4k Blu-Rays

[Smiggy]

Hi guys,

I was wondering someone can help me shed some understanding on Pioneer's new Blu-Ray optical drives, that can play 4k movies. I play 4k games on my Acer Predator XB321HK 32, but I am wondering, if I'll be able to play 4k games.

http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/1/25/14387744/pioneer-ultra-hd-bluray-drive-4k-pc

Apparently the requirements to play 4k movies are found on PowerDVD's site.

https://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdvd-ultra/spec_en_GB.html?&r=1

1) The minumum requirement is your CPU must be one of the Kaby Lake editions or higher - this means my 6950, and Asus Rampage V Edition 10 are not compatible, right?

2) The GPU requirement states Ultra HD Blu-ray: Intel 7th generation (Kaby Lake) Core i processors integrated with Intel HD Graphics 630, Intel Iris™ Graphics 640 - what does this mean? I have 4 980 in Quad SLI configuration.

3) The Motherboard requirement states Ultra HD Blu-ray A mainboard is required which supports the Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) technology. The Intel SGX feature needs to be enabled in the BIOS* settings and allocated with 128 MB or above memory space. To view the HDR 10 effect of Ultra HD Blu-ray movies, a mainboard that supports exporting HDR 10 signal is required - I take it mine is not compatible because it doesn't support the Kaby Lake/Skylake editions?

4) Under Display Device, it says Display device with HDMI 2.0a/DisplayPort 1.3 connection interface, and must support HDCP 2.2 - why is a DP 1.3 required? Mine only support 1.2, but how is everyone else been watching 4k content/movies on their HD/QHD monitors? There are plenty of examples of this on YouTube.

5) Do the same requirements apply, if you're playing downloaded 4k content from netflix. So, you're not playing it from a disc.

Thanks guys.

[triffid]

Ad 3: Few days ago I started a thread in "Other series motherboards" section. Actually there is a slight chance that four ASUS mobos may be compatible with UHD Blu-ray playback requirements. These motherboards are equipped with HDMI 2.0 output, but since ASUS does not provide more details about HDCP and Intel SGX, I do not know for sure.

ASUS Z270 WS is not yet released and I bet there will be SGX activated in its BIOS.
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z270-WS
ASUS Z170 WS
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z170-WS
ASUS Z170 Deluxe
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z170-DELUXE
ASUS Z170 Premium
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z170-PREMIUM

Are here any owners of Z170 WS or Z170 Deluxe or Z170 Premium? Can you confirm whether the latest BIOS 3401* offers Software Guard Extensions (SGX) Enable/Disable option or not? I asked the official tech support, of course, but I received no answer...

*3002 for Z170 WS

[Korth]

Mildly off-topic:

I think it's ridiculous that few (if any) 4K TV (or other hi-res TVs) ever come with DisplayPorts. Only HDMI ports, lol, plus various USB implementations. Hoping that TV manufacturers correct this oversight soon.

[jmike]

Korth wrote:
Mildly off-topic:

I think it's ridiculous that few (if any) 4K TV (or other hi-res TVs) ever come with DisplayPorts. Only HDMI ports, lol, plus various USB implementations. Hoping that TV manufacturers correct this oversight soon.

The only one I ever saw was a Panasonic which was I think in '14 and since discontinued.

[Smiggy]

Will the new X299 board, and wih the SkyLake X CPUs up be UHD compatible?

[triffid]

Smiggy wrote:
Will the new X299 board, and wih the SkyLake X CPUs up be UHD compatible?

Good question. It is a high-end platform. Thus probably no graphics cores inside the CPU. If so, then also no HDMI outputs onboard. So the answer is no - until discrete GPUs learn to handle SGX. I believe the motherboards will be SGX compatible and the CPUs too.

[Smiggy]

triffid wrote:
Good question. It is a high-end platform. Thus probably no graphics cores inside the CPU. If so, then also no HDMI outputs onboard. So the answer is no - until discrete GPUs learn to handle SGX. I believe the motherboards will be SGX compatible and the CPUs too.

Bummers.

Maybe the new Volta chips will address that?

[Smiggy]

@triffid.

I am sorry, if this sounds retarded, but if our rigs are not up to playing UHD CDs, or netflix 4K streaming then how would we go about playing 4k movies, and/or using 4k CDs to burn content?

You talked about 4k playback? My udnerstanding this means viewing/watching 4k content not from a CD. I though this would include netflix 4k downloads.

[triffid]

I do not understand the question, I am sorry.
I was talking about using UHD Blu-ray drives (Newegg started to sell one yesterday) in your PC to watch UHD BD movies (black boxes with UHD BD logo, not standard blue boxes).
Then there is Netflix, Amazon and other sources of 4k movies. The quality of streamed video is significantly lower than from the UHD discs, but it is still 4k. From what I read on other forums, Netflix requirements for 4k playback are similar (Kaby Lake CPU, Win 10, Edge, possibly also SGX). As I said already, I do not have Netflix account, so I can't tell exactly.
You can still play 4k videos. From Youtube, for example. Even your smartphone is able to record 4k videos. Internet is full of 4k movies because not all streaming services are as secure as Netflix.
Note: There is nothing like UHD CDs, only UHD BDs. And those are not recordable, you can't burn an UHD BD...

[Smiggy]

triffid wrote:
I do not understand the question, I am sorry.
I was talking about using UHD Blu-ray drives (Newegg started to sell one yesterday) in your PC to watch UHD BD movies (black boxes with UHD BD logo, not standard blue boxes).
Then there is Netflix, Amazon and other sources of 4k movies. The quality of streamed video is significantly lower than from the UHD discs, but it is still 4k. From what I read on other forums, Netflix requirements for 4k playback are similar (Kaby Lake CPU, Win 10, Edge, possibly also SGX). As I said already, I do not have Netflix account, so I can't tell exactly.
You can still play 4k videos. From Youtube, for example. Even your smartphone is able to record 4k videos. Internet is full of 4k movies because not all streaming services are as secure as Netflix.
Note: There is nothing like UHD CDs, only UHD BDs. And those are not recordable, you can't burn an UHD BD...

Thank you for that. When you said, 4k playback, you meant watching them on Internet like YouTube, right? The conditionscondition of Kaby Lake CPU, Win10 etc. doesn't apply, right?

Awesome, can you show me this UHD Blu-Ray from Newsegg?

[jmike]

Smiggy wrote:
Thank you for that. When you said, 4k playback, you meant watching them on Internet like YouTube, right? The conditionscondition of Kaby Lake CPU, Win10 etc. doesn't apply, right?

Awesome, can you show me this UHD Blu-Ray from Newsegg?

Here is the drive he was referring to. Here is an article from Jan discussing the drive and it's requirements.


I'll also add this:

triffid wrote:

Then there is Netflix, Amazon and other sources of 4k movies. The quality of streamed video is significantly lower than from the UHD discs, but it is still 4k

is the understatement of the century. While I don't have any UHD Discs that are also being streamed in 4k from Netflix/Amazon, I have done comparisons of similar content and was amazed at the difference. The closest comparison I could make is playing a standard 1080p disc of Spectre being upscaled to 4k by the player and streaming Spectre from Amazon. The 1080p disc looked noticeably better than the 4k stream from Amazon.