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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday May 14 2015, @11:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the here-comes-the-next-upgrade dept.

Streaming hasn't completely killed the optical disc. The Blu-ray Disc Association has completed the Ultra HD Blu-ray specification. New Ultra HD Blu-ray discs will support 3840×2160 "4K" resolution at up to 60 FPS using H.265/High Efficiency Video Coding. It also supports the larger Rec. 2020 color gamut, which allows for colors of greater saturation to be reproduced. 10-bit per channel color depth is supported, increasing the number of possible colors to ~1.07 billion (10243) from ~16.8 million (2563).

The specification defines discs with capacities of 66 GB and 100 GB. This means that the 33 GB per layer, triple-layer technology of 100 GB BDXL discs will reach consumers.

Tom's Hardware notes:

With a new spec also comes new Ultra HD Blu-ray players, which is a bit of a concern. Fortunately, these new players will have backwards compatibility with Blu-ray discs. However, those who have been using a traditional Blu-ray player for some time will just have to replace it with a model that plays Ultra HD Blu-ray, and those who use the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One for Blu-ray content are stuck unless they want to add another space-hogging box to the living room.

Licensing for Ultra HD Blu-ray begins this summer, but just like 4K content and TVs, it will take some time to see wide adoption. The TVs are already here, but the amount of content needs to increase in order for users to justify the cost of purchasing new 4K devices.

[More After the Break]


ExtremeTech describes an optional "digital bridge" feature (read: DRM) that attempts to allow greater flexibility in how users can view the content:

The new digital bridge feature is designed to give customers more flexibility in how they consume content. In 2015, simply having the content on a disc isn't good enough — not when people are used to watching Netflix on a tablet, then transferring to a different device and picking up where they left off. The digital bridge devices contemplated by the draft documents available online don't appear to be systems that consumers could build themselves. Instead, you'll buy a UHD Blu-ray player from Samsung or Sony that offers this feature as standard. It goes without saying that the platform is heavily locked down.

The entire process of validating a disc for digital bridging and any charges associated with accessing the content will be handled via remote servers; DRM functions will not reside inside the digital bridge export function (DBEF). Digital bridging is going to be standard on all UHD discs but isn't mandatory for Blu-rays (conventional Blu-ray discs can support it or not as they choose).

ExtremeTech is more optimistic about the prospect of current-gen consoles supporting Ultra HD Blu-ray:

The hardware itself isn't really the problem. Even the Xbox 360 and PS3 could likely handle H.265 decoding with proper software optimization, and the eight-core Jaguar CPUs in both modern consoles are robust enough to do the job. The problem is the discs themselves. The multi-layer discs that UHD relies on likely aren't compatible with the Blu-ray players in either machine. Assuming that's true, it's the kind of feature both companies could add when they inevitably overhaul their platforms for a new process node and lower power consumption. It might even be possible to add H.265 decode support to the GPU hardware with AMD's help. Neither company has announced plans to roll out a new console variant as yet, but we'd be surprised if there weren't second-generation Xbox One's and PlayStations on store shelves by Christmas, 2016.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by mendax on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:05PM

    by mendax (2840) on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:05PM (#182963)

    I have a Blu-ray player. It's a Sony portable player which I occasionally plug into a computer monitor with an HDMI cable when I want to watch a Blu-ray disk. The quality of picture I get from the monitor is more than adequate, and that is a point I want to make. The first time I saw a Blu-ray disk played on a hi-def TV I thought it was awful. Not because of the quality of the playback but because of that quality. It found it to be distracting.

    I think this comes from the fact that most of us here grew up with movies being captured on photographic film and its inherent graininess. Older television shows, such as my old favorites the original Star Trek and Mission: Impossible series, were put on 35 mm film, and newer ones were often captured on video tape. But newer productions are using digital cameras and we old-fogies are just not used to seeing the very, very high resolution images.

    In any case, this raises an important issue. How realistic does a movie have to capture reality? Some food for thought.

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @04:31PM (#182976)

    At a certain point quality of the video no longer matters. Put any crap movie in the highest resolution possible, and its still crap.

    But its good for those selling this thing (and the next versions they are working on). They get paid for the same thing many times without adding value. Capitalism in action.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @07:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @07:17PM (#183065)

    In any case, this raises an important issue. How realistic does a movie have to capture reality?

    And a semi-easy answer:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism [wikipedia.org]

    What got me thinking is "why is that not the right question... and what is the right question?"

    I suspect it has something to do with the nature of what is being portrayed, the intent of the capturing, and how the realism does or does not cause enjoyment in the consumer... but I really have no idea what the right question is.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday May 14 2015, @08:02PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday May 14 2015, @08:02PM (#183095) Homepage
    Very good point - I remember when I saw the recent Hobbit movies (#3 on IMAX, what a waste of 14e) they looked like a bunch of actors in a green-screen studio. It was high enough resolution and definition for you to see the flaws.

    I also remember the first time I saw a computer displayed through an RGB cable, rather than a composite video connector. It was clear and crisp and ugly, and I prefered my early-80s UHF for game playing (Bitmap Brothers' Xenon, those were the days!)
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by mendax on Friday May 15 2015, @04:41AM

      by mendax (2840) on Friday May 15 2015, @04:41AM (#183233)

      It's interesting that you talked about the recent Hobbit movies. The first Blu-ray I saw on a true high-def TV was the first Hobbit film. And it was not all that great. I recently rented (and ripped) the third one. I'll watch it one of these days... right after I watch the second one... which may be never given the quality of the first and the horrid reviews I've read on the third. Perhaps I'll go back and read the book.

      --
      It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
  • (Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Thursday May 14 2015, @08:39PM

    by throwaway28 (5181) on Thursday May 14 2015, @08:39PM (#183109) Journal

    Side channel non video data. Does watching an explosion on ultra-ultra-hd 16384x9200 result in shrapnel to your face ? The smell of smoke to your nose ? Loss of blood due to fresh wounds ?

    Humans are not completely visual; we have smell, taste, motion, and touch; in addition to eyes.
    Beyond a certain point, absence of that side channel non-video data, breaks immersion far more than lack of pixels. Why does that actor onscreen smell like popcorn and cigarette smoke instead of smelling like she looks ? Why am I not bleeding, when the main character gets hurt ? Why are my hands not burnt ? Why did I not get a concussion ? Why does the blue sky smell like popcorn and cigarette smoke ? etc, etc.

    I love that display technologies are improving; I love that decoding speed is rising, I love that hd cameras are falling in price.
    But in the end, I'ld rather use that all, to read soylentnews with beautiful fonts, than watch a movie.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2015, @12:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2015, @12:07AM (#183179)

    When I first went hidef bluray I had the same issues.

    Turns out the TV was smashing out any contrast. So everything looked like a soap opera.

    My 3rd bluray I found something interesting. It was no better than the DVD it replaced. It was a straight transfer with a little less compression. The original scan was exactly the same...

    Later blurays are pretty good. But I only bother with action movies with it. Then only ones where there will be some interesting details going on.