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PS4 Pro Won't Support 4k BluRay

Are you saying that streaming 4k will give me a better picture quality than s UHD disc? It will give me the best my tv has to offer?

Well a console won't either. If you want the best, get a actual player.

Price point affects the majority of possible consumers. It's in the math.

The math says price point is more important than UHD blu ray.

Math also says decline in physical movies.

For everyone that's baffled over the decision, I am baffled at the baffling lol.
 

EvB

Member
I'm not Sony but I doubt it. They just wrote off 1 billion in their home entertainment dept due to sliding sales of home media. I just don't see it so soon. Probably don't want to aggravate early buyers as well. Andrew House was pretty straight up he even said they don't plan on patching 4K even if they could. Business decision I don't know but it is what it is.

4K Blu Ray has kinda arrived at an odd time for them, it literally became available to consumers last year at the same time the pro was due.

DVD had been available for 3 years by the time PS2 arrived.
Sony haven't even released their standalone enthusiast level UHD players yet
 
I'm not Sony but I doubt it. They just wrote off 1 billion in their home entertainment dept due to sliding sales of home media. I just don't see it so soon. Probably don't want to aggravate early buyers as well. Andrew House was pretty straight up he even said they don't plan on patching 4K even if they could. Business decision I don't know but it is what it is.

What are you talking about ?

billion dollars was a non-cash goodwill impairment charge
 

Madness

Member
Lol at people saying it is the market. Sony is heavily invested in UHD and HDR. It is why they have just released their first standalone this year. They have ads out promoting their UHD offerings, it is mind boggling to me that in order to watch a Sony pictures movie, on a Sony developed 4K UHD disc, on my Sony 4K X800D television that has a Pro hooked up, I have to use a Microsoft Xbox One S console.

Sony was just caught flatfooted and how you people don't see what a waste it was for Sony. The PS4 Pro will sell better in the long run than the Scorpio I think. That is potentially millions of 4k UHD owners they have lost. They won thr format war by having blu-ray in their consoles when hardly anyone had any blu-rays and people were saying Microsoft were smart to not have HD-DVD built in and what happened. Yes 4K streaming is inevitably the future. But I am almost certain for the next 5 years, no streaming or 4K service will come close to the quality of 4K and HDR you can get from a disc. The 4K content available right now is original Netflix shows, some Amazon video shows. The only place you can see things like The Revenant, Mad Max Fury Road, Arrival is with the disc whoch has HDR etc.

The Xbox One S has seen more sales solely as a UHD blu-ray player because of this as well. You can get it for under $200 and it will always be upgraded for the next few years with more title support, features and o/s updates etc. The quality between the Xbox one S, Samsung or Phillips standalones was negligible.
 

Nipo

Member
Which players?

Top of the line UHD right now is the Oppo 203. The difference between it and the Xbox One S are things that aren't going to matter too much to you unless you have Dolby Vision and atmos set ups.

The fact the Oppo doesn't have any streaming services actually necessitates a second set top box for a lot of people.
 
That's not true.

And also, the difference between players is tiny compared to the huge gulf in quality that exists before you get down to the level of streaming.

It's not true but you say there is a difference?

It was left out because the number of consumers who buy physical media for movies is on the decline. That's DVD and blu ray. And the market for UHD blu ray is tiny and it isn't going to be anything big anytime soon.

High majority of consumers will not use it. Why would they add it?
 

anothertech

Member
I just bought several UHD discs for the Xbox that I bought just for the 4K player, and they look great. Great Gatsby in 4K/HDR is pretty epic. Streaming always has concessions in picture quality/motion/bitrate/etc.

A streaming 4K movie doesn't feel as 'luxurious' as UHD blu ray. It just doesn't. The bitrate isn't there.
Oh I get that. But that market will soon be for collectors and videophiles on a much smaller scale.

Seen a blockbuster around lately? Or a local DVD rental place? Redbox is even going out soon.

It's just a numbers thing. Optical media will go the way of VHS in a few short years.

I honestly believe optical media will be replaced by bigger HDD in the upcoming gen consoles.
 

Hermii

Member
Well a console won't either. If you want the best, get a actual player.

Price point affects the majority of possible consumers. It's in the math.

The math says price point is more important than UHD blu ray.

Math also says decline in physical movies.

For everyone that's baffled over the decision, I am baffled at the baffling lol.
I mean this is a product especially made for people who care more than average about image quality/ graphics and thus are less likely to be satisfied with the iq/ sound quality compromises that streaming offers. You can't apply general population statistics to the enthusiasts target audience of the pro.
 

AmyS

Member
It's still baffling to me that Xbox One S ended up with an Ultra HD Blu-ray player, and PS4 Pro did not.

I have both now, but still, baffling and somewhat irritating.

Edit:

4kTuY08.jpg
 

Conduit

Banned
You mean the post where he says, "None of these issues are huge, and frankly the majority of film-watchers wouldn't notice or care.?" lol

And what about last sentence, hm? You missed that? Majority won't care, surely. And he is right about that. But moviephiles and tech guys would care.
 

c0de

Member
And what about last sentence, hm? You missed that? Majority won't care, surely. But moviephiles and tech guys would care.

These people bought and buy hardware more expensive since years, though.
Even today, you can buy bluray players costing several hundred dollars for tv's and setups costing several thousand dollars.
 
I mean this is a product especially made for people who care more than average about image quality/ graphics and thus are less likely to be satisfied with the iq/ sound quality compromises that streaming offers. You can't apply general population statistics to the enthusiasts target audience of the pro.

Yes you can. Because the people who buy consoles aren't hardcore enthusiasts. Console gamers or PC gamers. Majority of those consumers aren't in the enthusiasts group.

They didn't add in a feature that would not benefit the consumer. High majority of consumers purchasing wouldn't use it.
 

AmyS

Member
Optical media is dead. Digital distribution and streaming is all that matters now, Sony, the owners of blue ray, know this.

Games on physical discs aren't going away anytime soon. Certainly not with the next generation of consoles (PS5, Xbox Next, assuming they happen, and most think they will).
The fact remains that the internet infrastructure in NA isn't nearly robust enough to support an all-digital download future, much less streaming from the cloud, without leaving a massive amount of people who buy games behind.

If we're only talking movies though, then that's a good point.
 

Dynomutt

Member
What are you talking about ?

billion dollars was a non-cash goodwill impairment charge

I'm not a sales specialist but this article implies that or at least the editor clarifies it.

Editor’s Remarks: The charge denotes a write-down on the goodwill value of its home entertainment operations. This means the value of intangible assets like its brand name, customer relations, and so on have gone down on Sony’s books, perhaps as a result of the company cutting its outlook for DVD and blu-ray profits. How hard the hit falls on its earnings outlook for this financial year will become clearer when its Q3 earnings get released on Thursday.

http://themarketmogul.com/sonys-billion-dollar-write-off/
 

timberger

Member
It's not a tiny difference in this post. :

http://67.227.255.239/forum/showpost.php?p=227304987&postcount=4881

Way better picture on Oppo. According to him Xbone S 4k PQ is even worse than on cheaper Samsung player.

Xbox 4K playback has judder and black crush? Christ... I knew it wasn't great but I didn't think it was gonna be that bad. Then again, the regular Blu-Ray playback on my Xbox One is kinda trash even compared to my PS3 (Which is still my primary BR player, bizarrely) so I shouldn't be too shocked.

Standalone players really are the way to go if you actually care about these things it appears.

If we're only talking movies though, then that's a good point.

Pretty sure he was talking about movies, yeah.
 

Madness

Member
These people bought and buy hardware more expensive since years, though.
Even today, you can buy bluray players costing several hundred dollars for tv's and setups costing several thousand dollars.

Those are the same people who stated not to buy a PS3 as a dedicated blu-ray player because of quality differences when in the long run, the PS3 was the only one upgraded to BD 2.0 and other specs while they got left out.

Using a random post by AV Enthusiasts to show why gamers on a gaming forum shouldn't buy a cheap gaming console that gives them full 4K UHD and HDR support is just too much for me. The fact that people like Musky Cheese almost seem happy and giddy that Sony blessed him with the ability to only see 4K streaming is just crazy.

The Xbox One S will also be the only one of these standalone players that will actually be updated and improved going forward. Count on it.

“The attachment rate of content to players (which at its peak was 8 to 1) is significantly higher for Ultra HD Blu-ray than it was for regular Blu-ray,” Schinasi said. “The sales performance so far has exceeded a lot of the studios’ expectations.”

“Sony Pictures is very happy with the Ultra HD Blu-ray performance so far. It’s succeeded their expectations,” said Don Eklund, Sony Corp. new format promotion senior VP.

This was from last November. Now imagine by the end of this year, with Scorpio launch, how many people will have 4K sets this black friday. And yet not be able to use their PS4 Pro for UHD playback.
 

Sanctuary

Member
Yes 4K streaming is inevitably the future. But I am almost certain for the next 5 years, no streaming or 4K service will come close to the quality of 4K and HDR you can get from a disc. The 4K content available right now is original Netflix shows, some Amazon video shows. The only place you can see things like The Revenant, Mad Max Fury Road, Arrival is with the disc whoch has HDR etc.

Saying "4K streaming is inevitably the future" is like saying 420p, DVD quality is the future". Sure, it happened eventually, but it still never came close to actual DVD quality until much later when it no longer really mattered anymore. You kind of said the same thing above anyway.

The bottom line isn't about which is actually the best either, since the majority of consumers couldn't actually care any less. Convenience sells more than quality as long as the object in question is at least reasonably good in comparison. The biggest benefit from UHD aside from HDR and the WCG anyway is the audio, not video, and having an Atmos setup is even more niche than caring about physical discs now.

FWIW, I'm all in with UHD and an Atmos setup, but I don't have any illusions about being an average consumer.

Top of the line UHD right now is the Oppo 203. The difference between it and the Xbox One S are things that aren't going to matter too much to you unless you have Dolby Vision and atmos set ups.

The fact the Oppo doesn't have any streaming services actually necessitates a second set top box for a lot of people.

That's odd. Someone buying an Oppo player is most likely going to have a TV that cost more than $600 no? If so, don't the majority of them already come with Netflix/Hulu/Prime capability anyway? Also, the Xbox One S doesn't handle HDR correctly right now with movies. The biggest difference with UHD isn't the resolution anyway. Unless you have an 80'' or larger screen at an average viewing distance, or you're sitting three feet away from a 55'', you won't really notice the bump too much, aside from certain scenes where the 1080p version may have had a lousy transfer where some details didn't even show up at 1080p. If resolution isn't a factor, you have HDR/WCG and audio. The Xbox One S already fails with the audio above DTS-MA (which Blu-ray already does) and it doesn't handle HDR accurately. It's in every way a bargain basement UHD player. Totally worth the price I guess, but you get what you pay for in this case. Until they decide to finally update it, but they probably won't and will just fix everything with the Scorpio instead.
 
Those are the same people who stated not to buy a PS3 as a dedicated blu-ray player because of quality differences when in the long run, the PS3 was the only one upgraded to BD 2.0 and other specs while they got left out.

Using a random post by AV Enthusiasts to show why gamers on a gaming forum shouldn't buy a cheap gaming console that gives them full 4K UHD and HDR support is just too much for me. The fact that people like Musky Cheese almost seem happy and giddy that Sony blessed him with the ability to only see 4K streaming is just crazy.

The Xbox One S will also be the only one of these standalone players that will actually be updated and improved going forward. Count on it.



This was from last November. Now imagine by the end of this year, with Scorpio launch, how many people will have 4K sets this black friday. And yet not be able to use their PS4 Pro for UHD playback.

Never said I was happy or cared one why or the other. Just that it isn't a format that the majority of consumers care about. They would rather stream content.

Physical media for movies is on a decline.

There is no giddy in that. Just data that says it.

Majority of consumers care about price point over UHD blu ray.

No giddy added
 
I have a 10GB per month bandwidth cap on my home ISP. :D

4K streaming? Shit, 480P streaming is out of the question.

PS4 Pro needed UHD-BluRay support for me to have bought it. So I got a PS4 Slim instead. The decision was easy.
 

Fess

Member
Wait, you're telling me the TV in the store was poorly calibrated? No way, they always look great in the stores!
I know about calibration but I just thought 4K resolution would be more impressive than it was. I wasn't wowed in any way more than I had already been when seeing Horizon at home.
 
It's still baffling to me that Xbox One S ended up with an Ultra HD Blu-ray player, and PS4 Pro did not.

I have both now, but still, baffling and somewhat irritating.

Edit:

divergent?
the worst buy on that picture. the rest is between solid and great :p
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Thread bump is a great reminder that planet earth 2 4k hdr bluray is out in a couple of weeks.

That's gonna be the best reason to have a 4k player imo. That and mad max.
 
This really doesn't bother me but I can see why some collectors would be upset. As soon as streaming options with 1080p quality became available I was fine with that. I think I only rented like 2 Blu Ray dvds to test it out when PS3 first launched. I can also see why Sony decided not to spend the money on adding a 4K Blu Ray player when 4K stream content is on a rise. I am apart of the all digital crowd. When I worked at Walmart they started giving away Blu Ray Dvds to emoloyees with prize give aways because they barely sold.
 
In not sure the point you're trying to make.

Sony had a price point and a margin target they wanted to hit. Adding the drive would have effected one or the other.

Would more Pro's been sold at $400 or $425-450?

I'm not trying to insult anyone here. But the why in this thread is obvious and not hard to figure out.

They would sell less Pro's at a higher price point with the drive. Or they would have to make less or nothing with the drive at $399.99.

And since physical media for movies is in a decline...

It's not an argument that UHD blu ray is better than streaming. It is better. But consumer will not choose it. Streaming is the more popular choice
 

Sanctuary

Member
In not sure the point you're trying to make.

Sony had a price point and a margin target they wanted to hit. Adding the drive would have effected one or the other.

Would more Pro's been sold at $400 or $425-450?

I'm not trying to insult anyone here. But the why in this thread is obvious and not hard to figure out.

They would sell less Pro's at a higher price point with the drive. Or they would have to make less or nothing with the drive at $399.99.

And since physical media for movies is in a decline...

It's not an argument that UHD blu ray is better than streaming. It is better. But consumer will not choose it. Streaming is the more popular choice

The argument is that "because physical media is on the decline, and Sony is smart, they opted to not bother with it". Which is only partially accurate. The format is actually newer compared to the consoles than what DVD and Blu-ray were when Sony released the PS2 and PS3. They already had standalone players out prior to those systems. The systems just popularized the formats further. To claim that Sony is opting out of the format in general is just nonsense, since they were the ones pushing 4K TVs the hardest to begin with and also developed UHD.

As of right now too, I'm actually of the opinion that them not adding UHD support to the Pro was both good and bad. It was actually good if you care about having a good UHD player at this stage for the price. The Xbone S player is actually pretty terrible compared to any of the standalone players (which even then are all not equally good looking). It's great if all you want is a player that can play UHDs and kind of represent HDR in movies, but if you primarily bought the system to have an inexpensive UHD player first, you actually didn't get a good deal.
 

Madness

Member
The argument is that "because physical media is on the decline, and Sony is smart, they opted to not bother with it". Which is only partially accurate. The format is actually newer compared to the consoles than what DVD and Blu-ray were when Sony released the PS2 and PS3. They already had standalone players out prior to those systems. The systems just popularized the formats further. To claim that Sony is opting out of the format in general is just nonsense, since they were the ones pushing 4K TVs the hardest to begin with and also developed UHD.

As of right now too, I'm actually of the opinion that them not adding UHD support to the Pro was both good and bad. It was actually good if you care about having a good UHD player at this stage for the price. The Xbone S player is actually pretty terrible compared to any of the standalone players (which even then are all not equally good looking). It's great if all you want is a player that can play UHDs and kind of represent HDR in movies, but if you primarily bought the system to have an inexpensive UHD player first, you actually didn't get a good deal.

Lol, what is this? Yeah it isn't a reference quality $1000 piece of hardware but the picture quality is phenomenal, as is the HDR that you see. What kind of facts are you basing your comments on? What you've actually seen or tested or your own feelings. All I've found is some anecdotal posts by some owners indicating marginal differences between this and the standalone panasonic player or Samsung one from last year. Once it updates to get Atmos Bitstream and whatnot, you will find it is quite capable for under $200 to watch UHD Discs.
 

Boss Man

Member
Yes, it's irrelevant. In console gaming UHD is irrelevant. That's a fact. I wouldn't buy a console and 4K TV for watching movies. I would buy it for gaming.
UHD refers to Ultra High Definition. It's not what you think you're referring to. Most people who buy 4K TVs are not buying them for video games. Your personal, weird preferences do not define what is and isn't relevant.

It's very disappointing that the PS4 Pro did not have a UHD Blu-ray drive.
 
As of right now too, I'm actually of the opinion that them not adding UHD support to the Pro was both good and bad. It was actually good if you care about having a good UHD player at this stage for the price.
What was the consensus figure for the extra build cost of adding a UHD Blu-ray drive to the Pro; was it about $25? I'd be happy to pay $25 for a UHD Blu-ray player; that's a pretty mind-blowing deal when you think about it.

As to quality, how much of the final picture quality is down to hardware, and how much is down to software? I'm not really very familiar with this sort of picture processing, but do the high end players feature dedicated hardware that's intrinsically superior to the hardware found in the Pro, or is it just a matter of the right software being written to take advantage of the hardware? If it's the latter then there was the very realistic prospect that quality of playback could be improved over time, something that other standalone players wouldn't have been able to offer to the same extent.
 
Streaming is killing it, I don't know anybody that buys movies on disk anymore.
There is always a hard core collectors crowd on forums like GAF and Reddit. Yes of course physical Blu Ray quality is better then stream quality but nobody is buying these Blu Ray Dvds. Go look at your local Walmart or Best Buys movies section and you will see they barely move off the shelves. I worked in retail for years and often browsed the electronics and games section while talking to coworkers in the electronics section. We talk about how awesome Blu Ray quality is but nobody is buying them.
 

Madness

Member
Streaming is killing it, I don't know anybody that buys movies on disk anymore.

What fucking streaming options for 4K and HDR out there are killing it right now? Please tell me where I can see over 100+ 4K movies and HDR titles? Otherwise all I see is shit like Santa Clarita Diet in HDR, Netflix or Amazon original video content or some tech demos on youtube that actually stream you 4K and HDR. Otherwise you have few to no other options to see 4K and HDR content at all.
 
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