2001 was considered the best Blu-ray for a mile when it first came out. Early Blu-rays didn't look that great comparing to 2001. With the advant of Bluray, many became more aware of how film should look like. Even great reviewers like Josh Zyber admitted in the LD and DVD era, they praised noise reduction and edge enhancement simply due they didn't know any better.

I had my hesitations about the possible survival of another disc medium but I am pretty confident now it will be just fine. In the US, if you have a little over $1000 for a TV, you can't buy any less than UHD nowadays. Many homes already have UHD TVs, perhaps way more than LD ever did. They all tried Netflix 4K and are hungry for better. Streaming content for UHD is mostly limited to TV shows like Breaking Bad, House of Cards. When guys buy an expensive TV, they wanna show off with an action blockbuster, not TV shows. Release any Marvel or DC film on UHD and sit back and enjoy the sales.

Ok finally some pricing and date info.

Fox connect has some of the announced UHD BD titles listed for pre order. The list price is $39.99 and pre order price is $26.99. Fox titles have DTS-HD MA 7.1 audio. I expected DTS X or Dolby Atmos but oh well.

Samsung has its UHD BD player on pre-order for $400.

UHD forum announced specs,

2160p resolution
10 bit
Rec.2020 signal, displays are expected to show at least %90 DCI P3
HDR with 1000nit or 540nits if great black levels(oleds)

remember, for kids my age and younger, outside of retro video gaming, non-physical Entertainment media is pretty much precisely where it is at.

for the most part, i see this, and any other successive next-gen physical video format that may lie beyond, holding appeal
only to our aging Baby Boomer parents. i am not attempting to be Devil's Advocate here, only a Realist.
for adults my age and younger, physical living space is becoming ever more an issue all the time,
and with there being more and more of us Collectable Toy and Vintage Video Game collecting nerds cropping up all the time,
building/re-building traditional libraries of physical Audio/Visual entertainment media
on whatever the latest here today gone tomorrow Home Video format happens to be, is of ever diminishing importance to us.

kids such as myself, who grew up in the 80's/90's on SEGA GENESIS, NINTENDO NES/SNES and so forth,
when faced with the choice of jumping into yet another next gen physical video format ((that's even Perfect-er than evveww this time, we wewwly, weawwly mean it!!))
to epically fail at attempting to afford to collect all the same old films we've either already seen too many times,
or never care to see again, and building, or adding to, a collection of exacting toy replicas of objects and characters
that populated the Video Game, Anime, and, as often Movie productions we all grew up around,
then i feel it's obvious what direction an ever growing cross section of the 30-some year old and younger consumer market
is going to take without hardly even thinking of it.

for those of us with sufficient means to afford to have our cake and eat it too, More Power.
to the vast majority,attempting to build vast film collections on the latest and greatest physical Home Video media
is a luxury that is simply well out of the question, and at any rate is of rapidly ever-diminishing importance...

VERY well put tasuke

Valid points but I don't believe your opinion represents everyone.

One interesting thing I noticed is in your three paragraphs you mentioned toys, memorabilia and games but very little if ever about any video format, yet this topic is strictly about physical home video. Sure, everyone has different priorities. I don't play video games(retro or new), I have zero interest in ever buying toys or memorabilia, my situation allows a little more devoted space in my home to films I guess.

Yes your age bracket might be more inclined to find what we already have sufficient but the world moves on. I doubt most younglings who is newly starting to collect films will start off with anything older than BD. Now we know the prices are very similar to newly released BDs, I don't even see the point in buying new releases on BD, UHD comes with a BD copy anyway.

Yes I have seen my favorite films many time already, maybe will never care watch again. Well I also happen to like some of the new films, I will not force my way to try to order them on DVD, I will buy it in the best format there is.

Anyways, all I have said above is highly debatable. Some will agree with me, some won't. One thing is very certain, without US early adopters, who buys the newest technology at the highest premiums with their all early glitches, you would never have anything to collect on. Thanks to few us who are a little more passionate and have the means, companies can cover some of their development cost in the early years and keep that tech going and alive. If there wasn't any videophiles who welcomed the more expensive laserdisc over vhs due to its superior quality, I believe its life would be much less than 23 years.

If The Hateful Eight gets a BD/UHDBD combo release I will buy it for sure. That's one of the very few films I'd pay extra to watch in 4K in my own house.

Warner announced a 100 titles, fox keep adding new ones to pre order list, even shout factory announced a dozen titles the other day. Any successful new release of 2015 is likely to have a UHD rerelease in the year 2016. What's interesting is they also announced plenty of films which were shot in 2K like the Martian. Those will be upscaled but we will benefit from dci p3 color space and 10bit video. I think once people who complain see the HDR video, they will change their minds.

People are so stuck with resolution numbers, I keep hearing 1080p is already very clear from 8ft. Yea maybe the jump to double the resolution is somewhat diminishing returns but the actual improvement is in color reproduction. Since Vhs/ld so little changed in the way films are color spaced. Bt.601 vs bt.709 isn't that significant but now we have bt.2020 and hdr, significantly increased color space and dynamics. We are matching digital cinema and come very close to film in our homes. 1000nits dynamic range is 10 times bt.601. These changes you will see even on a 22" tv display which supports them.

Ok march 1st is the date. There is so many announced/confirmed upcoming UHD releases to list here.

The Amazing Spiderman 2
Chappie
Hancock
The Maze Runner
Pineapple Express
Salt
The Smurfs 2

Are the only ones actually shot in 4K. Upscaled titles will have the improved colors and HDR. I held of watching Chappie for a possible 4K release. Unless something else is announced by March 1st, Chappie is going to be my 1st UHD disc.

Happy the new technology is around the corner.
What is wrong with a better format? I see lots of people saying ... damn another new format...
Sure, there are always people saying " I won't be buying it"
This might be true but sooner or later it becomes inevitable going with the flow IMHO

I don't like the part where I need another new player but knowing it plays every discs is a BIG +
Do hope Panasonic releases a player in the coming year. Afraid for future updates (bugs) to be honnest. Remember HD-DVD!!
Not buying the Samsung unit . I'm not a big Samsung lover.

Nice to see some "new" discs announced

We have gone into the time vortex, we are back in 2007-2008. I remember the same talk about Bluray and HdDvd, upscaled dvd was good enough, BD was too expensive, need a new player/tv, we ain't rebuying our entire collection in bd, it will fail and yada yada. Look what happened?

Panasonic also announced a player, its just not available for pre order like the samsung. Panasonic actually released the uhd bd recorders in Japan back in November. The new players will downscalde uhd discs to 2k btw.

Last Friday Samsung ubd-k8500 was offered for sale in Los Angeles California. All units were sold out within hours. You can also order from Amazon and Best Buy which will ship within days. It's retail is $499 but currently for sale for $399. If you don't have a 4K display, you can watch UHD discs in 1080p downscaled. The Samsung unit has two HDMI outputs, one is dedicated for audio and will work on older receivers. 100 titles from Sony, Warner, Universal and some other studies were already announced for the year 2016. A dozen or so of them will be released on March 1st. Currently you can get The Martian along with the Samsung K8500 player. A Panasonic unit will be offered for sale on March 1st as well, expect similar pricing. UHD titles are priced $20-30 currently(pre-orders). All UHD discs come with 1080p Blu-ray copy as well. A Sony and Oppo player will be available in the late 2016 or early 2017.

Currently the specs are as followed
3850 x 2160 progressive (4K UHD) 10bit - 4 times the resolution of 1080p
HDR10 (Some discs may support Dolby Vision which is similar to HDR10)
Discs will be flagged rec.2020 but will not have any colors outside DCI P3 - HDMI doesn't have a flag for P3, rec.2020 is much wider color gamut, currently no TV can display all the colors of rec.2020. Digital cinema is shot in DCI P3
HDMI 2.0a and HDCP 2.2 compatible TV is required for UHD with HDR. All other TVs will see downscaled 1080p with SDR dynamic range.
Higher refresh rates are supported.
3D isn't supported. 1080p 3D is supported.
21:9 aspect ratio is supported.


Currently HD video uses rec.709 which covers %30 of human sight. UHD video is rec.2020 which is %70 of human sight. DCI P3 is %50 of human sight.

http://www.samsung.com/us/video/home-audio/UBD-K8500/ZA

http://4k.com/news/philips-reveals-new- ... 016-11837/

That looks like a compact solution... then again, it isn't going to look nice in the AV-rack.
I hear the Panasonic player is going to be more expensive about 1000euro for a first gen. machine. I'm afraid it is going to be outdated very soon ...

Another possible dealbreaker:

HDMI 2.0 is the latest iteration of the HDMI specification. While the existing HDMI 1.4 standard can deliver 4K video, it's limited to 30 frames per second (or 30Hz). While this is fine for most movies, broadcasters are looking for higher frame rates for TV.

HDMI 2.0 increases bandwidth up to 18Gbps and supports 4K Ultra HD at 50/60 fps, with 12-bit 4:2:2 colour (you don't need any special cables for HDMI 2.0 interconnectivity, any current high-speed cable will work). However, only Panasonic currently offers an HDMI 2.0 compatible 4K TV, in the shape of the TX-L65WT600.

So where does that leave the remaining first generation 4K sets? Well both Philips and Samsung, whose 4K panels are coupled to separate connection boxes, say they'll simply introduce new tuners which owners can upgrade to.

Sony and others are looking to implement a firmware fix; by shedding colour sub pixels they reckon they'll be able to fit high frame-rate 4K down a HDMI 1.4 pipe, most likely with 8 bit 4:2:0 colour. How visible this kludge will be remains to be seen. For what it's worth, we've seen JVC's 4K e-Shift3 projectors running 4K at the same colour resolution, and they look spectacular so the omens are good.

I'm all for technology but wouldn't it be nice if it all got finalized first

20th fox still not supporting for those consumers that invested thousands into 4 atmos overhead speakers with The Martian still only having dtshdma 7.1. I been saying for years they don't care only that they sell the same near-field mix over and over again.

3 hdmi specifications come to attention

Hdmi 1.4 which can do 4k@60 in 8 bit 4:2:0. Hdcp 1.4 copy protection is supported.
Hdmi 2.0 which can also do 4k@60 in 8 bit 4:2:0. Hdcp 2.2 is supported.
Hdmi 2.0a which can do 4@60 at 10 bit 4:2:2 or 8 bit 4:4:4. The bandwidth is doubled at 18gbps and hdcp 2.2 is supported.

Uhd discs are 4k@24 in 10 bit 4:2:0. Hdmi 1.4 can work with this resolution but it lacks the hdcp 2.2 copy protection. Therefor you need minimum of hdmi2.0. Hdmi2.0a is good for future proofing.

4:2:0 colorspace is how the video is sampled. Half the color repeated every other frame. You can upsample this to 4:2:2 which has that half color on every frame or oversample it to 4:4:4. In theory you shouldn't be able to tell the difference as human sight is half sensitive to color than luminance. It is a way of saving bandwidth.

How is the 4K content on Netflix and other streaming services? Is it better than the 1080p on BD? I ask this because streaming in general has its limits with regards to compression and things.

Netflix uses 4k@24 in 8 bit 4:2:0 using h.266 hvec codec said to be 4 times more efficient than h.265 of Bluray. It requires hdmi 2.0 with hdpc 2.2. Most content support hdr10 as well. Amazon prime is the same. Vudu uses a proprietary codec and dolby vision instead of hdr10. Bit rates are higher and the codecs are more efficient so most definitely improved over their 1080p. Compared to Blurays, some people find bd better.

I find the 1080p on Netflix to be about on par if not slightly better than pay TV HDTV channels, still a long way off BD. I'm surprised though that even the 4K streaming on Netflix is not as good as the 1080p on BD in some peoples minds.

My very first 4K UHD Blu-ray discs. They are Best Buy exclusives until March 1st. There were 6 titles to choose from. They are The Martian, Exodus, Maze Runner, Kingsman, Hitman, Fantastic 4, Wild. They were each $29.99. They all come with regular Blu-ray copies as well. I decided these two Ridley Scott films are worthy to be owned as my first 4K discs. I also had the 3D Blu-ray versions available.

Now there is one thing missing...

I do hope player(s) become available soon

There is only one player available currently and its the Samsung. There will be a Philips and a Panasonic player in March, I think the Panasonic will be a more expensive unit at around $1000 with much better built. The Samsung was cheap enough to give it a try at $300 but I am too lazy nowadays, it will be weeks before I get around to integrating it to my system, by that time better players may come out. I think it is time I should sell my Oppo BDP-105 and make room for a UHD player. I believe next holiday season we will see high end units from Oppo, Mcintosh, Theta and such.

This format confusion and lack of a universal display which can utilize both HDR10 and Dolby Vision makes picking out a nice projector very difficult. Without a projector I don't see much point in going 4K.