TAIPEI, Taiwan － At last 4K televisions have a true purpose. The world’s first 4K Ultra HD(UHD) Blu-ray Disc player, the Panasonic DMR-UBZ1, will be launched on November 13. This signifies the true arrival of the Ultra HD movie generation, and it will bring about new growth in the consumer electronics industry.
Better late than never, after 4K televisions were presented to the world four years ago, a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format has been finally put in place. Thanks to the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), UHD specifications were finalized in the summer. The new format uses the HEVC/H.265 encoding format, and 3840x216 resolution along with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and High Frame Rate (60fps) support.
Furthermore, the color resolution has been increased from 8bit to 10bit, and the disc capacity is 33GB (single sided single layer)/66GB (single sided double layer)/100GB (single sided triple layer).
In addition to giving the full functionality of 4K televisions, this UHD specification also gives new meaning to other hardware specifications, such as HDMI 2.0, USB 3.0, 5G Wi-Fi (802.11 ac), high performance graphics processors, and high-capacity hard disks Driver.
The new standards require extremely large transmission bandwidth and storage capacity for smooth movie playback, and they also require corresponding processors, memory, and other related components. This will undoubtedly give a big boost to the electronics industry, which is currently in a dark phase,
It is anticipated that next year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) there will be more 4K UHD players, and 4K UHD movies will grow significantly. Currently, in addition to Panasonic, Samsung already unveiled its first Ultra HD Blu-ray player at IFA 2015.
Now that the UHD standard is fixed and in place, the mainstream status of 4K televisions is more clear, and FHD generation is going to end. In addition, the 4K UHD player, video recorder, memory card, cable, and converter market will experience a new replacement boom, which will be a good business opportunity for brand name companies.
(TR/Phil Sweeney)
