No more Samsung Blu-ray-players means I have questions

Luca Fontana

20.2.2019

Translation: Eva Francis

At the start of the week, Samsung revealed it wouldn’t be releasing any new Blu-ray players with immediate effect. Not even in Switzerland. Does that mean the future belongs to streaming platforms?

CNET reported the news that Samsung is giving up its new Full HD and Ultra HD Blu-ray player business in the US. There had been speculation but all the more since the IFA 2018 in Berlin and CES 2019 in Las Vegas when Samsung didn’t present any new Blu-ray devices for the 2019 line-up. So what does that mean for the TV market?

Samsung obviously doesn’t envisage home cinema entertainment in physical storage media form in the future. In other words, it can’t picture DVDs, Blu-ray or UHD Blu-ray playing a part. And with this move, the South Korean TV manufacturer ultimately confirmed the persistent streaming trend. But who knows if there are other reasons behind it.

The UHD Blu-ray market is (still) growing

Samsung is known as an innovator that is happy to set the direction for the rest of the industry. That’s how the South Korean giant came to release the first marketable UHD Blu-ray player just a little over two years ago. And that at a time when there weren't any UHD Blu-rays. Just a few months later and there were already two dozen UHD home cinema titles available to buy. Read more about Blu-rays (in German) here:

What should have been the starting shot for a new generation of physical storage media already seemed to be confined to the scrapheap. Or it was at Samsung, at any rate. It’s only recently that there have been encouraging signs from the British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE), namely that the UHD Blu-ray market increased again last year. In fact, 13% of all Blu-rays sold were of the Ultra HD variety. Also, physical storage media apparently still makes up 59% of the whole video market.

This success is probably connected to the growing sales of UHD TVs, players and films.

As it happens, the gfu, corporation supporting consumer electronics in Germany reported 98 million UHD TVs sold worldwide at the end of 2018. That’s three times as many as in 2015. The figures from the market research company NPD go a bit further back. They highlight that at the end of 2017 the market for UHD Blu-ray players worldwide had increased by 150% and had the potential to grow further still. Meanwhile, the number of available UHD films reached the 330 mark according to whathifi. Dan Schinasi of all people, senior manager of product planning for entertainment electronics at Samsung America, said at the start of 2018: «That’s quite impressive for this relatively young UHD format.»

Be that as it may, Samsung is backing out. When asked what impact the recent news would have on the Swiss market, this was the statement Samsung Switzerland’s media department gave:

That sounds as though they’re only talking about newly developed models. Perhaps the existing ones can keep being produced and sold. I tried to dig a little deeper but just got this answer:

So what are the other big manufacturers doing? LG is (still) keeping shtum. Sony Switzerland, on the other hand, confirmed they’re definitely following a different route to that of Samsung. In other words, the successor to the UBP-X800 is at the ready. (It goes on sale around June 2019.)

Now we know – I’m just unsure of the why

Perhaps the current streaming and cloud climate of Netflix is behind Samsung’s decision – at least their decision not to add any new models to the market. Then a new idea strikes me.

I recently tried out Samsung’s 8K TV. What I didn’t mention in the test is that Samsung’s TV Plus app is on the Tizen operating system interface. You can access TV Plus and other theme-based streaming channels, even those on rakuten TV channels. It makes me wonder if Samsung is working on the mid- to long-term on a streaming platform similar to Netflix?

That seems crazy to me. The chance of success is small when you’re going up against the big players such as Netflix, Disney and Amazon. What’s more, Samsung has never produced films or TV series. That would be completely out of its comfort zone. In terms of which one I’d choose: I’d trust Sony more. The Japanese manufacturer has its own production studio along with Sony Pictures Entertainment.

And yet, I still can’t shake the feeling that…

There’s a lot of money to be made in streaming. Disney and Warner Bros wouldn’t be launching any streaming platforms of their own this year if that weren’t the case. As it is, Netflix, Amazon, Google and Apple seem to have already exploited what they can of that market. Perhaps Samsung is feeling its way slowly but surely into the market with the TV Plus without really knowing if it’s going to lead to anything. And if it does, the South Korean company is ready.

It’s a daring proposition, I know. Maybe it’s quite straightforward and comes down to the simple fact Blu-ray player costs for research and development aren’t worth it anymore. What do you think? Am I being paranoid? Is it soon to be the end for UHD Blu-rays? And do we all need at least 12 streaming subscriptions? Let me know in the comments below.

Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I'm an outdoorsy guy and enjoy sports that push me to the limit – now that’s what I call comfort zone! But I'm also about curling up in an armchair with books about ugly intrigue and sinister kingkillers. Being an avid cinema-goer, I’ve been known to rave about film scores for hours on end. I’ve always wanted to say: «I am Groot.» more

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