So you we one of those 500 people that bothered for The Dark Knight. (I'm exaggerating... It was actually way less. Worked with the company that hosted it...)

fitprod

LaserDisc and DVHS were niche. Not one single store in my area sold them. Blu-rays can be bought in Kmart and corner stores. Just because it never reached DVD's sales numbers does not make it niche.

Ok, it may not be a niche product in the traditional sense but the average person still treats it like one. Sure, it's available everywhere now but it's definitely not the #1 choice for the average person to get. Cost is the factor. If the average person sees a DVD and BD next to each other do you think the average person will get the BD over the DVD and pay more for it? They won't. Shit like 4K, 2K, 1080p, etc., mean nothing to the average person. I'm still horrified that folks keep the shitty presets on their TV sets. These people can't even calibrate their sets let alone appreciate or care to know about UHD. Companies need to know how to market and price new technology to the average person.

Wow, this is still going on. I think bruceames sold DIVX at Circuit City back in the day

Of course they'll have to buy a new TV. When they do, it'll probably be for other reasons, their old set crapped out, they want to go bigger, it's "time" to upgrade, etc. Somehow people are thinking this has to happen right away or never. This is a long term growth cycle, the average consumer won't be buying in for several years yet.

Yes it is far more noticeable. Especially for consumers who sit 10-12 feet away. That's the whole point!

You tell me to look at it from the perspective of the masses and then you say that BD offered a very noticeable upgrade in quality. To them? No, I don't think so. If it did, then BD wouldn't be only taking in a 33% share. I am totally looking at it from their point of view. HDR a is different upgrade, one they will appreciate.

Wow, comparing UHD BD to Divx. That's a new low in negativity in this forum. Or maybe not, there's someone else that came to mind. Maybe he'll chime in with a joke too.

I'll be buying 4k bluray discs when they start showing up in the local $5 dump bins.

Some of the current computer bd drives can already read these 4K bluray discs. (Though no computer 4k bluray programs yet to view them, both official and unofficial).

ROTF....Perhaps you are buying into your own wishful thinking. The belief that this new format will be embraced by a larger audience than DVD or even Blu-ray for that matter betrays any logic. Those still buying DVDs won't upgrade to UHD because they don't care about the higher resolution—DVD has always been good enough to them. People buying DVDs don't care and a large group of Blu-ray collectors care even less. You are whistling past the graveyard. And I am totally looking at it from their point of view! It's DOA period—a tiny niche market at best.

I have a friend who says that from here on out he'll be upgrading to UHD discs for movies that he likes (futureproof). Granted, he makes a lot of money at his job but has yet to fully upgrade to UHD, because he doesn't trust the one UHD player on the market. He's going to wait until other companies get into the picture.

The operative word(s) are: he makes a lot of money. He can afford it.

I never said it would be better than DVD, only that it would have a higher OD marketshare in 10 years time than BD has now (34% after almost 10 years).

Is that really far fetched? After all, the bar is set pretty low.

And I know what a streaming fanboy you are (why don't you just put in your sig "physical media is dead, it just doesn't know it yet, instead of repeating the same old tripe in every post), but it's going to be years before UHD HDR streaming PQ can hope to catch up with UHD BD. And when you get people like Stacey Spears saying that HDR is the biggest advancement in PQ since color television, it only adds to my amusement knowing you guys will be eating your words in a few years and going ape shit over UHD BD.

Ahhhh...I'm a streaming fanboy? How did you come to that conclusion? I've collected almost every format since "Super 8!" Nahhh, I won't be eating my words because to quote one of my heroes, "I live in Realville."

The signs are everywhere—you would have to be blind to ignore them—that the audience for physical media is quickly shrinking and UHD is facing an uphill battle (to say the least) in a very indifferent climate. Those of us who have collected and then sold or traded numerous formats over the years are moving into our 40s, 50s and beyond. We have amassed very nice libraries and have yet to watch many of the titles that are sitting neatly in our bookcases—many still wrapped in cellophane! We are growing weary of upgrading and for the majority who buy physical media, DVD is simply good enough—roughly 60-70%. The rest have embraced downloading and streaming. The mass audience will have little to no exposure to this new format since the few remaining brick and mortar retailers are eliminating much of the floor space devoted to marketing physical media. There will be little to no marketing support for this expensive new format in a piss-poor economic climate and that will be its death knell.

Many collectors are also giving up on their hobby for a host of reasons. I mostly shop at local resellers, discounters, pawn shops and garage sales and I am amazed how fast I have replaced the Blu-ray collection I sold off for economic reasons a few years back and at a fraction of the cost. These are pristine older releases that were obviously collected with great care. I just bought 20 movies for $60 from a guy who was liquidating his entire collection on Craigslist because he was getting married and starting a family. Many had slipcovers and the only thing missing was the cellophane.

You state that the UHD upgrade in image quality is a greater leap than it was for DVD to Blu-ray but I have read a few reviews that would belie your claim. I've yet to view a DVD on my 65" display that can hold a candle to the Blu-ray image produced. Blu-ray was always more than a visual and audio upgrade over DVD. Its menu system did not require leaving the program you were viewing and it's surface is far more resilient to improper handling and surface damage. But even those improvements along with an unprecedented marketing push by the major studios weren't enough to convince a mass audience to upgrade to Blu-ray disc. And when it comes to economics, UHD fails because the benefits do not justify returning to a $30 pricing structure. Except for those with rather large disposable incomes, buying into UHD is ludicrous.

I'll admit, when I went to the store this past week to pick up "The Revenant" I thought about picking up the UHD copy since it comes with the Blu-ray version as well. But I decided the Blu-ray was good enough at $17.99. And many more still decided the DVD was good enough for them—I doubt they even looked at the measly dozen or so titles sitting on the shelf in those shiny black keep cases. The studio support for this format isn't even as robust as HD DVD or 3D for that matter.

Well your rant does seem to be about physical media in general, so yes, one can easily come to that conclusion.

I'm not saying physical media will not continue to decline, just that UHD BD will have a bigger piece of that pie than BD did (does or will have).

The decline of physical media is another topic, I'm referring to the future UHD BD market share within OD itself. Of course, if UHD BD does well, then that won't hurt that rate of physical media's decline any. Physical media will continue to decline, but there will be a bottoming out. It's definitely not going away.

The decline of physical media is not another topic. UHD as physical media will never surpass Blu-ray disc's market share largely because of that reality. The future is downloading and streaming whether you and I like it or not—it's simply reality and a technological evolution. Nobody is saying physical media will totally disappear in our lifetimes. But it will be a niche market—a small fraction of where even Blu-ray disc was at its zenith. If you are trying to be cute by saying that as physical media dies, UHD will represent a larger piece of an ever-shrinking pie then perhaps you are right—but so what? The vast majority of consumers won't be buying and studio support will be almost non-existent. There needs to be a profit motive and there won't be much for physical media at that point. There's just no logic in your assumptions.

Your argument reminds me of how the current administration handles economic data. We are supposedly at a 5% unemployment rate based on the U3 economic data. You get a better percentage by not counting the chronically unemployed and underemployed. It's laughable because when you look at the total employment picture using the U6 data, the reality is that we are far closer to 10% unemployment nationally. So when you look at UHD's share of a shrinking pie, the percentage of sales may eventually surpass Blu-ray or DVD because the only people still buying will be die-hard technophiles. Hardly an incentive for studios to dig deep into their catalogs.

So to illustrate, 40% of $1,000,000 is $400,000 and 50% of $700,000 is $350,000. So even if UHD is successful in grabbing a larger percentage of the overall market in a marketplace experiencing a precipitous decline —and I don't believe it has a prayer— that victory would be rather hollow.

I can see the hyperbole already:

"Sales of UHDBR players have increased by 300%! Blu-ray is down 20%!"

The reality: They sold 100 UHDBR players one week and 300 units the next week.

Well I think UHD will at least slow down the decline of physical media. Otherwise what's the point of having another new format in the first place? Even though BLu-ray underperformed, it did OK even though physical media continued to decline every single year since it launched.

Expectations for UHD BD seem to be so low that I don't think it's possible for it to sell under those expectations.

Do we really need the politics in this discussion?

Yes we do! Because one thread isn't enough when it comes to this! Especially with these fine thespians droning on about the same crap.

What politics?

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

My academic concern (since I won't be buying any of these 4k releases ever) is that bitrates will be rather low, since we've got longer films being released (over 2 hours for each)...

I'd be wary that these single-layer 1st-gen 4k releases are not going to showcase all the format has to offer in terms of PQ, since we've got compromising of space to get them onto only 66 GB...

I'd guess that double-layer (BD 128 GB?) should be used for any film > 90-100 minutes for absolute best presentation quality.

If catalogue films ever get released in the format, they absolutely should be on 128GB discs in order to preserve the grain structure and organic structure of their original 35-mm or 70-mm elements.

Is there such a thing as dual layer 4k BD discs?

I think we discussed this earlier in this thread. It shouldn't really be a concern. The movies so far have been released bare-bones, so with the increased encoding efficiency of HEVC, dual-layer (66GB) should be sufficient for 2-3 hour movies.

UHD BD is available in dual-layer (66GB) and triple-layer (100GB). Single-layer does not exist in the specification.

so the 100GB discs are available - guess that means Sony will release 'Lawrence of Arabia' on UHD then

Interesting... I wonder if quad-layer or other higher multiples will ever be made, or if 100GB discs is the highest capacity we'll ever get.

It seems strange indeed that 10 years after BD 25 GB single-layer discs, the increase in each layer has only been a measly 8 GB (= 33 GB total per layer).

Why the inertia in doubling / tripling capacity per layer in a decades' time? Is it for "laziness" or compatibility reasons? No violet lasers, then?

The "blu" laser in Blu-ray is actually violet, at a wavelength of 405nm.

I think the limitation isn't the laser though, but the manufacturing process used to press the discs. When Blu-ray first came out, there were a lot of manufacturing issues, since it was a whole new process. They weren't even able to make double-layer discs until a year or so after it was released.

HD DVD, by contrast, had less issues because they modified the DVD pressing process instead of going all new. However, a side-effect was that HD DVDs couldn't store as much data because the pit pattern wasn't as small. So even though Blu-ray and HD DVD used the same laser, Blu-ray could hold more:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...l_disc_formats

The extra 8GB per layer is probably due to an incremental improvement of the pressing process.

As for seeing additional layers: probably not. Ever since dual-layer DVDs, we've been promised additional layers, with some people predicting dozens of layers. However, in practice, it gets exponentially more difficult for a drive to read the correct layer the more you have. It took near 2 decades to get us to 3 layers, so I wouldn't expect a 4 layer disc anytime soon.

Yep- I have Deadpool in front of me right now and it's dual-layer (of course I can't play the damn thing yet, but had to get my hands on one at least!) From some of the reviews I've read, it seems banding is still a problem- that's one of my biggest gripes about Blu-Rays right now, of course on "Digital HD" it's far worse.

Fun fact: Initial planning of laserdiscs in the 1970s wanted to have discs that were dual-layered instead of 2-sided for uninterrupted playback. That never happened until DVD finally came out in 1997.