Predictions for 2013 4K projectors - Page 5

Keep the room dark surfaced and remove all objects that give ones eyes a point of scale reference.....kidding, I know it's impractical. Once a movie starts....and one is engrossed, viewing angle evens things out some what.

It's all an illusion....which orange dot is bigger?!!

Disk media still leads the revenue stream.........there is a task force looking at the possibility currently....it may happen if $$ can be made.

http://www.techhive.com/article/2024919/blu-ray-looks-ahead-to-4k.html

Blu-ray looks ahead to 4K

Melissa J. Perenson@mperenson
Jan 14, 2013 3:00 AM
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LAS VEGAS—Seven years after the Blu-ray Disc Association announced at CES that it had completed the technical specification for the format, the Blu-ray format continues to forge ahead—and its proponents must ponder its future when 4K HDTV televisions are all the rage here at this week's CES.

The first Blu-ray player was priced at $1000 from Samsung, but you can now buy a Blu-ray player for about one-tenth of what a unit cost in 2006. According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, the format is being widely adopted: 50 million households now have Blu-ray playback capability.

That's not bad for a physical disc-based format that grew up with the cloud of, well, the cloud and digital distribution over the Internet.
Andy Parsons
“Despite the dire predictions about internet distribution making physical media obsolete, Blu-ray has thrived,” says Andy Parsons, BDA president. Projected unit sales are for 2012 are up 21.3 percent year-over-year, according to Screen Digest, led by marquee titles like The Avengers, Brave, Ted, and Twilight.

Catalog sales of those classic titles from years gone by are also growing, according to industry association the Digital Entertainment Group. Parsons notes that this trend is encouraging. “People have been buying older titles that have been released on DVD, and now they're replacing them on Blu-ray,” he says.

The attractive price drops of catalog titles, including sub-$10 bargains, has had a big impact on sales and is the reason for the boost in the past year; after all, studio revenue on these sales has only increased by slightly under 10 percent.

Why Blu-ray rocks

For one thing, Blu-ray remains the most consistent and highest quality option for watching video. The average home has just 6Mbps bandwidth, which often is not enough for viewing high-definition content.

This disc-based media also has the advantage of content ownership. As Parsons rightly observes, with “streaming services like Netflix or Hulu Plus, content that was there a couple of weeks ago may disappear. That's when the benefits of ownership are becoming clear over the benefits of streaming, in terms of the quality of the delivery and the availability of content.”

Studios continue to bolster the appeal of Blu-ray Disc movies and television shows by adding value to the discs. You can often get Blu-rays in combo packs with a DVD, a Digital Copy option for use with a digital media player, and UltraViolet support for streaming or downloading via a digital locker.

And while the promise of BD-Live's options for supplemental connected content never really materialized in a pervasive way, studios are increasingly finding ways to extend the value of Blu-ray—the latest way being by creating a second-screen app that ties into the Blu-ray Disc or movie via either time codes or audio cues. For example, the Sherlock Homes app would provide a map that showed the whereabouts of the detective at any given point in the movie.

Next up: Extending the Blu-ray spec

With all of the talk of 4K this CES, the big question looming is how we can get 4K content onto these great new HDTVs? Sony has already announced it will offer customers a protected server with 4K content on board; but that's a limited play.

Could Blu-ray Disc become the distribution mechanism for this next-generation data? “We created a task force three months ago to study the prospects of adding new technologies to the format,” Parsons reveals. “We will evaluate three criteria, starting with the technical feasibility of doing 4K, which is four times the picture quality of 1080p.” The technology also has several variations between home and Digital Cinema use, all referred to generically as “4K.”

As a format, Blu-ray Disc is capable of handling the necessary capacities involved in 4K. But it would need to either accommodate additional layers to add capacity to the disc, or use more aggressive video codecs to compress the video. Current Blu-ray movie discs top out at 50GB for a dual-layer disc; but today we already have BDXL media for use with up to 100GB rewritable discs, and 128GB write-once disc.

It's not clear to the working group whether 4K can be added to the Blu-ray format inexpensively. After all, if a movie costs more than the player does, no one will rush out and buy it—awesome 4K quality or not.

The second criterion is market demand for 4K media. (It seems so, after seeing the differences between 4K and current 1920-by-1080p content here at CES.) A third question is the impact to the existing installed base of Blu-ray players if a 4K disc is inserted into an older player.

While questions remain, it's good to hear that 4K is at least under consideration for Blu-ray—especially considering that studios have been scanning film masters at 4K resolution for several years already. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment even announced at CES that it will start selling Blu-ray Discs labeled as “Mastered in 4K.” while such discs are clearly intended for today's 1920-by-1080-resolution Blu-ray players, you'll still see extra detail in discs made from a 4K master, so keep an eye for these titles as they roll out this year.

You are probably right, Mark, just quoting you in case you are wrong:)

By the way, while it is possible that bluray 4K never materialises as such, we do still hope that 4K content, irrespective of its distribution medium (dedicated server, hard drive, physical disc), will offer higher frame rates and better color resolution than YCbCr420 of bluray. This means that the need for the next HDMI standard is still there, as whichever source we use we will need improved bandwidth for true 4K content, especially in 3D. So the need for the next JVCs with eshift to have the new HDMI inputs is still there for them to be a decent stop gap solution while true 4K comes down in price and 4K content ramps up.
Edited by Manni01 - 2/4/13 at 3:07am

Of course. There is indeed a 4K standard by ITU and it would give what you need. hopefully it will go to 4:4:4. the think most needed is loger bit length than the shitting 8 bit for bluray and the banding isssues it causes, corse few here understand banding or even see it on their screens. These are luckey guys, not because they don't have it, they do, they just din't look fr it or see it.

one of thebog deals in the new standard is the color triangle area, over twice that of Rec. 709.

The prblem with an optical disc 4K is that there isno real market for it to justify the investment and it is an archaic method of delivery. require hands on stepos ratheer than click and buy and have it down load to your player, let's call it a server. Such servers could be pretty cheap. the Redray once it starts shipping is $1450 but one must run any 4k signal through a conversion program which is a pain. The Sony server is coming to. I think we will see Sony around for 2 or 3 more years before it contracts pretty much in the HE division (hollywood). By selling is Tokyo building (it already sold its NY tower) should be able to run with its current round of layoffs for about 2 years. Perhaps 3.I wish it wasn't sobut its like the Jimmy beffet song, its there own damn fault.

In regard to available bandwidth, the US is #12 across the globe at only ~6 Mbps on average. Not everyone has FIOS. There's also a number of ISP's that have download caps to prevent users from going to town on their $39.95 ISP connection. The ISP's that don't cap, will once they find out people are trying to download 50+ GB movies that is a direct conflict with their own content distribution.

digital download at this size doesn't scale with the current infrastructure. This isn't going to change drastically in the next 2-3 years. A 100GB capable bluray disk makes perfect sense if there is any chance for 4K to become mainstream. Plenty of folks still buy / rent DVD's and Blurays. REDBOX has standing room only every time I am near one of these machines.

The hard drive / SSD method could work, but it will certainly add higher cost to the delivery.

Totally agree, unfortunately I'm one of these people who see banding in bluray and are hoping for better. YCbCr444 at 10 or 12 bits would be fantastic and would in my set up make a much bigger difference than the increase of horizontal/vertical resolution itself. Hence why my next projector needs new HDMI inputs.

I also agree with Zombie, I think there is a market for higher capacity blurays given the fact that downloading so much data is simply impractical at current speed. However, bluray 4K is not guaranteed to happen, unlike the next HDMI standard which is about to be finalized.

Mark - According to Andy Parsons (President of the BDA) the BDA has set up a task force (around last October) to study the feasibility of several enhancements to Blu-ray, including adding 4K. He specifically said:

"We will evaluate three criteria, starting with the technical feasibility of doing 4K, which is four times the picture quality of 1080p.”

So while it not a done deal that 4K will be added to Blu-ray, there is enough potential that they are now looking into the technical feasibility and if that proves positive, which from a technical viewpoint it should, then I would expect they will go ahead and set up a technical working group to begin the development of the updated BD standard. In any case I cannot see having an approved standard that includes 4K before 2014.

I know about what happened and Sony would not endorse a mere jump in resolution because 4K will fail miserably in the market unless 4K significantly is better than 1080p on smaller size steps. They insisted on a higher bit rate and a few other things and there is no agreement. Task forces yada yada last October. Of course its feasable but it will be expensive to design and build while market projections for 4K don't look lso hot for the next couple of years. The Coalition must believe there will be a return on their investment and I don't think they see it. it isn't going to happen.

The problem gentlemen is that we are aging. The kids, say those under 35, do play with duscs. They are computer wiz kids,. everything gets streamed or down loaded. Data capacities and costs with increase and decrease respectively. Hell. One could just sell content on a USB-2 driver or an SD card and read it into a server just like one puts a disc into a cd.dvd, or Bluray machine. No drawer to break, nothing to get scratched. Optical discs are over. Maybe you like them, maybe you want them, but you ain't the market and it ain't going to happen. Can I sell you guys rocking chairs?

Mark, irrespective of what they call it and whether it's an optical disk or a usb drive (sd cards with the required capacity are still way too expensive to be a consumer option), they will need to find a physical support to distribute 4K content, simply because the bandwidth isn't there for ISPs to take that load.

Even if they chose a support which isn't a disk, it will have to be a player in a computer or a server. That computer will need a new graphics card with the new HDMI outputs to support the higher framerates, bandwidth and color resolution. So whether it's a computer or a new bluray 4K device, or even if redray becomes the standard, it doesn't make any difference. There is a need for a faster HDMI interface to transport 4K content.

The point is that at the moment, there is no standard for physical 4K distribution and given the amounts involved and the scarcity of content, getting one of the available sources means you risk losing your investment or only be able to play a handful titles if and when the actual standard is released.

The only thing we know for sure is that bluray as it is defined today is not going to be good enough, and neither is HDMI 1.4
Edited by Manni01 - 2/4/13 at 5:11pm

Since this was brought up:

As it happens, that's exactly what I'm going for! If you can remove all other visual cues, your brain starts to take the only cues it has for reference - the depth cues available in the movie image - so it becomes the "reality" in front of you. The sense of being there and depth/immersion increase.

When watching a movie, I have pitch black velvet covering my walls (black velvet curtains that pull out from the screen, along the side walls), black velvet covering the floor and my ceiling is a very dark brown felt. My speakers are covered in black velvet. The only thing you see in front of you is the image floating in black with no other visual clutter or reference. I'm just about to implement an idea that will easily get black velvet covering the visible portion of my ceiling when watching movies, because at the moment the pitch blackness of the floor/wall velvet makes the ceiling brown felt more visible in comparison. So I want the ceiling to utterly disappear as any visual reference to complete the "black box." But even at this point the effect is amazing in terms of the immersion and dimensionality. There's this directness to the image in front of you, like the distance between you and the screen disappears somewhat.

If you look at the Fifth Element screen shots in this post:

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1254505/rich-hs-variable-image-size-home-theater-build-thread-completed/150#post_21997685

That's essentially what it looks like. As you know, most screen shots look like that because the area outside the screen image is just too dim to be captured simultaneously with the screen image by the camera. But in real life you can still see around the screen. But an images surrounded by Fidelio Black Velvet truly looks in real life like the screen shot - pitch blackness around the image. You can't see any visual information even if you try.

Back to the 4K issue: I'll repeat what I wrote in the flat panel forum on the 4k threads: I have watched the Sony 4K flat panel with native 4K a number of times now at a local store. I have two different experiences of it that seem sort of in competition with one another. On one hand, even after watching the Sony 4K I can come home and absolutely marvel at the image I get with 1080p on the projector at home. On the other hand, absorbing the experience of 4K has perniciously ratcheted up my desire for more resolution. I've been aware of 1080p's shortcomings for quite a while, but it's a bit more acute after seeing 4K. Even when it came to viewing the latest screen grabs for the new Bond SkyFall Blu-Ray, which look great! But where one time I would have been blown away by the detail/resolution of those Blu-Ray shots, now I look at them and notice just how low res they look compared to what 4K could give (especially wide shots of buildings etc, where the 1080p looks SDish next to what can be rendered in 4K...presuming you have a source recorded at 4K).

Yep, Rich, I have ProtoStar material on ceiling and side walls, and it makes an incredible difference.

 

I think you just need to pony up for the Sony !000 projector.    Maybe by CEDIA this fall it will be offered at a more 'reasonable' price, and maybe even  with some enhancements.

Bill,

I'm happy with JVC's E-shift at this point for the modest improvements if offers with MPC processing. I'm not clamoring for a true 4K display until there is some serious levels of 4K material available. I'd be much more compelled to upgrade
based on a distinct leap forward in contrast performance. But I'd bet native 4K is somewhere in my future, if not in all of ours.

Not a bad plan, Rich.    The Sony1000 does an amazing job with 1080p sources as they are, but it can't yet get the full benefit without 4K sources.     I would indeed like to have the high native CR of a JVC, but the higher brightness of the Sony1000 is addictive.

 

The next 'ideal' pj will have the CR of a JVC, the brightness and 4K of the Sony, and a laser light source!

4G mobile download is the way forward for 4k delivery - broadband is dead

4G is currently far too costly and probably will continue to be. Verizon (here in Florida) wants $375 per month for phone + 4G data if you want to have a 50 GB monthly download limit (the max. they currently offer to consumers in this part of FL according to their web site). 50 GB is the capacity of just one current Blu-ray Disc. So I would rather pay perhaps $30 street price for a movie on a future generation Blu-ray 4K disc then than several hundred dollars for enough 4G download allowance to for just a single movie per month. We do know that streaming services such a Netflix will probably offer highly compressed 4K, but as with thieir current 1080 downloads, with much lower quality than what is offered on disc. So if you want to watch your 4K video on a future 7 inch tablet with a super retina display, then maybe super compressed 4K will look OK. However if you want to watch it on a 120" screen that's not the way to go. The Redray approach of downloading 4K video (not streaming) will work with internet connections of say 5 Mbps as long as the ISP does not apply too low of monthly limits on the total downloads. Dowloading a couple of 4K movies per month whould not be an issue for most users with high speed internet (land line based) services with Redray, and probably the Sony 4K download service. But at this point 4G is way too expensive.
Edited by Ron Jones - 2/5/13 at 8:31am

Your right, and your use of the word currently is key.

Currently my mobile tariff is £25 ($40) for unlimited everything, including 3G data. For 4G to take off, people won't pay rediculous money for it so for the providers to make money, they have got to pitch the price right. Its inevitable that the costs will drop.

I know that there is a good chance I'm way off whack here, but, you never know!
4G is capable of 30MBPS+ which would wipe out broadband completely if it was cost effective and reliable.

I think the idea that a disc format for 4K distribution being a dead on arrival idea is not even close to as preposterous as saying that 4K will be a streaming format. Add to that the fact that people are talking about the fact that they don't want just 4K but 4K with higher bit depth, a higher color sampling and a larger color gamut and this is all suppose to come down the magic pipe into our home because "discs are dead". Right. I'm sorry Mark you really need to get your head examined on this. Unless you want Netflix quality 4K going forward (and even that would probably be a stretch given the specs that people want) you're living a pipe dream if you think discs are a bad idea. I completely agree that 4K is in its infancy and it would be a hard sell to the mass market, but saying that a disc distribution model would be a mistake shows a complete disregard for the real world and what is actually capable.

I believe a high Sony official at CES didn't think 4K optical would come. There is nothing magical about optical reading versus content being distributed for example by SD cards and USB-2 drives. Moreover with the right compression Codec, the redray player methodology seems quite logical and an Odemax like download into the server like Redray. Why develop an optical reader when a card drive or content down load onto a server. Add a USB drive readerto a server and bingo. Makes much more sense especially for an infant 4K display market.

Chris. Let's let the head examination crack go. I could add the same comment to you, but I won't, if you think the dynamics are right for an optical disc 4K. you are showing your age. You are used to optical discs. Yea. You can get pictures and printed material on an in an optical disc flimsy plastic box. Boy do I miss LP album covers and text on the back. Lots of good that did. perfect sound foreover for the mass market. No problems. Perfect by theory. But that really has nothing to do with optical disc 4K. Sure it could work well. But its not what the younger generation wants. And yes, streaming in its current state would be a dismall source quality. But! How are you at predicting technological futures. If you or I were really good at it, we would be super rich instead of living the miserable existences we both lead say comparatively to Bill Gates and others.
Based on what has happened so far with the Bluray consortium and what certain manufacturers have publically stated, I just don't see optical discs in the future of 4K. Maybe i will be wrong. But so what. what difference does what I think here make. And for that matter what does your opinion make either. Neither will change anything or provide any useful guidance to anybody. I want content now for my 4K display. And I will get it through my hopefully soom to be delivered Redray server. Iewill get content on cards and drives and maybe from delivery through Odemax. I will get content on the coming Sony server, the temporary one and whatever comes this summer.


If optical disc 4K comes, great. I will buy it and get ciontent that eway too. Based on what I have seen so far, I do not think it will happen. You do. Great. What we think however will not affect what will happen. But thanks for sharing. :)And thanks for the nice compliment. It adds so much to your post.
Edited by mark haflich - 2/5/13 at 9:53am

I've already said it before, I've talked with high level Sony people already and they were looking into getting 4K added to the Blu-ray spec. Using a USB drive or SD card is even less feasible. How cheap is that compared to a disc? How is that any different than a disc? USB drives that are 2, 4 or 8GB are pretty cheap. But 50GB+ thumbdrives aren't exactly a cheap solution compared to a disc. SD cards cost even more. Downloading a 4K movie of any real quality is going to be an issue for most. Even if you could do it, that is going to require a ton of patience on the part of the consumer. I'm sure there will be 4K streaming options, but I doubt they will come even close to the quality one could achieve from a disc format. So again, if settling for Netflix quality 4K streaming sounds like a plus for you, go for it. Probably works fine on 50" and below flat panels but for people with projection setups like you and I, it won't fit the bill. Sony's preloaded server of 4K movies is a stop gap to help you swallow their ungodly overpriced 4K TV. That thing was dead on arrival and is only useful for those with disposable cash laying around. The 1000ES is actually a viable product given its performance and what it can compete with. By the time we actually have real consumer level 4K devices adding 4K to Blu-ray won't be any bigger of a deal than adding 3D was (which by the way required not only a new TV but also a new Blu-ray player PLUS having to buy glasses for every viewer) and should be just as easy to implement. Ultimately I don't think it will be any more of a sell than 3D is right now, but they gotta sell something I guess.

The Blu ray disc association is on the fast track of approving the 4k standard. There are a couple of issue's at hand. Also one thing that may be there is HDbaseT. HDMI also has to get there act together. The BIGGER issue is Copy protection. They don't want essentially 4k films floating around.

What is HDbaseT? Based on quotes from the I think the President or whatever of the Bluray Alliance, fast tracking is not what he described. And the Sony guy, he flat out stated hedidn't see 4K optical hapening. I am interested in hearing your response

Chris. A 4K card for Timescapes is $99. That's just a first. Its fairly safe to say card and drive costs will continue to lower and capacity increase. And servers can be built to seemlessly allow the storage and playback of 4K content. Using a personal computer, I agee willl not be viable for consumers. But a dedicated reader, slot. into a server will be.

This is good debate. Keep it up.
Edited by mark haflich - 2/5/13 at 10:36am

I checked the prices for a 4k card a couple of days ago and was very surprised to see how much they have dropped.

HDbaseT is basically ditching HDMI and going to CAT6. Most of the consumer electronics companies are onboard and want to replace HDMI with it. I'm all for it personally. HDMI has its pluses, but it has so many issues too.

What are the problems with HDMI? Always hear people saying there are issues but never knew what they were. I do like the idea of HDbaseT.

Great, I get to spend $99 for a card that has 25GB of compressed 4K data on it. How much do you think a BD-25 costs that has the same amount of storage. Notice the $300 price tag for the 12 bit uncompressed version on a USB hard drive? Again, what is the point of moving to another physical format that "may" come down in price (and that would have to be a seriously drastic drop in price) when you can do it on a disc that costs a fraction of the price?? Simply because discs are old news and not sexy?? I don't want to see high resolution video go the way of MP3. I don't want good enough for most people.

Hey Mark,

If I remember correctly he was talking about a new optical format not happening. Then they went on talking about another format war. Extending the Blu-ray format to 4k helps solve the format war issue. The format can handle it. As I stated before you have HDMI and copy protection that will delay the format.

Studio's do not want this format to be cracked. If it is then you are essentially giving away there 4k movie.

For Blu-ray 4k not to happen, those are the items that will hold it back.

As for HDbaseT, as mentioned by kris, it is using a Cat 6 cable instead of a HDMI. The benefit is range and also you can have your whole house connected through a central hub and serve all your video everywhere.

Neither do I. But you know that. I guess we are two saints in a sea of whatever.I don't think the hard drive version is so expensive because of the drive costs. I suspect its a premium for the best. Tell me Chris. How much could you buy that on an optical disc today and how much ffor the playback device.I understand the what's possible, but what's the present day reality?

Timescapes is a pigeon hole example. I love that he is offering the movie to those that want to pay a premium to get it, but he's only offering it that way currently because that is the only way to do it feasibly. Don't think for a second that if a 4K blu-ray format was available, he'd wouldn't be all over it for distribution. It is going to take A LONG LONG LONG time before hard drive storage is going to get anywhere near the cost of a physical disc format to sell in mass quantities. Couple that with the fact that hard drives don't last forever and you have more issues to deal with. Flash memory is an option, but again, compared to discs it just doesn't make much sense money wise or format wise. I would love to see movie servers that would actually deliver high quality video but this country doesn't have the bandwidth and even when you have something approaching it the data caps come in to play. WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY too many barriers in place to make a streaming 4K format of any real quality or a hard drive solution more viable than simply adding to the Blu-ray spec.

The present day reality is it costs $ 10 for an 8gig flash drive ( Lexar ) and I've bought Blu Rays ( with a movie on it ) for as low as $ 5.99.