Jordan O'BrienIf there was any doubt that 4K would take a leading role at IFA 2015 in Berlin, that doubt can be cast aside; as Samsung has announced the world’s first ultra-high definition Blu-ray player.
The Blu-ray disc association agreed on a new specification for UHD Blu-rays back in May, but hardware makers have been slow to catch up.
Now, Samsung is touting a player that is capable of providing four times the resolution and 64 times higher colour expression compared to standard Blu-ray players.
Samsung is not resting on its laurels, however.
The company is aware that many users will not go out and replace all of their standard Blu-rays for ones that are in 4K.
So for those customers, Samsung is offering up-scaling and will also offer UHD streaming services on the box.
While Samsung is the first to announce its player, it’s unlikely to be the only company flogging one come the end of the year.
Both 4K discs and players are set to be commonplace by the end of 2015.
Samsung is increasingly focused on 4K as a leading technology.
In January, the company confirmed that it held 60% of the UHD market, something the company is keen to grow amid competition from the likes of LG and Sony.
At IFA 2015 the company also revealed that its 2015 range of SUHD and UHD TVs will receive an update to bring HDMI 2.0a support.
The firmware update will enable those TVs to display a broader library of High Dynamic Range (HDR) content from external devices.
HDR has been designed to deliver a much higher level of contrast between light and dark to produce an image that should be more realistic and life-like.
2015 Samsung TV owners should begin receiving the update notification from today.