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DM235 on 01 April 2016
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SvennoJ said:
DM235 said:

Thanks for that info.

I could not find anything to figure out what the real cost difference is between a UHD player and a standard Bluray player.  Given that upscaling Bluray players cost about $150 (so these would already have an HDMI 2.0 port and support HDCP), there is a $250 upcharge for the audio decoder, H.265 decoder, better laser lenses / servos / etc (which I am assuming would be needed to support the higher dot pitch), and probably some additional licensing costs for a true UHD Bluray player.  Even if the PS4 can already handle the audio decoding and H.265 decoding in software, there would still be additional costs associated with supporting UHD.  I am not quite sure that these would be insignificant (I am assuming at least $100 worth).

HEVC or h.265 decoder is already in those $150 streaming upscaling 4K blu-ray players, just not at that bandwidth. Dolby Atmos is already on blu-ray, yet also not at the max 4K discs allow (upto 1536khz sample rate and max 32 channels). Licensing costs are probably not that much for Sony, I doubt the costs would be very much. Plus BDXL is already at the higher dot pitch, 100GB BDXL discs are triple layer discs (BDXL goes up to 128GB) A 16x speed BDXL burner is already down to $84 new at retail and some people at avs forum speculate that the current ps4 bd-rom player is already capable. It's old tech.

However the absence of any 4K UHD player announcement by Sony is suspicious. Do they want to focus on their 4K streaming service first or do they want to position the ps4 slim as the ultimate multi media device (remote sold separately or phone app). The former might be more likely as you would think that Sony would want to at least release a high end THX certified player, which the ps4 won't be.

If that's true, and they can really add UHD support without any cost increases at retail (and with only minor expenses on their side), it would be a great trojan horse to push 4K Bluray into many people's homes.  Not that this would directly earn lots of revenue, but it would be a great favour to the many other movie studios / publishers who are obviously betting on UHD becoming the next big seller.

If this does cost a significant amount, then it would ruin their "for the gamers" message, and repeat the mistakes that Microsoft made by betting on a media center console (or Sony themselves with the PS3).

As for the absence of their own UHD player, I also find that very strange.  Their entire electronics division seems to be falling behind the competition (from Bluray players to TVs).  

The THX certification isn't a big deal for me, as from what I understand, you can exceed the specs, but if you don't pay money for the certification, you cannot say you meet it.  It seems like more of a checkbox you need for marketing.  The OPPO BDP-103D, which is probably one of the best Bluray players, doesn't have THX either.