The Blu-ray Disc Association has recently decided to standardise a specification for 4K content on Blu-ray discs. Victor Matsuda, Vice-President of the Blu-ray Disc Association told this to a Hollywood Reporter. Seventeen companies, including Sony, Technicolor, Dolby, Fox and Disney are working on deciding which codec will be used for the standard and also what kind of DRM will be used.
The announcement is disappointing for people who had hoped that the Blu-ray standard for 4K would be quickly finalised with the BDA hoping to already have this completed last year. The specifications should now be finalised though and the actual discs should become available in 2015.
According to several movie industry experts though there are actually financial reasons to not currently produce 4K content, one expert estimating it will take another two years before 4K content becomes mainstream.
However, even if it takes longer to develop the new Blu-ray standard, the adoption of 4K will be much faster than HDTV. A big issue however with 4K broadcasts though is the bandwidth required to to stream 4K content.
Hollywood has traditionally been reluctant to offer downloads however the organisation DECE, with 85 members including Lionsgate, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros. and Universal, would already be busy preparing for 4k. DECE is the organization behind UltraViolet, a Digital Rights Locker which allows users to view purchased movies on a wide variety of devices.
