Samsung will launch UHD Blu-ray player in early 2016

Samsung will release its first Blu-ray player in 2016 that can play movies in 4k resolution. The Fox studios will start distributing the films on UHD Blu-ray by then, but they will be available via streaming sooner.

Samsung did not yet give many details about the first UHD Blu-ray player. The player seems to have a curved design, in line with some UHDTVs from Samsung. Fox will now release films in UHD resolution, including The Fantastic Four, Maze Runner and Kingsman: The Secret Service. The first UHD Blu-ray discs should be in stores at the beginning of 2016, but the films will be released via streaming services earlier, although it is not known which ones they are.

All UHD movies that Fox will release support direct HDR playback for extra clear reproduction of bright parts of movie scenes. Samsung will provide UHDTVs with firmware updates to support that display. The HDMI specification is therefore software upgraded to version 2.0a.

The Blu-Ray Disc Association finalized the specification of UHD Blu-ray in May this year. Panasonic previously showed a prototype of a player that could play the discs, but the status of that development is unknown.