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UHD/4K Disc Thread


downzy

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I realize there's already a Blu-Ray thread, but I wanted a separate thread limited to discussing UHD/Ultra4k discs.

I'm finally getting into the 4K space and picked up Dunkirk, Planet Earth II, and Mad Max - Fury Road.

It's disappointing to see so few great films have been released on UHD discs as of yet (especially when one consider the absolute shit movies that seem to get a UHD release).  I'd love a UHD of Tarantino's Hateful Eight and a true 4K version of the most recent Thor movie (probably one of the more visually stimulating movies, but heard like most Marvel movies it won't be true 4K).  

Interesting to note that not all UHD discs are true 4K.  I stumbled across a few sites the last couple of days that summarize which discs are true 4K and which are fake (or, to be more specific, upscaled versions of HD prints).  

Also interested in hearing people's opinions on how they consume 4K content.  There's not much from my cable provider (and I would have to spend a lot more monthly to access their diminutive offerings) and I'm not sure I want to buy Apple 4K TV to rent 4K movies.  I've also read that streaming 4K isn't nearly as impressive as watching 4K content from a disc.  

Any suggestions or recommendations with respect to 4K consumption or which discs are worth buying for their 4K prints are appreciated.  

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I don’t care who you are, streaming content is never the same as watching it on a disc.

That said, while not every 4K disc may be “real 4K”, there’s no denying the upgrade in quality on the majority of the releases.

The Revenant, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and Dunkirk (Not my favorite Nolan film, but couldn’t pass on the price I got on it) all look fantastic, and films like the first I almost thought they couldn’t look any better than they did on blu-ray. Sheesh.

I thought the same about The Hateful Eight the other day, and just most of Tarantino’s releases in general. Hoping he jumps on it and gets them upgraded and doesn’t hold them back.

I’m anticipating Blade Runner 2049 in 4K very much so as well.

In terms of consumption, I’ll never pay to own a digital version of something. Netflix is one thing, and that’s different, but if I can own a hard copy, especially when it comes to video media releases, that’s what I’m doing.

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8 minutes ago, Black Sabbath said:

I don’t care who you are, streaming content is never the same as watching it on a disc.

That said, while not every 4K disc may be “real 4K”, there’s no denying the upgrade in quality on the majority of the releases.

The Revenant, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and Dunkirk (Not my favorite Nolan film, but couldn’t pass on the price I got on it) all look fantastic, and films like the first I almost thought they couldn’t look any better than they did on blu-ray. Sheesh.

I thought the same about The Hateful Eight the other day, and just most of Tarantino’s releases in general. Hoping he jumps on it and gets them upgraded and doesn’t hold them back.

I’m anticipating Blade Runner 2049 in 4K very much so as well.

In terms of consumption, I’ll never pay to own a digital version of something. Netflix is one thing, and that’s different, but if I can own a hard copy, especially when it comes to video media releases, that’s what I’m doing.

I believe The Hateful Eight was short (in parts) in 70mm and that the only disc release so far isn't what was released in theatres.  Hopefully if/when they release a UHD copy they include the original theatre cut.

Good to know that "fake" UHD still looks dramatically better than blu-ray.  

Dunkirk and Mad Max: Fury Road were two of my favourite movies in the last 10 years so happy to pick those up.  

The issue with discs is that fewer people are buying them.  I'm not sure the market will ever be big enough for studios to re-release a lot of films in physical form.  Kind of like what we've seen with music, most people are satisfied with 50-60 percent with mp3s and highly compressed music files.  Maybe and hopefully I'm wrong, but I think digital distribution is most likely the only means by which we get re-released UHD films.   

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Physical will never go away. But they will drastically cut their costs. You think Blu cases are cheap pieces of fuck now? Wait til studios get worried. Say goodbye to Blu/DVD combos. I don't care if you have a fucking Gigabit connection, streaming does not compare.

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11 hours ago, downzy said:

I realize there's already a Blu-Ray thread, but I wanted a separate thread limited to discussing UHD/Ultra4k discs.

I'm finally getting into the 4K space and picked up Dunkirk, Planet Earth II, and Mad Max - Fury Road.

It's disappointing to see so few great films have been released on UHD discs as of yet (especially when one consider the absolute shit movies that seem to get a UHD release).  I'd love a UHD of Tarantino's Hateful Eight and a true 4K version of the most recent Thor movie (probably one of the more visually stimulating movies, but heard like most Marvel movies it won't be true 4K).  

Interesting to note that not all UHD discs are true 4K.  I stumbled across a few sites the last couple of days that summarize which discs are true 4K and which are fake (or, to be more specific, upscaled versions of HD prints).  

Also interested in hearing people's opinions on how they consume 4K content.  There's not much from my cable provider (and I would have to spend a lot more monthly to access their diminutive offerings) and I'm not sure I want to buy Apple 4K TV to rent 4K movies.  I've also read that streaming 4K isn't nearly as impressive as watching 4K content from a disc.  

Any suggestions or recommendations with respect to 4K consumption or which discs are worth buying for their 4K prints are appreciated.  

I absolutely love the 4K discs I have. The whole "real or fake" debate is a non-starter for me. Anyone who can look me in the eye and tell me they can see a difference between "real and fake 4K" resolution wise, is 100% full of shit.

Conversely, anyone who says that can't tell the difference between a blu-ray and a 4K disc either needs have their eyes checked or get out of the home theater game. If nothing else, the HDR aspect is absolutely worth the jump. If you don't have a display that can do HDR10 or above, you're truly missing out.

I only have a handful of 4K discs currently but all of them absolutely destroy their blu-ray counterparts on every level, most of all contrast due to HDR10. Can't wait for HDR10+ to be fully realized next year so we can finally put this Dolby Vision nonsense behind us and move on.

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@downzy

Hateful Eight was released in two forms in the theater. A 70mm “Roadshow Edition” and the regular theatrical cut. The theatrical cut got the home release, but not the Roadshow Edition. I’m hoping they end up releasing that version as well, but Tarantino can be a stickler when it comes to his films, so we’ll see.

I agree with Russ though about the “real/fake” debate. To me, unless the transfer itself is just awful (apparently Terminator 2 is the world 4K yet), that debate is the same as people claiming they can tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p. Technically 1080p is better, but the human eye can’t notice that difference. So as Russ said, anyone claiming to be able to tell the difference between a “real” or fake 4K transfer, is ridiculous. And at the end of the day, it all comes down to how the films were originally shot and how the studios go about upgrading them.

Re: Physical media - It’ll never go away, but it’ll certainly shrink more than it already has in stores. People find digital media to be more convenient, and that may be true in some sense, but when it comes to video media, physical releases are better than digital, no argument.

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Now that I have a 4K TV I've been sitting on whether or not to get a player or go all in and get the Xbox One X to have a player and gaming all in one. Already my standard Xbox One looks unreal. I'll be anxious to see how my current Blu collection looks upscaled through a 4K player as I'm told even that makes a huge difference.

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A few years ago I spent a mint collecting Blu Ray Discs so I haven't done the 4k upgrade yet.  The TV's are cheap now but I might still hold off.  8k is already out so I might skip 4k altogether and just wait for the 8k prices to come down.  Idk. :shrugs:  What do you guys think?

 

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2 hours ago, Kasanova King said:

A few years ago I spent a mint collecting Blu Ray Discs so I haven't done the 4k upgrade yet.  The TV's are cheap now but I might still hold off.  8k is already out so I might skip 4k altogether and just wait for the 8k prices to come down.  Idk. :shrugs:  What do you guys think?

 

We're getting to the point where screen resolution is becoming irrelevant.  Unless you're planning on buying an 80" television or larger, it's unlikely you'll see much difference between 4K and 8K.  

Far more tangible are technologies like HDR, increases in peak brightness, black depths, colour gamuts, etc.  I've read that the next big step in visual fidelity isn't necessarily in resolution but in dynamic range; HDR is far more noticeable than a jump in resolution - at least that's what I've read from casual observers.  

It's likely going to be another 5 years before we see full adoption of 4K.  I don't see 8K becoming accessible in any meaningful way for another 10 years or more. 8K is still very nascent; there are very few options and they're extremely expensive.  Plus I don't see much in the way of 8K content.  

If you're wanting to wait for the next true television breakthrough, it won't be a jump in resolution but in screen technology.  The dream is combining the brightness of high end LED television with the blacks and darkness of OLED.  I believe Samsung is working on developing a LED screen that can turn on and off individual pixels the same way OLED currently does, but with the benefit of higher peak brightness of LED.  The technologies was being called QLED a few years ago, but that might chance considering Samsung decided to refer to their 2017 high-end models as QLED (despite not having anything to do with QLED technology).  The best estimated timeline when we'll see true QLED technology will be in late 2020 - 2021.  Keep in mind even when this technology becomes available for the consumer market it will be prohibitively expensive.  I just purchased a 55" LG OLED television as the technology has finally come down in price to where I can afford it.  

TL;DR - don't wait for 8K, buy a 4K tv now.  It will be a long time before 8K becomes accessible.  

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13 hours ago, RussTCB said:

I absolutely love the 4K discs I have. The whole "real or fake" debate is a non-starter for me. Anyone who can look me in the eye and tell me they can see a difference between "real and fake 4K" resolution wise, is 100% full of shit.

Conversely, anyone who says that can't tell the difference between a blu-ray and a 4K disc either needs have their eyes checked or get out of the home theater game. If nothing else, the HDR aspect is absolutely worth the jump. If you don't have a display that can do HDR10 or above, you're truly missing out.

I only have a handful of 4K discs currently but all of them absolutely destroy their blu-ray counterparts on every level, most of all contrast due to HDR10. Can't wait for HDR10+ to be fully realized next year so we can finally put this Dolby Vision nonsense behind us and move on.

Thanks for the insight on 4K discs and the fuss over true versus fake 4k discs.  I guess I won't have to worry so much about watching Mad Max since it's apparently not "true" 4K.

It will be interesting to see whether HDR10+ can supplant Dolby Vision.  Right now Dolby Vision seems to have a big head start with both tv manufacturers (outside of Samsung) and content delivery providers (I believe most 4K HDR videos on iTunes are all Dolby Vision).  But with HDR10+ being free and rivals or supplants Dolby Vision in visual fidelity it will likely shake things up.

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20 hours ago, downzy said:

It will be interesting to see whether HDR10+ can supplant Dolby Vision.  Right now Dolby Vision seems to have a big head start with both tv manufacturers (outside of Samsung) and content delivery providers (I believe most 4K HDR videos on iTunes are all Dolby Vision).  But with HDR10+ being free and rivals or supplants Dolby Vision in visual fidelity it will likely shake things up.

Here's the thing with Dolby Vision and HDR10: There's not one piece of content available today or on any release schedule available only in Dolby Vision. Every piece of content either supports both or only HDR10. 

The one and only perceived advantage Dolby Vision had over HDR10 was the dynamic metadata which ended up being not that big of a deal because the content was being pre-mastered with the correct HDR levels. So it didn't need a software driven dynamic process added as a layer because it was already set out of the gate. That's the #1 reason all content providers went with HDR10, only adding Dolby Vision as a "bonus" of sorts for those displays that might only support that. 

Now, HDR10+ is a different story it's a hardware driven process as opposed to software. So, in essence, the content would know to send the HDR metadata to the display and the display would decode it based on their ability to do so. In short, HDR10+ should end the any sort of perception that there's a format war from what I can tell.

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7 hours ago, downzy said:

Has anyone ever downloaded a UHD/4K movie from a torrent site?  If so, I'm curious how it looks/sounds on a large screen tv and how they did it.  

@Estranged Reality and I have had discussions about downloading uncompressed blu-ray rips and if the quality is any different than watching an actual disc (which I still believe it is, if only slightly, or just to piss him off). 

That said, I haven’t downloaded one for a 4K blu so can’t speak for quality.

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Could the issue be that with download/streaming the data is compressed whereas with discs it’s not (or perhaps it’s just compressed less). I’d be interested in knowing the bit rate of a disc versus streaming?  They say the minimum to stream 4K content is 25mb a second. That seems low to me (but again, I really have no idea). 

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The uncompressed discussion isn't even bad. I've had media illiterate friends tell me that their super compressed torrent download of a film was equal to Blu quality because it said "Blu-ray rip" in the title. Explaining that just because it was sourced from the Blu doesn't mean it's the same was just as senseless as telling the same friends that ripping MP3's from YouTube videos does not justify the purchase of Beats headphones.

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1 hour ago, RussTCB said:

I keep meaning to pick up the Nolan Batman films and forgetting when I'm in stores.

Amazon, at least here in Canada, had them on sale for several weeks after Christmas.  Funny thing was that they were cheaper to buy individually than in the three-piece set.  Kind of strange.  

I thought about buying Nolan's Batman films but decided to pass.  Only really loved The Dark Knight, the other two are okay.  And I'm not sure how many times more I need to watch the Dark Knight (I've lost count how many times I've seen it).  It would be great to see it in 4K once but not sure I need to own it.  Also, none of them are what I would consider visually stunning films, at least in my opinion.  There's a few scenes, like the bank heist, but the colour is fairly muted and there are few expansive cinematic scenes like Nolan's other films (Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk).  I think I'd be more inclined to buy Burton's first Batman film were it to ever be given a 4K UHD release as I found that film more visually stimulating.  

I'm not sure if I'm going to buy a lot of UHDs.  Back in the 2000s I ran up a collection of 200+ DVDs but eventually gave them all away.  Never watched them more than once or twice (none at all in a few cases).  I remember thinking back then that the picture quality would never be bettered and how else would I have access to all of these movies.  Now with various streaming companies and video/audio technology significantly better I'm not sure I want to invest in another large UHD library.  I'll buy a few to watch whenever I want to remind myself why I bought a 4K OLED, but unless the films are my favourites, have visually stunning 4K HDR visuals, and tough to get through streaming channels, I'm not sure I'll be buying many in the years to come.  I would imagine that most movie studios will eventually coalesce around one to three streaming services in the next couple of years and hopefully most 4K Ultra prints will be available through those channels.  

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49 minutes ago, downzy said:

Amazon, at least here in Canada, had them on sale for several weeks after Christmas.  Funny thing was that they were cheaper to buy individually than in the three-piece set.  Kind of strange.  

I thought about buying Nolan's Batman films but decided to pass.  Only really loved The Dark Knight, the other two are okay.  And I'm not sure how many times more I need to watch the Dark Knight (I've lost count how many times I've seen it).  It would be great to see it in 4K once but not sure I need to own it.  Also, none of them are what I would consider visually stunning films, at least in my opinion.  There's a few scenes, like the bank heist, but the colour is fairly muted and there are few expansive cinematic scenes like Nolan's other films (Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk).  I think I'd be more inclined to buy Burton's first Batman film were it to ever be given a 4K UHD release as I found that film more visually stimulating.  

I'm not sure if I'm going to buy a lot of UHDs.  Back in the 2000s I ran up a collection of 200+ DVDs but eventually gave them all away.  Never watched them more than once or twice (none at all in a few cases).  I remember thinking back then that the picture quality would never be bettered and how else would I have access to all of these movies.  Now with various streaming companies and video/audio technology significantly better I'm not sure I want to invest in another large UHD library.  I'll buy a few to watch whenever I want to remind myself why I bought a 4K OLED, but unless the films are my favourites, have visually stunning 4K HDR visuals, and tough to get through streaming channels, I'm not sure I'll be buying many in the years to come.  I would imagine that most movie studios will eventually coalesce around one to three streaming services in the next couple of years and hopefully most 4K Ultra prints will be available through those channels.  

I agree with you on pretty much everything. We recently took our BD collection WAY down to almost nothing due to the fact that we collected so many we'll never watch again. I will probably buy TDK because I truly love that movie, but I probably won't spring for the other 2 in UHD.

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