Sony promises 4K Ultra HD Delivery System

hodg100

Outstanding Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2005
Messages
14,220
Reaction score
4,522
Points
6,489
but doesn't really give any juicy details

During Sony's press event, just held, they promised a 4K delivery system would arrive later in 2013, to follow the launch of its new X Series U HD TV range.

The X series of 4K LED TVs will be available in spring 2013 and also available in spring will be a lineup of Mastered in 4K Blu-ray discs from Sony Pictures' ColorWorks Studio. The first titles to be available are "The Amazing Spider-Man," "Lawrence of Arabia," and "Taxi Driver." Sourced from pristine 4K masters and presented at high-bit-rate, full HD resolution, these discs are said to showcase more of the wide range of rich colour contained in the original source content.

attachment.php


Launching this summer will be the first 4K Ultra HD Video distribution service in the U.S. Consumers will be able to enjoy native 4K content such as feature-length movies from Sony Pictures as well as other productions. At that time Sony will also introduce a dedicated 4K Media Player to bring this service to the home so it sounds like a download service.
 

Attachments

  • 55X9.jpg
    55X9.jpg
    93.9 KB · Views: 1,792
we have to wait and see if we get this in the uk i hope so
 
Like the sound of that ...
 
A little more detail wouldn't have gone amiss..but I suspect the delivery system in one form or another ie as a download service will be tied in with the Playstation4, just as the ps3 was blessed with a bluray drive:thumbsup:
 
Excellent news - just hoping it launches outside of the US also.
They can keep Amazing Spiderman however...

On a related note, was hoping there'd have been more info on RED's RedRay player by now.
Are they showing anything at CES?
 
A little more detail wouldn't have gone amiss..but I suspect the delivery system in one form or another ie as a download service will be tied in with the Playstation4, just as the ps3 was blessed with a bluray drive:thumbsup:

I agree sammy, this has PS4 written all over it.
 
This will be very nice indeed. Just wish they would bring more 4k projectors for "all" that 4k content!:)

As I understand it, no Sony 95ES replacement at CES? perhaps later this year and 4k? would be sweet at or around that pricerange.
 
Remastert 4K on BD disc sounds more like 4k on a regular bd 2 me..
 
So not 4K at all then really. if it's still 1080, 4:2:0 colour and 8 bit it's nothing more than BDs version of DVDs Superbit titles.

Gary
 
The discs they mention just seem to me to be Sony pushing their 4k remastered material to a new market.

Not sure how they'd expect to effectively put actual 4k material onto Blu-ray Disc anyway - each movie would take up about 4 discs !

Frankly it's the 4k download/distribution service that appears to be the interesting news in the article.
 
Will 4k mastered HD BD look better on a 4K or "4k e shift" PJ. Possibly/ probably.

BUT WHAT ABOUT native 4k BD SONY? What about your 4K loaner servers for us poor Brits Sony?
 
The discs they mention just seem to me to be Sony pushing their 4k remastered material to a new market.

Not sure how they'd expect to effectively put actual 4k material onto Blu-ray Disc anyway - each movie would take up about 4 discs !

Frankly it's the 4k download/distribution service that appears to be the interesting news in the article.

Yes, that's definitely it. Sorry it didn't read more clearly, it was late:)
 
Blu Ray media is cheap enough to produce - why not ship 4k films on multiple discs and load onto a 4k player device's HDD for playback?

Preloading would take a little time, but it's better than the other options available at this time - and you could have playback devices with multiple lasers to read several sectors of the media at once, or multiple optical drives on a player to speed up the ripping process to an acceptable time.

You could in theory upgrade existing HDD equipped blu-ray devices with the requisite processing power to then play back 4k material - a good way to push the HTPC into the living room?
 
Last edited:
Blu Ray media is cheap enough to produce - why not ship 4k films on multiple discs and load onto a 4k player device's HDD for playback?

Preloading would take a little time, but it's better than the other options available at this time - and you could have playback devices with multiple lasers to read several sectors of the media at once, or multiple optical drives on a player to speed up the ripping process to an acceptable time.

You could in theory upgrade existing HDD equipped blu-ray devices with the requisite processing power to then play back 4k material - a good way to push the HTPC into the living room?

Preloading from storage discs is a truly excellent idea! (which of course means that it'll never happen...)
It'd simultaneously get around the bandwidth issues, the inherent BD storage limitation (and also fulfil the needs of movie collectors for physical media).

Seriously, you should try and copyright that or something! :thumbsup:
 
Something tells me that film companies won't want to make it easy for people to rip 4K discs...I suppose they could put a spoiler in so you can't copy the rip.

Because our Broadband won't handle 4K streaming, I think it'll be a case of downloading a film. Once you purchase a film, you have access to it for life, and you just download it when you want to watch it (hopefully over a couple of hours?). This would mean that huge storage space wouldn't be needed, so it shouldn't be too costly. You could download and permanently store your favourite films on HDD so they're ready to go whenever you are. This would also do away with the need to back up HDD drives.

Is about time this sort of thing got a little cheaper for us enthusiasts...
 
Something tells me that film companies won't want to make it easy for people to rip 4K discs...I suppose they could put a spoiler in so you can't copy the rip.

Could tie the copy to single server for a home, so rip could not be 'transferred' - would need to be re-ripped from disc.

To prevent people buying and returning discs once ripped you could require a NFC tag for playback from non-locally ripped media instead of a physical disc.

Bundle a handfull of tags with each movie, and you can have a physical catalogue of your films in each room with a TV/computer and scan the tag to play the film off the home server.

Those with networked storage can use the NFC tags, those without just use the discs as usual.
 
Last edited:
Dav1dF said:
Something tells me that film companies won't want to make it easy for people to rip 4K discs...I suppose they could put a spoiler in so you can't copy the rip.

Because our Broadband won't handle 4K streaming, I think it'll be a case of downloading a film. Once you purchase a film, you have access to it for life, and you just download it when you want to watch it (hopefully over a couple of hours?). This would mean that huge storage space wouldn't be needed, so it shouldn't be too costly. You could download and permanently store your favourite films on HDD so they're ready to go whenever you are. This would also do away with the need to back up HDD drives.

Is about time this sort of thing got a little cheaper for us enthusiasts...

Would be my preference only issue if company has issues or goes belly up lol.
 
onewingedangel said:
Could tie the copy to single server for a home, so rip could not be 'transferred' - would need to be re-ripped from disc.

To prevent people buying and returning discs once ripped you could require a NFC tag for playback from non-locally ripped media instead of a physical disc.

Bundle a handfull of tags with each movie, and you can have a physical catalogue of your films in each room with a TV/computer and scan the tag to play the film off the home server.

Thats far to much messing around to catch on.
 
onewingedangel said:
As opposed to inserting a DVD/Blu Ray?

Disc is insert and play

Your on about discs, servers, nfc tags and limitations to the user.

So much simpler for users lol
 
You could insert and play.

Alternatively if you have embraced a networked home and ripped the content to a home server, you could play it back on a compatable device by scanning a NFC tag.

Either way you connect a physical medium to the playback device to access the content, and the spread of the content is restricted by access to the physically bundled media (whether disc or tag) to prevent illegal spread of content, whilst allowing convenient access within the home.
 
onewingedangel said:
You could insert and play.

Alternatively if you have embraced a networked home and ripped the content to a home server, you could play it back on a compatable device by scanning a NFC tag.

Either way you connect a physical medium to the playback device to access the content, and the spread of the content is restricted by access to the physically bundled media (whether disc or tag) to prevent illegal spread of content, whilst allowing convenient access within the home.

Your getting to caught up on worry whats best for copy right protection. Focus more on ease of use for the customer.

The guy above nailed it. Its effectively Itunes. Online Cloud forever and you can download when and where you want to store a hard copy of well local copy anyway.

NFC would only work if in future all players have a scanner and you link your phone to the cloud account and say at your friends scan your phone and the player can access your account online to stream your films.

Still wont stop piracy. Any solution has to give you the option to download and store local copies of your media.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom