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Samsung jumps into Ultra HD Blu-ray, as Fox provides the movies
Today Samsung is the first company to announce an Ultra HD Blu-ray player, taking the lead in 4K and HDR video. Following up on its big Ultra HD push at CES and the movie-streaming/download tech that has arrived in the months since, Samsung is ready to push super-high-resolution movies (four times the resolution of Blu-ray, and 64 times as many colors) on discs too. There's not much detail available on its new player, although we expect it will cost less than the $1,000 price its first Blu-ray player commanded nearly a decade ago and it should launch early next year. Joining the tech company on its IFA 2015 stage are Fox execs, with President Mike Dunn proclaiming the studio is committed to releasing its slate of upcoming movies in Ultra HD with HDR day-and-date with the Blu-ray and Digital HD releases. That includes Fantastic Four, Maze Runner, Kingsman: The Secret Service and more.
Acer's Nitro notebooks put gaming power into a regular case
Acer has revealed its latest Aspire V Nitro notebooks that are aimed at gamers -- without looking like gaming laptops. Dressed in basic-black, tapered cases, the 15- and 17-inch models still bring the latest Intel Skylake sixth-gen Core i7 and i5 mobile chips and NVIDIA GTX960M graphics with up to 4GB of RAM. You also get up to 512GB of M.4 SSD storage (2TB if you opt for hard disks), 32GB max of DDR4 RAM, USB 3.1 Type-C ports and 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 on the top-end "Black Edition" models. All models can also be had with up to 4K screens.
LG's non-curved 4K OLED TVs are finally here
LG is finally ready to sell the OLED 4K TVs it revealed in January, including the first ever flat models. The Korean company has invested huge sums in OLED tech, believing that consumers will be drawn in by the improved black levels, better off-axis viewing angles and more saturated colors. We're pleasantly surprised to learn that the two flat UltraHD models (in 65- and 55-inch sizes) also have HDR capability with improved color range -- provided you have content that supports it. If you're more into curved 4K OLEDs, there's a new 55-inch model, bringing the total number of LG OLED 4K TVs to nine.
DirecTV's first 4K set-top box works with any screen
DirecTV only kinda-sorta launched 4K programming last year. You had to own both a specific DVR and a compatible Samsung TV to watch those extra-crispy documentaries and movies, which left many 4K TV owners 'stuck' with 1080p. It's going to be a lot easier after today, though -- the newly AT&T-owned provider has trotted out its first 4K set-top box, the 4K Genie Mini. The tiny device (roughly the size of a paperback) will deliver 4K to any set that can handle the higher resolution, not just DirecTV 4K Ready models. It'll handle Dolby Digital Plus audio, too, if you happen to have an eligible surround sound setup. This is still a long, long way from watching regular TV in 4K, but it should give you more to watch on that super-sharp display than the occasional Amazon or Netflix show.
Ultra HD Blu-ray will have 4K discs here in time for the holidays
After locking down a name, logo and spec, the Blu-ray Disc Association has announced it's just about ready to start licensing the Ultra HD Blu-ray technology. The group anticipates we'll hear about products for the 2015 holiday season (and naturally is revealing this right after Western Digital's 4K movie ready hard drive appeared). Coming around just about nine years after the first Blu-ray players arrived, this upgrade is about more than just high-res 4K (3,840 x 2,160) video -- it also includes support for high dynamic range (HDR), high framerate (HFR) and a "digital bridge" feature that should give viewers more ways to store and play their movies, even while keeping the disc on the shelf.
1TB My Passport Cinema drive puts 4K Ultra HD movies in your pocket
New super high-res televisions are already here, but with Ultra HD Blu-ray still yet to debut, the best available way to get 4K video on that screen is with streaming and, now, downloading. Western Digital has a Vidity hard drive ready that is ready for storing Hollywood's movies in the highest quality available, and playing them back on compatible screens. Right now the list of compatible devices is limited to Samsung's UHD TVs (2014 or 2015) with the M-Go app, and Fox is the first studio out of the gate with compatible movies. WD's $90 1TB, USB 3.0-connected My Passport Cinema drive meets the spec, is being packed in free with new Samsung TVs, and comes preloaded with The Maze Runner, Exodus: Gods and Kings, X-Men: Days of the Future Past, The Wolverine, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Fault in Our Stars, Let's Be Cops and The Other Woman -- two of them are free off the bat.
BT's new 4K sports channel will cost £15 a month
As promised, BT is bringing the first 4K live sports channel to UK TV screens next month, and it's finally let us in on how much it's going to cost. BT Sport Ultra HD will begin broadcasting August 2nd, kicking off proceedings with an FA Community Shield footy match between Arsenal and Chelsea. There are only a couple of other events throughout August -- three Premier Leagues clashes and the Silverstone MotoGP -- that'll be available in 4K, but plenty more football, rugby and racing will be shown on the channel during their respective seasons. But how much is watching penalty box divers in unparalleled detail going to cost you? Well, BT's introducing a whole new tier to its TV offerings to accommodate the new channel. The "Entertainment Ultra HD" package includes the BT Sport Pack, all Freeview channels, 47 "premium" channels, access to catch-up services, as well as BT Sport Ultra HD for £15 per month.
Test run paves the way for over-the-air 4K TV
You may not have to pony up for a streaming video service (or any service, for that matter) to get 4K video on your TV in the future. GatesAir, LG and Zenith have started field-testing Futurecast, a system that promises to drag over-the-air TV into the modern era. Thanks to HEVC video compression as well as boosts to overall throughput, the technology can stuff both 4K and two mobile broadcasts into a relatively small 6MHz frequency range. With enough bandwidth, you'd only need a set of rabbit ears to watch at least a few basic channels in Ultra HD.
Sony's wafer-thin, Android-powered 4K TVs will start at $2,499
Spring has come and gone without any sign of Sony's promised X900C and X910C TVs, but those super-thin 4K sets are finally on their way... well, almost. The slimmest of the bunch, the 0.19-inch thick X900C series, is now slated to arrive in July at hefty prices of $2,499 for a 55-inch model, and $3,999 for its 65-inch counterpart. Determined to go bigger? You'll have to wait longer, and pay a pretty penny. The lone X910C model, a 75-incher, is poised to launch sometime this summer for $5,499. Thankfully, screen size is the only major difference here. All of these units pack Android TV, Triluminos displays and an X1 processor that should make the most of your 4K video. The real question is whether or not you need this eye-catching design in the first place -- it's great if you're aiming for a near-invisible wall mount, but you might otherwise be fine 'settling' for a thicker TV.
'Vidity' 4K movies you can download are coming later this year
At CES the long-brewing alliance to push Hollywood movies you can legally download, store and play across different devices finally surfaced, and now its system has a brand name: Vidity. As we learned in January, this is the doing of the Secure Content Storage Association -- a team up behind movie studios (Fox, Warner Bros.) and storage manufacturers (Western Digital, Sandisk) to create a system where users can download movies in the highest possible quality like 4K Ultra HD and HDR. Samsung was the first to announce its Ultra HD TVs with the M-Go app will use the spec, but other big names like Vudu, Kaleidescape, LG, Universal, Comcast and Sprint are on board too. So far 4K movies have generally been all about streaming, but now between Ultra HD Blu-ray and Vidity there are a couple of new options coming.
Google's making high-res video on Chrome suck less
Trying to make YouTube's new super-high-res 4K 60fps video work? Good luck with that! Not only does such video require very fast internet, but also a super-charged computer. Google's new VP9 video codec helps with the connection speed part, but to make 4K60p, regular 4K or 1080p60 videos play with fewer hiccups, it's built a new video rendering algorithm for Chrome. To try it out, you'll need to set a flag in the latest experimental Chromium build, as detailed in Googler Francois Beaufort's post. That said, an Intel Celeron-equipped PC from 2007 probably still won't cut it. To put your own machine to the test, try the UltraHD 60fps video below and let us know how that goes. Update: Doh! While the video we originally embedded was recorded at 4K and 60fps, Youtube wouldn't actually play it that way. Check out this playlist (now embedded after the break) for a few videos that will punish your rig with high resolution and high frame rate.
Ultra HD Blu-ray is bringing high-res movies home soon
After Blu-ray and HD DVD ushered in the age of HD and 1080p movies for the masses, discs were beaten to 4K by streaming services like Netflix, YouTube and Amazon. While the internet is still doing most of the heavy lifting for 4K, the Ultra HD Blu-ray specification is finally complete which means we should see movies and players arriving later this year. Besides being compatible with the 10,000~ Blu-ray discs already out, Ultra HD Blu-ray players will be ready for high-res 3,840 x 2,160 video, "next generation object-based sound formats" (think DTS: X and Dolby Atmos), more colors, high dynamic range (HDR) and even high frame rate video. That's a lot of buzzwords to say movies will have the capability to look and sound better at your home than they ever have before. The BDA also made vague reference to a "digital bridge" setup for extending your movie purchased on a disc to other devices like phones and tablets, but didn't say exactly how that will work, or if it's going to be any better than Ultraviolet.
Sony's super-thin 4K TV arrives this summer
A year after Sony's 4K TV launch, the company is detailing the US launch of a revamped collection with HDR-compatible sets. You can now pre-order six models in Sony's new Ultra HD lineup, with deliveries arriving in May. The line starts off with a 43-inch TV that costs $1,300, and goes up to a 75-inch behemoth at $8,000. Sony isn't talking about pricing for the X900C, reportedly the thinnest LED TV in the world, but it's poised to arrive this summer. It could be worth the wait -- at 5.08mm, it's thinner than your smartphone (unless you're using Oppo's 4.8mm R5). It also has a "Vanishing Edge" technology that makes the picture fill the entire screen.
Vizio's latest 4K TVs start at $600
Vizio has already developed a reputation for offering decent 4K TVs on the cheap, and it's cementing that image now that it's rolling out its 2015 line of Ultra HD screens. The company's new M-Series sets (above) tout full LED backlighting, speedy 802.11ac WiFi and a six-core processor starting at $600 for a 43-inch model -- not bad considering that even stripped-down TVs cost more just a couple of years ago. The M range scales up to an 80-inch set at $4,000, which is still a steal considering that many 4K panels that size will cost you a five-digit sum.
The NBA's first 4K broadcast unfortunately involves the Knicks
The good news is that what might be the first Ultra HD broadcast for a game from one of the major US sports leagues is happening right now. The bad news? That 4K game involves the currently 5 - 35 New York Knicks playing the Milwaukee Bucks in the UK. Also Sports Business Daily reports you can't really watch it, unless you're in the UK and have an invite to the O2 arena to see it, or are inside the NBA HQ in New York City. A BT Sport press release notes a deal with the league to show more games in the UK and Ireland, which includes the production of games in 4K. While we'd love to see what otherworldly trick Giannis Antetokounmpo will have for us next, for now we'll have to handle watching it in mere HD on NBA TV, where the Knicks are currently down by 20 points. Update: Multichannel News got a look at the stream in New York, and reported that while 4K "provided real courtside vistas" even a few million more pixels couldn't fix what's wrong with these Knicks. They lost the game, 97 - 75. [Image credit: Randy Belice via Getty Images]
4K movies are coming to Blu-ray discs and hard drives
Sure, there are plenty of Ultra HD televisions floating around the Las Vegas Convention Center, but how will you find anything suitably super high-res to play on them? Netflix, Amazon and a few others have started 4K internet delivery, while DirecTV and Comcast also have limited approaches, but sometimes you prefer media you can hold onto. Physical media fans have help on the way in two forms, but the bad news is neither one is ready to launch right now. The Blu-ray Disc Association has confirmed the name of its 4K format (Ultra HD Blu-ray) and many of its capabilities, while the Secure Content Storage Association has its own demo for Ultra HD movies you can download and transfer (almost) at will, with backing from Fox, Warner Bros., Samsung and others.
Samsung will soon let you download 4K movies
The few 4K video services that exist right now typically require that you stream whatever you're watching -- not very practical given the subpar state of broadband in some areas. You won't have to settle for a mere 1080p for much longer, though. Samsung is teaming up with its frequent media partner M-Go to launch a 4K movie-download service that uses the UHD Video Pack hard drive to store those extra-sharp blockbusters and dramas. Supposedly, it'll offer the "highest quality content" that Samsung owners can get. It's all engineered to a spec designed by the Secure Content Storage Association -- a digital DRM team up backed by Western Digital, Fox and Warner Bros -- although what those specs aren't isn't quite clear yet. The company hasn't said when you'll get to try this Ultra HD offering beyond a generic 2015 window, but it'll work with both SUHD and regular UHD sets.
Samsung's CES 2015 event liveblog
CES. It's a massive playground full of electronics, and no one has a presence larger than Samsung. The manufacturer makes gadgets from appliances to cellphones to speakers, and of course increasingly massive HDTVs. It also tends to take an ...odd approach to these kinds of presentations, leading to surprises like Michael Bay's sudden exit last year. Who knows what we'll see in 2015, but come along for the ride right here when the event starts at 5PM ET. Update: It's all over, but you can relive the event after the break.
Panasonic's new 4K TVs will run Firefox OS under the hood
Panasonic's promises of Firefox OS-based TVs in 2014 didn't amount to much, but the company is back with much more concrete plans for Mozilla's web-based platform. The electronics giant has revealed that all of its 2015 Life+Screen 4K TVs (the CX600, CX650, CX800 and CX850) launching this spring will run Firefox OS. You can not only run web apps, but also send content to your TV from any device with a Firefox browser or a compatible app. You'll even get notifications from smart appliances connected to your home network, Panasonic says. It's hard to know if the new software will help Panasonic compete with the likes of LG's webOS sets or Samsung's Tizen models, but it's clear that simply making a smart TV isn't enough in the tech world these days -- you need to have a full-fledged software ecosystem to back it up.
Sharp's new 4K TVs include a set that acts like it's 8K
Now that 4K TVs are no longer a novelty, manufacturers are bending over backward to show you that their sets are somehow more 4K than everyone else's. Need proof? Just look at the flagship of Sharp's newly unveiled 2015 lineup, the 80-inch AQUOS Beyond 4K Ultra HD TV (yes, that's the name). Its signature Pixel Splitting trick both cuts pixels in half vertically and lets subpixels create their own color values, leading to a near-8K (7,680 x 4,320) effective picture. The boasts of extra resolution stretch credulity a bit -- you can't add detail that wasn't in the original picture, folks -- but you'll at least know that your TV isn't to blame for fuzzy imagery. As it stands, this ultimate set has a few down-to-earth upgrades over Sharp's previous efforts, including better upscaling and an improved LED backlight that widens the color range. The company hasn't nailed down pricing, but it'll reportedly be competitive with other high-end sets when the TV arrives late this year.
