I picked up the 3D version. No interest in the UHD even though I own a UHD display.

It did get a 4K scan but that was largely overkill. There are minor benefits to downsampling from 4K to lower resolutions for sub-par visual content. I wouldn't be worrying about a future UHD release of that film. I am sure it will get one, but it's not particularly necessary.

Then there is no debate. I thought we were talking about UHD as a new format for packaged media—that's DOA. Of course, if all displays are UHD and the digital download is UHD than it will be accepted by default just like the transition from analog to digital. But packaged media will be pretty paseé by then. That's not what we have been discussing here.

My point and what others have said is that there is no way UHD will be a success beyond a very niche market as a packaged media source. Packaged media is presently on life support and UHD will do nothing to reverse that trend. No need for DVD Blu-ray disc or UHD discs. If you are merely talking about what will be transmitted, that's another discussion altogether.

I think there's room for debate. Even though packaged media sales will continue to decline, that doesn't mean that UHD BD won't be able to pick up a greater market share within packaged media sales than Blu-ray has. And then there's the debate on how much packaged media will continue to decline. You seem to think it will disappear or become a tiny percentage of sell-through sales. That remains to be seen but that's a pretty pessimistic viewpoint.

Calling UHD BD DOA is a little presumptuous. I wouldn't go that far.

As long as the studios don't go overboard with pricing and release a wide selection of new releases, UHD should establish itself in the marketplace as a viable format.

It would have a stronger chance if all the studios were seriously behind it but one gets the feeling a couple of them don't care.

Well they are releasing in combo format with fair pricing, so I think they are off on the right foot. Still very early and perhaps Disney is waiting for Dolby Vision, which in itself will be another major upgrade.

I'll probably be in the market for a new TV in the next year or two, so if I go 4K I'll probably look into the format. From there it will depend on price. I bypassed the 3D wave because I didn't have the hardware, and I'm not really a fan anyway.

No, actually I'm basing that on historical data. It's not my wish at all. I prefer packaged media. Just because some people still buy LPs for recorded music doesn't mean its a trend.

Well that's patently false, so your whole argument falls apart right there.

If people can't tell the difference between HD and SD, there is precisely zero chance they will ever notice any difference HDR brings.

I know people who still watch "Full Screen" DVDs (on a player connected by Composite cable) stretched to fill their 16:9 HDTVs and have no idea at all that anything is wrong with it. If you think these people are going to somehow be wowed by brighter colors and more contrast enough to run out to buy a UHD player, you're living in a fantasy world.

I said "for them", meaning most people. If they could see a big difference then they probably wouldn't still be buying DVDs or bypassing Blu-ray for streaming. Obviously the difference is completely dependent on how far you sit or how big your display is.

That's not the case with HDR (can be appreciated on any reasonable sized TV) so I don't see how you can correlate the two and say that if they can't appreciate the bump from 480p to 1080p then they can't appreciate the difference between SDR and HDR.

I didn't say they would run out and buy a UHD player but rather that UHD BD has a better chance of wider adoption for physical media than Blu-ray. Call me an optimist but seriously some of you are way more pessimistic than I am optimistic.

What historical data? And lol for using LPs as an example. CDs replaced them over 30 years ago and with everyone predicting the demise of CD, they still consist of nearly half of all music sales.

[IMG][/IMG]I was simply making a point. If you were aware, LPs have made a tiny comeback among audiophiles. A very niche market.



I suspect you are just jonesing for an argument. The fact is, music sales have been flat and CD sales are diminishing rapidly. Retail has been dropping packaged media from shelves because sales are declining and they can use that space for other items that sell faster with higher margins. The studios are licensing titles to small distributors and have little interest in releasing catalog product. Do you honestly believe they would do that if it were profitable? I don't know how one can go through life ignoring the obvious.

I'm not gonna argue with you because you refuse to acknowledge the historical data. If there was a market for packaged media they wouldn't be disappearing from store shelves. To deny that fact is ludicrous. So, there is no way in hell UHD discs are gonna reverse that trend—it ain't gonna happen as much as you wish for it to be so.

Packaged media is dying—and swiftly. UHD is DOA

Sorry but I'm am just countering some of the many points you made in your long post.

Packaged media is not dying that swiftly, but rather declining by around 8 to 10 percent a year. There is no reason to think that they will dwindle down to almost nothing (like LP), percentage-wise. I believe the decline will bottom out and it will be at a much higher market share then what many may think.


And it's not ludicrous to think that UHD will replace DVD and/or Blu-ray, because UHD is bigger upgrade than was BLu-ray, because so many components are being upgraded, not just resolution.

Lol, that chart is for one week. I've been following Blu-ray, DVD and Digital sales very closely for years, and the demise isn't nearly as bad as what you're trying to make it out to be.

Oy Vey. That data is the same every month....its almost always lower than the previous year. It is NOT an anomaly. You are in denial. And you are wrong. All one needs to do is open their eyes and do a small amount of research. If anyone is interested, just go to Home Media Magazine's website and search the back issues. This is a trend

: trend

noun - as in a downward trend in packaged media sales: tendency, movement, drift, swing, shift, course, current, direction, progression, inclination, leaning; bias, bent.

Nobody is saying packaged media is gonna disappear entirely. That is why I made the point about LPs that seemed to escape you. Just because it is embraced by a small niche doesn't harken its return to widespread adoption. Sure people like yourself may choose to buy into UHD, but that doesn't meann mass adoption in the slightest—it ain't gonna happen. As the owner of over 1000 Blu-ray discs I'm certainly not wishing for this to be true, but it is unfortunately the reality.

Lol, the data isn't the same every month. Blu-ray sales have been up so far this year and was up in the 2nd half of last year.

But if you're going to want to continue this argument then let's take it over to the sales thread rather than derail this one further, OK?

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/hd-talk/578...ing-up-90.html

Later this evening I would be happy to do just that. I have been looking up articles and graphs that vividly support the negative growth trend.

I'd wager that significantly less than 1% of the population gives a shit about this.
Probably one in one thousand people bother calibrating their televisions beyond maybe tweaking the brightness-contrast-tint until it looks "good enough."

Some people can be upsold by salesmen for stuff like 4K HDR, not knowing what it is, just that paying more for something better.

You can hang around places like this or HTF or BR-dot-com or AVS, where people live and breathe calibration and techy details, but it's completely over the heads of 99.9% of the population. These boards are where the tiny minority of people who care about these things congregate.

I think we're talking about two different things here. Joe Average doesn't need to hang out in car forums or know how to all the parts of a motor work in order to appreciate the difference between a Ferrari and a Madza. If you show him/her a product that makes enough of an appreciable difference to justify the extra cost then he'll buy it.

I think many of these debates center on "what people want". That, in all likelihood, is not the driver.

UHD (whatever that definition is, streaming/physical/specs) will penetrate the market through deprecation of older standards.

As media, streaming, and playback migrate to these new standards, one day people will just go along because it will not cost more to watch/stream content at 4k. Not because they "had to get it".

In other words, I just got a 55" 4k Samsung TV at Best Buy because it cost the same or less than the non 4k set next to it. It was $800 out the door. C'mon now.

Outside of this forum's niche audience, sheeple will go where they are herded, unless there is some outrageous premium.

Reminds me that I need to issue a challenge to electronics companies to have their TVs actually default to the RIGHT picture settings! Or maybe that's all just an intelligence test that not too many pass

Most people don't have the disposal income to buy a tv because of the price. Unless they have 70" televisions for $50. Most people buy a new tv because they HAVE to. Either it broke or was stolen.

$800 to you is a new tv. To others it's 4-months of food.

Actually, its a bit different point in context of my post. My point was that when people replace their TV (for any reason, including due to failure), they go to the big box store, and there is a 4k TV next to a non-4k TV for the same or nearly the same price. This is how UHD adoption will take place without having a "need to have, (or even understanding) of UHD". I know, because that best buy customer was me, and I wasn't going to buy a 4k TV when I left the house. It was a no-brainer, even for a poor guy like me.

Think about the price jump from the old CRT TVs to the early flat panels. UHD is nothing like that premium, its priced so close to HD in so many ways, it will likely be transparent over the long run to the average customer. Again - its a 55" 4k TV! I can't believe how cheap they are!

Hope this clarifies.

Just because someone has a UHD tv, doesn't mean the format has been adopted. What about tv channels? Video player? Streaming services? Is he/she going to upgrade everything? In most cases, no.

In general, people don't care.