The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has agreed on its UHD standards for sticking the extra-large files associated with 4K on physical media, and has named it Ultra-HD Blu-ray. The new discs will require new Blu-ray players, but the standard will include three types of High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology and support for HEVC (H.265) encoding.
The HDR line-up includes techniques from the SMPTE in conjunction with Technicolor, Dolby and Philips. HDR allows a picture to display better contrast ratios (on supported hardware), which most experts in the field agree provides more noticeable benefits than the jump in resolution offered by 4K.
The support for HEVC is important too, as the original Blu-ray spec was unsuitable for the file-sizes associated with UHD or 4K files. With HEVC, which can compress the same video files as H.264 using about 50% of the bandwidth and space, the Blu-ray disks provide a viable way for consumers to watch UHD content in the home.
The current issue that is proving the main bottleneck for UHD video is the last mile internet connection to the home. In developed markets, and the US in particular, many consumers still lack the broadband bandwidth necessary for 4K content. Netflix requires between 15-20Mbps for its 4K content encoded in HEVC, and that requirement will increase when the extra data for color and refresh rate is added for full UHD pictures.
Given that the last mile often can’t support OTT UHD content, UHD and 4K supporters turned to physical media. But the current Blu-ray spec can’t support UHD, and so the BDA decided to up the ante, with specs that should provide a noticeably better picture for those consumers who opt to buy a UHD TV and a brand new Blu-ray player – and then the recurring cost of the disks, which looks like an increasingly archaic business model in the wake of SVoD. It’s unlikely that this proves a mass-market product like DVDs, but the margins could certainly be healthy.
Recent numbers from the Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association, show that 2014 sales of both DVDs and Blu-rays fell 10% across both formats. The equal decline can be read as proof that Blu-ray has reached saturation, at just 16% market share. It’s hard to see the upside from those figures.
Nonetheless, the new players and disks should be available in time for Christmas, with the BDA noting that its system is not facing any competing formats. The cynic in us wants to say that anyone without a vested interest in Blu-ray would certainly be avoiding physical media investments (as OTT delivery takes its place), and therefore wouldn’t want to compete, but open standards are probably the more direct short-term reasoning behind this fact. It’s hard to compete against the free version, especially when it’s supported by the major players.
The disks will move from their current dual-layer 50GB discs to a 66GB dual-layer and a larger 100GB triple-layer version. Quadruple-layer disks currently hold up to 128GB, which could allow a particularly adventurous (some might say reckless) company to try and sell 3D 4K titles – but that would require an affordable 4K TV with 3D, which are nearly impossible to come by.
4K took the same image characteristics of Full HD (1080p) and simply increased the image resolution from 1920x1080p to 3840x2160p. The move to 4K only really made sense for those users who purchase very large TV sets, where the individual pixels of a 1080p image could be discerned at sizes of 70-inches and above.
With appropriate upscaling technology, a 1080p picture can be suitably adapted to these extra-large screens, and native 4K content would look great too. But the benefits of 4K only really exist on the very large screens which suffer the visible pixilation issues, which are found in a very small fraction of total consumer homes and shipments.
These very large screens also require very large rooms in which to fit them, in order for viewers to be able sit at a comfortable viewing distance. The overwhelming majority of consumers will not have a room big enough to fit such a TV in it, let alone the will to foot the bill for one of these monstrously large sets.
So for viewers with much more common TV sizes in the 35 to 55-inch range, the issue of visible pixels is not a driving force in the decision to upgrade their TV. Instead, the color and HDR technologies that comprise the UHD standard are the more important visual improvements, and these are what the BDA is setting in stone for UHD content on Blu-ray discs.
The new UHD1 standard is an improvement in all areas on the spec for 1080p. Full HD uses a 1920x1080p resolution, with frame rates between 24 and 60fps, a bit depth of 8 or 10bit, and the ITU Rec. 709 color space. UHD1 has a 3840x2160p resolution, with a maximum frame rate of 120fps, a bit depth of 10 or 12bit, and the ITU Rec. 2020 color space – a significant increase from Full HD in all areas. UHD2 uses the same specs as UHD1 but differs only in its larger resolution of 7640x4320p.
We heard back at IBC that the next generation of Blu-ray would appear in 2015, and that it would include Rec. 2020 and HDR. With the announcement, this forecast seems to be on track, but HDMI 2.0 (which has the bandwidth necessary to push 4K resolutions at 60fps) still hasn’t been confirmed as a pre-requisite for these new players and TVs – meaning some customers won’t be able to enjoy UHD titles on their current hardware, which will be particularly maddening for those who purchased 4K TVs at the exorbitant launch prices.