Doctorossi

Indeed. It's substantively advantageous for 3D content, but of very little practical use in the home (even the "big" home) outside of that. And consumers aren't exactly emptying their wallets onto the floor of Best Buy, demanding an improved 3D experience.

The fact that a 3D playback function wasn't even included in the 4K spec should tell you all you need to know about the prospects of this format finding an audience with the one function that could've actually really demonstrated its value to the average consumer.

Spiderbite

I am not a 3D fan but yeah, that decision makes no sense at all.

milo bloom

Not a fan of 3D either, but I have to say it seems odd that they wouldn't throw in everything but the kitchen sink in order to appeal to the widest consumer base.

Would the disc players also be backwards compatible with Bluray and DVD discs? I can't see ever giving up my MST3K DVD collection so I'll always need something to play those on.

DVD Polizei

Blu-ray will be backwards compatible but DVD...not sure. An opportunity to distance physical media one more notch.

4K should be a rather easy codec to allow.blu-ray disc playback.

Alan Smithee

That's retarded if they're not including 3D capability out of the gate. I won't buy it until they do.

Yes, some Blu-Ray discs show compression artifacts, and gradient banding which wasn't so obvious on regular DVD. They need to remember that those of us who are sticking with discs rather than going to streaming are doing so because we CARE about quality.

Adam Tyner

It'll play Blu-ray discs (and 3D BDs too!). Just not 3D in 4K. I have no idea why.

Doctorossi

Yes, they do, but don't hold your breath.

TheBang

Current Hollywood Blu-rays generally run at about 20-30 Megabit per second using the AVC codec. So, for UHD Blu-ray, if we quadruple that number (never mind the fact that we're not quadrupling the audio stream), we end up with 120 Mbps, if we were using AVC. But the HEVC codec affords a 40-50% encoding efficiency increase, so let's say we end up somewhere around 70 Mbps.

So, for a 3 hour movie at 70 Mbps, you end up using 88 GB. On a 100 GB triple-layer UHD Blu-ray, that's still plenty of room for a couple hours worth of HD documentary supplements.

DVD Polizei

+1.

Unfortunately, I think history will argue against and many examples proven there are.

I just noticed I sound like Yoda.

Maybe SOME studios do care, but most don't give a flying fart. They'd rather give you a lot of Blu-ray discs, to convey the "heavyness" of a set, but find out even with only 2 episodes on each disc, the average bitrate is severely lacking.

RocShemp

Which will likely be dumped on a second standard BD disc anyway.

PhantomStranger

The hardware manufacturers wanted to distance 4K players from 3-D tech, which they viewed as not receiving support in the marketplace.

Doctorossi

Wow- that's about the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

zyzzle

Well, the discussion is academic anyway, considering that, on a good day, perhaps 5% of those who adopted Blu-ray will likely upgrade to 4k. I don't plan to unless some of my favorite catalog titles are released in the format. Odds are very low that we'll see films like BLADE RUNNER, THE TOWERING INFERNO, or THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN in 4k anytime soon.

Also, it remains to be seen just how efficient and / or 'artifacty' the first generation of 4k encodes will be. I'm not expecting them to showcase 4k to its highest standard, judging by some of the early (ie, badly compressed) DVDs and Blu-rays in 1995 and 2006 were.

So, there's the probability that 100 GB may barely be sufficient for a 4k encode in 2015, but will be stellar in 2020, once the compressionists have learned the best tweaks, etc for encoding 4k material. This has happened with Blu-rays, to the greater extent as the format has matured...

PhantomStranger

We didn't start getting great compression on Blu-ray until 2008 or 2009, once all the studios finally switched to AVC and the crossover studios stopped aiming their encodes for HD DVD.

Ranger

HDMI 1.4 is ready for 4k, right? Most blu-ray players and video cards support HDMI 1.4?

PerryD

I'm pretty sure you need HDMI 2.0 for 4k support.

Drexl

I think Blade Runner is a very strong possibility, as it appeals to the male geeky demographic that is more likely to adopt the format. It has also grown in stature over the years, even cracking the more recent AFI list.

BTW, the 2007 version was from a 4K master. I don't know if it holds up compared to more recent masters, but it's there.

Doctorossi

Odds are actually quite good for Blade Runner, which has historically been one of Warners' go-to early releases for new formats and also already has a 4K master.

This is only a "probability" in your mind. I can understand your skepticism in light of historic precedent, but 100 GB is plenty sufficient for 4K encodes and the early ones out of the gate will not have visible artifacts issues. Encoding will of course continue to improve over time, but the initial standard will be a high one.

RocShemp

Yes and no. HDMI 1.4 can pass 4K but is incompatible with encrypted 4K video. Also, without HDCP 2.2, if there were 4K 3D video, said video would lock at 1080p. That's the gist of what I read a while back.

caligulathegod

If I'm not mistaken, there is no such thing as 4K 3D in theaters. It's either a single 2K projector with a alternating polarizing filter or a 4K projector presenting two 2K images at the same time and a special lens polarizes them. Even IMAX 3D is just two 2K projectors projecting at the same time. There's other 3D systems that use different wavelengths of RGB for each eye, but still just 2K. There's really no need for the 4K Blu-ray to support 3D. As long as the TV does, regular Blu-ray 3D will replicate what is in the theater.

popegregFKAgoblin23

The Marcus Theater chain uses 2 4K projectors on some of their "UltraScreen" 3D presentations.

The one in Mequon, Wisconsin, used that for Gravity and it was a fantastic presentation. That's the first time I did not complain about the 3D image being too dark. Other 3D presentations have been fantastic on that screen too, the HFR 3D of the Hobbit films were amazing.

Marcus Ultrscreen in Mequon

Same thing for Marcus Gurnee Mills

caligulathegod

That appears to be relatively new and somewhat rare (like 4K projection itself). Still, you would lose the primary benefit of 4K TVs with 3D, using (cheaper and lighter) passive glasses. Regular HD 3D TVs with passive glasses only show half resolution to each eye (540p). The 4K TVs with 3D, since it has twice the vertical resolution, can present a full 1080p to each eye. You would be forced to go with active shutter glasses to get 4K 3D.

bruceames

4k blu-ray, if it even makes it out, would be wise to distance itself from the stigma of the failure of 3D sales for home video (not that Blu-ray itself has been a huge success either). I imagine it would have the capability of adding it on in the future, in case a glasses-free TV becomes affordable and good quality.

Doctorossi

I disagree. I think any "stigma" around home 3D in the consumers' eyes is associated only with the abortive launch of 3D hardware (and its accompanying hype). People were only upset by the 3D hardware launch for the usual reason ("but you've only just sold us the current format!"). In the case of the 4K disc format, the leading bullet-point (4K, itself) will fulfill that role as the target of consumers' upgrade-fatigue ire, while 3D (unless they were real fools and went out of their way to promote it) would be seen as just another 'feature' in the player, like DTS or progressive scan or internet connectivity or "smart tv" apps. 3D is no longer 'new' to the home hardware market and it doesn't have the marketing push behind it. It won't stink of failure (or anything else, for that matter) to anyone; it'll just be another little icon in that long row of logos on the side of the player's shipping box.

TheBang

Exactly. There were too many using MPEG-2, low bitrate VC-1, and single layer Blu-rays.

For UHD Blu-ray, the only UHD codec supported is HEVC. AVC is not an option. And discs will be at least dual-layer (66 GB), which should be enough for high enough bitrate encodes. So, it'll mostly a matter of the quality/efficiency of the HEVC encoders. I'd like to think that they've learned a lot about encoding from MPEG-2, VC-1, and AVC, so that the first generation of HEVC encodes out of the gate will be higher quality.

So, I certainly think that there's a good chance that the initial waves of UHD BD's will be better quality than the initial waves of DVD and BD.