Samsung announced their Ultra High Definition player at the IFA trade show in Berlin today. It is called the Ultra HD Blu-ray Player (UBD-K8500), and will play the new 4K discs that will be released later this year. Ultra HD Blu-ray will provide a resolution that is four times greater than regular Blu-ray, and will have other advantages, including 10 bit color depth. Blu-ray that we've seen in the past only have 8 bit color depth, which gives slightly more than 16 million variations in color. 10 bit color depth allows over a billion color variations. Other advances in the new format include faster frame rates, up to 60fps, and HDR (high dynamic range).
The new player has a curved front, matching the new curved screens from Samsung. "The Ultra HD Blu-ray Player is set to launch in Europe in 2016, but we are still hopeful we may see a U.S. version in time for the holidays," said Michael Zoller, vice president of visual displays for Samsung Europe. One interesting addition mentioned at the press conference is Samsung's intention to allow side loading content from the player, or future players to other types of devices with a "digital bridge". This will be done in cooperation with the studios and undoubtedly will be locked down securely with DRM.
A new disc format will be required for the 4K UHD movies, and the format specifications have already been established earlier this year. 20th Century Fox was at the press conference with Samsung and provided a preview of the the 4K experience with a clip from the movie, Kingsman: The Secret Service. Many older films will be reworked and released in this 4K format, as well as newer releases. It appears that at least some of the studios intend to release 4K discs and also include a regular Blu-ray disc and a digital download for portable devices with each Ultra HD movie.
Many people have already shifted focus to streaming movies rather than physical discs, so this type of player and the UHD Blu-ray discs may remain a niche product, but there is no doubt that they will provide a superior picture to what is currently available for streaming online. Netflix "4K" tops out at 50-60Mbps. The new UHD discs will roughly double that bit rate.
