4K UHD involves lot higher costs than doing a Blu-ray release
This is why some indepedent labels still not done UHD releases yet but only do Blu-ray or DVD releases
Production cost is higher to do a 4K release
Manufacturing costs of UHD discs are higher
Dolby Vision on a UHD disc involves paying licence fee (This is why Disney UHD discs releases don't have Dolby Vision)
4K UHD dsic is still a niche market in terms of amount of UHD discs manfactured and sold in comparasion to Blu-ray and DVD
DVD still outsells Blu-ray
Blu-ray outsells UHD
Disc per unit cost is higher as less UHD discs are made and purchased in comparasion to Blu-ray or DVD
That increases the dealer price of a UHD disc release
For UHD releases prices to drop a lot
requires a continuous increase of purchases of UHD disc releases (Less unit disc sales = higher dealer prices and that results in a higher retail price)
Most 4K viewing on 4K TV's is done using digital purchases (Amazon Prime/Google Play/Apple TV-iTunes etc) and using streaming providers that are free or subscription fee based that is why purchases of UHD discs remains a niche market
It will never achieve amount of units that DVD and Blu-ray discs sold in the previous 10- 25 years
This also why some retailers recently in some countries are starting to stop selling physical media releases on DVD/Blu-ray/UHD as they get stuck with unsold stock or have to sell at a loss to get revenue
You are going to see some labels still continue to do UHD releases but with less print runs compared to previously that means higher per unit cost per release but that means retail prices remain high
I still collect physical media releases on Blu-ray/UHD but lot of general public has changed to doing digital purchases or streaming subscriptions instead as it's lot cheaper and your get more content with one payment per month or year
Apple TV 4K is very good new releases cost is lot less than a new UHD release and even more cheaper a few weeks/months later and you get lot of
free upgrade to 4K version when released if you previously purchased a HD version of a Film using Apple TV or iTunes and lot of releases have iTunes extras and sometimes have same extras you get on Blu-ray/UHD releases and sometimes even have exclusive extras you don't get on physical media release
Want to know why 4K Blu-Ray discs are so expensive? We'll give you the top 10 reasons why plus so much more.
www.thetechwire.com
By The TV Answer Man team We are sometimes asked why 4K Blu-ray movies usually cost from $10 to $20 more than HD Blu-ray movies. People say they would buy more 4K discs if they weren’t so expensive. But there’s a good reason why they cost more. In fact, there are five good reasons why […]
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