Ultra HD Blu-ray Adoption No ‘Slam-Dunk,’ Says Parks Associates Research Director

Parks Associates joined other naysayers in the market research community that have begun casting doubts about the viability of next-generation Ultra HD Blu-ray players and discs (see 1506250030). It’s true that Ultra HD Blu-ray discs will “have the potential to provide a better 4K user experience” than other forms of 4K content delivery, Barbara Kraus, Parks director-research, emailed us Saturday. Among its other attributes, Ultra HD Blu-ray will have a high dynamic range component and HDR as a feature “is expected to be highly attractive to consumers,” Kraus said. “However, HDR will also be available via streaming,” she said, citing Amazon’s announcement last week that Amazon Prime subscribers in the U.S. can instantly watch the debut season of the Amazon original series Mozart in the Jungle in HDR through the Amazon Instant Video app on Samsung SUHD TVs at no additional cost (see 1506240038). Kraus thinks adoption of Ultra HD Blu-ray players “will depend to some extent” on 4K TV adoption, which “will be somewhat tempered over the next few years due to lack of content as well as the TV replacement cycle,” she said. “As some current Blu-ray players already convert 2K to 4K, consumers who have purchased these players may not feel the need to upgrade to a 4K UHD Blu-ray player. The ability to have comparable picture quality through streaming also has the potential to depress adoption. While 4K UHD Blu-ray players offer some strong picture quality benefits, adoption is not necessarily a slam-dunk.”