HD/bluray is obsolete and is being replaced by 4K UHD standard

The UltraHD or 4K standard is beginning to really take off and slowly inching towards mainstream, I suspect it will take 3-5 years before UHD/4K is fully integrated the way Bluray is right now.

Let's see, sub-$1,000 4K computer monitors and TVs are reality either right now or just around the corner. Certainly you can get either one used for sub-$1,000.

Netflix is beginning to release some 4K shows. Youtube has had 4K content for a while. Movies today are shot in 4K.

I have a 200-disk bluray collection, I think I will dump almost all of it before prices collapse. In fact they already have, if you bought a bluray movie a few years ago for $15-20, now they go for $5-7, you cannot even sell any of them for $10. Blurays are where DVDs were maybe 5 years ago. Walmart has their huge bin of discounted movies, a year ago it was full of DVDs, now it's full of Blurays and all for $5. I suspect another 5 years and Blurays will disappear the way DVDs have. Pick any movie, why would you want to pay even $3 for a DVD when you can get the same movie in Bluray for maybe $7?

Don't invest any serious coin in either HD hardware like TVs and players, or movies, unless it's a steal. I see used 1080p HDTVs sell for $200. In the 46" range, from a premium manufacturer.

I suspect Netflix has played a huge role in it. Nobody wants DVDs anymore, they are being relegated to where VHS was 15 years ago. Only way I would want a DVD is if is a movie is not available in any other medium and I want it. If you want a movie on bluray, watching on DVD is downright painful. But once you see 4K content, it's hard to downgrade.

Now looking at the big picture, it seems the 4K standard is just an intermediate standard on the way to 8K, which also already exists, just exorbitantly expensive and not consumer friendly, it may never be adopted by the consumer.

cant they use a bluray disk for 4k video?

Here in the uk i can get a decent 4k tv for £700
Bluray supports 4k
New bluray disks are available that support 4k and have double the storage current bluray disks
Read up on it on engadget
4k is outdated by 8k anyway
By the time 8k comes out they will be something newer

I'm glad flashlights don't update and go obsolete so quickly...wait...

code2006 said:

Here in the uk i can get a decent 4k tv for £700
Bluray supports 4k
New bluray disks are available that support 4k and have double the storage current bluray disks
Read up on it on engadget
4k is outdated by 8k anyway
By the time 8k comes out they will be something newer

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am i wrong but wouldnt the tv have to be like 150 inches to see any difernce between 4 k and 8k

raggie33 said:

am i wrong but wouldnt the tv have to be like 150 inches to see any difernce between 4 k and 8k

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True but its the same between lets say 3000 lumens and 4000 lumens
3000 would do fine but people always want more and better technology
Whats wrong with 1080p?
Nothing but 4k is the latest must have
The same will happen with 8k
Plus dont forget u also have VR headsets
When they start rolling people would prob use them as tvs
You gonna have a family of 5 all on sitting on the sofa watching there own program or film ect
When that happens say goodbye to social interaction lol

code2006 said:

True but its the same between lets say 3000 lumens and 4000 lumens
3000 would do fine but people always want more and better technology
Whats wrong with 1080p?
Nothing but 4k is the latest must have
The same will happen with 8k
Plus dont forget u also have VR headsets
When they start rolling people would prob use them as tvs
You gonna have a family of 5 all on sitting on the sofa watching there own program or film ect
When that happens say goodbye to social interaction lol

Click to expand...

good point

VHS to DVD, huge. DVD to BluRay, pretty big deal as well. BluRay to 4K? I can't say without experience but I'm sure it's less dramatic.

I paid $1100 for a 32" Samsung 720p HDTV (don't know when maybe 2006?). Even about 2 years ago that same model was still floating around for $299. I'll never jump on a new expensive product so quickly again.

G'bye physical media :wave:

StarHalo said:

G'bye physical media :wave:

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That sucks. I pay for the fastest internet I can get, but still have to worry about wifi signals when streaming video. If I see "Buffering", "Downloading", "Acquiring Internet Content" one more time I'm going to scream. If I could figure out how to pull some CAT5 thru two stories into my basement, I'd do it! I like to just pop in a disc and watch a movie sometimes.

markr6 said:

VHS to DVD, huge. DVD to BluRay, pretty big deal as well. BluRay to 4K? I can't say without experience but I'm sure it's less dramatic.

I paid $1100 for a 32" Samsung 720p HDTV (don't know when maybe 2006?). Even about 2 years ago that same model was still floating around for $299. I'll never jump on a new expensive product so quickly again.

Click to expand...

I'm still waiting to get BluRay.. and in no particular rush either. I had the impression that everyone was moving away from physical media and getting movies streamed.

I can't imagine getting all that excited about 4K. Sure, some folks will love it, but until it gets affordable, I doubt many folks will bother with it. I'm waiting for the retro folks to decide that VHS has a warmer sound/color and is better because it's analog. Time to go pick up a nice NTSC TV with a CRT at Goodwill!

raggie33 said:

am i wrong but wouldnt the tv have to be like 150 inches to see any difernce between 4 k and 8k

Click to expand...

I don't think people are going to have their own private 360o​ wall-to-wall cinema. If it gets cheap enough, maybe they'll get an 80" screen. Or even a 100" one. But at some point, it's big enough and any bigger just won't fit the interior design-wise.

Then even with such a big screen, there's a point where more pixels don't make a visible difference.

Until that point, bigger screens and higher resolutions will sell. If only the price is right.

Beyond that point, higher screen resolutions will become harder & harder to sell, even to die-hard buyers with deep pockets (but we're not there yet ).

Remember the 3D TV craze?

raggie33 said:

am i wrong but wouldnt the tv have to be like 150 inches to see any difernce between 4 k and 8k

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Nope. 4K looks better than HD at any distance for example. Even if you are not close and don't see individual pixels, they still display light and contribute to sharpness. HD / bluray is nice but 4K gives you that "wow" factor.

RetroTechie said:

I don't think people are going to have their own private 360o​ wall-to-wall cinema. If it gets cheap enough, maybe they'll get an 80" screen. Or even a 100" one. But at some point, it's big enough and any bigger just won't fit the interior design-wise.

Then even with such a big screen, there's a point where more pixels don't make a visible difference.

Until that point, bigger screens and higher resolutions will sell. If only the price is right.

Beyond that point, higher screen resolutions will become harder & harder to sell, even to die-hard buyers with deep pockets (but we're not there yet ).

Click to expand...

A 46" 4K looks a lot sharper than a 46" 1080p HD. They pack tons more pixels in the same area. I have come to the conclusion that I want the highest pixel density possible. That's why you don't want a huge TV, like 60"+ (IMO) as that will dilute the pixel density versus a 40-50" model.

Another advantage of smaller 4K screens is that they are a lot cheaper than these giants. 49" or so 4K are actually affordable right now by the masses. They cost what HD used to cost about 5-7 years ago. $1300 for a 48" 4K in BB, right now.

A xx" 4K looks sharper than a same sized HD at *any* distance, up close, or far away. I have a 46" HD right now. I plan to wait a year or so for prices to crash a little more on 4K stuff, but a 49" UltraHD will still pack more pixels than a 46 HD.

Steve K said:

I'm still waiting to get BluRay.. and in no particular rush either. I had the impression that everyone was moving away from physical media and getting movies streamed.

I can't imagine getting all that excited about 4K. Sure, some folks will love it, but until it gets affordable, I doubt many folks will bother with it. I'm waiting for the retro folks to decide that VHS has a warmer sound/color and is better because it's analog. Time to go pick up a nice NTSC TV with a CRT at Goodwill!

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Streaming is nice, but IMO hard media like bluray, or now redray or ultraviolet, etc., will never go away.

What if you don't have a fast connection? A lot of of rural areas don't.

What if you want to preserve a movie for posterity?

What if you want to burn your own movies?

I can see streaming movies onto your own hard drive, but I am not sure even that will replace the disks entirely. A disk is kind of a backup I suppose.

markr6 said:

VHS to DVD, huge. DVD to BluRay, pretty big deal as well. BluRay to 4K? I can't say without experience but I'm sure it's less dramatic.

I paid $1100 for a 32" Samsung 720p HDTV (don't know when maybe 2006?). Even about 2 years ago that same model was still floating around for $299. I'll never jump on a new expensive product so quickly again.

Click to expand...

Have you seen a 4K Ultra HD TV?

Playing native 4K content, not some TV garbage?

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.

etc said:

I have come to the conclusion that I want the highest pixel density possible.

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Agreed, which is why watching TV on an iPhone is better than many televisions; a 50" screen is nice, but 400+ ppi is even better..

markr6 said:

That sucks. I pay for the fastest internet I can get, but still have to worry about wifi signals when streaming video. If I see "Buffering", "Downloading", "Acquiring Internet Content" one more time I'm going to scream.

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If you can't hear your signal the first time, repeat it.

A quick rule-of-thumb: if you can't see the "screen door" effect (individual pixels) from your normal viewing position and your current TV, you won't see a difference with 4k.

FYI: I have a 4k screen - a 39" Seiki, which can be had on sale for less than $300 on sale nowadays - and 20-15 vision with my new glasses.