UPDATE ON UHD BD FOR PC!!!!

[LuekG]

Here is the press release from Cyberlink!

"Taipei, Taiwan—January 25, 2017 — CyberLink Corp.(5203.TW),today announced the availability of its flagship media player, PowerDVD, with Pioneer’s latest Ultra HD Blu-ray drives. This announcement marks a world's first achievement for PowerDVD as the only Ultra HD Blu-ray playback software available for Windows PCs with compatible hardware. A customized version of PowerDVD will be bundled with Pioneer’s Ultra HD Blu-ray drives (models BDR-S11J-BK & BDR-S11J-X), which will ship to the retail market by the end of February 2017.

The Ultra HD Blu-ray format delivers unmatched 4K content, offering not only a significantly larger 3840x2160 resolution, but also a greatly expanded color range and provision of both high dynamic range (HDR) and high-frame rate (up to 60fps) content.

“As a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), CyberLink is working closely with PC manufacturers to lead consumers to the ultimate 4K experience,” said Dr. Jau Huang, CEO of CyberLink. “PowerDVD is already recognized as the number one solution for playing media content on Windows PCs, and with the added support of Ultra HD Blu-ray we are excited to bring next-generation technology in home and personal entertainment to every family.”

Ultra HD Blu-ray playback requires Intel® 7th Generation Core™ i5/i7 processors (selected models: KabyLake-S & KabyLake-H), Intel® HD Graphics 630 chipsets, as well as HDR, HDCP 2.2 and HDMI2.0a compatible motherboards and displays, which are expected to ship in early 2017"

So for those of us with already high end CPU's it looks like the only possible advantage to Kaby Lake is the ability to playback UHD Blu-ray... interesting.

Unless that is just what they're saying and as long as you have a graphics card that can handle the specs you might be fine?

I guess I'll find out soon.

[devwadand]

If this is true this will greatly increase the likelihood that AACS 2.0 encryption on 4k/UHD bluray discs will be hacked/decrypted sooner rather than later. Bad move for movie manufactures, but great for people wanting to back up content.

[LuekG]

That's exactly what I'm hoping to do, back up my 4k films for easy playback and to host smooth running film nights in my screening room for friends and fam!

[MrVideo]

That's exactly what I'm hoping to do, back up my 4k films for easy playback and to host smooth running film nights in my screening room for friends and fam!

If you eventually are able to do that, will HDR capability be lost. Is a UHD player required to be able to use the various HDR formats?

[angelgraves13]

We'll need at least Intel Kaby Lake as it has SGX extensions. Older processors will not be able to decode 4K.

[VAMET]

Dear Friends

So if you will have UHD BD and try to use MakeMKV, it will work? I ask, because there are lots of .mkv x265 files over Internet, but MakeMKV cannot even recognize it.

Sincerely

[angelgraves13]

Dear Friends

So if you will have UHD BD and try to use MakeMKV, it will work? I ask, because there are lots of .mkv x265 files over Internet, but MakeMKV cannot even recognize it.

Sincerely

No, AACS 2.0 has not been cracked.

Those are simply HDMI 2.0 captures from a protected stream and then re-encoded in x265. They're not remuxes.

[goaliebob99]

We'll need at least Intel Kaby Lake as it has SGX extensions. Older processors will not be able to decode 4K.

Why would you need kaby lake to decode 4K? My GPU does it just fine (GTX 1070). All I need is to trancode into h.265 mkv files to back up and remove aacs 2.0. Any CPU should be able to do that. H.265 doesnt need a special CPU to decode as I can decode Nasa UHD in real time on Cband right now with no special CPU / GPU. This is with a Skylake I7 @ 4.7 ghz and a GTX 1070.

[Krawk]

We'll need at least Intel Kaby Lake as it has SGX extensions. Older processors will not be able to decode 4K.

It's not that older processors can't decode 4K, it's the AACS 2.0 protection mechanism in place that prevents this. Hacking AACS 2.0 will overcome this obstacle.
I will not but a completely new PC just to play UHD BD content. When the time comes to eventually upgrade, that is a different story.