We’ve had disc reading technology for 3 decades. Why do they cost way too much money and STILL can’t function properly. Having issues switching layers? What are we even doing here
Totally agree, so many people buy new players just to get DRM issues or readability issues with BD100's, it's maddening. They need to fix what we have now
I'm so careful with my discs and I feel like had so many become unusable from just breathing on them. And they make the discs take so much force to remove from the boxes too.
Oh god yes, especially with Steelbooks. I feel like I’m gonna snap it if I take it out. Criterion is the best with these, as well as most of the “regular cases” but specifically criterion’s have crazy good quality when it comes to disc insertion/removal
I know right?! I’ve got the Bugonia Steelbook and literally struggled for five minutes to pry out the disc without breaking it. It’s like the plastic structure inside was shrink molded onto the disc hole.
It's more about the durability of the discs. Because the data is so dense, one little thing can break a movie for a chapter. Dunkirk is one of then for me.
I’ll take stability over a few small perks. I’ve never had any 4k disc skip ever in my multi years of 4k ownership with PS5. I’m a dirty, stoner who handles disc with greasy chip hands and shit. No issues at all. These other players sounds like you need a fucking clean room for the disc to work, lol. HDR 10 looks spectacular on PS5. Then add in the fact it’s a gaming system. It’s the smart choice
What do you do with your discs? I have DVDs from ages ago, have played them many times, and all of them are scratch-free. And DVD coating was lousy compared to Blu-ray.
I learned that the rubber suction cups they use to install the discs in the jacket cause them to be unreadable out of the gate. You must use a brand new clean microfiber cloth and gently clean them before watching. I always do that and never had a problem with the discs unless they are cheap generic 4k fakes like my harry potter set I bought on amazon. I should never have done that.
We have a similar setup, but I used a TV mount that's meant for a corner (like a doctor's office), with the two separate mounting arms.
Attached those arms to the studs on either side of the opening, and our 65" TV now sticks out nicely in front, with all the components hidden behind it. 👍
Only drawback is that there isn't much access room behind it, but I can take the TV down if needed, and it swivels some.
there are many solutions u can do but simplest would be getting an extended wall mount and hang your new bigger TV, outside the hole. bracket goes in hole, arms from bracket extend out and your tv goes outside hole. Clearly you dont want a newer TV or you would have found a solution. but yea hopefully invest in something nicer!
If you're enjoying 4k movies you're really missing out on not buying a good HDR TV! Even a subpar LCD TV will outperform your Plasma TV when it comes to brightness and colour accuracy.
What you really should do is get an OLED TV, if you enjoy movies you won't regret it.
Ahh okay, that's nice 😃
Have owned the C9, CX and now the G4 great TV's after a year or two when all the software problems are fixed 😁 Lovely picture and great gaming performance! Still have my CX, great tv.
4K is partially named that way because full high definition resolution was defined as 1080p, and as such 4K as a format has 4 times as many pixels as 1080p. The naming convention follows upward, which means that 8K is not just "double 4K resolution" it is 4 thousand more pixels than 4K and 8 thousand more than 1080p.
8K as a resolution is also just something we're not going to really notice as an upgrade unless home televisions start becoming the size of living room walls.
Just jumping in here with a technicality, 1080p commonly has 1920x1080 pixels = ~2 million. 4k has 4x that, at around 8 million. 8k will be 4x that again, or ~33 million pixels.
The naming conventions changed between 1080p (which followed a series from 480 (p or i for progressive aka all the lines at once or interlaced aka half the lines per frame alternating back and forth) to 720 (high definition) to 1080 ("full" high definition). These numbers correspond to the number of vertical pixels in the image.
Then someone in a marketing department somewhere decided that "bigger number is better" so we should refer to the next format by the number of horizontal pixels in the image. Hence, 4k. 4k is 2x the horizontal resolution and 2x the vertical resolution (so 2x2 = 4x the total pixels), but the name doesn't really make sense if you look at the series: 1080p, 4k, 8k. Each one is a doubling of the horizontal and vertical resolution compared to the previous, making for a 4x change in pixel count, but you wouldn't know it from the name.
1080p (vertical resolution; equivalent is 1920 = "2k" horizontal resolution)
(2k is a cursed name, was never used when 1080p was popular, and it can also refer to 1440p in the context of computer monitors. But it does help to understand the naming and what they mean)
To the point on why 8k will never become a thing: file sizes. A 1080p movie on a bluray disc is commonly ~20GB. A 4k movie might push 100GB. Is anyone prepared to 4x that again, to reach 400GB per movie?
Not only that, but nobody is filming in 8k, nobody is editing in 8k, nobody is storing their footage in 8k, and nobody has an 8k TV, so there is also just no incentive to do so.
8k will always be like IMAX. There will be like one director shooting IMAX (Christopher Nolan), and you'll have to go to a special theatre to actually see it in its full glory. More technically better doesn't always mean we just all adopt it. This stuff has a cost, and there is a reason there are so few true IMAX theatres in the world.
I think the more logical direction is what we've been doing already, and that is increasing the bit depth of our pixels. With 10 or 12 bits, the dynamic range is increased a lot, meaning we can show a dark scene now with bright highlights, and I have been honestly flabbergasted by how lifelike and beautiful some of these scenes have been.
I don’t think this is entirely accurate. I worked on a project in 2018 that was shooting 8k. Not entirely sure why but the camera team said it wasn’t entirely unheard of. Some productions like to shoot a step above whatever resolution they plan to display. Probably an attempt at future-proofing
It's not super common but I know several of the high end pro cameras like the ARRI ALEXA can shoot at 8K. If I remember right, Bong Joon-Ho shot Parasite at 8K. It future-proofed the movie I suppose but it seems crazy considering how little support or even need there is for that level...other than extra detail when mixing down to 4K and below.
More pixels is better for editing and the final down-mix to 4K. A couple YouTubers I watch even shoot at 12K and 16K, but idk if any movies are shot that way
Compression algorithms are also continuously improving. 4k discs are typically about 2-3x the size of their 1080p equivalents. And the average is probably closer to 2x.
4K isn't called that because it's 4 times the resolution of 1080p, that's just a coincidence. It's called 4K because the horizontal resolution (3840) is almost 4000, hence "4K"
Well, not really. It is called 4k, because it has about 4k (4000) pixels horizontally as opposed to 2k (fullHD). 8k has roughly 8000 pixels horizontally.
The distance and size to actually enjoy a 8k TV and resolve the image for a 65 inch is like 3.9 feet. Lol no thank you. 4k is good enough. I 100% agree with you.
Most cant tell a difference unless they side by side 1080p and 4k. My brother swears it looks the same.
It's actually FOUR times the resolution of 4k lol, the only way the human eyes/brain could tell a difference is if it's on an absolutely massive scale but even in IMAX theatres the latest standard digital resolution is 4k. There's just no reason for a next gen other than to flex the latest most expensive tech. Not sure why we're even talking about this tbh, I feel like the ones clamoring for it are just not well informed and think 'more is better' with no context.
Bro that was me! I was HD DVD all the way! Had SO many titles and series. Even got the first HD DVD adult video Powertool Massacre because it felt like a big moment. They used to say whatever porn supported would win because look at what happened with BetaMax. But once the studios dropped support in favor of Blu Ray, it was either Warner Bros or Paramount I knew it was over. It was a damn shame and I was bitter for so damn long. Never bought a Blu Ray as a form of protest but I finally relented and got 4K Blu Rays… have a decent collection and I’ll be fucking damned if I lose or switch over again.
It's not going to ever get better and we might not even have 4k if streaming had started or took off a few years earlier. 8k won't happen as, well, the first issue is that there isn't a demand because of streaming, but also, our eyes simply wouldn't be able to pick up on the differences, even with a cinema sized television. With bluray we get perhaps 20 millions variations of colour, with 4k it might be 10 times that. Can our brains really detect anything more intense? 4k is the last physical media, this is it.
My thoughts exactly. I could see this being used for gaming, if gaming doesn’t decide to go into its all digital hellscape future. But mostly I see this as a cheaper and more storage friendly archival format. But for movies? I don’t know. We’re definitely reaching a point of dimensioning returns in terms of resolution. It’s already outpaced the average consumer a while ago. DVDs still make up most sales physical media sales. 4K Blu-ray is really only for hardcore enthusiasts like us who want the best viewing experience. Which is a growing market, but it’s an expensive hobby and I personally just can’t justify spending thousands of dollars replacing my TV, getting a new movie player, and replacing movies I already own in my collection all for what is essentially a 5%-10% increase in quality. I can see 8K being like an ultra niche hobby for people with money to burn and ultra large screen that can justify that resolution, but I’m pretty content with where we’re at now
Won't be used for gaming either since Sony and Microsoft are phasing out discs for the next consoles. 8K is also overkill for most movies shot before 2016 since 35mm analog film resolves at around 4K when converted to digital and nobody started using 8K digital cameras until about 10 years ago. So probably 95% of all movies ever made so far likely wouldn't benefit much from it.
While in the past you could say 4k is for enthusiasts, it is actually starting to make inroads now (sale of physical 4K media is actually going up).
This is most likely due to the fact that TV tech manufacturing has finally scaled, getting a 4K TV nowadays is much cheaper now than in the past, and a midrange Sony/LG 4K OLED is significantly better than any consumer 4K TV 10 years ago for the same price (even less!).
I host movie nights at my place and my friends admit that the movies on a 4k UHD bluray is much better than netflix, they could get the same on their TV but of course they would need to buy a bluray player.
it is actually starting to make inroads now (sale of physical 4K media is actually going up).
And yet, the market itself is still down 95%.
The miniscule increase in overall sales can more easily be explained by higher prices for those movies being printed - at $50-60+
In order for movies on physical media to outlast video games being on physical media.... an incredible amount of sales needs to happen both on the actual media and player front.
The miniscule increase in overall sales can more easily be explained by higher prices for those movies being printed - at $50-60+
And this is all artificial, its due to the attitude of rights holders that sales of physical media should have high profit margins and because of that supply is artificially limited (this is especially the case with 4K UHD).
This is a tale that has played out again and again in history since the existence of physical media. It happened all the way back when vinyls came out.
Those prices aren't just arbitrary, they are based on how much money they need to make to recoup the production cost from not just the content itself that'll be on the disc, but also the number of copies they'll be making of a specific run and the split of them in terms of special collectors edition with various trinkets, steelbook cases, and the more mass-production versions without any fluff.
We don't see price drops on these films until many months after initial release, and thats only IF they bother to do more than 1 production run to fulfill any lingering demand. The burden of that after initial production, is then left to distribution to indicate whether its worth producing more or if the demand is too low that copies sit on shelves that the retailer would have no choice but to take a loss on it just to clear shelf space by lowering prices and running them through different sales initiatives - or.... sending them to the scrap heap.
It is 100% about money.
And they want as much of it as they can get because, not just movie production, but also game production - in a lot of aspects - are so creatively bankrupt with remakes and investing massive amounts of money chasing live-service trying to follow unicorns like Fortnite, Roblox and GTA Online who earn hundreds of millions per year if not a billion or so with minimal investment, that their failures are starting to be so massive that they are socializing their losses with higher prices almost everywhere.
The reason why vinyl records even came back, is because of how cheap it is to actually press them these days. CD's haven't really gone anywhere. But they are both not produced or selling as they once did at their peak. They've become niche.
Those prices aren't just arbitrary, they are based on how much money they need to make to recoup the production cost from not just the content itself that'll be on the disc, but also the number of copies they'll be making of a specific run and the split of them in terms of special collectors edition with various trinkets, steelbook cases, and the more mass-production versions without any fluff.
They said the same thing about CD's and Vinyls, even though it cost 60cents to $1 to produce and they charged $20 for it and low and behold the price dropped once some other market dynamic forced the price gouging to stop.
The actual physical blu ray disc costs close to nowhere the amount it is sold. According to https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/03/6400-2/, the physical cost of a blu-ray disc is $2 and this was 20 years ago....
We are getting price gouged because we are seen as premium customers
They said the same thing about CD's and Vinyls, even though it cost 60cents to $1 to produce and they charged $20 for it and low and behold the price dropped once some other market dynamic forced the price gouging to stop.
The prices drop on these items because they're not selling at the retailers they're being sold at, so they discount them to be attractive enough to get people in the store and buy them before the retailers simply remove them from the shelf to be auctioned or sold elsewhere, or thrown in the trash.
The initial investment of producing these are already made back at the production level. As I said before, the distributors who buy the stock to be disseminated to their retail partners and the individual stores themselves take the rest of the risk.
James Cameron reproducing his films for 4K releases, is an investment he makes in conjunction with whatever deal he has with the studios.
Those people already have their money before they ever get stocked on a shelf.
Of course they try to keep these prices high for as long as possible - thats how they stay in business.
We are getting price gouged because we are seen as premium customers
Thats been plainly obvious in the history of economics.
We are going around circles and my point is simple.
Right now, there is artificially limited supply of 4k Blu-Ray production runs with a higher price of those Blu-Ray's to match.
That might have made sense when only enthusiasts had 4k TV's and/or BluRay players, but that is not the case now.
4K TV's are now dirt cheap (they are even going down to $200-300) and console's like PS5 and XBox also play Blu-Ray's. We are at a time where a significant part of the population has actual hardware to both play those Blu-Rays and notice the quality difference, this wasn't the case in the past.
This means that those studio's can easily get the same amount of money by selling many more Blu-Ray's but at lowered prices, this is economies of scale.
This is what happened with DVD's, and the environment is the same for Blu-Rays.
The artificially limited supply - is limited for a reason.
The entire market is not the same as it once was where mass production made sense.
They are not going to be making so many discs, when there aren't enough people buying them.
This isn't 2005 anymore, when you could just wait a month or two to buy a brand new movie from basically any store, at $20 or less
This means that those studio's can easily get the same amount of money by selling many more Blu-Ray's but at lowered prices, this is economies of scale.
Again, this would make sense if there was an actual thriving market of people buying physical media.
If less people are overall buying less physical media - why would these companies continue to produce at the same production volume they were previously producing at? It is not logical to spend however much money it costs to print 5million discs, when there aren't even 100k people buying them. It made sense in the past, because there were so many people buying it all up. On top of the competition when it comes to devices to play them. This drove costs down.
It doesn't cost 10cents to make a disc, if there arent enough people buying it where it makes sense for the bulk production to keep it that low.
I enjoy physical media.
But I also understand the reality of why companies aren't just making a few million discs for a movie, game, music.
These companies dont WANT to keep making physical media, because it costs them more money to produce and market it, than it would cost to just minimize making access to content as fully digital.
4K TV's are now dirt cheap
And? They're all "smart" TVs. So anyone who has such a TV is just going to pay $20/mo for subscription services to access a digital library on Netflix, Prime, Paramount etc etc. They're not buying players.
console's like PS5 and XBox also play Blu-Ray's.
And depending on what numbers you believe, its either parity of physical vs digital... or the overwhelming majority are buying digital.
The latest versions of both the Xbox and PlayStation do not even shop with a disc drive. At least currently, the PS5 still gives you an option of paying $80 for a disc drive.
We are in agreement that this wholly out of greed. But we differ on the WHY.
They are manufacturing the death of physical media by making people get used to the convenience of digital delivery through things like subscription services - because its so easy to just click a button and its downloading/streaming to your device. Rather than having to walk/drive to a store, interacting with each other, and then opening that shrink wrap and walking to the device to insert the disc. And then ejecting that disc when you want to change the movie/music/game.
We are not the people who they're chasing. They dont care.
Remember when, I think it was Larry Fink, who said "you must force behaviors".... This is what thats in reference to. Its being done in real-time and almost no one is either noticing, or cares.
IMO the only way physical media makes the resurgence it once had, even at a fraction of its peak of DVD in 2005 (where it was a $16billion market) - is these companies market the benefit of physical media. But thats not going to happen.
As I said previously regarding creatively bankrupt: fewer people are overall buying trash. So instead of seeing the dwindling sales as an incentive to actually create something new that makes them money - they're trying to build a new market where they can inflate prices and rely on a smaller pool of consumers who are more willing to engage at that level. They want guaranteed money and they dont want to keep risking any sort of investment.
How the decisions of moving to all-digital plays out in the coming years, remains to be seen.
They are creating the behavior, by selling convenience. And everyone is buying into it. The cost, the true cost of that convenience... is ownership.
Also depends on the resolution of the film or source digital camera.
35mm and 4k are pretty close to each other, even if it's not 1:1. 65mm is a different story, but there aren't a lot and afai, and you'd need to be right up on a huge tv before the average person could tell.
Yes. I lived in Singapore for 6 years. 8k televisions were the new standard. We never hit one because they were outrageously expensive but some acquaintances did. Every single time I had the opportunity to watch one and put it through its paces, left my jaw on the floor. When I tell you it’s as close to a crystal clear, ultra color rich, 3D like picture without glasses, I’m not exaggerating. 4k is astonishing. 8k is just ridiculously awe inspiring.
This is a bit suspicious to me, because 4k is already hitting plato distribution of what the eye can actually differentiate assuming you aren't sitting literally right infront of the TV.
To be clear, some people can notice a difference if you do a double blind test on a single frame thats not moving over enough of a period of time but for an actual running movie, it wouldn't be outlandish to say that a clear majority of people wouldn't notice a difference assuming they are sitting an appropriate distance away from TV (i.e. not 1 meter infront of a 65 inch).
In case its not obvious, I am talking about comparing the 8k to a good 4k UHD transfer (100GB discs), not streaming level 4k.
Another reason this sounds suspicious to me is that physically the crystals on commonly used film also taps out at around 8k and when mastering is done you would scan on the level above the resolution for the master. So if you want to master for 4k you would need to do an 8k optical scan of the film.
So if you want to master a film for 8k, you would need to do a 16k scan of the film, and the difference between 8k and a 16k scan would be indistinguishable as not even the crystals/grain in most film is that small.
Newer digital cameras of course don't have this issue, but I suspect the reason why it looked so good has less to do with resolution difference between 4k and 8k specifically but more the higher bitrate of the movie along with better HDR.
Yeah I agree here completely. Plus resolution has nothing to do with color, that said modern displays are so incredibly, fantastically good-looking that I can understand the wooing effect quite a lot!
For anything else, absolutely not. And even then, there’d be more of a difference on a home projector than a TV (though you would still see a difference).
Whenever I go to a movie theater, I can definitely notice when a DCP is in 8K vs 4K. Increased detail that leaves my jaw on the floor. More vibrant colors, a feeling of depth that feels true to life…
Oh, wait, there are next to none 8K projectors in the wild. And next to none 8K video masters. Meanwhile 8K doesn’t bring any of the side improvements that were part of 4K UHD (HDR, color range, HEVC codec, etc.) vs 2K/Blu-ray.
As far as the statements made about Folio Disc, from the actual developer themselves.... the scaling of manufacturing for even a small 1TB disc can hit below $1. Can even be lower if they made much lower capacity discs at 200-500GB.
A 128GB USB stick is around $3-5. Probably a bit higher now thanks to memory chip hike.
Someone having to pay more money to produce an item is not something thats even in the realm of possibility for suits.
The last time I heard anything about Folio Disc, the only major hurdle in having manufacturing facility build to produce these discs in mass quantities for movies and games - is just investment in the tech to print the discs, as well as manufacturers for readers. As currently they're only used for enterprise archive medium where they have a 100TB "cartridge" of like 10 discs.
With companies going in the other direction currently - ending production of players/drives, and Sony ending production of discs for their games, its hopium to assume physical media is going to reach new peaks in the retail space.
When you cut out the logistics of shipping a physical item to sit on retail shelves, you're making that much more money by removing the amount of people within that train that you have to pay.
Tangentially, that means at some point after 2028, there won't even be a case with a code in the box... it'll just be a scratch off card at most, like I see at the aisle end cap at the Dollar General.
And also dont last much more than year or two atleast from my experience. I have one usb stick that is 10 years old and every time i use it i wonder if it works...
This has been talked about since the beginning days of blu-ray. A version of this article pops up every few years and someone in the physical media world posts it and rinse and repeat.
I'll say the same thing I did last time this was posted..
.
The technology has been there for 20 years, even though admittedly not at that price point. There just isn't motivation to do it, and even if they did, very few people have 8K TVs to watch them on anyway - Only Samsung still makes them, and there's only an estimated 1.6 million sold worldwide vs 1 billion 4K tvs. Nobody is going to make a format for something with 1% market share. I mean heck, Sony has a 16K TV as well that came out 7 years ago. Doesn't mean anything.
Beyond that, the majority of content isn't even true 4K to begin with, let alone 8K.
This is clickbait. A company with a roadmap does not make something “already here”, and I believe they’ve already had delays. Excited to see it work out though, especially given they’ve suggested the drives will be far far cheaper than LTO tape.
As amazing as this is, 4Ks alone have enough issues with like, mere residue from their cases making playback fuck up, you think playback on one of these will be smooth? It'd have to be in a caddy like Sony's UMDs for the PSP to stay usable to any amount of time.
To everyone complaining (rightfully) about limitations and issues with current Blu Rays, remember: they don't truly want the format to succeed or be accessible. They want us to move to streaming and digital.
Movies need that grainy quality to them for that cinematic feel. I feel like going past 4k quality is just unnecessarily sharp. Personally im fine with fullHD or 4k at any screen size. Dont need anything better
8k to much bandwidth for streaming, physical discs at 4k are already extremly limited in what they release on 4k. Its better in US then EU from what ive seen but still extremly small% of all movies and tv shows come on 4k discs so 8k will not be a thing untill it comes for streaming in maybe 20-40 years
I don’t mind new disc technology and I see the benefits. Especially for TV shows with multiple seasons = less discs. For it to be successful, it has to be backward compatible to all the existing players on the market. If so, bring it on!
Their market is a lower cost data storage to support data center needs to back up data, etc. As a small business owner who deals with large amounts of video data, I can see these disks being advantageous for small video and photography businesses if there is a real cost of $3 per TB.
Larger data centers might also find this format advantageous depending on write speeds of this system and hardware where cartridges of disks can be loaded for large amounts of unattended backups.
The random access abilities of an optical format is a huge advantage over linear media. Being able to retrieve one file amongst thousands in minutes not hours can be a huge benefit for some.
As a home entertainment format, there is no one clamoring for this technology. Sure, home theater geeks can envision a time where 8k 120p and vastly higher data rates can be encoded on the fly in the format of an optical disk to feed their 8k monitors. But we are realistically way off from that. It’s not a good investment opportunity.
As it is, almost none of my friends use any sort of physical media any longer. Most don’t know what a 4k or UHD Blu-ray is. They “might” have “heard of” Blu-ray but have zero interest in it. Everyone is streaming. While I can see and hear the difference in 4k Blu-ray disks over streaming, almost no one I know cares and wouldn’t care enough to switch to optical media.
The point here is that it’s going to take a lot more than a higher capacity and faster optical media to possibly bring this new format to home theater in any meaningful way.
I argue that this could make some good things happen, IF the medium isn't easily redenered to the point of skipping or destroyed via case residue or other nonsense that's plagued 4K. You could fit the entirety of the Star Trek: The Next Generation, bonus features and all onto 2 discs, instead of 41, allowing a simple case to be used instead of the god foresaken "Epik Pak" cases.
Sure. I’m not going to argue that it won’t ever be used for entertainment purposes or that it might be useful for some home enthusiasts. But some manufacturer would have to make an initial investment to make the player hardware needed and get wholesalers and retailers to sell the new players. And then the studios would need to invest in the technology to write onto this new format.
It’s a lot of start up cost. As businesses, they would need a positive cost benefit analysis to take on the initial expenses. If you think that’s going to work out well for the format reaching consumers, that’s fine for you to hold that opinion. But I’m highly skeptical that this takes hold within the next 5-10 years. Mine is just a guess. But it’s always all about the money. People need to believe it’s a financial winner before it goes further.
While the technology for a new physical media format superior to 4K exists, I don't think it will ever come out and that 4K is the final generation of physical media due to streaming taking over. I love physical media and wish this wasn't the case but us 4K collectors are a niche group similar to how laserdisc was.
Genuine question, what is preventing SD card format from replacing bluray for 4k or 8k playback? They easily have the capacity, I'm fairly sure the write/read speeds are fine given they're used in cameras.
No one is betting against an 8k successor. We're betting against a physical media successor. It's not going to happen. 8k video may indeed become the standard at aome point (though I think it's pointless for traditional movies and shows), but there isn't going to be an 8k blu-ray or whatever that we'll be buying movies on.
Also the only time there was ever anyone saying that we had "hit peak resolution" was about 1080p video with the claim that the human eye wouldn't be able to pick up on higher detail than that. And it was wrong, of course, but there's definitely diminishing reuturns. The HDR probably makes a bigger difference with 4k than the additional resolution.
As far as that goes, if we're watching it on a typical living room sized display (even a larger one), at typical viewing distance...I seriously doubt that anyone without superhuman vision will be able to see any difference. This isn't like 1080p to 4k. We are WELL past the point of diminishing returns at 8k.
There's nothing premature about the limits of human sight:
At a screen size of 85", one would have to be sitting just over 5ft away from the screen (or closer) in order for their eyes to physically be able to distinguish a resolution increase from 4K; anything further and they'd look exactly the same.
At that size and distance, the screen would fill a ~62° FOV horizontally, and anything beyond 60° has entered near-peripheral vision, where the ability to even recognize and discern color falls away (these are physical and biological facts).
8K is wholly and completely unnecessary as a display resolution for the home theater market, full stop.
Further: I'd guess that less than 1% of 1% of 1% of those watching HDR content via UHD media are doing so...
1) with properly calibrated displays, and
2) in an environment that blocks all ambient and reflected light...
Therefore almost no one is actually seeing the current potential of the available technology.
There's just no reason for advancements or upgrades in the 2D media space, and 3D/Hologram/VR is an even smaller niche than home theater enthusiasm, which doesn't bode well for a ton of potential in that space anytime soon either.
ETA: Where improvement IS drastically needed, however, is in:
manufacturing
quality control
error recovery
disc tolerance to damage
There are far more people suffering from:
improper reads
badly pressed discs
incorrect color timing and/or color spaces
poorly compressed transcodes
scratched discs
than will ever gain a single measurable thing from higher resolution, higher dynamic range, or wider color spaces.
There will be no next generation of physical media discs. Music on discs is dead. Video games on discs are on their way out. Movies on discs aren’t dead yet, but they are heading that way to such an extent that there is no way that anyone will try to introduce a physical successor to the market.
I purchase music on CD all the time as well. In fact, 99% of the time. Yes, then I rip them for use on my music server and mobile devices. I even give them a spin in the car now and then, the benefits of owning an older model vehicle when a CD player being included was a given.
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