RED Redray 4K player – to take on Blu-ray

Well, you do need to buy a 4K display to go with it

Apparently Sony is including a 4K media server with their $25K 4K displays, at no additional charge in the U.S.

It looks like people who can afford to be early adopters are going to have the usual choice from a variety of incompatible systems.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight................... BD is on the way out. Do you work for the company behind RedRay?

Yes I am sure bluray 4k will have less marketing behind it, and less content

Sony are only giving it on loan to people in the US who buy those displays.

Isn't that what they said about DVD's when Blu-Ray became the chosen format? It will be some time before 4k and Red-Ray will be the standard and replaces Blu-Ray.


Ian

This is nothing remotely like Blu-ray vs HD DVD. HDTV was/is a hard sell because many (most) people just did not want to pay the price for the picture upgrade. After 14 years into HDTV we are only at 70% of households with HDTV. UHDTV will face a much tougher battle.

IMO, UHDTV will only appeal to the upper end of the video projector market and content delivery devices will be few. The BDA is looking into a UHDTV BD and if they determine there is a market there I am sure they will extend the BD spec.

blu-ray is going anywhere

Must be a typo. 'isn't'



Ian

Well the poster must be confused, Blu-ray has already gone main stream. At last count there have been 50 million players sold just in the US.

I believe that was his point. It isn't going anywhere, it's here to stay.


Ian

Still seeing anti Blu-ray post so I was sure it was just another one . But I see your point.

I'm sure that's what they thought about video tape when it was first developed. At some point Blu-ray will be replaced by something better. My guess is that it'll be more than 5 years from now, though. I'm not so sure about 10. Whatever the player's primary format is, it'll need to be backward compatible with CD, DVD and BD. There are just too many shiny discs in use. Hmmm. I suspect they said that about tape, too. *sigh*

It will be 4k blu encoded in x265

70% of households, that is a lot. I bet about 20% are seniors, who doesn't even know about HDTV and the rest are people who cannot afford to upgrade to HDTV and still watching from their tube TV. Eventually when their tube TV dies out, they will have to replace it with HDTV.

But yes, I see the point you are making. When UDTV comes out, there are people who just upgraded to HDTV and will not even think about getting a UDTV. Me personally, have had my 1080p 60hz LCD for about 4 years and was thinking of upgrading to 3D 1080p 120+hz but may wait to see the prices on these UDTVs.

By the way, when will the studios start producing Red-Ray? With streaming growing by leaps and bounds, BD sales maybe showing growth, (about 13% last quarter after a drop of 3.8% at this time last year) but the increases have still been disappointing. According to the Hollywood reporter, Netflix alone experienced a whooping 550% increase in streaming customers this year.



Ian
Edited by mailiang - 12/31/12 at 12:01pm

You need to think about your post! You ask about Red-ray disc as tho it is something to crow about and yet try to cast Blu-ray in a negative light. If you believe Blu-ray to be a disappointment why would you believe Red-ray would be a success?

As to Netflix streaming customers, IIRC, it is more like 50% growth (≈ 20M, 2011 to 30M, 2012), not 550%. These are worldwide total numbers.

The LG 84LM9600 for about $22,105. The Sony XBR-84X900 UHDTV for about $25,000. Sony also has a 4K projector for $25,000.

That was my point. I never said I wasn't an advocate of Blu-Ray, I watch 2 to 3 movies a week that way. And I certainly wasn't promoting Red-Ray. My point was, that the studios profits from Blu-Ray don't compare with streaming, which out bids Blu-Ray sales by a large margin. Since BD sales have been disappointing, it's hard for me to believe that the industry is going to rush into Red-Ray anytime soon due to price constraints and a market that is currently satisfied with less then the best picture quality. BTW, Netflix stock rose 550% in five years due to cheap rentals and streaming which rose nearly 75% this year. Sorry for any confusion.


http://www.avsforum.com/t/969946/netflix-bd-disc-rental-discussion-thread/8220#post_22735037


Ian
Edited by mailiang - 12/31/12 at 2:18pm

I didn't think there were going to be Red Ray discs are there? I thought they were going to be streamed/downloaded using Odemax.

My mistake. Typo. Edited 'discs'. I can only assume it will be more expensive then PPV streaming. Otherwise say good bye to replicated formats if the price was right. I don't see that happening anytime soon. They said that CD's would be gone by the end of last year, but they are still selling. Unless you can produce something better at the same price or less it's format remains.

This article was written almost five years ago. So where's the beef?


http://news.softpedia.com/news/Red-Ray-Players-Give-You-the-Mind-Blowing-HD-Experience-83682.shtml



Ian
Edited by mailiang - 12/31/12 at 1:55pm

That is an apple and orange comparison. The streaming numbers are for SD and HD, you have to include DVD if you want to compare apples to apples. I don’t really follow sales data but I would wager that revenue from physical disc sales and rentals is ≫ than revenue from streaming. Feel free to point us to hard data that says otherwise.

It's not that I don't agree with your assessment, retail BD sales are currently higher, but in lieu of earlier projections, their sales have been disappointing. As a former marketing manager in the consumer electronics industry, I look at the trends, and unfortunately replicated formats are slowly but surely giving way to a streaming market that is growing much faster. As of last January, Netflix alone had attracted twice as many streaming subscribers as rental disc customers, and I can only assume that figure has continued to increase. http://gigaom.com/video/netflix-streaming-vs-dvds/ Convenience and cost is paramount when it comes to the masses, not the best picture quality. I do believe that Blu-Ray will be around for some time to come, however, like CD's, it will eventually become a niche market. At this point, I don't see any reason for the industry to invest in Red-Ray unless they can reduce the price constraints, and draw a larger audience.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/streaming-beats-blu-ray/1640


http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/MONEY/usaedition/2012-08-24-BluRay-DeathRay_CV_U.htm



Ian
Edited by mailiang - 1/1/13 at 2:25pm

That is because Redbox has kicked their tail in the disc rental market. The revenue from Redbox (disc rentals only) is not to far behind that of Netflix.

And please, no more streaming beats Blu-ray. Show us where HD streaming beats Blu-ray then we will have something to talk about.

Netflix's success is due to a $7.99 monthly unlimited streaming free, that's why Redbox is now offering it. I've used both Netflix and Rebox for BD rentals and despite there are 5 Redbox locations within 2 miles of me, I prefer Netflix which is more convenient, has many more BD titles and is cheaper. As far as quality is concerned, I will always agree that Blu-Ray beats streaming, hands down, but from a marketing standpoint, in terms of future revenues, streaming is still the key.


Ian
Edited by mailiang - 1/1/13 at 8:17pm

Streaming is just an add on revenue source for the content providers for older content that has no market value from the pay TV sector or from the sale of physical disc or EST. That is why it is so irritating to hear all the streaming hoopla vs disc, they really serve two different markets. That is why you will not see anything recent like Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, The Dark Night Rises, Brave, etc., etc. on a SVOD service.

Want apples to apples, compare physical disc sales to that of EST. At this time EST hardly shows up on the radar.

I have Amazon Prime, Netflix and Vudu for streaming, Blockbuster By Mail for BD rentals, Sirius (2 radios), OTA and PBS via AMC-21 satellite.

IMO, the mods should delete all post in this thread that makes reference to Netflix and/or streaming.

Pay TV is also streaming, Vudu, Cinema Now, Amazon Instant Video...with all the new releases, including some content that's still in the theater, but it doesn't come cheap. It's becoming a cash cow for the studios. Will streaming replace satellite or cable, I doubt it, but in a few years it will be considered main stream when it comes to watching movies and TV. Netflix is now producing it's own series, House of Cards starring Kevin Spacey and Fox studios is currently negotiating a deal with them to carry the 3rd season of The Killing. Then there's the deal with Disney and this is only the beginning. Now Redbox is even streaming. It's convenient and compared to other TSP's, it's affordable. There is still a future for replicated formats, but it will be in the niche market place. I've said my peace.


Ian
Edited by mailiang - 1/2/13 at 3:02pm

The article says it runs at 2.5MBps, same as broadcast HDTV tops out at, and less than half of BD. An (unsourced) section in Wikipedia's RED article also mentions 1.25MBps, which is about what plain old DVDs can run at. All “4k” resolution with optional stereoscopy.

In comparison, PC BD-RE drives can already read 128GB discs at up to 64MBps, there are several ~100GB stamped BD standards that would (supposedly) only require a firmware upgrade to work in common readers like the PS3, and there are a variety of projects to push BD well over 1TB as soon as next year. For each ≤1¢ stamped disc.

These are 8-16GB movies, being compared with 25-50GB movies that'll probably balloon to 2-10x the size. It's a comparison RED themselves chose to make, but it's honestly akin to Netflix's 1-8GB streamed movies.