Just saw that apparently 10 years ago today, yes on Valentine's Day, the 4K format was introduced. In March it will be 20 years since Blu-Ray was launched. Long past time to retire standard DVD, which will be 30 years old next year.

No way they'll retire DVD format. Still the biggest seller over blu-ray formats.

10 years...and yet it is like most of the world doesn't even know or understand what the 4K format even is.

I preordered The Martian and Fantastic Four from foxconnect.com for future proofing, so I had two of the first discs on day one. And the irony of future proofing is that I’ve still never watched either in UHD - just the Blu-ray Discs in those combo packs.

I can't believe how successful the 4K format has been given the incredible pull away from physical media and that no new players have been manufactured for the majority of the format's existance. Each month, the craziest mix of titles are announced, and almost universally are treated like the top Criterion releases regarding the scanning from original negatives and adding in tons of extra content, especially from the smaller niche companies like Vinegar, Kino and Arrow, but even something like Ben-Hur coming out this week already had a 4K master (or 8K) from the previous blu-ray release, yet Warner went back again and rescanned it with the latest equipment, so there is incentive somewhere to treat catalog releases like the treasures they are. But I'm just as impressed that B-movies and horror movies from the 80s are getting clean scans and loaded releases. It's still a great time to be a collector.

But who buys DVDs?

Not the savvy movie or home theater person.

Does it matter? Distributors don't care about the home theater person anymore. Don't be butt-hurt, just be glad the boutique labels are still producing discs.

Time does fly. Seems like only yesterday when Blu-ray finally beat out HD DVD. Now we are celebrating UHD's 10th anniversary.

I'll be honest and say it's a little bittersweet knowing that UHD is the last physical format.

Schools and libraries.

I saved the Best Buy (Canada) flyer from February 26-March 3, 2016 when 4K was first introduced.

3 of those 6 movies were in 3D, which the 4K format isn’t even capable of.

I won a 4K disc of Transformers Last Knight from a Dolby contest, after I’d already gotten the 3D disc. I watched it (the contest was supposed to promote how great Dolby Vision is) and my reaction was: What’s so great about THIS? It’s just plain old 2D!

Rad and Looking For Mr. Goodbar have probably been the best releases on the format.

A lot more people than the ones buying blu rays and uhds, that's for sure.

It's interesting to see the 4K UHD Blu-ray players never really came-down much in price compared to Blu-ray and DVD player prices.

On the Best Buy Canada website today, here's the cheapest version available.

There were a few years early when 4K players were very inexpensive. Walmart had a LG player for $79 for better part of a year in store when I got one for my mom.

The higher end models were constantly on sale, I picked up the X800M2 for under $200.

These 10 years have really flown by. Like many, my first disc was The Martian, I think, after buying one of the XBox models that supported it.

My only real complaints with 4K are:
- Triple-layer discs. I mean, it's great to have up to 100GB for the titles that need it, but in my experience, they've been the most problematic with my devices. Most of the time, a title that lands over 66GB with modern codecs seems unnecessary.
- Boutique pricing can be absurd. I'm grateful that boutique labels are picking up the slack on catalog titles, but some of the pricing (likey due to their licensing fees) has become too high for my own comfort, even with the typical "sale" prices.

I love that 99.9% of discs are region free, as doing some importing in those first few years was pretty satisfying, and I like that, um, archiving the discs is a relatively painless process.

The library of 4K discs out there really is pretty fantastic for the most part, and despite my complaints about boutique pricing, most non-boutique titles can be easily had for under $20 with patience, or $25 in the case of most Criterion 4K discs during B&N sales.

If this really is the last commercial physical format, then I hope it lasts another 10-20 years.

When Hollywood told electronics manufacturers we're moving away from physical media, fewer and fewer hardware makers wanted in the UHD business. We should be happy Panasonic put out several good units before the market declined. That led to static pricing for UHD players.

...and OldBoy will keep it going for another 10 years.

I went back to look at what my first cool 4K purchase was and… it was Passengers. Which I only got because it also came with the 3D release. I have taken on quite a bit more 4K discs since then but compared to how many Blu-Rays I was getting 10 years in (and even now) it’s still relatively a lower percentage.

But my Oppo 203 is still doing great all these years later. Do wish it could play all regions though.

I have that movie and I love it. I don't care what anyone says.

And it looks gorgeous in both 3D and 4K.

Yeah, Passengers is fucking great.

While I liked Passengers I would have liked it more if I saw it before seeing Pandorum.

I really like Pandorum too (I am seeing a pattern here) but other than waking up on a ship in space, they couldn't be more different. I don't understand your statement.

MINE can It’s also now hacked to bypass button lockouts.

When watching closer together a great many more parallels are revealed.

Did you have to open the unit to accomplish? I have seen those chips I just don’t want to risk it.