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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

SONY 4K disc based player?

BTW where is RED in the delivery realm? Projector, Redray, downloads?
First 4k screen appearing here in consumer shops (Switzrerland). Sony all the way.

Pat
 
Is death before dishonor something a public company can embrace?

Is death before dishonor something a public company can embrace?

The short take is that Sony's TV division is in a tough spot financially and desperately needs a leverage point to differentiate their products. Like their competition they need some angle to accelerate display replacement cycles and, bonus, they have actual competence in UHD/4K. The fly in the ointment is that even though they may have the premier technology portfolio for UHD/4K (with the possible exception of RDC who is not currently a "player" in the consumer world) there is not, as yet, a functional distribution pipeline for UHD/4K content via broadband or physical media.

If Sony was in a better financial position, they could potentially keep polishing their UHD/4K devices so when distribution gets real, they could blow the doors off their competitors with clearly superior picture quality. Due to extreme pressure to extract revenue from their UHD/4K portfolio as soon as possible, they are taking shortcuts like the "mastered from 4K" Blu-Rays. Will this strategy bite them down the road when proper UHD/4K media hits the marketplace? Maybe. Though it could be argued that if the alternative is to get shut down in the near term due to red ink, the risk/reward ratio has to be evaluated on a different scale...

Or maybe they're just stinkin' liars...

Cheers - #19
 
They have tweaked h.264 to do 4K for broadcast use with the existing infrastructure and bandwidth, so I can see them applying that to Blu-Ray. However, I don't know of anything Sony is working on in that area beyond that they are certainly doing something with that tech.
 
I don't know any more than any body else here where it's a real or not but from a close look at the pictures it's clear that they are differently designed units. The front profiles are not the same along with other differences. I'm still bummed about the HD_DVD versus Blu-Ray blunder.

Larry
 
L. Langer said:
They have tweaked h.264 to do 4K for broadcast use with the existing infrastructure and bandwidth, so I can see them applying that to Blu-Ray. However, I don't know of anything Sony is working on in that area beyond that they are certainly doing something with that tech.
Click to expand...
Sony was heavily involved with the whole H.265 (HEVC) effort, and they also have the XAVC 4K workflow. Whether either will apply to consumer disc-based software is a good question. My gut feeling is that all the studios are getting away from physical media, and they're eventually going to provide very high-res downloads when the infrastructure is there. But will that take 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? It's gonna take a long time before average people can download a 100GB file in one day, especially given current bandwidth caps and other restrictions.
 
We do find ourselves at a problematic juncture in the trajectory of UHD content delivery modalities. Its hard to justify putting resources into developing physical media based infrastructure for UHD/4K that is highly likely to be irrelevant within 5 years or less. Perversely, accessing UHD/4K content at decent quality levels over the net is just not here yet for well over 90% of the potential audience (probably 99%). RedRay and ODEMAX is easily the best scheme I'm aware of, but AFAIK that's an audience of less 500 people with less than 100 hours of available content.

I do believe that widespread adoption of HEVC/H.265 will narrow the gap between typical bandwidth metrics (in the US anyway, where paying more for less is becoming our trademark) and the data rates necessary for decent UHD presentation considerably. Sadly, like a bridge that only goes 1/4 of the way to the other side, even if HEVC achieves its most optimistic metrics I'd estimate we will will need at least a ten fold increase in bandwidth to make IP delivery of UHD/4K viable using commodity infrastructure. Marc's question is a valid one, how many years before these kind of data rates are reasonably accessible?

If ODEMAX, RedRay and the .RED codec gain some traction RED just might have the first credible internet delivered UHD/4K infrastructure in the world. Whether the size of that universe ever reaches even the most liberal definition of mass market is another question.

Cheers - #19
 
AFAIK from reading about it, features encoded with .RED codec could be recorded on one or multi-layered Bluray disc (thats, obviously, depends on the level of compression). I don't know if Sony has something close to that in their sleeve, visually pristine 4K codec without an enormous bitrate hit... That's a strong one. Personally, I'm using VODs most of the time, I order BD only for the films I'd really like to have physically in my home collection.
 
Marc Wielage said:
Sony was heavily involved with the whole H.265 (HEVC) effort, and they also have the XAVC 4K workflow. Whether either will apply to consumer disc-based software is a good question. My gut feeling is that all the studios are getting away from physical media, and they're eventually going to provide very high-res downloads when the infrastructure is there. But will that take 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? It's gonna take a long time before average people can download a 100GB file in one day, especially given current bandwidth caps and other restrictions.
Click to expand...

XAVC is part of what I was talking about, but the compression tweaking comes from eyeIO's video encoder, which is what is used for Sony's 4K h.264 media files and other companies like Netflix have already licensed and begun implementing the tech for their streaming, broadcast, and video download services in 4K and lower resolutions. Pair that compression and the fact that it's 100% compatible with existing Blu-Ray player tech/hardware decoders and an implementation of multi-layer discs - which we already know the BDA has had worked out for quite a long time - that's compatible with existing hardware and you've got a successful recipe for 4K Blu-Ray. Though H.265 is sound, it's not ready to be at the forefront yet. It needs to cook at least another year or two and they have to get beyond the base implementation of the codec with things like 3D, which they haven't figured out yet. The big problem that h.264 had to deal with was slow adoption and optimization. It took a decade to get fully working GPU decoding on the computer side and it still hasn't become the standard for the cable/satellite industry which is still heavily invested in MPEG2.
 
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Vadim Bobkovsky said:
AFAIK from reading about it, features encoded with .RED codec could be recorded on one or multi-layered Bluray disc (thats, obviously, depends on the level of compression). I don't know if Sony has something close to that in their sleeve, visually pristine 4K codec without an enormous bitrate hit... That's a strong one. Personally, I'm using VODs most of the time, I order BD only for the films I'd really like to have physically in my home collection.
Click to expand...

They have demonstrated it on the broadcast side - and the stream is 100% h.264 legal as far as decoders go so it works with the existing infrastructure - of things so I'm certain they have it worked out on Blu-Ray, especially with multi-layer disc technology.
 
Sony has demonstrated 4K BluRay prototypes. Looking forward, it seems that there may indeed be a 4K disc format coming at some point, although I wouldn't expect anything until CES 2014 at the earliest and they will most likely be demoing new players with HDMI 2.0 and H.265 support, along with their updated TVs that also have HDMI 2.0.

PlayStation 4 will support the same 4K movie distribution that Sony is attempting with their stand-alone 4K media player. Rumors (or more like credible insider info) says that the 4K media player abilities will be rolled into forthcoming player products as prices drop and production can be scaled up. Current generation 4K media players from Sony are a bad investment as they are not scalable to H.265 and other abilities that Sony is working on. But this is typical Sony -- releasing new tech early in forms that will become obsolete relatively quickly. Although, I don't see a broad move to H.265 by Sony for at least a few years. Products shipping later next year or early 2015 will most likely support it, but they will predominantly use what Sony is setting up now in terms of distribution infrastructure and that is all H.264 based.

It's going to take some time for all this to play out. Boxee and Roku both have H.265 capable 4K players coming in 2014 (mid to late year) and Netflix will be setting up 4K delivery for streaming. Timing is still up in the air, but it seems that late 2014 is when they're all looking at launching this stuff. 4K thru Netflix is said to fit within their same 1080p delivery pipe and availability spectrum -- which they currently market as SuperHD and is only available to select customers on Verizon FIOS and one or two other small testbeds that can support the bandwidth. H.265 will allow them to push 4K through the same sized tube. I'm betting Netflix gets 4K launched by the end of 2014. It will be AT LEAST another 1 to 3 years before the majority of customers can partake, maybe even longer, for direct streaming of 4K. As a lot will be limited by a person's bandwidth from their ISP. Most ISPs can scale up bandwidth if the demand is there, but I think we're going to see another round of premium pricing on internet service for those who want streaming media packages.

REDRAY and ODEMAX get around the bandwidth limitations for the most part as they don't stream, it's all download-based. Same with iTunes. IMO, that is a more practical model. However, it requires local storage and more cost on the consumer hardware side of things. Although that's not necessarily a bad thing as it can alleviate many of the issues we encounter with streaming. And that comes back to the 4K disc format possibility. There is a lot to be said for being able to just drop a physical piece of media into a home player and watch something. I just hope the studios will someday get the hint that they need quick satisfaction for their legit paying customers and not a ton of previews, ads and copyright threats to sit through every time we put in a disc...
 
Mostly agree with Jeff's notes, with the exception of his forecast timeline for Sony to roll out H.265. Despite putting resources into UHD/4K via H.264, I think they will move to H.265 as soon as they can source enough chips. FWIW, I think they have been particularly vexed by the delays in both H.265 and HDMI 2.0 moving from spec to actual availability of parts from their vendors.

In theory .RED files could be written to optical disc as a carrier, with the bitstream fed into the RedRay over a USB cable using a reader capable of supporting that topology. RED has been more focused on the ability to use USB "thumb" drives as the data carrier, but presumably the RedRay hardware can decode a compliant .RED bitstream regardless of the media used as long as it can keep up.

BTW, does anyone know what the typical data rate is for UHD/4K using H.264 compression?

Cheers - #19
 
I don't know what it is using the eyeIO encode but I randomly pulled up 35Mbps from a 4K video encoder test. I recently linked to a 4K h.264 demo clip called Beauty of Taiwan that you can get a number off of. It's whatever works I suppose.
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
There isn't a "typical data rate is for UHD/4K using H.264". We have see stuff being displayed as low as 35Mbps and as high as 140Mbps.
Click to expand...

Mark, can you describe any differences you may have noted at various data rates? Have you done any testing with identical material encoded at various rates?

Cheers - #19
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
REDRAY and ODEMAX get around the bandwidth limitations for the most part as they don't stream, it's all download-based. Same with iTunes. IMO, that is a more practical model. However, it requires local storage and more cost on the consumer hardware side of things.
Click to expand...
I dunno. How long does it take to download 100GB for average people? Even if you have a fairly fast 25Mbps internet connection, that's going to take at least 8 hours to download... and that doesn't take into account bandwidth caps, dropped packets, and other people using the connection simultaneously.

L. Langer said:
It took a decade to get fully working GPU decoding on the computer side and it still hasn't become the standard for the cable/satellite industry which is still heavily invested in MPEG2.
Click to expand...
Small correction: DirecTV's HD channels are all MPEG-4, last time I checked:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirecTV#2004_to_the_present
 
Marc Wielage said:
I dunno. How long does it take to download 100GB for average people? Even if you have a fairly fast 25Mbps internet connection, that's going to take at least 8 hours to download... and that doesn't take into account bandwidth caps, dropped packets, and other people using the connection simultaneously.
Click to expand...

Who said anything about 100GB? Highest level of .RED encoding is 36Mbps, most everything looks fine at 18Mbps, we can also do 9Mbps. At the highest level .RED quality, a 90-minute feature fits in less than 24GB, or on a single layer BluRay. Within 18Mbps, it's obviously half that. It also fits well inside the 19.2Mbps allocation used for ATSC HD modes and most cable and satellite provider HD windows. And yes, you're correct, DirecTV's HD are all MPEG-4 now and so are most of the larger cable providers. If RED could find a way to attractively license .RED and crank out affordable chipsets, we could be seeing 4K wherever we currently see 1080HD without increasing bandwidth. OTOH, H.265 is completely open and promises much of the same in the way of resolution in the same bandwidth. H.265 does fall short for color depth, color space and some of the other more technical factors.

To put it in relation to iTunes distribution now, people don't seem to have an issue downloading HD movies there. 18Mbps REDRAY downloads are about 3.5X the size of iTunes HD downloads. So yes, it is a factor, but not one I see as a deal breaker, especially since it's about 10X the potential quality. The "gotta watch it now" crowd already doesn't like iTunes. For that, there's NetFlix or RedBox or Amazon or...
 
we really need to have a decent internet connection before we worry about 4k content. right now you can not get a good 1080 picture from any traditional cable , satellite or streaming source. Until fiber is everywhere the only way to get a quality real time picture will be physical media of some sort.
 
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