The cadence everyone quotes is DVD in 1996, Blu-ray in 2006, UHD Blu-ray in 2016, so 2026 was meant to be the year the next thing showed up. It didn't, and the Blu-ray Disc Association has said it isn't working on an 8K format at all. That is basically the whole story: no standard in progress, no player silicon, no studio pipeline delivering 8K masters at any volume.
What I keep pointing people at instead is what the current spec already allows. UHD Blu-ray tops out at 108 Mbps on 66GB dual-layer discs and 128 Mbps on the 100GB triple-layer ones. Plain Blu-ray maxed out at 40 Mbps and DVD at 9.8. The jump from 40 to 128 is enormous and most releases don't come close to spending it. We already have a format with headroom the studios choose not to use.
So an 8K disc would be solving the one problem I don't have. Give me a catalogue title scanned properly, encoded near the top of the existing ceiling, with a Dolby Vision pass that wasn't automated, and it will beat an 8K version of the same lazy master on my screen every time.
The thing I'd actually worry about is hardware, not resolution. Players are the fragile link now, and there aren't many companies still building good ones. What's your plan for when the deck you own dies and nothing decent is on sale to replace it?
What I keep pointing people at instead is what the current spec already allows. UHD Blu-ray tops out at 108 Mbps on 66GB dual-layer discs and 128 Mbps on the 100GB triple-layer ones. Plain Blu-ray maxed out at 40 Mbps and DVD at 9.8. The jump from 40 to 128 is enormous and most releases don't come close to spending it. We already have a format with headroom the studios choose not to use.
So an 8K disc would be solving the one problem I don't have. Give me a catalogue title scanned properly, encoded near the top of the existing ceiling, with a Dolby Vision pass that wasn't automated, and it will beat an 8K version of the same lazy master on my screen every time.
The thing I'd actually worry about is hardware, not resolution. Players are the fragile link now, and there aren't many companies still building good ones. What's your plan for when the deck you own dies and nothing decent is on sale to replace it?
