TheBang

This was first shown and discussed at CES, but now it has a name and release window. The Sony FMP-X1 will sell for $699 this summer, and come bundled with 10 movies in 4K. The download service to purchase additional 4K films will launch this fall.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/07/s...ution-service/
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/7/419...k-media-player

Why So Blu?

Nice design. Blu-ray is it for me, though.

bunkaroo

Not a terrible price, but terrible titles for the most part. Where's Fifth Element?

orangerunner

Maybe I missed something, but are the movies in an optical disc format?

If so they must be getting quite fragile and sensitive with even more content contained on them.

"That's My Boy" in 4K! I'M SOLD!!!!!

Gizmo

That.

Alan Smithee

This doesn't tell me enough about how it works. I'm assuming all movies are stored online? If so, I refuse to support it. I'd rather buy VHS than online movies- at least I know that nobody can take my VHS tapes offline if there's any legal trouble with them!

wahlers

If they're stored online then every time someone wants to change a film (ala George Lucas) you'll suddenly have a different movie the next time you go to watch it...

zyzzle

We can assume the article fails to mention an optical disc format for a reason. The movies will likely be highly DRM'd, low bitrate online and / or streamed sourced. No thanks!! Terrible precident...

LPMA

I really don't see the point of 4K if it's stored online. It's likely to just be material sourced at 4K but with an even lower bitrate than my current blus.

I don't know what the situation may be elsewhere, but unlimited internet access isn't that common around these parts, so I couldn't even justify it on that front.

milo bloom

Neat looking box, but no interest in the format.

RocShemp

Whatever happened to those multi-layer BD's that were being developed? I'd rather deal with that than online media distribution. Hell, I'd rather have movies on individual HDD's than deal with crappy online streaming.

Gizmo

Those are not really meant for consumers. We might get them eventually for storage mediums, but I don't ever expect to see studios use them for films.

At this point, you can buy a 1TB drive for $60-$80.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

It's from Sony, what do you expect?

Iron_Giant

Being that I am a computer tech, I do not want to have my movies on one HD.

HDs fail all the time, then you have nothing. I would need to have some kind of backup system that is easy and automatic.

bunkaroo

At least you have the mindset to consider data backup. Most consumers won't, so asking them to buy content in a digital medium is a recipe for content loss. How many people lose their iTunes libraries because they haven't backed them up? I know several people that has happened to personally.

Now maybe drive failure will be less of an issue as solid state becomes more common. But the prices for solid state are still prohibitive for people who want to store TB's of content.

This is why, as antiquated as it might seem, I will stick with optical media as long as it is viable. The discs are right there on my shelf, don't need backup, and can't be taken away from me because of intellectual property issues.

E Unit

I thought I had read at one point those multi player 100GB discs were supposed to become more mainstream. Either way, I could care less now. So all this device is, is basically a streamer to Sony's database to stream their 4K movies. You pay a fee, and they download to this thing? I don't see any future in this, even with other studios participating. And it's definitely not worth the price. I'll stick to my physical media.

PhantomStranger

I wonder if Sony cared enough to fix the messed up soundtrack on Total Recall 2012 that they've ignored on Blu-ray?

This format is really an intermediary product in home video, much like D-VHS was in its day before Blu-ray. Anyone buying into it knows it will likely have a limited shelf life and is not the intended successor to Blu-ray. I have little interest in it but I imagine Sony will find a few thousand wealthy people to support it in their private mega-home theaters.

RocShemp

Explain, please?

Double_Oh_7

It wasn't a soundtrack issue, it was a compatibility issue with some BD players. Considering this is an entirely different encode and format, I'm guessing it won't be an issue.

EddieMoney

This is going to give DIVX a run for its money.

TheBang

Yeah, based on what I understand, this is downloading digital files, not streaming. So you'll have a local copy of the file on this media player. The USB port visible on the front can probably be used for extending the disk space with external storage.

If I had to speculate, I would guess that the service will be like iCloud, where it will have a history of all your purchases, so if your device or hard drive fails, you can simply authorize a new device and redownload your past purchases.

PhantomStranger

Many Blu-ray players/receivers can't properly bitstream the 2012 Total Recall Blu-ray's Dolby TrueHD without massive dropouts. Sony has known about the problem since December and done nothing to fix the authoring issue.

RocShemp

Thanks. I didn't know about that. But then I have my PS3 output PCM to my receiver so that's probably why I never ran into that problem.

EddieMoney

This unit certainly looks sexy.

bunkaroo

Makes me wonder what the data size is on these. If it's bigger than a typically Blu-ray encode, that's quite a lot of data to pull through a non-commercial internet connection. I would think ISP's would not be thrilled about someone using their service to pull down movies of this size.