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Disc-based DRM has been huge in the entertainment industry, with most DVD's and Blu-rays coming region locked to specific devices. However, we are moving in to a new realm of 4K/UHD content at the moment, which means new Blu-ray disc technology, which just had region coding removed from its specification sheet. Region locks are often a pain to deal with and many buyers look unfavourably on them.
According to HighDefDigest, future Ultra HD Blu-ray discs will come region free, stepping away from the DRM-heavy stance that has been taken since DVDs were first introduced years ago.
Ultra HD Blu-Ray discs will be capable of storing up to 100GB of information. This is the current spec sheet:
- Codec: HEVC MPEG-5 @ up to 100Mbps
- Resolution: Up to 3840 x 2160
- Frame rate: Up to 60fps
- HDR: 10-bit SMPTE 2084
- Color Space: BT.709, P3, BT.2020
- Chroma Subsampling: 4:2:0
- Up to 100GB storage.
- No region coding
- HDCP 2.2
- 8-Channel LPCM
- Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital
- DTS:X, DTS-HD MA, DTS
- AURO 3D
Unfortunately, right now, 20th Century Fox is the only studio to have announced native 4K Blu-ray releases. However, we may see more following CES in 2016, which will help drive the adoption of 4K displays in the living room.
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KitGuru Says: I have never understood the need for region locks personally, especially these days when almost everything is readily available on the web anyway. It makes no sense to limit physical releases in that way.
A new customer first era is upon us. Thank-you for whomever did this. It couldn’t have been Sony though. As long as we still have their HDCP 2.2 with their royalties, they probably felt a little generous, That and a little Anonymous kick in the pants.
Great news! Now I believe that this technology won’t have the same fate as Super Audio CD. Those didn’t have the region lock too, but rare players could play them.
In case of UHD Blu-rays, region free and wide adoption in new players and game consoles will do the trick.
come on!, what about chroma subsampling 4:4:4.
Hallelujah! I was keen to get a 4K display and player and then changed my mind completely when I found out that to play a UHD it would want to connect to some server and download keys before I could actually run it. If that is no longer the case, I will be buying into this technology. If it still is the case, then I don’t see why I should be buying discs that I cannot guarantee will work.
The question is whether removal of region locking means they might remove this requirement.