Yes, they don't care. And that's why the scenario you put forth above is unrealistic and constraining. There isn't a conscious decision as you describe above where somehow folks have an itch to get all that junk at once big bang.

UHD penetrates at each level through attrition. There is no need to get anything else besides the 4k TV, then sit back and let adoption progress. Try some 4k streamed content, and maybe if you like add an ATV down the road whenever that supports UHD. Remember, the alternative is to buy the non-4k TV for the same price, so they haven't lost, quite the opposite. You keep pushing the single idea that someone will just buy it all net new.

In summary, I disagree with the limited view of UHD adoption you'd like to imply, so I can't really form an argument against it. And that's why I'm saying that debating about "what people want", isn't going to drive the bus. They don't care, and UHD will persevere regardless.

^ Having the ability to play UHD content does not mean people will actually play UHD content.
They would still have to buy the UHD-BD Players and discs to enjoy it on a physical format. They would have to be concious of choosing it while streaming. Most people I know don't stream 1080p content as it is. Plus, a lot of people have a bandwidth cap with their ISP - so they can't just stream the highest possible quality without there being a cost to it.

UHD will be a niche market, regardless of how many people have 4K TVs.

I'm in agreement with you about this TODAY. What I'm saying is that it will evolve, similar to other technologies where consumers will piecemeal their upgrades via more incremental upgrades. Yes, day 1, the consumer is not going to have the full experience.

Think about it though. I don't need to watch UHD content, to own a 4k TV. In fact, consumers will probably watch non-4k content for a while on their UHD TV, as they watched SD material for a while on their HD TV. But as broadcasters, movies, streaming, and other options for UHD continue to deliver and promote the spec, they will start to consume that content, and come to expect that standard over the span of 5 - 10 years.

For the masses, its about getting the UHD name out there and marketing it, irregardless of the exact specs in the delivery. I mean look now, Amazon Prime states they deliver streaming UHD content, and I have very little knowledge of how that content was manipulated, compressed, etc., so what is it when I get it? It still gets called UHD somehow.

Except 1080p has been around for about 10 years and there's still half the broadcast channels still in SD. There's usually HD as well, but we're not seeing less SD channels at this point. I highly doubt 4k will be standard in 5-10 years. 1080p perhaps, but not 4k. Which means if 1080p becomes standard in 5-10 years, it'll have taken about 15 years for the transition to complete.

I'm not sure about your timeline though.

We've had 1080p TVs for, what, 15+ years now... and for a while now the VAST majority of TVs sold are 1080p. Blu-Ray has been out for 10 years.
I'd say the majority of content out there after all this time is still non-HD and most people watch their content in non-HD.

UHD will be a tougher climb because a HUGE chunk of people don't plan on upgrading their 1080p TVs any time soon.

It's going to be a niche format for many years to come. I just think that once more of the pieces are in place and more consumers own HDR TVs that UHD BD will impress them more than BD has and thus in the long run will have a better chance at a wider adoption than Blu-ray. The main reason being that Blu-ray quality has been too dependent on resolution (screen size and viewing distance), and therefore many haven't been impressed at all. UHD BD on the other hand can be appreciated from any (HDR) screen size and viewing distance and that will make all the difference in the world.

I laugh when people say consumers don't care about quality. Yes they do, otherwise why are they buying 4k TVs? But they don't want to spend extra money on media if the difference in quality to them is minimal (like a simple resolution bump is from their couches 12' away watching a 42-50" screen).

I'm fine with questioning the timeline, that part is not my main point. Make it 15 years. What I'm trying to put forward is the drivers will not be reliant on the consumer's "need" for UHD specs. It's also coming from the content creator/delivery side who doesn't want to maintain and deliver 4 formats of each product, and the marketing push to move forward to UHD. Today, they are developing 4k (and higher) masters, and will deliver them to consumers next to their current HD and SD content.

The obvious next step is that there will be incessant marketing pushing people towards UHD, not because they asked for it, but because they can be charged a slight premium (as today), which aggregated across multiple transactions becomes a large and attractive revenue source.

In summary, content has plateaued. One can only watch so many special editions, re-makes, re-boots, etc. offered at the same resolution. Meh. Numbers are down. The industry will look to technology like UHD to draw $$ from consumers.

So yes, I agree consumers likely won't understand or possibly even fully appreciate UHD, but they do have a psychology. And that psychology is always going to respond to the marketing (as today) of......whatever is the latest and greatest, so they can rest easy that they are "cool". It's just a matter of figuring out the price point to get a sale, and over time, UHD will deprecate HD.

I would agree, but I am not seeing a significant price increase in 4k TVs. Yes, we can debate on the high end, but in terms of the masses, the prices of mid and low range 4k sit nearly side by side with the traditional non-4k price ranges. I think its a case of chicken/egg, and I think they are correct in their strategy of getting UHD sets out there at a similar price point and ready to...........consume UHD content, which is where the money can be made.

How many Joe Averages own Ferraris?

I knew someone would come back with that right after I typed it.

I'm just saying that once the consumer already owns an HDR TV (let's say he/she upgraded because their old set broke, so it's a sunk cost anyway), then the difference in price between DVD/BD and UHD is only a few bucks. Much less than the difference in price between a Mazda and a Ferrari. That's the beauty of it. Sure they'll have to buy a player too, but in 4-5 years (probably when real momentum would start building in this demographic) a UHD player will be cheap too.

The problem with this argument is that we're now 10 years into the existence of the Blu-ray format and it still hasn't overtaken DVD by attrition or any other means, despite the prevalence of high definition televisions. Most viewers still watch their movies by DVD on their HDTVs and don't give a flying fig about whether Blu-ray could give them better picture quality or not.

If it takes 15, 20 or 25 years for a new format to gain traction by attrition, do you really think UHD Blu-ray will have any chance to do that before physical media as a whole goes extinct?

I appreciate how wowed you are by HDR and how dramatic a difference you feel it makes. I think a number of the niche videophile audience (of which I am a part) will agree with you. However, I think you greatly overestimate how much average viewers will notice or care about this. If they haven't noticed that their Full Screen DVDs are being stretched to fill their HDTVs, they're certainly not ever going to notice better color or contrast on the new format. That's just not a reasonable expectation, IMO.

I totally respect your opinion Josh and maybe I am a little overoptimistic about that. I guess time will tell. At the very least the videophiles will love this format and that will be enough to keep it around a long time. It's certainly not DOA like some think.

No. Personally, I don't. So we agree on UHD Blu-ray. I've stated several times that physical media is kaput. I believe UHD will be used to mass market streaming over physical, but when I mentioned that before it fell flat.

However, I let my comments on UHD (non-blu-ray) still stand verbatim, but this is where we get off the scope of this thread topic.

UHD really needs a killer app to help sell the format. It's a shame the new Star Wars won't be coming out on UHD. That would have probably gotten me to make the jump.

What were the "killer app" titles during the respective eras of early dvd and early bluray ?

HD DVD had the very memorable Transformers exclusive, which would have been HD DVD's first winning week in sales if the Blu-ray side hadn't run a massive sale at bargain bin prices. Blu-ray did have a couple of early Disney exclusives.

The fog of history dims things a bit for DVD, though I recall The Matrix being a critical movie on DVD in its early days.

Well whatever major blockbusters the on-board studios release will be candidates for format sellers. What major movies are coming out this summer?

Probably won't be for a year or two anyway, since momentum for this will be even slower than it was for previous formats.

The Matrix was definitely the killer app for DVD. Not only did it have a lot of interactive features, it wouldn't play on many early-model players and forced people to upgrade their newish machines.

It's probably old hat now, but "Special Features" were a new feature when DVDs were coming up. I can't think of a Blu-Ray exclusive feature, beyond better quality.

I agree. I think a compelling reason why consumers upgraded to HDTV was not because they were Hi-Def but because they were sleek-looking, thin, light-weight, cheaper (eventually) and took up less space in the house.

Aesthetically, they were a huge improvement over the boxy CRTs regardless of whether one actually utilized the 1080p aspect.

UHD doesn't have that advantage as they look just like the TV you already own except they offer 4K which many will not care about.

Many people are also reluctant to stream 720 or 1080, let alone 4K, out of fear there is a greater chance it will freeze and stall due to the size of the file and bandwidth.

I never used it but there was BD-Live.

I actually used it for one of those Christopher Nolan chats attached to The Dark Knight. It was pretty cool but I don't think I ever did anything like that again. Otherwise it's just a matter of "downloading a fresh preview off the Internet."

I can't even afford a Mazda.

Well you have Java. Useful in that you have time to go use the bathroom or fix a drink while the movie takes 3 times as long to load.