Samsung 4K Ultra-HD Blu-Ray players gets an early release in California

22 Feb 2019

According to a report, Samsung 4K Ultra-HD Blu-Ray players have arrived earlier, by a couple of weeks in Southern California. Santa Monica-based store Video and Audio Center started offering Samsung’s first 4K Ultra-HD player on Friday.

Currently, The Samsung UBDK8500 is available in limited quantities, priced at $397.99. New York City-based online retailer B&H Photo Video and Crutchfield.com have begun taking preorders for $399, and are expected to ship them by February 15th and February 17th respectively. Samsung unveiled 4K Ultra-HD Blu-Ray player at CES 2016 last month, and is likely to generate demand as rival companies are not expected to release them for a few weeks.

“Video purists who want to see the full resolution and original cinematic quality will see a difference immediately and will want these,” said Tom Campbell, chief technologist at Video and Audio Center.

Consumers have only three options of Blu-Ray players to choose from — the Samsung UBDK8500, Panasonic DMP-UB900 and Philips BDP7501. However, it remains unclear when Samsung will release the players to other markets in the US. Users will be able to purchase ‘The Martian’ and Kingsmen: The Secret Service in 4K Ultra-HD as Twentieth Century Fox promised to release the movie discs at the time of the player’s release. Amazon has listed that ‘The Martian’ ($29.99) will be out on March 1.

The movies in UHD format will boast High Dynamic Range (HDR) with rich color contrast and an enhanced color palette. Movies on UHD Blu-Ray discs should notice significant difference in the cinematic quality than the current Blu-Ray and 4K streaming video.

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