- Warner Bros has scanned over 20 movies in 8K
- Scanning from film, including 70mm
- But is there any point to 8K over streaming?
One of the big downsides of the best 8K TVs is that there’s precious little 8K content to watch. But Warner Bros’ latest news suggests that good things are coming. Over 20 good things, in fact, as a start.
Speaking at the NAB 2025 event this week, Warner Bros said that it has scanned over 20 films in 8K. As FlatpanelsHD reports, it didn’t name the movies, but it did say that it was scanning movies shot on film, including movies shot on 70mm, in 8K. That’s a combination for home theater heaven.
The studio has previously teamed up with Samsung to deliver 8K movie trailers for Creed III, Barbie, Blue Beetle, Dune: Part Two, Wonka and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. And Apple is also producing 8K entertainment, albeit with a focus on Vision Pro so far.
The news that more 8K entertainment is coming is great, but there’s still something missing before we can believe that the 8K future is actually coming.
8K home entertainment: what’s missing
The big question remaining is: how will we actually get our 8K entertainment in way that makes jumping to 8K actually worth it?
There’s a huge, disc-shaped hole in the high quality home entertainment ecosystem: Blu-Ray tops out at 4K and there are no plans for an 8K successor.
The answer could be online video, but not as it’s currently being delivered by the major streaming services: streaming services use compressed video formats, and that’s anathema to the kind of people who care enough about picture quality to buy an 8K TV or projector, and to pay for 8K movies.
The bitrate for 8K is huge, so much so that the IEEE has produced a paper about it. If delivered via Netflix or the other best streaming services, it would come with such compressed colors that the extra resolution would be a pointless trade-off. If we can have higher bitrate streaming, I’d rather we just had better-quality 4K, closer to what you get from the best 4K Blu-ray players.
Speaking of which, the answer could be Kaleidescape. The firm makes high-end movie streamers and also delivers downloads, and its movies are delivered at the same high-quality as 4K Blu-rays. It’s just joined the joined the 8K Alliance to “play a pivotal role in shaping the future of premium home cinema”. An 8K movie equivalent of Qobuz’s hi-res audio downloads could be compelling – although it could also be very costly.
It’s clear that something is needed, however, because the dearth of 8K content is clearly worrying the TV firms and keeping sales numbers low: Sony has quietly confirmed that it’s stepping away from 8K TV manufacturing for the time being and other manufacturers such as LG haven’t announced new 8K models for some time.
I’m excited by the idea of 8K-quality 70mm movies being available at home, but they need to reach people in a way that makes them superior to what we have now, or it’ll all be pointless.
