Should you buy a 4K/Ultra HD Blu-Ray Disc player? (incl. price, compatibility)
Samsung's just released the first 4K/Ultra HD Blu-Ray Disc Player. But there's four things you need to know about the format before spending your hard-earned cash. This video will answer and explain your questions - what is HDCP 2.2? Will I be able to tell the difference between 4K and 1080p? What's the price of the players and discs - are they too expensive? And, most importantly, is 4K Blu-Ray worth it?
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My notes on each tip:
1. Can you really notice the difference? Even if you do have a 4K TV, then you might not need 4K Blu-Ray. It all depends on the size of your TV and how far away you sit from it. Most people sit about 9 feet away from their TV.
According to this viewing chart (http://i.rtings.com/images/optimal-vi..., even if you have a 40" TV and you view it from a distance of 6 feet away, then you still won't see the full benefit of 4K. At 9 feet away, you'd need a size of more than 60 inches to justify it over 1080p.
Sure, 4K BD has other advantages, like High Dynamic Range (HDR) images and 60Hz refresh rates, but the most important aspect - its resolution - may well be lost on you.
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2. This one's for early adopters - currently, there's a limited range of discs and they're quite pricey. All (or most) of the discs seem to be going for $30 at the moment - the 4K version of Ridley Scott's film The Martian costs $30.00 on Amazon, which is significantly more than the Blu-Ray and the DVD, both of which go for $15.
But the sole player on the market - Samsung's UBD-K8500/ZA - has a very reasonable price point of just US$400! Gone are the days of first-gen disc spinners costing US$1000+.
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3. You need to have a TV and receiver that supports HDCP 2.2.
HDCP stands for High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection, and its purpose is to encrypt a link between source (BDP) and destination (TV).
For 4K content to run, it needs a receiving device that supports the HDCP 2.2 protocol. The protocol was released back in February 2013 (for HDMI), but unfortunately, devices that lacked support for it continued to be sold for many months after this date. This means that, if you've got an older AV receiver or TV, then it won't work with 4K content and you'll need to replace it. You're out of luck with the first generation of 4K TVs, which were released back in early 2013.
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4. Would you be just as happy with streaming 4K? Several services, including Netflix, have 4K streams, but the bitrate is 15.6Mbit/s. This means that, in fast action scenes, the picture might be subject to compression artefacts. And let's not forget about buffering.
In contrast, the minimum data rate for Ultra HD Blu-Ray is 82Mbit/s on the 50GB discs, going up to 128Mbit/s on the 100GB discs. These are data rates that will be incredibly difficult to deliver on the vast majority of broadband connections, with the country that has the fastest average internet speed in the world - South Korea - averaging just 33.5Mbit/s.
In Australia, where I live, most homes only have ADSL2+, which gives a theoretical max of 24Mbit/s, but it's MUCH slower in practice. For example, the highest download speeds I've registered on my connection hover around 8 or 9 Mbit/s - and that's on a good day. Good luck streaming 4K over that!
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Music credit: "Walk With Me" by Silent Partner, from the YouTube Audio Library.
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