitors. Though not as nice as 4K monitors.

 

[Mr. Tone]

The large majority of the current movie catalog was shot at what amounts to 1080p resolutions, and will derive little benefit from upscaling. Most run-of-the-mill cinema distribution was 2k, and much of it still is, I wager.

So I wouldn't bother trading blu-rays in for 4k resolution media. In the large majority of cases, the master media was 2k to begin with. Why pay for upscaling when you'll get it in the player anyway?

I fully expect 4k to take over, since recent feature film material was shot in 4k and higher, and there will be 4k blurays, but I predict that it will go the way of SACD and DVD audio for a long time. It win't fully take over for TV's until its cost is close enough to 1080p's to simply retire the latter by force. (No more screendoor effect.)

New material will be shot in 8k and will look awesome - but what budgets but the largest will support it?

And then there's streaming. Only now is there enough bandwidth available in most markets for current 1080p delivery to finally approach full utilization of that resolution instead of wasting it in compression artifact degradation.

The classic cinema format - literally, moving pictures in a frame of what amounts to a window - is close to maxed out at 1080p in much the same way that stereo audio is maxed out at 44.1kHz, 16 bit. Yes, you can do better, but the difference is only relevant to an ever-shrinking niche population.

4k is the last stop for final consumer delivery of cinema style content. After that, further improvements will likely be driven by dynamic range (I'm already seeing this), greater bit depths, and possibly going to six primary colors. Then the picture-on-a-wall will be perfect, and retro looks, where filmmakers digitally reintroduce all the flaws the electronics companies sought to eliminate, will be all the rage.

Where I expect the real demand to come from for higher resolutions is computer displays (for both desktop real estate and for high-PPI displays), and for VR applications like the Oculus Rift. That could be big; I'm attending an industry panel on it tomorrow night in Los Angeles.

I have an uncle that was an engineer involved in the early development of microchips. It drove him crazy that I had tube guitar amps that intentionally create distortion. He would tell me that was why solid-state transistors were so great. Transistors gave clean undistorted output. It amazes him that the distortion and coloration of tubes is sought after. Your point is valid. Look at how many digital software programs seek to recreate the effects of vacuum tubes and also recording on analog tape.

 

[orbital]

Technically, 2560x1440 is 2.5K. It's an intermediate standard between 1080 and 4K.

I have a 27" monitor in 2.5K, very nice. A minor improvement over 1080p monitors. Though not as nice as 4K monitors.

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1440P.. wonder why TVs' didn't go this resolution, I'd be happy w/ a mid sized 1440P TV

 

[Lynx_Arc]

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1440P.. wonder why TVs' didn't go this resolution, I'd be happy w/ a mid sized 1440P TV

Probably because it isn't a big enough improvement to market over 1080p

 

[bykfixer]

I'm one of those 'last on board' types who just replaced a (still working) picture tube tv with a flat screen last month.
Simply because disc players don't have rca out's anymore and my blue ray player quit halfway through 'Band of Brothers. (The previous tv had s-video or rca input)

So on Labor Day, the wife and I went out and bought the biggest most feature rich 1080 Samsung the store had. $285.
Then the cheapest Samsung player ($50 open box) so I could finish watching Band of Brothers.

Meanwhile my friends all fuss about all that snow in signals on their latest/greatest tech curved screen devices.

My avi compressed flash drive stuff looks great on the tv I bought.

 

[StarHalo]

Simply because disc players don't have rca out's anymore and my blue ray player quit halfway through 'Band of Brothers. (The previous tv had s-video or rca input)

An HDMI to RCA converter box is $20, but it wouldn't be as pleasant to look at as the setup you have now; I owned one of the last high-dollar CRT TVs Sony made, $2500, and I still remember being blown away by my first $200 flatscreen computer monitor with an all-digital signal chain, no "screen door"!

And now that your setup is all digital, you should look into an Amazon Fire TV Stick - skip discs and cables entirely, just click open Netflix, Hulu, etc like a computer/cell phone, cheaper than a Blu-Ray player too..

 

[etc]

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1440P.. wonder why TVs' didn't go this resolution, I'd be happy w/ a mid sized 1440P TV

apparently it's an obsolete, intermediate resolution that was soon abandoned after it being discovered.

1080p computer monitors don't scale very well past about 22" or 24" IMO. A 27" monitor looks terrible in 1080p, the pixels are just stretched out and the pixel density is lower, the picture quality is worse. As you increase size of the device, you want to increase the resolution as well.

1080p (HD) looks great on a laptop or a screen up to 20"
If you move up to 27", you want at least 2560x1440.
Huge 31"+ monitors look good in 4K.

If I get a 4K tv, it will be rather on the small size, maybe 42" to get the max pixel density.

 

[etc]

A lot of people were saying DVD is obsolete when Blu-Ray was finalized over HD-DVD but we still see DVD for sale on the shelves as there is still a use for them in portable devices. The difference in pricing between a 1080P and 4K set is from 50% more to double and up depending on the size such that by the time 4K is as commonplace as Blu-Ray got to be over DVD if you were wanting a large enough size set you could just buy a 1080P set for now and later buy a 4K set the same size and pay the same overall price as a 4K set right now.

They are disappearing, fast. the local walmart had a big bin of discounted DVD movies.
the same bin is still there and now full of blurays. $5. Who in his right mind would buy a DVD when you can get a bluray for five bucks.

 

[StarHalo]

If I get a 4K tv, it will be rather on the small size, maybe 42" to get the max pixel density.

This is the technique I've used in buying TVs in the past, but every 60"+ 4K TV I've seen thus far has no visible pixels even when you're standing so close to it you have to move your head to see the whole screen; I'm not sure downsizing for dpi applies with this many pixels, at least not with any TV you could fit into your house..

 

[Lynx_Arc]

They are disappearing, fast. the local walmart had a big bin of discounted DVD movies.
the same bin is still there and now full of blurays. $5. Who in his right mind would buy a DVD when you can get a bluray for five bucks.

I don't think clearance sales on stuff is a good way to judge what is on the way out or not because you could buy almost 3 dvds at walmart for the price of 2 blu-rays in their bins (3.75 for DVDs). If you want a new movie the Blu-Ray version sometimes costs 50% more than the dvd version and even movies out for awhile the DVD costs less than the Blu-Ray version like 15 for BR and 10 for DVD so you could buy a dvd of a newer movie and get a free cheap bargain bin Blu-Ray for the same price and then later when the BR version of the movie makes the bargain bin you can get it ALSO and have only spent the same 15 for BOTH formats of the same movie. The new prices are what drives the market and obsolescence not the clearance prices.

 

[recDNA]

I would love a newer Samsung 55 inch smart tv. Mine is nice but smart hub is a cluster #### in the 2012 models. Also no auto screen cast to look at my note 3 playing netflix without chromcast nor hdmi.

My wife would kill me. I like the curved screen but I have no use for ultra HD.

 

[StarHalo]

I would love a newer Samsung 55 inch smart tv. Mine is nice but smart hub is a cluster #### in the 2012 models. Also no auto screen cast to look at my note 3 playing netflix without chromcast nor hdmi.

The aforementioned Fire TV Stick turns your TV into a Smart TV, no syncing/casting to anything, just sign into your Netflix account right there on the screen and go. Connects via USB or HDMI.

 

[bykfixer]

I don't think clearance sales on stuff is a good way to judge what is on the way out or not because you could buy almost 3 dvds at walmart for the price of 2 blu-rays in their bins (3.75 for DVDs). If you want a new movie the Blu-Ray version sometimes costs 50% more than the dvd version and even movies out for awhile the DVD costs less than the Blu-Ray version like 15 for BR and 10 for DVD so you could buy a dvd of a newer movie and get a free cheap bargain bin Blu-Ray for the same price and then later when the BR version of the movie makes the bargain bin you can get it ALSO and have only spent the same 15 for BOTH formats of the same movie. The new prices are what drives the market and obsolescence not the clearance prices.

I bought Band of Bros on Blue Ray because it was half the price of DVD.
Weird, huh?

Had I bought the DVD I'd still be using my picture tube tv....so I the money I saved got spent later.

 

[StarHalo]

I bought Band of Bros on Blue Ray because it was half the price of DVD.

The entire Band of Brothers series is on the HBO Now app; free for 30 days, then $15/mo if you decide to stay on.

 

[idleprocess]

I would love a newer Samsung 55 inch smart tv. Mine is nice but smart hub is a cluster #### in the 2012 models. Also no auto screen cast to look at my note 3 playing netflix without chromcast nor hdmi.

I've come to the conclusion that you can only expect updates on platforms that the manufacturer/provider sees as having ongoing potential for future revenue. Smart TV's, Blu-Ray players, IoT (Internet of Things) devices such as connected garage door openers, toasters, etc will only be updated so long as the underlying platform is being produced or here's service revenue associated with them. For example: Samsung plans to switch to a new platform in Q2 of '16 for their smart TV's, expect updates for your 2015 smart TV to cease around Q1 of 2016.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

I bought Band of Bros on Blue Ray because it was half the price of DVD.
Weird, huh?

Had I bought the DVD I'd still be using my picture tube tv....so I the money I saved got spent later.

That doesn't surprise me as I buy a lot of movies used and the Blu-Ray version of Band of Brothers showed up before the DVD version used and I was looking for the DVD version it was hard to get used while the Blu-Ray was everywhere at that time. As I started buying music CDs and DVD movies My plan was to keep with technology such that I'm able to enjoy what I have. As long as Blu-Ray players can play DVDs and they have at least half of the movies in stores in that format and are cheaper than Blu-Rays then DVDs won't go anywhere. I'm almost thinking that before DVDs vanish we could have both DVD and Blu-Rays get replaced with online streaming or perhaps even memory type chips with movies on them similar to game cartridges. To be honest I wish that they would rethink copyrights and extend that notion to the title of something once you own a title in any format you can upgrade to a better format for a very reasonable fee that doesn't involve similar costs to buying it outright. Too many people have too many titles of movies and music to want to have to rebuy it over and over again.

 

[StarHalo]

expect updates for your 2015 smart TV to cease around Q1 of 2016.

Dolby Vision will pop up around that time, and will make all current TVs essentially obsolete.

I'm almost thinking that before DVDs vanish we could have both DVD and Blu-Rays get replaced with online streaming

Indeed, best to get started now..