Note also how no low-cost Chinese brands have entered the market like they did with DVD and to a lesser extent with BD players. There have been no new entrants after Pioneer. Two major brands in the video disc player market, Samsung and Oppo, have exited the business last year, and LG hasn’t renewed its modest line-up of players since CES 2018. It’s not going to return optical discs to a growth market and 8K even less so. We are lucky that we got the format in the first place. 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray is not going to become a mass-market product but remain niche. The product category is in decline since years. No company is going to invest in a next-gen optical disc format and associated player hardware. The outlook for optical discsBy the time these two things change, it’s probably too late for an 8K disc format. That means the only sources of 8K content in the short term are going to be powerful gaming PCs, next-gen games consoles (PS5 and the next Xbox) and consumer cameras, including high-end smartphones. Gradually, movies finished in 4K are becoming less exceptional but they’re not the norm yet and at the time of writing no Hollywood movie has been done in 8K yet. graphics, also referred to as VFX or visual effects) are typically rendered in 2K (a resolution comparable to 1080p HD), because of a combination of time constraints and cost savings. Even movies that are shot at higher resolutions (2.8K, 3.4K, 4K, 6K, 8K) typically get a 2K DI (Digital Intermediate – the main deliverable of the Post Production process, from which all theatrical and home video distribution media are derived) as CGI (computer-generated imagery i.e. There is barely even any real 4K content and Hollywood is not in much of a rush to start producing it.

Secondly, there is no 8K movie or TV content, and there isn’t going to be any any time soon. Of course, you may say this situation is not unlike that of 4K about 6 years earlier, and yet we got the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc format, but some circumstances are different. It’ll be a few years before there is a decent installed base of them. Even in Japan, where the Tokyo Olympics will be shot and broadcast in 8K, the penetration will be just 0.1%. IHS Markit pegs the household penetration for 2020 at well below 1%. That’s not likely to happen, for a couple of reasons.įirst of all, almost nobody has 8K TVs yet. With the TV market slowly but gradually shifting from 4K to 8K, some are suggesting Ultra HD Blu-ray discs and players should follow suit.

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