BDA announces Ultra HD Blu-ray discs with support for 4K resolution video

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has announced completed work on the new Ultra HD Blu-ray specification that will support 4K resolution video.

"For years, Blu-ray Disc has set the standard for high definition picture and audio quality in the home. Ultra HD Blu-ray will do the same for UHD home entertainment," said Victor Matsuda, chair, BDA Promotions Committee. "The technical capabilities of Blu-ray Disc, in particular its significant storage capacity and high data transfer rates, will enable the delivery of an unparalleled, consistent and repeatable UHD experience."

In addition to offering content with resolutions up to 3840x2160, the new format also "enables delivery of a significantly expanded color range and allows for the delivery of high dynamic range (HDR) and high frame rate content. Next-generation immersive, object-based sound formats will also be delivered via the Ultra HD Blu-ray specification." Ultra HD Blu-ray will have space for 66GB on dual-layer discs and 100GB on triple-layer discs.

Also of note, there will be a "digital bridge" feature that allows consumers to view their content on numerous devices around the home.

All Ultra HD Blu-ray players will also be backwards compatible with Blu-ray discs, so you don't have to re-buy your whole collection for the 20th time. Expect more availability news throughout the summer, says the BDA.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 14 May 2015 13:37

Mr-Movies

Nothing new here and some known info is still missing in this blog. The question still left open is when are the new format blu-ray players going to be available? They are 1.5 years over due now and from what I'm hearing it will be 2 years late from the original released time.

Here is more info that is not in this blog and it is missing formats like CD compatibility and other image formats:

Announced by the Blu-ray Disc Association earlier this morning, the specifications on Ultra HD Blu-ray discs have been completed. This means Blu-ray software and compatible Ultra HD hardware may start hitting store shelves as early at the holiday shopping season at the end of the year. Anyone that has already upgraded to an Ultra HD 4K television set will be able to use the new format to take advantage of native 3840 x 2160 resolution, frame rates potentially up to 60 frames per second, high dynamic range color as well as support for advanced audio formats like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.
Speaking about the upgraded format, BDA promotions committee chair and Sony Blu-ray group vice president Victor Matsuda said �For years, Blu-ray Disc has set the standard for high definition picture and audio quality in the home. Ultra HD Blu-ray will do the same for UHD home entertainment. The technical capabilities of Blu-ray Disc, in particular its significant storage capacity and high data transfer rates, will enable the delivery of an unparalleled, consistent and repeatable UHD experience.�

Availability of Ultra HD Blu-ray discs will likely be advantageous to early adopters of the new technology, specifically due to the limited availability of streaming 4K content on services like Netflix and YouTube as well as the bandwidth requirements needed to streaming in Ultra HD resolution.
Monthly bandwidth caps on volume of data streamed is also a glaring issue, mostly because file size of a typical 4K movie is roughly three to four times the 1080p version. Binge watching the an entire season of House of Cards, for instance, eats up at least 75GB of data, assuming Netflix is using the latest h.265 codec.
The announcement also mentioned a �digital bridge� feature on Ultra HD Blu-ray discs that will provide a method of movie ownership on mobile devices, much like Ultraviolet works on Blu-ray discs today. Regarding data capacity on the new Ultra HD Blu-ray discs, studios will be able to fill up 66GB of data on dual-layer discs and 100GB on triple-layer discs. Comparatively, the current Blu-ray discs offer 25GB of data on single layer discs and 50GB of data storage on dual-layer discs.
Consumers will have to upgrade to new hardware to play Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. However, those players will be backwards compatible and play older movie formats such as Blu-ray and DVD. Hypothetically, it�s possible that both Sony and Microsoft will release upgraded gaming console hardware to support the new format. The additional storage space on Ultra HD Blu-ray discs could be beneficial to gaming developers. When the Blu-ray format originally came out in 2006, adoption of the high resolution discs was impacted significantly by the adoption of the PlayStation 3.
It�s likely that announcements related to the first films released on Ultra HD Blu-ray will occur later in the year. Of course, the current gamut of summer blockbusters could be ideal content to showcase the new physical disc format. However, it�s up to each individual studio to release films on the new format.

HDCP 2.2 is a hardware implementation, 2160p content will be HDCP 2.2 protected. HDCP 2.2 can be found in HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.3 capable devices. If you don't have a HDCP 2.2 capable connection your fine as UltraHD Blu-ray players will output 1080p to your UltraHD TV.

There's also only one format! No UHDDVD or other such nonsense this time around. All the manufacturers are on board for a single unified format. Praise the video deities for small mercies.

The "blu" elephant in the room is whether anyone will actually care. Though BD disc sales are still a big source of revenue for the studios, their popularity is rapidly declining. Netflix and Amazon are both offering 4K streaming, Sony offers downloads, and that's certainly just the beginning.

The fact is, 4KBD will look significantly better than any streaming feed. The compression issues we've seen with HD are just as possible with UHD (though how it's compressed is different).

Panasonic's Next Generation Blu-ray Disc Player

About Panasonic
Panasonic Corporation is a worldwide leader in the development and engineering of electronic technologies and solutions for customers in residential, non-residential, mobility and personal applications. Since its founding in 1918, the company has expanded globally and now operates around 500 consolidated companies worldwide, recording consolidated net sales of 7.74 trillion yen for the year ended March 31, 2014. Committed to pursuing new value through innovation across divisional lines, the company strives to create a better life and a better world for its customers.

1. As of January 6, 2015, for a Blu-ray Disc player supporting the latest technologies (e.g. 4K (Ultra HD) and High Dynamic Range) to be adopted in the ULTRA HD BLU-RAY� next generation Blu-ray Disc standards.

2. The next generation Blu-ray Disc standards are being formulated by the Blu-ray Disc Association and have not yet been finalized. The technology to be adopted may change in the future.

3. Luminance per square meter (cd/m2) - "Blu-ray," "Blu-ray Disc," and "ULTRA HD BLU-RAY" are trademarks of the Blu-ray Disc Association.

4. The UHD Alliance is a global coalition of leading TV brands, film studios, content distributors and technology companies that aim to create a unified criterion for premium UHD platforms, from devices to content.

SPECIFICATION NOTES
4K / 60p
High speed display in 60 frames per second of 4K video (3,840 x 2,160 pixels - Ultra HD), which has four times the resolution of Full Hi-vision, for highly detailed videos with extremely smooth movement.

10-bit gradation
Previous Blu-ray Discs displayed the color signals (Y, Cb, Cr) in 8-bit gradation each (256 gradations). By expanding this to 10-bit gradation each (1,024 gradations), even minute signals can be faithfully reproduced to realize richly textured video.

High Dynamic Range
A technology that drastically expands the brightness peak from the previous 100 nit to 1,000-10,000 nit, marking a significant leap in the dynamic range of the picture. Bright light sources (e.g. lights or rays of the sun) and reflected light (from metal or water) that up to now were difficult to display can now be shown in rich textures.

BT.2020 wide color gamut
Compliant with the ITU-R BT.2020 wide color gamut signal formulated for 4K/8K broadcasting. Enables vividly rich coloration not previously possible on Blu-ray discs (BT.709 standard).

HEVC (H.265) / 100Mbps
Support for the highest 100Mbps video signal using the latest high-efficiency video compression technology. Compression efficiency and high bit rate far beyond previous Blu-ray discs (MPEG-4/AVC (H.264), maximum 40Mbps) enabling outstanding playback of high quality video with 4K/60p/10bit, High Dynamic Range, BT.2020, etc.

14.5.2015 19:19 #1

KillerBug

Personally, my question is with future availability of 60FPS content. My eyes can hardly make out the difference between 720P and 1080P from across the room, so while 4K would be very appealing in a 50" PC screen placed 3 feet from my face, it means nothing to me on a 60" TV that is 15 feet away. That said, I can easily see the difference between 24/30fps and 60fps, and it is enough of a difference that I'd take 720P @ 60 over 1080P @ 30 anyday. 720P is the maximum bluray resolution at 60fps, so 1080P (or higher) @ 60fps is quite appealing to me. The only issue is with the studios...there are only a handful of 60FPS blurays out there, will there be any UHD blurays in 60FPS? It would certainly help sales to those of us who have have less than 20/5 vision if it offered something other than resolution we can't see and new DRM headaches.

14.5.2015 20:26 #2

raunchynm

yeah but who wants to keep on loading their shelves with discs. I much perfer to download and put them on a hard drive. Saves a ton of space and with a proper media player I never have to get up to change a disc.

14.5.2015 21:03 #3

nrk4594

Originally posted by raunchynm: yeah but who wants to keep on loading their shelves with discs. I much perfer to download and put them on a hard drive. Saves a ton of space and with a proper media player I never have to get up to change a disc. Same here. I rip the movies from my blu ray discs and put them on my media player. I wonder how long before slysoft defeats the new discs and I'll be able to put 4k movies on my uhd media player.

14.5.2015 22:51 #4

HaloSlayer255

Its good that they finally got around to this, however here is my question:

Would existing blu-ray drives for PC/Mac/Linux be compatible with the new specifications? For example the Pioneer BDR-2209? It supports the current BD-R single/double/triple/quad layers, so I think it should be able to support the new dual layer 66GB spec, and IIRC the triple layer is still 100GB?

Thank you in advance for the answer,
HaloSlayer255

14.5.2015 23:08 #5

Mr-Movies

Originally posted by KillerBug: Personally, my question is with future availability of 60FPS content. My eyes can hardly make out the difference between 720P and 1080P from across the room, so while 4K would be very appealing in a 50" PC screen placed 3 feet from my face, it means nothing to me on a 60" TV that is 15 feet away. That said, I can easily see the difference between 24/30fps and 60fps, and it is enough of a difference that I'd take 720P @ 60 over 1080P @ 30 anyday. 720P is the maximum bluray resolution at 60fps, so 1080P (or higher) @ 60fps is quite appealing to me. The only issue is with the studios...there are only a handful of 60FPS blurays out there, will there be any UHD blurays in 60FPS? It would certainly help sales to those of us who have have less than 20/5 vision if it offered something other than resolution we can't see and new DRM headaches.
You would be the odd case because everyone I've presented UHD too, even some of the worst novices, can easily see the difference, and fall in love with UHD. Plus the "You need to be 15 feet away" depending on how large your TV does totally goes away. You don't need a trained eye to see the difference. The DRM though is a definite downer though but that really isn't a fault of the UHD format it's the nature of the times.

@HaloSlayer255
Existing PC Blu-ray drives that are BDXL capable will be able to play UHD, which I have in my PC's as well as Laptop.

14.5.2015 23:19 #6

HaloSlayer255

@Mr-Movies

Thank you for the info, I had a feeling it would be compatible. Thought I'd get the burning question off my chest. Now if they could just make multi-layer m-discs for 1:1 preservation of dual layer movies, etc.

14.5.2015 23:24 #7

Mr-Movies

M-DISC's
I hope they do it would save me money and provide better security against lost.

All BD Drives for PC's aren't BDXL, in fact most aren't so if you have a normal cheaper BD burner it's probably not 100GB compatible, FYI.

14.5.2015 23:48 #8

HaloSlayer255

Originally posted by Mr-Movies: M-DISC's
I hope they do it would save me money and provide better security against lost.

All BD Drives for PC's aren't BDXL, in fact most aren't so if you have a normal cheaper BD burner it's probably not 100GB compatible, FYI. Nope got the Pioneer BDR-2209 from newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...N=-1&isNodeId=1 and shows BDXL on the faceplate, the drive is also said to support M-Disc but don't have any at the moment to test that with. What I'd probably do is get a montage of music from the 50s-90s and a few from the new millenium and burn them as lossless .flac or .wav files to a few dvd+r m-discs. This way future generations can hear some of the classics (even though I'm not that old ;) )

15.5.2015 00:11 #9

raunchynm

Originally posted by nrk4594: Originally posted by raunchynm: yeah but who wants to keep on loading their shelves with discs. I much perfer to download and put them on a hard drive. Saves a ton of space and with a proper media player I never have to get up to change a disc. Same here. I rip the movies from my blu ray discs and put them on my media player. I wonder how long before slysoft defeats the new discs and I'll be able to put 4k movies on my uhd media player. Slysoft has been terrific at keeping up with new formats so I'd say they would have completed the work before long. I wonder when these companies are going to quit coming up with new formats as if we all had unlimited funds to replace our extensive collections over and over. There is a point of diminishing returns with these new formats

15.5.2015 05:33 #10

Mr-Movies

Originally posted by HaloSlayer255: Originally posted by Mr-Movies: M-DISC's
I hope they do it would save me money and provide better security against lost.

All BD Drives for PC's aren't BDXL, in fact most aren't so if you have a normal cheaper BD burner it's probably not 100GB compatible, FYI. Nope got the Pioneer BDR-2209 from newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...N=-1&isNodeId=1 and shows BDXL on the faceplate, the drive is also said to support M-Disc but don't have any at the moment to test that with. What I'd probably do is get a montage of music from the 50s-90s and a few from the new millenium and burn them as lossless .flac or .wav files to a few dvd+r m-discs. This way future generations can hear some of the classics (even though I'm not that old ;) )
Yup, that should be good I have the Pioneer, LG, and Panasonic BDXL's. I too want to put all my music on the large disc format and have ton's of stuff from the 50's to Present as well as some 20's too. I like Losses and Pro but in WMA over FLAC, WMA is better then FLAC or MP3 but FLAC is in 2nd place and with the convenience of FLAC'n a hole disc it can be a nice format to use now for that. I use WMA Pro for my phone as it is the highest quality that the mobile device can play with Neutron, the WMA Loseless in it's highest bitrate doesn't work. It is nice that you can mostly use WMA and FLAC these days as I use to be stuck with the crappy MP3 format.

15.5.2015 06:32 #11

8686

I sat about 8-10 feet away from a uhd set and wat hed some uhd youtube vids. Only content we could find. It was very nice to look at. But not enough for me to buy a new set, uhd dvd player, receiver, or new hdds for my server. And unless dune makes a uhd player like my smart b1, forget it. Maybe ill just wait until 8k comes around.

Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2GHz
Sapphire Radeon HD 5770
G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB DDR3 1333, Corsair 750TX PSU
10 TB Wes Dig. 64G Corsair SSD

15.5.2015 09:21 #12

pw2much

15.5.2015 15:09 #13

DXR88

Originally posted by Mr-Movies: M-DISC's
I hope they do it would save me money and provide better security against lost.

All BD Drives for PC's aren't BDXL, in fact most aren't so if you have a normal cheaper BD burner it's probably not 100GB compatible, FYI. M-Discs are such a marketing gimmick its sad, that disk may last 1000 years but by then Humanity will either be:

A) fighting Russians over a space rock....Again.
B) extinct, or wishing they were extinct.
C) evolved to a new level of stupidity.
D) slaves to there synthetic overlords(we sorta already are.)
E) Selling M-disk found on earth after X event for billions of bottle caps.

In any event good luck finding a player that has the proper hookups.link

15.5.2015 17:27 #14

Mr-Movies

A player isn't a problem at least for me it's not. Plus you don't need to upgrade to a new receiver right away and my server is just fine right now for UHD.

I have close to a dozen TRUE UHD movies and nature videos (not Youtubes) and they are fantastic. I have several Youtube 4K's as well and they're OK, I'm not a huge Youtube fan honestly.

Well for someone who has suffered lose from CD, DVD, and BD's going bad I'm all for a more stable format that will out live it's use, I can't see that to be a bad thing, sorry.

15.5.2015 18:31 #15

nrk4594

Originally posted by pw2much: Originally posted by nrk4594: Originally posted by raunchynm: yeah but who wants to keep on loading their shelves with discs. I much perfer to download and put them on a hard drive. Saves a ton of space and with a proper media player I never have to get up to change a disc. Same here. I rip the movies from my blu ray discs and put them on my media player. I wonder how long before slysoft defeats the new discs and I'll be able to put 4k movies on my uhd media player. Which media player are you using??? I use the Samsung UHD Media Player for 4K content(Model CY-SUC10SH1).

As far as regular HD movies, I use a KDLINKS HD700 media player. It is the best media player I've used. For me, I play the files offline. Most media players I've tried need to be connected to the internet in order to work. Not this player. The thing that sets the HD700 from others is you can hook up 4 hard drives to it. I have 3 hard drives hooked up currently, each 4tb (Seagate STBV4000100). Plenty of space for all of my files.

15.5.2015 22:56 #16

Mr-Movies

I've used the Sammy and it is decent but have never heard of the KDLINK sounds interesting. I go a little more old school as I have a 8 bay San Digital hardware RAID tower married to a Intel Shuttle with 2 more bays dedicated to my RAID Server in which I run FreeNAS using a SSD and Thumb drive. My RAID consists of 10 4GB Seagate ST4000VN000 NAS drives which I use to store UHD, BD, DVD, CD, and various other pictures, videos, and tons of music. Unfortunately there is/was a sharp learning curve with FreeNAS and I can't say I love it but for the money, that is since it's free, I would say it's well worth the money.

Personally I've never been totally happy with any Streaming Player whether it's a hardware player or software as none seem to do the complete job well, at least for my needs.

15.5.2015 23:27 #17

8686

Did the htpc for several years. Then tried freenas and 5 other free nas os's. Got the kdlinks 720 and 3 wdtv live smps. For me it was all just tinkering and always problems. Got the dune smart b1 and fell in love. No uhd playback or 3d tho. I dont care about those things. Im all about simple. Rip full bd, menu and all. Foced subs support, full menu support, iso support, playlist obfuscation support, since it reads java. Love it. I just feed it network shares from a pc with a bunch of hard drives in it.

Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2GHz
Sapphire Radeon HD 5770
G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB DDR3 1333, Corsair 750TX PSU
10 TB Wes Dig. 64G Corsair SSD

16.5.2015 10:05 #18

raunchynm

Originally posted by nrk4594: Originally posted by pw2much: Originally posted by nrk4594: Originally posted by raunchynm: yeah but who wants to keep on loading their shelves with discs. I much perfer to download and put them on a hard drive. Saves a ton of space and with a proper media player I never have to get up to change a disc. Same here. I rip the movies from my blu ray discs and put them on my media player. I wonder how long before slysoft defeats the new discs and I'll be able to put 4k movies on my uhd media player. Which media player are you using??? I use the Samsung UHD Media Player for 4K content(Model CY-SUC10SH1).

As far as regular HD movies, I use a KDLINKS HD700 media player. It is the best media player I've used. For me, I play the files offline. Most media players I've tried need to be connected to the internet in order to work. Not this player. The thing that sets the HD700 from others is you can hook up 4 hard drives to it. I have 3 hard drives hooked up currently, each 4tb (Seagate STBV4000100). Plenty of space for all of my files.

That is all well and good but I have 8 external drives and they are hooked up to two PCs in my computer room. With the WD Media Player, I just connect to my home network and play from any one of the 8 drives.

16.5.2015 10:08 #19

KillerBug

Originally posted by Mr-Movies:
You would be the odd case because everyone I've presented UHD too, even some of the worst novices, can easily see the difference, and fall in love with UHD. Plus the "You need to be 15 feet away" depending on how large your TV does totally goes away.
As I said, if we are talking about a TV that I decide to use as a computer screen, then 4K (or maybe higher) is entirely welcome at a few feet away...but at normal room sizes (not putting the tv on an island in the middle of the room or the chairs as close as you can before the armrests touch) I see no difference. I will say that I don't own a 4K TV, all my experience with it is at one friend's house, plus at stores. My friend got the cheapest 4K he could get, so that may have something to do with the lack of improvement between 1080P & 4K (although I can see a difference if I stand close). At the stores (I saw this at three different stores) they show off the improved resolution using some nasty tricks. For starters, 2 of the stores placed their UHD TV selection so you are forced to stand within 5 feet of the set...not a realistic living room distance unless you are far too poor to afford 4K. The big scam (as I see it) is that they run a program where half the screen is "1080P" and the other half is "4K"...and the 4K obviously looks a lot better. However, if you pull out your 1080P phone and pull up a 1080P video on it, you instantly see that their "1080P" is actually something like 480i...in case you think it might be that I was accidentally shipped a magic phone, one store had a 1080P TV right next to the 4K section, and it looked far better than the "1080P" half in spite of running off of 720P cable.

Sidenote: My last vision checkup was about 6 months ago. I tested at 20/10...that isn't marine sniper vision, but it is much better than average. I know from family and friends that most people cannot see the 720P-1080P difference at 15 feet...I can see the difference, but cannot see the difference between 1080P and 4K at the same distance. Maybe if I had a 80" TV...but I can think of better things to do with that kind of money.

Sidenote2: I have no problem at all with 4K video being made and sold...I'll even buy it just because "why not?". Heck, maybe someone will make a lasik-like procedure that will let me buy 20/1 vision for a couple grand...then I'll be waiting for 16K video without question. However, if the choices for UHDBD disks are: 4K@30FPS with minimal compression, 4K@60FPS with high compression, or 3K@60FPS with minimal compression, then I'll take the 3K all day. 60FPS is something you notice instantly even on a tiny screen that might be too small to support 4K, or on a good size screen from a good distance. The vast majority of the population can even see the difference between 60FPS and 120FPS, and tests by the military show that; at least for their trained and screened fighter pilots; it is entirely possible to see at well over 200FPS; like reliably identifying specific airplanes that were only shown for 1/240th of a second. Given all this, I really don't think is is asking too much to release movies that were shot in 48 or 60FPS at their original speed, assuming you have the format and disk space to do so without needing to drop to 720P such as is the case with BluRay (and again, I even prefer 60FPS/720 over 30FPS/1080). Really the only argument I can see against this is that 48 & 60 FPS video is actually translated as a moving image by the mind, where as 24 & 30 FPS video is translated as a series of still images by the mind. Some people like that "cinema" feeling that slower framerates give...but the same could be said for color, and sound before that.

If you are still not convinced, there is a simple way to see the light. Get the 60FPS/720P version of Terminator 2...and get the 30FPS/1080P version as well. Watch both (doesn't have to be side-by-side). You will quickly see that the value of double framerate is well worth a reduction in resolution, especially if the reduced resolution was 2-3 times higher than 1080P.

18.5.2015 09:56 #20

AfterDawn: News