I just joined the party and bought a 55" LG CX OLED and a Sony UBP-X1100ES 4K Blu-Ray. To demo the machine, I purchased The Last Jedi, The Force Awakens and Apocalypse Now. The latter looks absolutely incredible, what a tremendous restoration. Sorry if perhaps it was mentioned upstream in this thread, but can anyone comment on the Blues Brothers 4K UHD disc? Specifically, is it a significant enough upgrade in quality over the Blu-Ray disc? JQ
It's not so much incorrect colors, as it will be incorrect contrast levels. Dolby Vision can vary the intensity of highlights (including some colors of course) on a frame-by-frame basis. Whereas standard HDR is a static mapping of the luminance, per film.
Wow. Thank you for your reply, much appreciated. So, anyone purchasing the LOTR 4K box but without a Dolby Vision TV is going to see a somewhat wrong presentation?
You can turn Dolby Vision off in your player, then you'll just have an SDR experience. If your TV can't handle DV, it might just ignore that metadata and display SDR. Each display/model has its own quirks and settings, you'll definitely want to do more research.
Star ratings or letter grades can be semi-meaningless. Some people only give 5/5 - or "A" grades - if the product objectively looks great. Some do so if the image looks as good as possible - ie, accurately reproduces the source, even if objectively it's ugly. I try to compromise. I try to recognize "potential quality" and don't give an ugly image an "F" if it's supposed to be ugly. However, I also reserve high grades for objectively attractive images. I mean, the best-looking version of something shot on VHS is still gonna look meh at best. That doesn't mean it should get an "F", but I still can't give it an "A"!
I find that tough to believe. I've written reviews for nearly 23 years and have written many that "trash" DVDs/BDs/4Ks. I've lost label support due to the paring back of publicity budgets, but not due to my content. They just don't have the resources to send to everyone anymore. If they actually withheld support because of criticism, I would've lost all the labels 20 years ago!
Thats a cool site! Reading the review of Glory, though, that's another 5 star rating, and I just can't figure it out. Yes, it translates to the big screen home theater system well (my 77" LG C1 has a great panel and was calibrated by D-Nice for HDR, DV, and SDR, etc.), and I'm sitting about 7.5 to 8ft away, but I've yet to feel the 5 star rating on the UHD release. Like, let's say compared to Jaws or The Shining, closeups are pinpoint crisp. Bright skies show grain more, dimly lit scenes show no or very little black crush. But I guess it's just the softness of Glory that disallows a good rating to my eyes. I mean, if it's soft, it's soft, right? So where is this sharpness in the uniforms, etc. when 50% or more of the film is soft? I thought that the first two Indy movies might have gotten an overzealous grade, but not compared to Glory. Those Indy films look great in comparison. I'll be watching 2001: A Space Odyssey and Psycho for the first time this weekend on UHD to see how they stack up. Actually, Psycho will be the first B&W film I've seen on UHD since I've gotten my set. I'm excited!
I got It's A Wonderful Life for my wife in 4K. To date, that's the only B&W film I've seen in the format. I just got my copy of The Thing in the mail. I can't wait to sit down and watch that classic!
Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey? Now that's a 5 star image. It's the best 1968 ever looked, which by 1968 standards, that's 4.8 stars. Nobody was capable of seeing the film like this in 1968. Kubrick would have been even more thrilled. Yeah, that is really good. A wonder to behold.
Gremlins 4K is $15 right now. I don't own any version of this and was wondering about the quality. BR.com gave it a 3.5 review but the comment section paints a totally different picture so I'm going for it.
Watching Psycho on UHD last night was a very pleasing cinematic presentation. There was nothing much to bellyache about that wasn't already baked into the film. Aside for a few grain spikes the closer you get to white, and spikes on glossy surfaces, the detail is all there. It's generally a crisp image all the way around. See a B&W film in 4K was a little startling, as my eyes had previously adjusted to pure blacks in color film, but in B&W the blacks are even more pronounced, making it a darker film. I don't think Hitchcock and crew were even capable seeing how deep the blacks were, given the technology of the time. Is that a true statement, @Vidiot? Also, while I have you in the line, Vidiot, I remember some thread where we were talking about The Twilight Zone blu ray set - which is still my gold standard for B&W PQ - and I think I remarked that I wonder if they'll do a 4K release, the scans are so beautiful (I don't know if they are 2K or 4K scans on the BD release). You stated that you didn't think that a 4K release of a The Twilight Zone wouldn't be needed, since the 1080p scans were so nice. Now that I've Psycho in 4K,and then put on an episode of The Twilight Zone, I'm beginning to think that a 4K release would be splendid. Granted, even the 1080p upscaling to a 4K screen brings out extra detail already. I just simply think that the extra oomph that HDR gave Psycho would also benefit The Twilight Zone. But of course maybe I'm wrong. Watching them back to back, though, and noticing what a better print The Twilight Zone is, compared to Psycho, I would definitely double-dip for Rod Serling's masterpiece. But I've got a ways to go in order to give a better critique of B&W in 4K. I've still got Schindler's List, Citizen Kane, and the new set with Dracula, The Wolf Man, etc...
It's more about the mastering than anything else. You could potentially master any film in Dolby Vision/HDR, and that would boost the dynamic range quite a bit, maybe by 4 or 5 times. Technically, the shadows don't go any lower, but they kind of "feel" lower in relation to the elevated highlights. So you do see a more intense image. I don't think 1960s 35mm film could reproduce 4K of information, but it would certainly hit 2K, no problem. Much above that... to me, it's mostly grain and noise.
I'll buy a 4k disk if the price is right. But, the only 4k capable things I have is my computer's Intel graphics chip. I do not have a 4k player yet.
Never say never, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for The Twilight Zone on UHD. The economics of the format preclude it, unfortunately.
I watched the UHD of Snatch last night. I love the film, which is why I bought it. However, I felt that it was the only UHD film thay I've seen so far that didn't benefit that much from the uptick. Sure, extreme closeups revealed more detail; otherwise, I thought the colors looked worse than I remember them, and the rest was about at good as 1080p. Oh well, I guess that happens sometimes. Snatch was nothing like the magnificent experience of the UHD for Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory from last weekend's viewing sessions.
Great to hear you've done it right with a calibration by one of the best. Me too. Not Darryl, but someone at least as prominent. 2001 4k is first time I've seen justice done to the film including a 70mm showing at the Cinerama in Seattle. Another fantastic film is Lawrence of Arabia. Stunningly good. Apocalypse Now is also excellent.
Funny you should mention those. Yeah, 2001 was breathtaking. Even under the hyper-scrutiny of 4K, I was amazed at how realistic the ape-men looked in the "Dawn of Man" sequence, as, for instance, the shark never looked so fake in Jaws, due to the extra resolution (the Jaws UHD still looks amazing, regardless). But yeah, I'm waiting for a standalone release of Lawrence of Arabia. I have Apocalypse Now, but just haven't watched it yet. I have quite a backlog of UHD that I haven't gotten around to yet, plus a couple of films I want to re-watch in 4K, as the first time I watched them it was on a 65" uncalibrated LG CX that I had before I decided to go balls-out for a newer set, pro-calibrated, with a better graphics engine. Those include, yes, Jaws, the first two Indiana Jones films, and Casino. It's Casino that I watched only the beginning of again on my calibrated set, and immediately I saw, "Oh, yeah, so this is what the hype was about with the colors being brilliant!" It was that obvious between the uncalibrated CX and the calibrated C1. I'm babbling, but as you can tell, I'm over the moon about my 77" C1, and having fun with these UHD films. Edit: P. S. - my player is the Panasonic UB820, which only adds to the experience, as its own engine is top-flight.
I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark on my calibrated set, versus when I saw it on my uncalibrated CX. Yes, I think most reviews are being generous. It was just shot way too dark. To back that up I went to Spielberg's Jaws, and Jaws was shot more beautifully. It's way more sharp. In fact, the dark beginning of Jaws was even more resolved on my calibrated set, as that one, too, I saw on the uncalibrated CX. I just don't think Raiders holds up, comparatively speaking from the same director.
@Vidiot, my understanding is that different film stock will show greater amounts of grain, with generally the older the film (because the stock was limited) having the most grain. But the question is, will aging and deterioration of the original negative, or the best print available, add extra grain to the image? As an aside, I haven't covered all of the decades yet, but by decade the best PQ on UHD so far has been: 1930s - The Wizard of Oz (1939) - 'nuff said - A very solid honorable mention goes to Dracula (1931), which is a revelation on UHD. I wish they had presented the cleanup of the Spanish version in 4K. 1940s - I haven't see The Wolf Man (1941) yet (I'll be watching for Halloween), nor Citizen Kane (1941) on UHD. I'm a little light on 1940s films. I have no clue what looks good. 1950s - Vertigo (1958), which is stunning on just about every level, and a clinic in how wonderful Technicolor can appear. 1960s - 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), so clean and beautiful, even the FX are difficult to peer through, especially the ape men. It's almost as if this movie was filmed in 2001. 1970s - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) - Yeah, I would take this image over Jaws. Reviews have knocked the film for its drabish beginning, but I thought it was stellar, because of the extra detail and even-handed blacks to grays. 1980s - This is tough, because The Shining (1980) is such a powerful movie, and looks wonderful, but Beetlejuice (1988) is about as perfect as you can get. You know, and First Blood (1982) needs a special shout out. It has a few minor problems in long to medium shots, but boy is this resolving in detail and color. Those scenes in the dark cave never crush. Very well filmed. I think I should mention here that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) is the best looking of the Indy films. There's not much amiss with it. As soon as the reach the dock to get on the boat, the image is consistently great. 1990s - Casino (1995) takes the cake here. I'll end there. I just wanted to jot down a few of my observations. As for 1080p blu rays on my 4K set. It's now proving more difficult to go back to 1080p. Yes, 1080p generally looks better on the LG 77" C1, especially the colors, but some films look worse, and some look better. As far as looking worse, The Exorcist (1973) doesn't look near as sharp as it did on my old plasma (a previous reference disc), while films like True Grit (2010) and Crusing (1980), also a William Friedkin film, pop off the screen! I have no clue while some 1080p films look great while others don't. Some of them I would expect to look bad, but they look good, and vice versa. I think another example would be Criterion's release of Night of the Living Dead (1968). I was let down with the PQ on my old Plasma, but on my 4K set it looks fab! Could the difference be if the 1080p transfer was sourced from a 2K or a 4K scan?
My experience is they just adjust the grain reduction control to "even out" the amount of visible grain, using the camera original as a guide. The dupes -- IPs or opticals or INs -- will have more grain that the original camera film, because it's a copy, or a copy of a copy, or worse. Lowry Digital's "Lowry Process" basically sucked all the grain out of the entire film, then added back an even layer of grain to the entire movie in an attempt to make it look reasonable. The grain wasn't a simulation -- they actually used a sample of the grain that was stripped off during the analysis. To me, a lot of the time, the difference is because the mastering engineer made better decisions and better choices. Just about everything I've been doing -- a lot of small indie films, horror films, cult classics, exploitation movies, etc. -- have all been done at 4K. But I don't think the 4K made them good. The real key to me is getting the original negative, and when they can do that, it gives me a lot more room to work with. I just finished working on a 1988 sci-fi/detective film, and I compared it to a Blu-ray done 10-12 years ago. I made the color about the same, but we had more range in terms of black detail and highlight detail, so ours appears to be sharper and looks better overall. But I think theirs was done from an IP, and I don't doubt it's as good an image as they could create back then.
Yes, they are worth the investment. Just ensure that your 4K UHD standalone player or PC has HDR support. These may look "dark", but with HDR enabled, they will be brighter and clearer.
Black Friday has come early on Amazon. Check out BR.com- there's about a page or so of 4k titles at 9.99 - 12.99. Includes a lot of Star Wars titles as well as superhero flicks if those interest you. I picked up Godzilla vs. Kong and Willy Wonka at 10 bucks apiece. Knowing Amazon, this probably won't last long.
Right now is a good time to invest in media. Prices are down on TVs, players and discs. I would if I could...
A couple of films I've been put off by... Raiders of the Lost Ark Back to the Future What's with the mid-'80s films and the darker imagine in HDR? The color look good, the images are sharp (much clearer than the BDs), yet they are darker. There is no black crush nor artifacts, but I wonder if it's the film stock of the day, or did I not notice how many night time scenes there were, or perhaps I'm just not pulling enough nits (no OLED does at the moment). Anyway, I started watching Back to the Future, and thinking it looked like the best theater screen that never was, but then the dark scenes kicked it, much like Raiders, and it seemed swampy. I really need to see some more modern films, like the LOTR trilogy, to see what's what. But really, some movies from the '70s look better than these' 80s movies, and even films from the '60s. On an unrelated note, cropping aside, I've been very pleased with how filmic Seinfeld looks on Netflix streaming.
