The chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) revealed during CES that the latest high resolution version of Blu-ray will be called Ultra HD Blu-ray. The format uses the H.265 (HEVC) codec with an expected capacity of 33GB per layer. Disc capacity should be up to 100GB for triple layer discs.
In order to playback Ultra HD Blu-ray discs a new Blu-ray player is required which will be backwards compatible, thus still plays regular Blu-ray discs, DVDs and CDs. During CES Panasonic is showcasing a prototype Ultra HD Blu-ray player and the BDA expects the first Ultra HD Blu-ray discs to be produced by the end of this year.
The format should competitive to streaming services and thus provide a better quality than those services are able to provide. Video on Ultra HD Blu-ray discs will be encoded at 10-bit precision, allowing for almost no visible banding artefacts. The format supports video at 3840×2160 (progressive) at up to 60 frames per second (progressive). This is an improvement over existing Blu-ray, which allows 60 frames per second at 720p and at 1920x1080 the format allows 24 frames per second as it’s maximum progressive frame rate.
Ultra HD Blu-ray should also support High Dynamic Range video and the format will likely include a form of DRM that allows users to copy movies from the discs to e.g. mobile devices.
