Displaying items by tag: Panasonic

So I spent a couple hours up in Hollywood yesterday afternoon to cover something pretty interesting…

At a press event at the Screen Actors Guild, members of the UHD Alliance, three major consumer electronics manufacturers, and leading Hollywood filmmakers officially announced a new partnership effort to implement Filmmaker Mode as an extension of the 4K Ultra HD spec.

The idea is to ensure that when you watch a movie at home in 4K on your new Ultra HD display, whether from a disc, stream, or cable/satellite broadcast, it will look exactly as it should. UHD Alliance research suggests that as many as 80% of people who buy 4K TVs never change the settings out of the box. This means irritating features like motion smoothing and unnecessary processing are being applied to the image by default – processing that actually takes the picture away from the filmmakers’ intent.

What the Filmmaker Mode will do is to allow the user – either with one push of a button on the remote, or with a very easy and obvious menu setting – to set the TV’s display parameters to most accurately display the 4K content. This would be a baseline setting for the image – any added adjustments signaled by HDR10, HDR10+, or Dolby Vision metadata would happen on top of that setting. [Read on here...]

All right, let’s talk about the latest news from CES 2018 in Las Vegas related to 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and HDR…

First up, the HDR10+ Alliance has announced that Warner Bros. has joined Samsung, Panasonic, 20th Century Fox, and Amazon in supporting their open standard “dynamic metadata” competitor for Dolby Vision. Any content producer who wants to use HDR10+ for their media needs only to pay an small annual fee, but there are no royalty fees, unlike Dolby Vision which requires a license fee for every use.

It will be interesting to see what impact Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox might have on this alliance, if any. Will Disney join or will Fox’s participation become more passive?

On a related note, our friends at Scenarist – which creates software and systems for Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, and Ultra HD title authoring – is adding HDR10+ support into the work flow of its Scenarist UHD authoring system, currently used to create many Ultra HD Blu-ray releases. They’re actually demonstrating it in person at CES 2018. So you can expect movie software that supports HDR10+ to start arriving this year. Word is that Amazon will be adding HDR10+ to its 4K streaming offerings in the next few months as well. [Read on here…]

All right, let’s have more on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray from CES 2017, plus a bit of regular Blu-ray announcement news too...

First up, we have reliable word that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is listing Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element for release on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format on 7/11. That makes a ton of sense, because Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) arrives in theatres on 7/21 (from STX Entertainment).

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has also just officially set Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk for 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray 3D Combo, Blu-ray Combo, and DVD release on 2/14. The 4K release will be presented in full 4K and 60 fps, with HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. It features an exclusive 4K Featurette with Ang Lee and Tim Squyres discussing the film’s groundbreaking frame rate technology. The Blu-ray versions will include delete scenes and 4 featurettes (Into Battle and Onto the Field: Stepping Inside Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Recreating the Halftime Show, The Brotherhood of Combat, and Assembling a Cast). You can see the cover artwork to the left.  [Read on here…]

All right, the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show is finally under way in Las Vegas today, with a number of the major CE manufacturers holding big press conferences to announce their product line-ups for the year. In fact, I’ve just now sat through Samsung’s big press event (more on that in a minute). I’ll check back in with more tomorrow, but for now let’s get to what news we have so far concerning 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray at the show...

In terms of new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player hardware, obviously Oppo Digital has just launched their debut player on the format, the UDP-203 (SRP $549). I’ve been testing this unit for about a week now and it’s just tremendous. For a first-generation player, it’s very solid, very fast, and it plays just about everything – Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, DVD-Audio, CD, and SACD, plus a wide variety of digital video and audio formats via network and USB. It’s compatible with HDR-10 right out of the box, and it’s also hardware compatible with Dolby Vision; a firmware update in the months ahead will add full Dolby Vision compatibility (keep in mind that no Dolby Vision UHD BD software is yet available, though software is forthcoming – again, more in a moment – and you can stream it now via Netflix and Vudu). Oppo is also working on an audiophile-upgraded version of this player, the UDP-205 (SRP around $1K), due for release later this year. [Read on here…]

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All right, I’m finally back from CES 2016, after three long and exhausting days of running around the show and a harrowing late-night drive back to Southern California amid rain and snow. And I’ve gotten a good long rest to recover from all of the above.

So let’s talk about what I saw related to UHD BD on the show floor Wednesday...  [Read on here…]

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CES 2016 continues in Las Vegas today with the official Press Day, during which some of the biggest CE manufacturers stage elaborate press events to highlight the products and services they play to announce at the convention.  [Read on here…]

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All right, we’ve got a couple new Blu-ray reviews for you today from our own Shane Buettner – his thoughts on Universal’s As Above So Below and Kino Lorber’s The Missouri Breaks. Do check them out.

I’m going to check in again tomorrow to update you all on the latest Blu-ray and DVD release news from the last few days, but I wanted to offer you all more CES coverage this afternoon with some major new information and details related to 4K Blu-ray – really the first significant news about this format to date, fresh and direct from the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA).  [Read on here…]

[Editor’s Note: Be sure to like TheDigitalBits.com page on Facebook for breaking news, site updates on the go, discussion with our staff and other readers, giveaways and more!]

It’s back to business as usual as we start the New Year!

As some of you may be aware, today marks the kickoff of the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and it appears that 4K is going to be all the rage this year. There are a ton of manufactures showing off new 4K UHD TVs in all shapes and sizes – even more curved and flexible offerings, as well as OLEDs, and displays using new ‘Quantum Dot’ technology (more on that in a minute) – and this finally appears to be the year when they’re going to become affordable, as regular 1080p HDTVs get dirt cheap.  [Read on here…]

All right, we’ve got a very quick Rumor Mill post for you this morning, featuring an update on CBS’ anticipated Blu-ray release of Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery.  Don’t miss it.

Speaking of CBS, note that we’ll be back later this afternoon with a review of their new Star Trek: Enterprise – Season Three on Blu-ray Disc.  The set streets today and, if you’re a Trek fan, it’s worth the money.  They’ve packed it with tons of great content, as always.

In announcement news today, Universal has set Dallas Buyers Club for Blu-ray Combo and DVD release on 2/4.  The only extra is a featurette (A Look Inside Dallas Buyers Club).  [Read on here…]

All right, CES is off and running in Las Vegas this week, so we’ll be posting interesting news over the course of the week.  Although it seems as if Blu-ray is passé at the show this year.  4K TV, streaming and wireless everything seems to be all the rage this year.

First though today, our own Adam Jahnke has posted a new Bottom Shelf column that’s well worth your time.  This time around he celebrates the like (and acknowledges the passing) of a fellow to whom movie enthusiasts owe a debt – Mike Vraney, founder of Something Weird Video.  We all off our caps here at The Bits today in his honor.  Don’t miss Jahnke’s piece.  [Read on here...]