06-01-2017, 09:24 PM
http://4k.com/news/4k-uhd-blu-ray-discs-...017-19884/
Quote:The 4K ultra HD Blu-ray disc format has become rather robustly and to some even surprisingly popular since its first introduction on the consumer market near the beginning of 2016. Buoyed in part by rapidly growing adoption of 4K televisions and growth in associated technologies like HDR, the still rather limited selection of 4K disc titles on sale today is selling briskly with predictions by the firm Futuresource Consulting that a total of 8.4 million units will be sold in 2017.
This of course represents only 4% of all Blu-ray disc sales worldwide and is a far cry from the sales figures for both HD Blu-ray and DVD disc formats at their peak but considering the still very limited number of titles available for the 4K HDR BD format, sales of this many units are quite robust indeed. For many consumers who own 4K TVs in areas without high-speed internet access, the medium is one of the few possible means of watching full-blown 4K movies with HDR integration without connectivity problems.
So far, approximately 110 Ultra HD Blu-ray titles exist on the market with releases of them shared among a small handful of studios that include 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony and Warner Brothers. However, the Digital Entertainment Group is predicting that at least 250 titles will be available for purchase by consumers worldwide by the end of this year. Furthermore, since the 4K UHD Blu-ray format isn’t regionally locked in any way like HD Blu-ray is, buyers of discs anywhere can watch their movies from any 4K Blu-ray media player and 4K TV sold in the world as long as both have the correct HDMI connectivity and compression codec support standards (HDMI 2.0 and HEVC version H.265).
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The DEG also pointed to a very interesting trend for 4K Blu-ray adoption which sets the pace for this new content medium’s near future prospects: Specifically, that first-year sales data for 4K Blu-rays showed consumers embracing the format at a notably faster pace than was the case when HD Blu-rays and HD DVDs first came out several years ago.