Samsung’s 4K Blu-ray player goes on sale in Australia

Australians can watch 4K movies stored on high Blu-ray disks with Samsung bringing the first high capacity player to market.

Samsung Ultra HD Blu-ray player

Australians can watch 4K movies stored on high capacity Ultra HD Blu-ray disks with Samsung bringing the first high capacity Blu-ray player to market.

Samsung today announced that its UBD K8500 Ultra HD Blu-ray player is now available from retailers, making it the first to come to market in what is a historic moment in the industry. It is the emergence of a brand new disk format for the 4K TV era. The player will cost $599.

The large size of 4K movies has seen the industry adopt new high capacity disks of up to about 100 Gigabytes.

Panasonic also has announced an Ultra HD Blu-ray disk player with its DMP-UB900 player scheduled to sell in Australia from about August-September.

The advent of this new high density disk format and players means it is now possible for those with 4K TVs to watch 4K movie content in native resolution.

Netflix already offers some 4K content over the internet, but advocates of ultra-HD Blu-ray say their format is a purer and less condensed form of 4K.

Retailers such as JB Hi-Fi already sell a few movies in the new Blu-ray format such as Mad Max Fury Road, San Andreas, Life of Pi and Martian — around a dozen so far there. That is expected to expand to around 100 by year’s end. Some new movies will be available in an even newer format, 4K HDR.

HDR or high dynamic range promises brighter whites, deeper blacks, an expanded range of colour choices, and in particular greater detail in brighter and darker areas. It is emerging as a signature feature on TVs in 2016.

Samsung says the new player has been certified as “Ultra HD Premium” by the UHD Alliance, an organisation of manufacturers that sets media standards for the industry.

Samsung Electronics Australia said it was delighted to be first in market in Australia with a player. Vice president, consumer electronics Carl Rose said the new home theatre platform would set the benchmark for home entertainment in Australia.

The new player offered up to 4 times the resolution of conventional Blu-ray players, he said.

“Samsung is committed to providing the best possible technology so our customers can enjoy the highest standards of Ultra HD content, whether the format is digital or in the form of Blu-ray discs.”

Samsung had been developing an Ultra-HD Blu-ray player for some years. In January 2014, Samsung Australia told The Australian it already had the technology in place, but the issue was a universally accepted industry­-wide format for it.

In the end, agreement on that standard appeared to take longer than developing the player itself.