UDH Blu Ray Player is the future!

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Steve

I was really expecting a poo poo but being a true gentleman you gave a dignified response and I salute you for that!!

Pity you don't live close enough! The best I can do at present is run my 4K footage on the computer's biggest monitor and crank the resolution to max BUT it's still nowhere near a 4K TV .. I will really have to find someone with a 4K TV and see for myself.

[Matthias Claflin]

This thread seems to have become a 4k fest at this point, but I have a question relating to that of the UHD (4k) Blu Rays. Do you really think people will buy them? I mean smart TVs are very popular (I just bought a 720p smart TV over a 1080p regular TV because it is only 32" at about 10 feet away and in doing the math, it shouldn't matter, but I digress.) With how easy it is to stream, with Vimeo hopefully choosing to support 4k in the not so distant future and YouTube already supporting 4k, not to mention most smart TVs having USB ports, why would people even bother with disks? Regardless of what I've ever heard, in practice, a video played from a USB, has always looked better than any DVD/Blu Ray. Maybe the UHD Blu Rays have fixed the issue, which for me has been the codec. Adobe stopped supporting DVD/Blu Ray burning so would we have to go to Sony's software for a UHD disk to burn? Will it have to be a form of MPEG that looks as bad as what we've seen from MPEG2 which is what Encore requires for DVD/Blu Ray?

[Roger Gunkel]

Originally Posted by Steve Burkett

Roger, you are a cynic. I dont need to convince myself of anything. When I saw a video I shot in 4k in the Yorkshire Dales on my new 55" TV at the start of this year, I was blown away by the quality. Like looking through a window. For years I've tried to capture the beauty of the place with Photography and video and always been left dissatisfied. Until then. Watching 4k on my 28" monitor also shows greater detail than watching the same video on my HD monitor, but of course I'm a lot closer. Actually even watching 4k on an HD monitor is better than watching HD on an HD monitor. The video posted earlier in the thread made the same point.

Of course TV's upscale SD to fit their HD screen, so hardly surprising people don't notice the difference. SD on my 4k 55" looks mostly crap, with some content suffering more than others. I'm not disagreeing that deliverable 4k is a long way off, though had 2 such deliveries this year. However as you yourself have proven Roger, 4k is becoming a term to be used by enquiring couples. Whether we can deliver it or not, and I can, such 4k related queries are only going to become more common once 4k blurays hit the market next year.

Steve, my cynicism is not directed at fellow professionals, we all know and can see the difference, but at the clients who want to buy the latest high tech gear because it is cool, but haven't a clue what they are seeing and think that watching a DVD on a 4k TV will be watching 4k!

Roger

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by Roger Gunkel

Steve, my cynicism is not directed at fellow professionals, we all know and can see the difference, but at the clients who want to buy the latest high tech gear because it is cool, but haven't a clue what they are seeing and think that watching a DVD on a 4k TV will be watching 4k!

Roger

Ah my mistake. :) I agree with you there.

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by Matthias Claflin

Do you really think people will buy them?

Well me for a start. Personally I agree that a USB type playback is better and I'd welcome a system which could be available even now of downloading a movie as a 4K file for transfer to USB to be then plugged into my TV. Is such a thing available, er no. Streaming relies on a good internet speed, for me a long way off as I struggle with HD. So bluray it is for now. No doubt in time, things will change. However disk delivery will alas be around for a few good more years and then some I expect.

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by James Manford

Not so sure about delivering wedding films. I get many brides always asking me to make them look beautiful on video. The last thing they want to see is their defects in Ultra HD.

Defects will be all too apparent from HD disks up-scaled to a 4K TV. In fact I'd say an HD movie can appear sharper than a 4K video sometimes. Seems weird, but with 4K the sharpness comes from the detail, whereas HD, the image has been enlarged and sharpened to give a 4K appearance. Its hard to describe the difference unless you've seen it, but if couples decide to buy a large 4K TV, your HD and even SD delivery may show up the Brides defects as the TV does its best to turn it into 4K.

[Leon Bailey]

Originally Posted by Matthias Claflin

This thread seems to have become a 4k fest at this point, but I have a question relating to that of the UHD (4k) Blu Rays. Do you really think people will buy them? I mean smart TVs are very popular (I just bought a 720p smart TV over a 1080p regular TV because it is only 32" at about 10 feet away and in doing the math, it shouldn't matter, but I digress.) With how easy it is to stream, with Vimeo hopefully choosing to support 4k in the not so distant future and YouTube already supporting 4k, not to mention most smart TVs having USB ports, why would people even bother with disks? Regardless of what I've ever heard, in practice, a video played from a USB, has always looked better than any DVD/Blu Ray. Maybe the UHD Blu Rays have fixed the issue, which for me has been the codec. Adobe stopped supporting DVD/Blu Ray burning so would we have to go to Sony's software for a UHD disk to burn? Will it have to be a form of MPEG that looks as bad as what we've seen from MPEG2 which is what Encore requires for DVD/Blu Ray?

To answer that. People still prefer physical product. Blu-ray/DVD's aren't selling like they were 10 years ago, but they aren't struggling to sell at all. The top selling Blu-ray this year is Big Hero 6 which has sold close to 3 million copies and has outsold the DVD.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Matthias Claflin

This thread seems to have become a 4k fest at this point, but I have a question relating to that of the UHD (4k) Blu Rays. Do you really think people will buy them? I mean smart TVs are very popular (I just bought a 720p smart TV over a 1080p regular TV because it is only 32" at about 10 feet away and in doing the math, it shouldn't matter, but I digress.) With how easy it is to stream, with Vimeo hopefully choosing to support 4k in the not so distant future and YouTube already supporting 4k, not to mention most smart TVs having USB ports, why would people even bother with disks? Regardless of what I've ever heard, in practice, a video played from a USB, has always looked better than any DVD/Blu Ray. Maybe the UHD Blu Rays have fixed the issue, which for me has been the codec. Adobe stopped supporting DVD/Blu Ray burning so would we have to go to Sony's software for a UHD disk to burn? Will it have to be a form of MPEG that looks as bad as what we've seen from MPEG2 which is what Encore requires for DVD/Blu Ray?

Streaming 4K in full quality is a non-starter. Even HD streaming is not done at proper bit rates. Blu-ray disc is 25-30Mbps (max 40Mbps) whereas as HD streaming (BBC, YouTube, Vimeo etc) is about 5Mbps (less than DVD bit rate). 4K Blu-ray is up to 100Mbps whereas Netflix are streaming 4K at 20-25Mbps.

Incidentally the medium is irrelevant. video played from a USB will never look better than DVD/Blu Ray just because it's on USB. It might if it were a higher bit rate but chances are that it will be lower as most disc rips are much lower bit rate than the original.

Encore is still supplied & supported by Adobe but is frozen at the CS6 version so you cannot use dynamic links to Premier Pro or After Effects CC assets (I always found dynamic links terribly unreliable anyway & stopped using them). You use Adobe Media Encoder (or Compressor or whatever else you want to use) & import a finished MPEG4 file into Encore. If it's not Blu-ray compliant then it will be automatically converted for you. If the target disc is a DVD then it's converted to MPEG (a requirement of the DVD specification).

[Chris Harding]

Good point! I supply the couple 1080P video on USB at a measly 8mbps ..otherwise I would need a massive USB if I was to supply the footage at 50 mbps! Imagine a 100 minute wedding in 4K on USB at 100mbps ...It would be cheaper I think to give the couple a 1TB portable USB drive instead!!

Due to the fact most need to be powered, that would somewhat defeat the portability objective??

[Matthias Claflin]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

Encore is still supplied & supported by Adobe but is frozen at the CS6 version so you cannot use dynamic links to Premier Pro or After Effects CC assets (I always found dynamic links terribly unreliable anyway & stopped using them). You use Adobe Media Encoder (or Compressor or whatever else you want to use) & import a finished MPEG4 file into Encore. If it's not Blu-ray compliant then it will be automatically converted for you. If the target disc is a DVD then it's converted to MPEG (a requirement of the DVD specification).

Thank you Nigel, I stand corrected. Should have looked into Blu Ray bitrates a bit more before posting. I haven't done a lot with Blu Rays at this time because most people I work with only have DVD players sadly.

That being said, when it comes to Adobe Encore, I am aware that it is supported and supplied at the CS6 level, because I use it on a regular basis and very much like it. That being said, my concern is that it won't be able to encode the new 4k UHD Blu Rays. Will that not be an issue?

[Steve Burkett]

I imagine that if blank 4K Blu-ray disks are available, there shall be some software around to create them. Maybe Abobe will update Encore or maybe another company will produce something. Encore is useful for linking to Photoshop but I'd welcome another disk authoring software as its not without its faults. I don't think it's something to worry about now though. :)

[Jeff Harper]

I agree with Steve. It's too early to be sweating this.

[Chris Harding]

If 4K blanks hit the USA by Christmas then we will probably get them the following Christmas! Due to initially low demand I would suspect they would be very pricey as well as 4K burners for your computer. Sure they will drop as demand gets better but at first they will hardly be economical as a delivery medium. My first 4X (yes 4X) HP DVD Writer cost me close to $1000 when they came out and now they are $20!!

We are probably looking at either the 2017 or even 2018 season before they become affordable so as Steve says don't sweat it!!

However it's still worth shooting in 4K and downsizing to 1080 due to the chroma sub sampling ..it's a much nicer picture!!!

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

If 4K blanks hit the USA by Christmas then we will probably get them the following Christmas!

These are the 4K Blu-ray blank discs.

Due to initially low demand I would suspect they would be very pricey as well as 4K burners for your computer.

Here are your 4K burners.


The only thing that's actually missing is software that will make BDXL 4K discs in the proper format. An Encore update seems unlikely, but an Encore CC 2016 would be nice to give people the ability to make these discs.

[Matthias Claflin]

I may be incredibly naïve but, I don't see anything on either the BDXL discs or the burner to suggest that they are able to handle 4k video. From what I read on here, it sounded like 4k Blu Ray discs would be different then standard discs, but I could be totally wrong.

This quote specifically makes me think their will be dedicated 4k discs, "New Ultra HD Blu-ray discs hold up to 66GB and 100GB of data on dual and triple layer discs respectively."