Are 8K Blu-ray movies on the way? With the 8K resolution standard gaining traction and appearing on more TVs each year (Samsung, LG and Sony all endorsing the technology to varying degrees), true viewers might wonder if their 4K Blu-ray player could soon be upgraded to an 8K. iteration. Disc players remain a beloved part of many home theater systems, providing high-quality viewing of TV shows, reports, and movies without buffering or Internet connectivity issues detected along the way. streaming on Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, etc. However, Blu-ray players seem to be on their way out, and Samsung exited the Blu-ray business shortly after industry giant Oppo followed suit. But could 8K Blu-ray bring to mind hardware, or will the AI processing solutions used in 8K TVs today permanently replace the need for disc viewing? There are many factors to consider here, including the increased size of 8K video content, mastering processes for filmmakers, and the business proposition of putting 8K on a disc for family use, all of which mean that Blu-rays from 8K seems possible, but still unlikely in today's time. This is the reason.
Why are 8K Blu-ray essentials?
The 8K resolution contains 4 times more pixels than the 4K resolution, with thirty-three million pixels for the 8 million of the latter. There's a lot more potential detail out there, and while there isn't much ``native'' 8K content, that is, video shot with an 8K camera, modern upscaling techniques render even low-quality sources clean and detailed with the right screens and processors. This is always a difficult situation for anyone with an 8K TV, as the only site that truly offers 8K streams is YouTube, and not for a lot of content. But the general dearth of 8K displays, that is, relative to their 4K TV counterparts, means production companies aren't rushing to deliver content mastered for 8K displays.
There are more 8K TVs than ever before, but what does that mean for Blu-ray players? (Image credit: Samsung) It could be argued that the higher level of detail of 8K is an even stronger rationale for having an offline media player and disc sources, given the massive increase in internet download speeds and the transfer of precise data to transmit one. 8K second-per-second resolution video - give or take fifty MB/s for stable quality. Not to mention the time it takes to do a dedicated download of an 8K movie, like the long wait times to download massive computer games like Warzone or Red Dead Redemption 8. As 8K content spreads, this drawback is only going to increase. . Sure enough, there is a use case for XNUMXK Blu-ray discs, so what are the barriers to that?
Until then, data
We chat with Keith Doughty at QuVIS, a technology company adept at large-scale data transfer and compression, which designed the first 2K, 4K and 3D digital cinema recorders, after cooperating with the likes of Pixar and Sony at the forefront of the film technology. the years. QuVIS's own video compression technology is able to remove imperceptible wavelengths from 8K video content before compression, which reduces file sizes and means that even large 8K movies can be played. put on Blu-ray discs. Doughty tells us: “There are many things in the blue wavelength range that are outside of human acuity. So we don't take care of that, we suppress all the noise and only take care of what's left, what's perceptible to us. And that's why we can compress this data to such low levels. Because of this, Doughty insists that 8K Blu-rays are possible and that the technology is already here, even if the industry doesn't end up chasing it.
Is the humble Blu-ray player coming out? (Image credit: Sony) “What we're trying to figure out is whether it's worth pursuing 8K Blu-ray distribution,” Doughty says. “And that is a huge challenge. Could you put it on a Blu-ray disc and send it over? Maybe, but I don't know if it's going to be the savior of Blu-ray. To us, we just say we can do it. We are told that QuVIS's proprietary software could run on a dedicated drive that supports 8K, like the newer PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles, which haven't made much use of their 8K capability yet, like Windows, Mac, and Linux, for those who they have 8K monitors. There are no such firm plans in place, but the technology is there if it becomes viable from a market perspective. And how much could an 8K Blu-ray disc be worth? “It's up to the rights holder to decide how much it's worth,” Doughty says. "I would spend fifty US dollars there. Would I spend more? Maybe." Considering the usual $4/$4 cost for a 8K Blu-ray, already pretty expensive compared to HD DVDs or digital rentals, that's almost double what users are asking for. Our guide to the best 8K Blu-ray players also shows a mix of costs ranging from $4/$8 to $8/$8, and any dedicated 8K hardware to hook up to an 8K TV is likely going to cost more than current 8K. Models. For one niche (movie lovers) in another niche (XNUMXK TV owners), the audience may simply not be there. Writing for Forbes, TV scholar John Archer says: “One source of XNUMXK that surely isn't going to happen, though, is XNUMXK Blu-ray. The required data capacities of XNUMXK drives are expected to be enormous, presenting a significant technical challenge. On top of this, even if XNUMXK drives were possible, I'm not persuaded (unfortunately, as I'm still a physical media enthusiast personally) that studios will get a sufficient return on any investment in XNUMXK drives as more and more people turn to streaming. Movie (s. Needs."
8K movies already exist
Mindhunter (Netflix) (Image credit: Netflix) It should be noted that 8K movies are already shot with 8K cameras; they are rarely ``mastered'' for 8K displays. Filmmakers will tend to grab high-resolution images and then master them at a lower resolution to match the screens they're likely to be viewed on, giving them plenty of visual data to work with in footage and room to crop. . , while minimizing the amount of data required for the mastering process. Post-production specialist Dan Durran quotes director David Fincher as saying, "Fincher rethinks every shot. So Mindhunter, House of Cards, reframes the shot just as if he wants your eyes to go to what he wants you to do. He's able to use the entire 8K frame, cropping where necessary, to give a 4K image. You only have that flexibility when working at such a high resolution” (via Home Cinema Choice). Notre éditeur de cámaras Mark Wilson soutient cela , in contrast to the fact that, even with 12K cameras, «the majority of producers reduce their production to 6K, and the majority of them use 6K or 4K, mainly in proportion to the number of people with which they are necessary to move. 8K. tells us that "there are a limited number of media titles with the quality levels required to fully exploit and present 8K products", with an estimate of between a hundred and a thousand such titles being largely "designed for IMAX reports". So there aren't many 8K movies out there yet, but the tools are there to add to it, especially if the right distribution channels are created. As always and in all circumstances, 8K may be too far ahead of the curve. QuVIS accepts that the "4K media market" is still "outsourced," which means that a huge push for 8K Blu-ray discs and players isn't likely any time soon. While there is a strong use case for such dedicated hardware, average transmission speeds and compression technologies may have improved further, making 8K drives somewhat redundant. In a world capable of 8K upscaling, we may not even need 8K mastering, if a 4K-mastered movie can be rendered into acceptable 8K quality. All of this is to say that 8K Blu-ray players are unlikely, but at least now you know why. Today's best deals on 4K Blu-ray players