4K – Quality over Content?

Disc Formats and Mediums

Space. That is the real advancement in disc technology we need.

Sony and panasonic have both announced that they are working on discs that can hold up to 300GB of data although these have not been confirmed as a new consumer disc format. However, the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) have recently announced that the next generation Blu-ray discs are being worked on by the likes of Sony, Disney and Dolby which will likely become the medium for 4K video.  This disc is rumoured to have up to twice the capacity of traditional Blu-ray discs but professionals seem confident that they can fit a 4K video in to this amount of space comfortably. This is a big win as the possibility of backwards compatibility arises. There will hopefully be no format war and a simple firmware upgrade may be the answer to getting 4K in your home.

Even with quick internet speeds it seems the humble disc may still be the simplest and easiest way to watch 4K content.

Should you buy into 4K UHD

The technology is there and the price has come down tremendously over the past year. With broadcast still so far behind and even content only just rearing its head it seems an Ultra High Definition TV may be left under-utilised until other areas of the industry have caught up.

The benefits of a UHD screen are clear to see for people who have an 80 inch screen, they can sit closer than before with greater detail in the display but for some people this seems a very small upgrade for the money.

For people with smaller screens 4K is still a viable option, especially if you are upgrading from an old Tv, perhaps even from a pre HD screen.

A 4K UHDTV will make sure you are future ready in terms of resolution and will even give your current films a nice picture upgrade enabling 1080p content to be viewed like never before.