Sony Retires Its Last 4K Blu-ray Player in Japan, PS5 Is All That's Left

gnabgib

Discussion (41 points,22 hours ago, 14 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50201821 Strange media sources though: FlatPanelsHD (5 points, 1 comment) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50199610 DarkHorizons (3 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50199874 PushSquare (41 points, 14 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50201821

WheelsAtLarge

I feel like we need an open source DVD and CD so that they will survive for the long term. Streaming is nice but I don't want to pay monthly fees forever just to hear the music I like.

Gravityloss

Hard to find a good cassette player nowadays too.

Reason077

Pretty wild that even the PS5 still has a blu-ray player and that PS5 games still come on optical discs. No doubt this adds significantly to the costs of both the PS5 hardware and to the costs of game distribution. I have a feeling the PS6 won’t have an optical drive…

tonymet

Regulars to 4k forums know that nearly all the 4k players on the market suck, with regular lock-ups. I have a high end sony 4k player , and it crashes with double-layer disks. 4k blu ray player development hasn't had any innovation for 7+ years. The new products are mostly recycling the chips & firmware from years ago. Still java-based and buggy

add-sub-mul-div

Unfortunately, people are going to get the future they deserve.

maxdo

Agent of the future will reverse engineer blue rays for you , bingo , order laser , home robot will assemble and read the device .

LollipopYakuza

If Blu-ray is diseapearing, what's left for people who care about media quality? Last time I checked, the quality on legal streaming platform was barely comparable with Blu-ray. Did this improve?

cisc

So much for the "buy once, watch many" model. Now it's buy continuously through a subscription, watch for as long as the deal remains in place to provide that particular movie on that particular platform, and thrill to having your individual viewing habits tracked, catalogued, and monetized.

Jhsto

Some of my friends insist on watching movies only in 4K, but once I secrectly played a proper 1080p BluRay copy and they would not believe it was 1080p. Not much to do with the OP other than that it's been a long time since even the "tech-savy" have watched anything on disc. I guess 95% or more live with whatever potato bitrate they get from streaming services.

nphardon

I quit all streaming services about 6 months ago and am strictly on CD's DVD's and records. I recommend it. The library has a ton of stuff, and if enough demands comes back maybe dvd shops will open back up. Its really nice, no ads, no data mining, no supporting awful streaming services, no subs, finite choice. Again, I recommend it.

beloch

There are a few things to unpack here... 1. The end of Sony standalone players (in Japan) isn't necessarily the end of the bluray format. There are other manufacturers. 2. However, it is concerning that Sony, the creator of the format, is moving away from it. If the PS6 does away with the disc drive, that's complete abandonment. It's possible Sony plans to implement a high quality streaming service to replace physical media, but not guaranteed. 3. 4K Bluray likely struggles because it's not a huge upgrade over 4K streaming or even 1080P for the average user who watches on a small screen. A majority of users prefer convenience. 4. Given that Video/Audio-philes are a niche market, we may see a contraction of what is available due to tariff barriers. Some low-demand products are only viable if one manufacturing location can amortize its costs across the entire global market. If trade barriers are put up, that market shrinks and becomes less efficient. Products that were barely profitable become unprofitable . No U.S. manufacturer will on-shore production of such products because the U.S. market isn't big enough to make them viable. That may have contributed here. 5. There is nothing to prevent high quality audio/videophile oriented streaming services from picking up the slack, but we can probably expect them to be expensive and openly hostile to the concept of ownership. The joy of finding a title you've been looking for in the bargain bin at a local store could become a thing of the past. Sony probably views a 4K Bluray discounted to under $5 as a lost opportunity.

edude03

Although I assume the actual disks will stop being produced soon, this is a good reminder that LibreDrive[0] exists and is unfortunately still the best way to watch blu rays 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41784069

MT4K

Time to go back to DVD, now, even single-layer, capable of quality-encoded Full HD with modern codecs such as AV1. And HD DVD today with such a codec would be more than enough for 4K. Blu-ray is unneeded, especially with its reading issues.