Samsung Zigs With Ultra HD Blu-ray Player As Industry Zags Towards Streaming Media

Samsung had lots to show off at the IFA event in Berlin, and while some of the focus was on high-def TVs as we'd expect, there was also an unveiling of a product we might not have expected: An "Ultra HD" Blu-ray player.

As hard as it might be to believe, Blu-ray content has now been available on the market for over eight years, and admittedly, it didn't take but a few years after its launch when people began to question its lifespan. After all, our Internet connections are getting faster, and services like Netflix have proven that people are fine with consuming media that way.

But, let's be honest: streamed content doesn't look as good as content that's already been downloaded or burned to a disc that wasn't recompressed with bandwidth savings in mind. While a Netflix movie at 1080p could be a handful of gigabytes, a Blu-ray copy could be 20GB or perhaps even double.

With 4K, it becomes clear that disc media could still have a future. It'd be one thing to stream a 20GB movie on a great connection, but 4K content could be four times as large. And, we need a player to play such content, which is what Samsung unveiled at IFA. There's really not much to be surprised about here, but Samsung did say that the color expression with such media will be up to 64 times higher.

Are you interested enough in experiencing the best possible picture that you'd consider picking up an Ultra HD Blu-ray player? Or are you content enough to stream it as has become the standard?