We had a chance to meet with the Blu-ray Disc Association at CES and get an update. This update was mostly about the status of the roll out in terms of players and titles. According to Victor Matsuda, chair of the Blu-ray Disc Association’s global promotions committee, “The launch of the Ultra HD Blu-ray format last year was successful beyond expectations, with consumers buying discs faster than they did when the original format was introduced a decade ago.” Specifically, the BDA said that 2 million discs have been sold so far, which is three times higher than the 1080 Blu-ray launch. And, in specialty AV centers, 60% of the UHD TV buyers get an Ultra HD Blu-ray player at the same time.
According to the BDA, 110 Ultra High-Def titles were released in 2016, 250 more are expected in 2017. Major studios committing the Ultra HD Blu-ray include Lions Gate, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Universal Studios and Sony Pictures.
In terms of players, roughly 300,000 standalone UHD Blu-ray players were sold in 2016, and now, with seven device manufacturers (LG, Microsoft, Oppo, Panasonic, Philips-Funai, Samsung and Sony) that number is ‘set to explode’ in 2017. Microsoft’s xBox can also play the format opening up another huge playback opportunity. With 2 million discs sold so far, that represents an impressive 6:1 disc/player attach rate.
Working with DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group, the BDA unveiled at CES a new suite of informational tools to highlight and demonstrate the benefits of UHD TVs and programming, including a new brochure with simple explanations of UHD benefits, as well as a new “sizzle reel” (produced in 4K and HDR) that features studio home entertainment presidents relaying the benefits of the format. All this is expected to reach retailers in Q1 2017.
Ultra HD Blu-ray remains the highest quality playback mechanism because of it high data rates that can approach 100 Mbps. Netflix recommends 25 Mbps, but most subscribers never see that. In fact, less than 15% of households can say they have bandwidth of more than 25 Mbps. FiOS may be the worst provider on average only supplying 4K content at 3.6 Mbps, the BDA told us. – CC
