M+E Daily

There is still a lot of consumer education that needs to be done around the Ultra High-Def (UHD) Blu-ray format, along with more promotional activity, and those efforts will “ramp up” as the holiday season approaches, according to Victor Matsuda, chair of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA).

“We’re looking to do a few things,” he told the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA). BDA has already posted a sizzle reel promoting several movies in the format on the BDA’s U.S. web site that visitors automatically see when they visit the site’s home page, he said. On the same page is a link to educational material that explains the benefits of UHD Blu-ray and high dynamic range (HDR), he said.

BDA is also planning to release a consumer educational brochure to help explain the benefits of UHD Blu-ray, just like it did during the early days of the original Blu-ray format, he said. Matsuda conceded that many U.S. consumers likely haven’t even heard of the format yet.

BDA also collaborated with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on the TV series “Next Home” as part of the educational and promotional campaign for the format, and parts of that series will be featured on the BDA site also, he said.

It’s still the early days for Ultra HD Blu-ray, but initial sales of hardware and software are “exceeding expectations,” with the “key driver” being increased sales of 4K TVs, Matsuda said. Analysts keep increasing their 4K TV sales estimates and “we’re well on track” for 4K TV sales to “even exceed what the most optimistic sales forecasts for this year” have called for, he said.

With that increase in 4K TV sales there is a “very strong need for content,” he said. As of Aug. 27, 63 UHD Blu-ray titles had been released, which is “significant” because the Hollywood studios projected early this year that 100 titles would be available in the format by the end of 2016, he said. The 63 already out before the end of August represented a “very clear indication that we’re well on our way to having 100 titles by the end of the year, if not more,” Matsuda said.

On the hardware side, seven UHD Blu-ray devices had at least been announced as of Sept. 8, he went on to say, pointing to UHD Blu-ray players from Panasonic, Philips, Samsung and Sony, as well as Xbox One S console from Microsoft.

Sony Electronics had been mum about its UHD Blu-ray player plans, but showed the prototype of its first player at IFA in Berlin in early September. The player was mentioned briefly in a news release by the company Sept. 1, but there was no ship date or pricing plans provided. (Matsuda, however, said Sony indicated at IFA that it would ship its initial player by the end of its fiscal year March 31).

Sony Electronics sister company Sony Interactive Entertainment, on the other hand, surprised some when it recently revealed that its coming PlayStation 4 Pro console will support 4K video streaming and HDR, but not UHD Blu-ray.

Asked for his take on Sony Interactive not supporting UHD Blu-ray in the Pro console, Matsuda said: “I wish every manufacturer” would ship many hardware devices supporting the format. “But each company has to determine for themselves exactly when the best timing is and that’s just based on a lot of things” involving business and product planning. “There’s a lot of factors that go into exactly what the best timing for each company to jump in is going to be,” he said. As the association supporting the format, “we can just hope that we do our best to continue the momentum that we’ve got started here and really makes it an inviting proposition for more and more companies to jump in sooner [rather] than later,” he said.

Matsuda had the same take on the fact that Disney remained the lone major Hollywood studio yet to announce specific plans for the format. He also pointed to the fact that Disney was one of the board members that helped to create the UHD Blu-ray format and finalize its specifications. That’s the same thing Disney pointed to in recent months when asked about its specific plans for Disney movies in the format.

Matsuda predicted that more companies will make announcements about their plans for the format, including new hardware and software releases, as we head into the holiday season. At the same time, he predicted, we will see increased floor space and point-of-sale material dedicated to the format at retail stores, along with more Sunday retail ad circulars promoting it. Increased retail support will go “hand in hand” with increased “robustness” of new releases in the format, and the Hollywood studios will play a major role in retail promotional support for the format, both individually and in collaboration with each other, he said.

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) expects about 700,000 UHD Blu-ray players will ship this year in the U.S., DuBravac, its chief economist, said Sept. 12. That number didn’t include game consoles, he said.

“There are some very promising early signs for the Ultra HD Blu-ray format, but it remains very early days,” DuBravac said, adding: “It often takes several years for the successful potential of a technology to be realized.”