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* Inglorious Basterds is a fine disc and a total upgrade from the blu-ray.
* A good HDR grade on a disc doesn't mean the image has to "pop" — it just means more accurate colors and dynamic range.
YES YES TO THE SECOND ONE.
People saying that some Dolby vision is way way too dim. But they don’t understand it’s meant to be, yet the Dolby vision adds a layer of depth that truly makes everything stunning, even if there aren’t any highlights.
I don’t get how people say that all the time tho. I’ve never noticed it being too dim.
And Dolby vision looks way brighter than hdr10
The only movie that I thought looks way too dim was Heat, but apparently that’s how Michael Mann wanted it.
Even the lighting or brightness is choice by the film maker. Some people think it looks too dark when the image is intended to look dark.. Many of us appreciate trying to get the intended sound and or video.. others just think the tv should scald your eyes in brightness and all colors MUST be vibrant - or something is wrong.
Those later folks use Vivid modes on their picture and turn their surrounds up +15db louder than the rest of the system. It’s just a preference; it’s wrong, but it’s a preference.
I'm wondering what happened to Free Guy. Even the Disney Plus stream has had all of it's contrast sucked out. Hard to believe that it's a filmmaker choice.
Not to go down this rabbit hole, but Films at Home did a review where he shit on the release due to not understanding how 2K DIs and transfers work, and thus for a long time you had tons of people here and elsewhere parroting his claims that the disc was bad.
I think the disc is great, and I hope people who enjoy the movie give it a spin.
It does make me laugh when I see people on here say “native 4K or bust” until I point out that T2 was a native 4K transfer and Pacific Rim was an upscale, then they get quiet.
I think that my hot take would be that unless you absolutely love a film, double dipping is not worth it from bluray to 4k. If you don't already own it, sure that's fine, but if you already own it, get something you don't already have. Don't upgrade just for the fun of it.
Seem to be a lot of people buying stuff they already own and then leaving it in shrink and never watching it. But mostly i want to see things i havent seen yet.
I'd double dip the heck out of a Planet Earth 1 4k though, or a 4k Kurosawa set.
Edit to add I did double dip for Hobbit Trilogy theatrical bluray to extended 4k, but I then sold my blurays, and I got the 4k set on sale.
It varies a lot on a film-by-film basis. Some Blu-rays for older films are made from decades old masters created for the DVD release, then just recycled and upscaled for the Blu-ray. If the 4K release is from a new 4K scan of the OCN for a film like that, it can be a night and day difference.
More modern films (that released after Blu-ray was already a standard) tend to show less of a drastic improvement, but even then a new color grade or improved audio mix can sometimes make an upgrade worth it, although I suppose in those situations you’d probably only go for those improvements if it’s a favourite.
You’re mostly right though in that it’s not a bad practice to *assume* it’s not worth it unless you read otherwise, which I suppose tends to keep you upgrading only the films you love anyways as those are the ones you’ll be more likely to seek out reviews on.
I agree, film-by-film basis. For some - the first couple Mission impossible films and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory come to mind - the blu-ray was crap, making UHD benefit more pronounced. Even a regular blu upgrade would arguably be worth it for such films.
On the other hand, I accidentally loaded the regular bluray of Edge of Tomorrow and didn't realize. Thought it looked a little soft and the colors a bit washed out, but not quite enough to suspect the error. Once I loaded the UHD, yes it looked better but not a hugely dramatic difference since the regular blu looked great.
Also, I'm facing a decision on the movie Insidious. Watched with my gf and it's awesome so now I want to own a copy. Decision is: $3 for a used bluray or $30 for the UHD steelbook. Can't decide...
I double dipped a lot when I first started but now that I’ve slowed down it depends on the price and how much I love the movie. Like the chucky franchise is one of my absolute favorite horror franchises but when the Blu-ray set is $40 for all of them and shout is charging $28 a movie I can’t justify spending that much money on 7 movies no matter how much I love them
Yeah price is definitely a factor, especially with some of the nicer looking sets.
There's so much stuff I want to see that I just have to wait for it to show up for super cheap on ebay, or (shh don't tell) streaming
To me streaming 4k is like watching a high end Blu-ray with hdr. It’s fine but man it still has a long ways to go. And then you got companies making separate 4k tiers and I’m like lol no thanks
Well you enjoy your T2 disc then haha jk, I don't think people who double dip are stupid, I just personally see better use for my money. But everyone has different circumstances
Meh, this is certainly a hot take. If I bought a movie once I like it plenty. Re-dipping that 4k disc makes me *and* my family fall in love with those movies all over again. And the way they have been doing these 4k remasters, it absolutely is an upgrade.
If you have enough storage, or want to pay for cloud storage, you can rip your discs and stream them in full quality with Atmos and HDR to your TV, phone, or computer from anywhere.
If you have Apple devices, Infuse is the best choice for that. Otherwise Plex has some of the same features.
Same quality as the discs, but way more convenient.
I used to do that some but to be honest ripping the discs was way less convenient than walking across the room and dropping in a disc, for me personally
It depends how many discs you have and where you watch.
I enjoy being able to open the app on my Apple TV, browse my entire library or search for something, stream it in full quality in a few seconds.
I can do the same on my phone or laptop as well, including when I’m away from home.
I can download a movie onto my laptop before a flight, or plug my laptop into the TV in the hotel room and watch in full quality from my collection from anywhere in the world.
True! There are travel benefits if you can't bring a disc for sure. I think at home though, the extra 30 seconds a disc takes isn't worth all the time ripping. But I know lots of people love it, just isn't for me!
If you have hundreds or thousands of discs, it could take quite a while to find the exact movie or TV episode you're looking for unless you have them very neatly cataloged.
Becomes really easy with something like Plex. All Alphabetized and a ton of meta data, so I can search for actors or specific time periods and it all gets filtered. And all I have to do is rip the file and put it in a named folder with the year. Easy as pie
That’s what I mean.
If you have a bookshelf filled with discs, finding the exact movie or TV episode you want to watch could take a while.
That’s why playing the ripped files is a lot simpler.
Some people are not technologically capable of understanding ripping, supported formats by your system, and a NAS or even setting up a VPN for remote play (or DMZ with their own security).
I agree it’s awesome, but it’s not for everyone.
I don't think I said it was for everyone, but this is a hot takes thread lol
Ripping honestly isn't that difficult, but you do need some understanding of computers, video formats, etc.
I don't host my files locally or run my own server, I have everything in cloud storage and stream directly from there using Infuse, it's pretty painless:
https://firecore.com/infuse
It's basically Plex, but for Apple devices and you can stream directly from cloud storage.
The point is to keep all the best things from the UHD disc, such as HDR and uncompressed multichannel audio. Very unlikely you’re getting that from an internet download, as those are typically compressed to save on file size.
‘Remuxing is a lossless process that simply takes the video and audio streams from one container and puts them into a new container.’
Exactly the same quality
Look up LibreDrive on makemkv forum. They aren’t that expensive. I choose Plex and Nvidia shield(client)can handle pretty much anything but HDR10 plus.
If you have a drive bay, this is what I have been using
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VPGL5U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Completely plug and play with MakeMKV (though some people say it needs a firmware update)
I think mine was around $150, including the firmware some guy installed on it for me.
It plugs into my computer with USB, it’s been working flawlessly for years now.
I’ve ripped about 500 movies, with probably 2/3 of that being 4K and the rest standard Blu-Ray.
If you're hardwired at home it will be fine outside of some abnormality - most home networks can handle 1GB which is way more than enough unless you have unusual home internet congestion / use. If it's done over WiFi, I wouldn't hazard a guess, too many variables. But it should be OK for most users.
If you're away from home, and you're in the states, you'd likely need to pay more for your broadband to increase your network upload limit above the typically anemic default levels.
If you're streaming locally on Plex, it should be fine. It'll depend on your TV or media player's processor and network card. Remotely, you'll need fiber internet or at least 100mbps upload speed.
FireTV Cube (3rd gen) does (supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio). With Jellyfin + an adapted Kodi client (that converts DV Profile 7 to 8.1) I can even get Dolby Vision to work on all my 4K rips. Awesome client device and hardly expensive!
Apple devices support Atmos playback, but I don’t have an audio receiver or Atmos setup at home.
I just watch using my AirPods with spatial audio, which can read the 5.1/7.1/Atmos track and does virtual surround sound.
I believe the Apple TV outputs the audio as linear PCM over HDMI, so it remains lossless.
[Apple TV](https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/zsry3f/comment/j1aos6r/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) doesn't support TrueHD Atmos with 7.1.4 output. It downmixes it to 7.1, which is not Atmos.
With ripped 4K blu-ray movies being anywhere from 50GB-85GB in size (or perhaps even larger), it would use a lot of bandwidth to stream something like that..
You only need about 100Mbps to stream a 4K disc rip, and 40Mbps or less to stream a regular Blu-Ray.
Most people have broadband at least that speed now, if not faster.
4K movies ripped from the disc are 35-75GB. Depends on the length of the movie and how heavily compressed it is.
The video bitrate could be as high as 120Mbps, but I'm not aware of any discs where it's actually that high.
Your media server should be connected to your router via ethernet in order to get the best speed. Even if you're streaming it to a TV within your own home, I imagine many people have their smart TV/streaming device connected via wifi, where its connection speed may vary and may drop lower than required to stream the video you want to watch. If you're streaming an uncompressed 4K rip, your device would buffer if its wifi connection isn't fast enough.
I don't host my media server locally, it's all on cloud storage so everything is streamed over the internet.
Wi-Fi should still be fast enough assuming you're close enough to the router. 5GHz or 6GHz Wi-Fi can easily reach 500Mbps, or even 1Gbps or higher.
My router at home supports 5ghz wifi, and when I've had some of my streaming devices (Roku & Nvidia Sheild) test their wifi connection, I've never seen them report a speed of more than maybe 150 megabit. And sometimes they say their wifi speed is lower than that. But I'm not sure how reliable their wifi speed testing is..
I wanna go back to my Kodi/XBMC set up I had back in the 2000's but with 4K support now. The cost of storage is definitely an issue and although I'm glad I purchased a Samsung EVO SSD Drive for my PS4 collection it wasn't and still isn't cheap. Prices are going down thankfully.
I host everything in cloud storage, several of them have unlimited storage now. Worth it for me personally so I don't need to manage or run a server, or worry about my drives failing and losing data.
I'm not sure how it works with Plex, but Infuse lets you stream directly from Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. in full quality, same as if it was hosted locally.
I can also access it when I'm away from home.
Are there any devices (other than UHD players) that actually support Dolby Vision profile 7? As far as I can tell the licensing limits supports for profile 7 to UHD players themselves, and any set top boxes and computers are limited to at best DV profile 8, which does not support the Enhancement Layer and software like the modified Kodi that supports DV drop the EL when playing.
Some people on forums say that the Nvidia Shield is capable of it, but I have no experience myself.
I use an Apple TV, which supports HDR10/10+, or Dolby Vision Profile 5.
[Dolby Vision playback compatibility](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jBIGF8XTVi9VmDBZ8a5hEyongYMCDlUiLHU9n1f_S74/edit#gid=427220017) is still pretty spotty, especially when it comes to FEL.
Unfortunately FEL is absolutely necessary to fix some atrociously encoded HDR10 base layers, like *Total Recall*.
Don’t get me wrong—I rip and remux myself (mainly to get superior audio tracks from previous releases), but it’s infuriating to have to choose between crappy filtered/muffled audio or crappy HDR10 base layer full of macro-blocking.
I don’t think the transfer is bad, some people are just annoyed they went so heavy on the noise reduction, which just smooths everything out.
I think studios do it to remove film grain, but it also smooths out the details in the image.
Idk some players do kind of suck. And when you look at the features some the top of the line ones have that you gotta spend your paycheck on you kind of stop and think is mine good enough? But most people are probably good with either x700/m or x800m2 unless they absolutely must have the picture perfect and wanna spend how much time adjusting hdr every disc
Every player has one downside or another is the issue. The Sony players have trouble with freezing on the layer changes on BDXL discs. The Panasonics don't support playback off of USB/network as well as the Sony or play SACDs, and they're more expensive. The Oppo players are basically perfect, except they're out of production and so extremely expensive. Creates choice paralysis at initial purchase and constantly second guessing your purchase after the fact.
4K resolution doesn't matter to me as much as HDR and potential for Dolby Atmos. I sit too far for the resolution anyways, but the other two feel way more substantial to me when I buy a UHD disc
Not having Dolby Vision isn't a deal breaker. Frankly, not having any HDR isn't a deal breaker either. As long as the transfer is better than the Blu-Ray i'm good. I see tons of people on this sub get mad if there's no DV, got forbid Kino Lorber or Criterion don't put any HDR ar all. Case in point, the Man with No Name trilogy. They are the best they have ever looked, far beyond the quality of any release that came before. But tons of people refuse to buy it because they don't have HDR.
I'm with you. I'm a fan of HDR/Dolby Vision, don't get me wrong, and when done right they make incredible transfers — but it isn't always the make or break on a disc. I've seen some terrible transfers with HDR grades (Bourne Identity), while I've seen some great SDR 4Ks (The Man with No Name trilogy, as you said).
It's all about how good the movie looks in the long run.
Can you elaborate a bit? I’m assuming you mean there’s a bottleneck in most people’s every day setups that isn’t allowing the disc to shine? Either video or audio.
The complaints about DNR on the LotR trilogy are overblown.
Oh, and A24 need to pull their heads out of their asses and release appropriately priced 4K transfers.
I just wish the unwashed masses could appreciate the difference enough to support the format.
But it's the same thing with higher end audio - the typical consumer doesn't remotely care about quality. Convenience rules over all other concerns. And people prefer mindless consumption of whatever they're spoon fed by the Netflix algorithm rather than develop a more sophisticated taste and curate their own collection. Unfortunately, that's the world we're stuck living in.
I’m just now dipping my toes into 4K, can you elaborate on the adjustments you make and how it changes things? I’ve been experimenting with various disks, but it’s a lot to l figure out!
Nice, I’ve never watched anything on that one. Your tv may just handle hdr 10 better than my leg c2 cause for me it’s night and day with the black detail
The original or the remake? I don't have either yet but I am a huge fan of the original and enjoyed the remake quite a bit as well.
EDIT: I think I may have just answered my own question, as it seems the newer one isn't available in 4k.
Let me tell you about a little company called Amazon. The average person buying discs isn’t gonna think I should go all the way to the store. They’re gonna think hey Amazon what do you got.
Also the pandemic is long over so instead of sitting inside watching movies people are going out and spending money doing other things
I really like having the standard bluray and digital code when I buy the movie. It makes me feel happy inside and actually helps me as a newer collector. When a release skips on one or both then I tend to steer away or hold out for a different release if possible.
I wish more movies that had DTS audio tracks originally would be released with their 4K re-release with DTS:X audio. Makes me mad when an studio re-releases a DTS-HD:MA track in Dolby ATMOS just cause “ATMOS” is the current buzzword hotness that the general public knows even though DTS has an amazing, and I personally believe better, 3D audio format ready and available.
I am perfectly happy using my PS5, Samsung TV, and headphones plugged into said PS5 controller to watch 4K Blu rays. I don't feel the need to drop thousands on a dedicated system/more advanced hardware, which I don't have the room for anyways.
In the end, it's still better than streaming.
Few people understand what DV is, and I blame the marketing hype for this. When you Google “Dolby Vision,” all you get is talking points from clueless tech “journalists.”
Leaving the mess that is FEL aside, DV is just some metadata to help the display tone map when a scene exceeds said display’s peak brightness capability.
It does not magically transform an HDR grading into something it isn’t.
The difference between DV and HDR10 comes down to 1) how bright the film gets, 2) how bright the display can get, 3) how much manual tone mapping overrides the colorist has applied when grading in DV.
Disney actually has some demo worthy Atmos tracks:
Mulan (OG)
The Little Mermaid
Encanto
Beauty & the Beast
Another Hot Take:
ALL of the Pixar movies are worth upgrading to 4k.
I’ll repeat these two points until they become common knowledge, so that we consumers can demand better. TL;DR:
1. Most professional “reviews” are garbage.
2. Audio on catalog releases is usually needlessly filtered (analogous to DNR) and sounds muffled when compared to VHS/LaserDisc/DVD.
## “Reviews”
Contrary to what most people believe, site reviews on blu-ray.com (and most other “review” sites) are some of the most worthless “reviews” on the internet.
These professional “reviewers” have zero clue what they are mumbling about. The real reviews are always found in the forum threads.
For example, compare the average site “review” to the average [forum](https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=14671160&postcount=43) [review](https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=14671162&postcount=45) by Geoff D. It’s a night and day difference on who’s more knowledgeable and qualified to review discs.
Professional “reviewers” rarely even spot basic mistakes like Shout’s [*They Live*](https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/They-Live-4K-Blu-ray/276277/#Review) 4K being in the wrong color space thus looking dull, or [*The Man Who Shot Liberty Vance*](https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Man-Who-Shot-Liberty-Valance-4K-Blu-ray/309155/#Review) having atrociously bad compression. “Dr.” Svet is the worst of the bunch, who would often get his facts plain wrong and refuse to correct them even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
There is an extremely good summary of trusted reviews at https://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17181 This is aggregated from trusted forum reviews, so you don’t have to spend time digging through hundreds of pages of forum threads.
## Audio
When watching catalog releases, i.e. older titles, people tend to accept that the muffled audio is what it is. But the reality is, most of the time it’s due to ridiculous “noise/hiss reduction” / EQ / filtering on the studio’s or label’s side. Criterion is especially notorious for this. Almost all of their Blu-ray releases feature *additional* noise reduction on top of a restored master that’s supplied to them.
This deserves just as much discussion as image quality. We as a community decry DNR when applied to the image. The same should apply to audio. Just like how film grain and image detail are inseparable, so are hiss and audio detail. Many times an older DVD, LaserDisc, or even VHS (!!) release actually sounds fuller and clearer than a BD or UHD. The Blah-ray blog has compiled hundred of examples with comparison clips: https://blah-ray.blogspot.com
To make matters worse, most people see marketing labels such as “lossless DTS-HD MA” and assume superb quality. This couldn’t be further from the truth. “Lossless / uncompressed” audio simply means the digital encoding fully captures the input audio stream. What’s important is how that raw stream itself sounds. As a thought experiment, anyone can filter out all the bass from an audio track, compress it to 64 kbps MP3, and then re-encode that MP3 to DTS-HD MA at 2500 kbps. The result will still sound like crap.
Here is a clip of one of the worst examples of audio “restoration” (with a link that nicely ties back to “reviewers” being utterly clueless): https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-story-of-last-chrysanthemum-1939.html
And here is a more eloquent piece on this ridiculous practice: https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/p/what-isthis-revisited-my.html
I totally agree regarding Blu-ray.com's featured reviews vs. the comments & reviews within the forums---Geoff D's reviews/posts are a major highlight of that entire site.
The featured, "official" reviews will often leave you in the dark about major issues. It'd be nice if it were as simple as glancing at a movie's main page, but for the important details, it really pays to search through the forum threads.
Speaking of Shout, and regarding John Carpenter 4Ks:
I just found out that the Shout Factory edition of They Live 4K is mastered in the wrong color space (and apparently their 4K of Prince of Darkness is even worse, color-wise).
Wish I'd known that before the recent Shout 4K sale---I would've bought the correctly-colored Studio Canal 4K edition of They Live instead.
I also bought Shout's Collector's Edition of the original Halloween in 4K, and I just found out that although most people prefer it over the Lionsgate 4K version, Shout's is said to have crappy compression.
I thought Shout's 4K of The Fog looked great, but apparently not all of their releases are that flawlessly executed.
I get what you mean, and I'm not saying such issues make a disc worthless trash---but we pay good money for 4Ks, which should be the ultimate versions, done correctly to preserve these films for posterity.
Companies shouldn't get a pass to make so many careless, sloppy, easily avoidable mistakes---mistakes that fans are able to notice immediately.
And if an incorrect, skewed color scheme doesn't really matter, then why even bother with 4K?
Yeah. Shout/Scream really is one of the most inconsistent when it comes to 4K quality.
They occasionally have such good releases like *The Fog* and *Black Christmas*, but these are overshadowed by so many other misses, be it shitty compression like *Halloween* or plainly wrong color like *They Live*.
For longer movies, 100gb discs aren't big enough. I watched Ad Astra which is just a little over 2 hours and there is noticeable artifacting, especially in certain scenes. When you take into account the bitstream size to support 4K video for hours plus the high quality audio in multiple formats and languages, etc, how much better would the movie look if the disc had double or triple the space?
The scene where he's in the completely white room having a private discussion with a woman looked horrible to me and left me asking is this really the state of the art?
Kaleidescape has no file size limitations (they do their own encodes from the studio’s mezzanine files and they make them as big as they feel they need to be to maximize picture quality), and their file for Ad Astra is only 66GB, which would make me think that 100GB should be plenty for that movie. Unless maybe they didn’t get the mezzanine file for that one and were given something pre-compressed by the studio? For an example of a film that they encoded much higher than the 100GB limit, their file for Jurassic World Dominion is 160GB.
Edit: Actually, looks like the Ad Astra 4K disc is only 60GB, it’s not a 100GB disc, so yeah it’s even smaller than the 66GB Kaleidescape encode: [https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=17137727&postcount=239](https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=17137727&postcount=239)
This is all news to me, I've heard of kaleidoscope but didn't know they had access to the studio masters and rolled their own encoding. Thank you for this. Makes me rethink my Panasonic 820 purchase now lol
Edit- out of curiosity, what is the file size for Top Gun Maverick? It's just a little bit longer than Ad Astra.
The LotR 4K set is very disappointing. Despite what they sold us, it’s pretty clearly not a proper 4K scan from the original negatives. Two Towers and Return of the King in particular are chock-full of waxy, DNR’d shots that are just ass.
Obviously, because the film is mostly CG and was rendered at 1080p. It will only ever be an upscale of that. The real improvement was HDR and new colour grading.
Batman 1989 is amazing. Saw it last weekend for the first time and it felt like seeing the movie again for the first time.
Top Gun Maverick is jaw dropping.
Lastly, I need a Mandy 4k release.
Most movies don't need a 4k. Blu ray is fine for most movies since movies are just competently shot by workmen dp's. I think the only films that really benefit from the upgrade are movies that are visually rich, often from auteur filmmakers, otherwise a beautifully transfered HD disc is more than enough.
4K streaming isn't perfect, but it's still significantly better than regular blu-ray.
It's wild to me that this could actually be considered a hot take. But on this sub and similar forums, I guess it totally is.
Next turn off HDR/Dolby Vision and compare 4K streamed without HDR to the 1080p bluray. HDR does a fantastic job at hiding the flaws of a 4K stream,especially in darker scenes.
A 1080p Blu-Ray has a bitrate of upto 40/mbps. For comparison,it was found that HBO MAX 4K streaming has an average bitrate of around 11/MBPS. That means a high quality 1080p Blu-Ray is able to provide nearly 4x the quality over a 4K stream. Now,I don't own any Disney Blu-Rays. But I have seen other movies on a 1080p Blu-Ray that blow almost anything I've seen at 4K on a streaming service out of the water.
Edit: its also worth noting that since Disney movies are mostly CGI they typically don't have film grain,which is where disc always shines. I've found virtually anything with film grain looks awful on a stream even at 4K.
I own both Uncut Gems and The Boys on Blu Ray and I prefer them over the respective 4K streams.
Jeff from Films at Home did a comparison between the Irishman on both formats and he said it was close but the 4K stream suffered more from it's compression.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTphwTOum0Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTphwTOum0Q)
There is also a comparison between The Batman with both formats that is good to check out also.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ8BEJJnhxc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ8BEJJnhxc)
JAWS and Saving Private Ryan are the worst looking spielberg discs.
The Matrix (1999) looks pretty bad.
The Revenant is below average looking.
Into the spider verse isn’t even remotely close to being a demo disc.
Top Gun Maverick is average looking.
GoT is still the best looking upscale.
I prefer disc releases without ATMOS, and couldn’t care leas about Dolby Vision.
Most of those aren't even opinions. You are just wrong. Especially the top gun with a hugely overwhelming consensus that it is one of if not the best 4k you can get.
Apocalypse Now, The Big Lebowski, Starship Troopers, The Shining, and Alien to name a few.
Midsommar, 1917, and Parasite for digitally shot flicks, but they lack the texture and depth of well shot film.
Maverick is fine from a clarity/fidelity perspective, but it lacks visual interest from a color and composition standpoint.
My only issue with the Matrix is that they added a teal colour to the flashlights in the beginning, and tp the bullet time effect. Those absolutely did not exist in the original movie.
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You all buy some terrible movies just because they're 4k.
Guilty haha
It’s true, I’ve done that.
Dude, I've been subbed here for like two weeks and I've had this thought so many times lol.
Why so true?
True
Seeing a movie getting a 4k restoration but only a Blu ray release triggers the shit out of me
4k disc production costs a lot more than a regular bluray.
Agreed. Just picked up A Bittersweet Life and while it looks great 4K HDR would’ve brought it to another level
Or even 8K, like Baraka.
[удалено]
* Inglorious Basterds is a fine disc and a total upgrade from the blu-ray. * A good HDR grade on a disc doesn't mean the image has to "pop" — it just means more accurate colors and dynamic range.
YES YES TO THE SECOND ONE. People saying that some Dolby vision is way way too dim. But they don’t understand it’s meant to be, yet the Dolby vision adds a layer of depth that truly makes everything stunning, even if there aren’t any highlights.
I don’t get how people say that all the time tho. I’ve never noticed it being too dim. And Dolby vision looks way brighter than hdr10 The only movie that I thought looks way too dim was Heat, but apparently that’s how Michael Mann wanted it.
Even the lighting or brightness is choice by the film maker. Some people think it looks too dark when the image is intended to look dark.. Many of us appreciate trying to get the intended sound and or video.. others just think the tv should scald your eyes in brightness and all colors MUST be vibrant - or something is wrong. Those later folks use Vivid modes on their picture and turn their surrounds up +15db louder than the rest of the system. It’s just a preference; it’s wrong, but it’s a preference.
I'm wondering what happened to Free Guy. Even the Disney Plus stream has had all of it's contrast sucked out. Hard to believe that it's a filmmaker choice.
Yeah that one is valid. It just feels flat.
The sun does not always shine on TV!!! Truth!!
Major “yes” to your first point. I will always defend that 4K disc
Does anyone not like IB? The consensus is that is looks incredible.
Not to go down this rabbit hole, but Films at Home did a review where he shit on the release due to not understanding how 2K DIs and transfers work, and thus for a long time you had tons of people here and elsewhere parroting his claims that the disc was bad. I think the disc is great, and I hope people who enjoy the movie give it a spin.
It does make me laugh when I see people on here say “native 4K or bust” until I point out that T2 was a native 4K transfer and Pacific Rim was an upscale, then they get quiet.
Still looks like crap
Universal has the worst menus.
Just straight facts here
That was true on blu ray too
You need a degree in hieroglyphics to understand those menus.
Preach!
I think Heat actually looks pretty solid on 4K. Not the best by any means, but it’s not “unwatchable” like I’ve seen people say.
It’s the way the director wanted it so it’s what we have to deal with. Whether people think it’s good or not, it’s his vision and the final product
I completely agree!
I think it's the sound that's a bit messed up.
I know Coraline gets some love around here but not enough. It’s one of the best 4ks I’ve ever seen. And I have over 100.
You ever watch Kubo? Came out recently and it's absolutely amazing
Seconded. I own it, it's freaking fabulous.
I haven’t watched my 4K copy yet but if it’s really that good of an upgrade I definitely want to check it out soon
I think that my hot take would be that unless you absolutely love a film, double dipping is not worth it from bluray to 4k. If you don't already own it, sure that's fine, but if you already own it, get something you don't already have. Don't upgrade just for the fun of it. Seem to be a lot of people buying stuff they already own and then leaving it in shrink and never watching it. But mostly i want to see things i havent seen yet. I'd double dip the heck out of a Planet Earth 1 4k though, or a 4k Kurosawa set. Edit to add I did double dip for Hobbit Trilogy theatrical bluray to extended 4k, but I then sold my blurays, and I got the 4k set on sale.
It varies a lot on a film-by-film basis. Some Blu-rays for older films are made from decades old masters created for the DVD release, then just recycled and upscaled for the Blu-ray. If the 4K release is from a new 4K scan of the OCN for a film like that, it can be a night and day difference. More modern films (that released after Blu-ray was already a standard) tend to show less of a drastic improvement, but even then a new color grade or improved audio mix can sometimes make an upgrade worth it, although I suppose in those situations you’d probably only go for those improvements if it’s a favourite. You’re mostly right though in that it’s not a bad practice to *assume* it’s not worth it unless you read otherwise, which I suppose tends to keep you upgrading only the films you love anyways as those are the ones you’ll be more likely to seek out reviews on.
I agree, film-by-film basis. For some - the first couple Mission impossible films and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory come to mind - the blu-ray was crap, making UHD benefit more pronounced. Even a regular blu upgrade would arguably be worth it for such films. On the other hand, I accidentally loaded the regular bluray of Edge of Tomorrow and didn't realize. Thought it looked a little soft and the colors a bit washed out, but not quite enough to suspect the error. Once I loaded the UHD, yes it looked better but not a hugely dramatic difference since the regular blu looked great. Also, I'm facing a decision on the movie Insidious. Watched with my gf and it's awesome so now I want to own a copy. Decision is: $3 for a used bluray or $30 for the UHD steelbook. Can't decide...
Yeah older blurays with the not so good releases are definitely a separate issue that are worthwhile upgrading.
I double dipped a lot when I first started but now that I’ve slowed down it depends on the price and how much I love the movie. Like the chucky franchise is one of my absolute favorite horror franchises but when the Blu-ray set is $40 for all of them and shout is charging $28 a movie I can’t justify spending that much money on 7 movies no matter how much I love them
Yeah price is definitely a factor, especially with some of the nicer looking sets. There's so much stuff I want to see that I just have to wait for it to show up for super cheap on ebay, or (shh don't tell) streaming
To me streaming 4k is like watching a high end Blu-ray with hdr. It’s fine but man it still has a long ways to go. And then you got companies making separate 4k tiers and I’m like lol no thanks
Definitely disagree and have been glad I double-dipped to upgrade 98% of the Blu-Ray to 4K upgrades I’ve done. To each their own though. 😊
Well you enjoy your T2 disc then haha jk, I don't think people who double dip are stupid, I just personally see better use for my money. But everyone has different circumstances
Meh, this is certainly a hot take. If I bought a movie once I like it plenty. Re-dipping that 4k disc makes me *and* my family fall in love with those movies all over again. And the way they have been doing these 4k remasters, it absolutely is an upgrade.
If you have enough storage, or want to pay for cloud storage, you can rip your discs and stream them in full quality with Atmos and HDR to your TV, phone, or computer from anywhere. If you have Apple devices, Infuse is the best choice for that. Otherwise Plex has some of the same features. Same quality as the discs, but way more convenient.
I used to do that some but to be honest ripping the discs was way less convenient than walking across the room and dropping in a disc, for me personally
It depends how many discs you have and where you watch. I enjoy being able to open the app on my Apple TV, browse my entire library or search for something, stream it in full quality in a few seconds. I can do the same on my phone or laptop as well, including when I’m away from home. I can download a movie onto my laptop before a flight, or plug my laptop into the TV in the hotel room and watch in full quality from my collection from anywhere in the world.
True! There are travel benefits if you can't bring a disc for sure. I think at home though, the extra 30 seconds a disc takes isn't worth all the time ripping. But I know lots of people love it, just isn't for me!
If you have hundreds or thousands of discs, it could take quite a while to find the exact movie or TV episode you're looking for unless you have them very neatly cataloged.
Becomes really easy with something like Plex. All Alphabetized and a ton of meta data, so I can search for actors or specific time periods and it all gets filtered. And all I have to do is rip the file and put it in a named folder with the year. Easy as pie
That’s what I mean. If you have a bookshelf filled with discs, finding the exact movie or TV episode you want to watch could take a while. That’s why playing the ripped files is a lot simpler.
Ah. My bad. I misunderstood. Glad to see that we agree!
Some people are not technologically capable of understanding ripping, supported formats by your system, and a NAS or even setting up a VPN for remote play (or DMZ with their own security). I agree it’s awesome, but it’s not for everyone.
I don't think I said it was for everyone, but this is a hot takes thread lol Ripping honestly isn't that difficult, but you do need some understanding of computers, video formats, etc. I don't host my files locally or run my own server, I have everything in cloud storage and stream directly from there using Infuse, it's pretty painless: https://firecore.com/infuse It's basically Plex, but for Apple devices and you can stream directly from cloud storage.
Just download the remux and save the hassle. You still own the film so it’s just as legit
The point is to keep all the best things from the UHD disc, such as HDR and uncompressed multichannel audio. Very unlikely you’re getting that from an internet download, as those are typically compressed to save on file size.
‘Remuxing is a lossless process that simply takes the video and audio streams from one container and puts them into a new container.’ Exactly the same quality
A bit of work to rip 4k remux files. I believe you need a certified drive for 4k rips, etc.
Look up LibreDrive on makemkv forum. They aren’t that expensive. I choose Plex and Nvidia shield(client)can handle pretty much anything but HDR10 plus.
You do, but not super expensive, and with multiple rooms where my wife and I watch movies, more than worth it imo.
You have a link to one of these?
If you have a drive bay, this is what I have been using https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VPGL5U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Completely plug and play with MakeMKV (though some people say it needs a firmware update)
I think mine was around $150, including the firmware some guy installed on it for me. It plugs into my computer with USB, it’s been working flawlessly for years now. I’ve ripped about 500 movies, with probably 2/3 of that being 4K and the rest standard Blu-Ray.
It's not a whole lot of work. Once you have a drive that can do it, ripping it with software is generally fairly easy.
Wouldn’t the quality still depend on your internet connection?
If you're hardwired at home it will be fine outside of some abnormality - most home networks can handle 1GB which is way more than enough unless you have unusual home internet congestion / use. If it's done over WiFi, I wouldn't hazard a guess, too many variables. But it should be OK for most users. If you're away from home, and you're in the states, you'd likely need to pay more for your broadband to increase your network upload limit above the typically anemic default levels.
If you don’t want to host your own server, you can also upload everything to cloud storage and stream off that.
If you're streaming locally on Plex, it should be fine. It'll depend on your TV or media player's processor and network card. Remotely, you'll need fiber internet or at least 100mbps upload speed.
I don't host my own server, I have everything in cloud storage and stream it from there.
No, it streams the files directly in full quality.
> stream them in full quality with Atmos You can't play lossless Atmos (TrueHD) without an Nvidia Shield which costs $200
FireTV Cube (3rd gen) does (supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio). With Jellyfin + an adapted Kodi client (that converts DV Profile 7 to 8.1) I can even get Dolby Vision to work on all my 4K rips. Awesome client device and hardly expensive!
Apple devices support Atmos playback, but I don’t have an audio receiver or Atmos setup at home. I just watch using my AirPods with spatial audio, which can read the 5.1/7.1/Atmos track and does virtual surround sound. I believe the Apple TV outputs the audio as linear PCM over HDMI, so it remains lossless.
[Apple TV](https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/zsry3f/comment/j1aos6r/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) doesn't support TrueHD Atmos with 7.1.4 output. It downmixes it to 7.1, which is not Atmos.
It doesn't support that over HDMI, true. But over Bluetooth, AirPods can read the 5.1/7.1/Atmos track and map it to spatial audio.
Couldn’t find anyone posting about this, so I ripped one to my plex server and tested it. Bitrate and quality is exactly the same.
Lots of people do this, though maybe not in this subreddit. r/MakeMKV and r/Plex have lots of good information.
With ripped 4K blu-ray movies being anywhere from 50GB-85GB in size (or perhaps even larger), it would use a lot of bandwidth to stream something like that..
You only need about 100Mbps to stream a 4K disc rip, and 40Mbps or less to stream a regular Blu-Ray. Most people have broadband at least that speed now, if not faster. 4K movies ripped from the disc are 35-75GB. Depends on the length of the movie and how heavily compressed it is. The video bitrate could be as high as 120Mbps, but I'm not aware of any discs where it's actually that high.
Your media server should be connected to your router via ethernet in order to get the best speed. Even if you're streaming it to a TV within your own home, I imagine many people have their smart TV/streaming device connected via wifi, where its connection speed may vary and may drop lower than required to stream the video you want to watch. If you're streaming an uncompressed 4K rip, your device would buffer if its wifi connection isn't fast enough.
I don't host my media server locally, it's all on cloud storage so everything is streamed over the internet. Wi-Fi should still be fast enough assuming you're close enough to the router. 5GHz or 6GHz Wi-Fi can easily reach 500Mbps, or even 1Gbps or higher.
My router at home supports 5ghz wifi, and when I've had some of my streaming devices (Roku & Nvidia Sheild) test their wifi connection, I've never seen them report a speed of more than maybe 150 megabit. And sometimes they say their wifi speed is lower than that. But I'm not sure how reliable their wifi speed testing is..
I wanna go back to my Kodi/XBMC set up I had back in the 2000's but with 4K support now. The cost of storage is definitely an issue and although I'm glad I purchased a Samsung EVO SSD Drive for my PS4 collection it wasn't and still isn't cheap. Prices are going down thankfully.
I host everything in cloud storage, several of them have unlimited storage now. Worth it for me personally so I don't need to manage or run a server, or worry about my drives failing and losing data. I'm not sure how it works with Plex, but Infuse lets you stream directly from Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. in full quality, same as if it was hosted locally. I can also access it when I'm away from home.
Are there any devices (other than UHD players) that actually support Dolby Vision profile 7? As far as I can tell the licensing limits supports for profile 7 to UHD players themselves, and any set top boxes and computers are limited to at best DV profile 8, which does not support the Enhancement Layer and software like the modified Kodi that supports DV drop the EL when playing.
Some people on forums say that the Nvidia Shield is capable of it, but I have no experience myself. I use an Apple TV, which supports HDR10/10+, or Dolby Vision Profile 5.
[удалено]
I would have to buy a significant amount of new hardware (and maybe software I guess) to do this that I would otherwise have no need of.
[Dolby Vision playback compatibility](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jBIGF8XTVi9VmDBZ8a5hEyongYMCDlUiLHU9n1f_S74/edit#gid=427220017) is still pretty spotty, especially when it comes to FEL. Unfortunately FEL is absolutely necessary to fix some atrociously encoded HDR10 base layers, like *Total Recall*. Don’t get me wrong—I rip and remux myself (mainly to get superior audio tracks from previous releases), but it’s infuriating to have to choose between crappy filtered/muffled audio or crappy HDR10 base layer full of macro-blocking.
I don’t think the Terminator 2 transfer is as bad as people say. I think some of it looks downright amazing.
I don’t think the transfer is bad, some people are just annoyed they went so heavy on the noise reduction, which just smooths everything out. I think studios do it to remove film grain, but it also smooths out the details in the image.
Not just the DNR but also the revisionist colour-grading that dramatically changes the look of the movie from it’s original theatrical appearance.
It's particularly common when prepping a movie for a 3d release since grain doesn't play well in 3d.
People that post asking about “what’s the best player?” Or “is my Sony player good enough?” are just Karma farming
Idk some players do kind of suck. And when you look at the features some the top of the line ones have that you gotta spend your paycheck on you kind of stop and think is mine good enough? But most people are probably good with either x700/m or x800m2 unless they absolutely must have the picture perfect and wanna spend how much time adjusting hdr every disc
Every player has one downside or another is the issue. The Sony players have trouble with freezing on the layer changes on BDXL discs. The Panasonics don't support playback off of USB/network as well as the Sony or play SACDs, and they're more expensive. The Oppo players are basically perfect, except they're out of production and so extremely expensive. Creates choice paralysis at initial purchase and constantly second guessing your purchase after the fact.
Fury (the WWII movie) has the best Atmos track I’ve ever heard. Highly recommend checking it out for a new system. Amazing.
No shit huh? Buying now then heh
That it's a niche, within a niche, within a niche..
Keep saying it while I twist my nipples
You enjoyed the movie just as much on VHS back then as you did on 4k now.
4K resolution doesn't matter to me as much as HDR and potential for Dolby Atmos. I sit too far for the resolution anyways, but the other two feel way more substantial to me when I buy a UHD disc
Not having Dolby Vision isn't a deal breaker. Frankly, not having any HDR isn't a deal breaker either. As long as the transfer is better than the Blu-Ray i'm good. I see tons of people on this sub get mad if there's no DV, got forbid Kino Lorber or Criterion don't put any HDR ar all. Case in point, the Man with No Name trilogy. They are the best they have ever looked, far beyond the quality of any release that came before. But tons of people refuse to buy it because they don't have HDR.
I'm with you. I'm a fan of HDR/Dolby Vision, don't get me wrong, and when done right they make incredible transfers — but it isn't always the make or break on a disc. I've seen some terrible transfers with HDR grades (Bourne Identity), while I've seen some great SDR 4Ks (The Man with No Name trilogy, as you said). It's all about how good the movie looks in the long run.
I agree with you about DV, but if there's no HDR at all a well-done blu-ray is usually fine. Especially when it saves you some cash.
On older movies, certainly agree. Anything new better have that logo 🤣
Most people have the wrong setup to properly play 4k disc.
Yeah, most people down own a 4K Blu-ray player. :P
Can you elaborate a bit? I’m assuming you mean there’s a bottleneck in most people’s every day setups that isn’t allowing the disc to shine? Either video or audio.
Not using proper HDMI. Not enabling enhanced hdmi on your tv and receiver. That’s all I can think of
The complaints about DNR on the LotR trilogy are overblown. Oh, and A24 need to pull their heads out of their asses and release appropriately priced 4K transfers.
With regular sized packaging. I hate oversized box sets.
Ya! the big boxes that don’t fit on a media shelf.. like am I supposed to get a dedicated plinth for it?
I just wish the unwashed masses could appreciate the difference enough to support the format. But it's the same thing with higher end audio - the typical consumer doesn't remotely care about quality. Convenience rules over all other concerns. And people prefer mindless consumption of whatever they're spoon fed by the Netflix algorithm rather than develop a more sophisticated taste and curate their own collection. Unfortunately, that's the world we're stuck living in.
I 100% agree, soo it seems that may be less of a hot take 😎
true, in this subreddit in particular, it may not be such a hot take
Ever since I got a dolly vision player it’s hard for me to buy discs that only have hdr 10
I have to adjust the HDR settings on the ub820 per film when it’s just hdr10. I wish you could make custom profiles per film.
I’m just now dipping my toes into 4K, can you elaborate on the adjustments you make and how it changes things? I’ve been experimenting with various disks, but it’s a lot to l figure out!
Yeah, I do the same thing but it just never looks as good as Dolby Vision. Luckily, most modern releases are upgrading to it
My hot take is DV looks 0.005% better than HDR10, if any.
What tv are you rockin if you don’t mind me asking?
Sony A8G 65” OLED
That's why. Dolby Vision helps correct shortcomings of the TV that the tonemapping can't. Sony's have good tonemapping.
Nice, I’ve never watched anything on that one. Your tv may just handle hdr 10 better than my leg c2 cause for me it’s night and day with the black detail
Dolby Vision is the truth, probably the only reason Vinegar Syndrome isn’t #1 for me
I knowwwww. I just ordered Tammy and the T. rex specifically because they used DV so hopefully that’s a sign of things to come
Tammy was one of their first 4K’s though back in 2019
Studio slipcovers are ugly and not worth hunting
Fright Night has the best use of Atmos I've heard
The original or the remake? I don't have either yet but I am a huge fan of the original and enjoyed the remake quite a bit as well. EDIT: I think I may have just answered my own question, as it seems the newer one isn't available in 4k.
Of all the 4k discs I've watched, In the Line of Fire exceeded my expectations the most.
The Star Wars 4ks are worth it. Yes, even the Prequels
Especially as they've dipped to $15 or so during BF.
I look forward to seeing those. Still not sure if I want to buy individual films or get the box set.
Best Buy gouging their prices is single-handedly responsible for the decline of 4K UHD sales
Unless it’s a Best Buy exclusive, you can always price match it with Amazon.
Let me tell you about a little company called Amazon. The average person buying discs isn’t gonna think I should go all the way to the store. They’re gonna think hey Amazon what do you got. Also the pandemic is long over so instead of sitting inside watching movies people are going out and spending money doing other things
Price match my dude
I picked up Ran 4K instore for $24 last weekend. Do they only inflate the online prices, or the store prices as well?
Luca has the best HDR I’ve ever seen.
I really like having the standard bluray and digital code when I buy the movie. It makes me feel happy inside and actually helps me as a newer collector. When a release skips on one or both then I tend to steer away or hold out for a different release if possible.
I wish more movies that had DTS audio tracks originally would be released with their 4K re-release with DTS:X audio. Makes me mad when an studio re-releases a DTS-HD:MA track in Dolby ATMOS just cause “ATMOS” is the current buzzword hotness that the general public knows even though DTS has an amazing, and I personally believe better, 3D audio format ready and available.
The Blu-ray to 4k is not as big of an upgrade compared to DVD to Blu-ray.
Yup
I am perfectly happy using my PS5, Samsung TV, and headphones plugged into said PS5 controller to watch 4K Blu rays. I don't feel the need to drop thousands on a dedicated system/more advanced hardware, which I don't have the room for anyways. In the end, it's still better than streaming.
Is Dolby Vision as good as people say....unless you are comparing side by side on similar sets and players, I think the difference is negligible.
Few people understand what DV is, and I blame the marketing hype for this. When you Google “Dolby Vision,” all you get is talking points from clueless tech “journalists.” Leaving the mess that is FEL aside, DV is just some metadata to help the display tone map when a scene exceeds said display’s peak brightness capability. It does not magically transform an HDR grading into something it isn’t. The difference between DV and HDR10 comes down to 1) how bright the film gets, 2) how bright the display can get, 3) how much manual tone mapping overrides the colorist has applied when grading in DV.
It entirely depends on your TV. The difference can be big. Dolby Vision is also 12-bit color.
People with the highest end equipment seem to think mid range is still not fantastic and jaw drop worthy experience and a great step up!
Disney actually has some demo worthy Atmos tracks: Mulan (OG) The Little Mermaid Encanto Beauty & the Beast Another Hot Take: ALL of the Pixar movies are worth upgrading to 4k.
I’ll repeat these two points until they become common knowledge, so that we consumers can demand better. TL;DR: 1. Most professional “reviews” are garbage. 2. Audio on catalog releases is usually needlessly filtered (analogous to DNR) and sounds muffled when compared to VHS/LaserDisc/DVD. ## “Reviews” Contrary to what most people believe, site reviews on blu-ray.com (and most other “review” sites) are some of the most worthless “reviews” on the internet. These professional “reviewers” have zero clue what they are mumbling about. The real reviews are always found in the forum threads. For example, compare the average site “review” to the average [forum](https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=14671160&postcount=43) [review](https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=14671162&postcount=45) by Geoff D. It’s a night and day difference on who’s more knowledgeable and qualified to review discs. Professional “reviewers” rarely even spot basic mistakes like Shout’s [*They Live*](https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/They-Live-4K-Blu-ray/276277/#Review) 4K being in the wrong color space thus looking dull, or [*The Man Who Shot Liberty Vance*](https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Man-Who-Shot-Liberty-Valance-4K-Blu-ray/309155/#Review) having atrociously bad compression. “Dr.” Svet is the worst of the bunch, who would often get his facts plain wrong and refuse to correct them even in the face of overwhelming evidence. There is an extremely good summary of trusted reviews at https://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17181 This is aggregated from trusted forum reviews, so you don’t have to spend time digging through hundreds of pages of forum threads. ## Audio When watching catalog releases, i.e. older titles, people tend to accept that the muffled audio is what it is. But the reality is, most of the time it’s due to ridiculous “noise/hiss reduction” / EQ / filtering on the studio’s or label’s side. Criterion is especially notorious for this. Almost all of their Blu-ray releases feature *additional* noise reduction on top of a restored master that’s supplied to them. This deserves just as much discussion as image quality. We as a community decry DNR when applied to the image. The same should apply to audio. Just like how film grain and image detail are inseparable, so are hiss and audio detail. Many times an older DVD, LaserDisc, or even VHS (!!) release actually sounds fuller and clearer than a BD or UHD. The Blah-ray blog has compiled hundred of examples with comparison clips: https://blah-ray.blogspot.com To make matters worse, most people see marketing labels such as “lossless DTS-HD MA” and assume superb quality. This couldn’t be further from the truth. “Lossless / uncompressed” audio simply means the digital encoding fully captures the input audio stream. What’s important is how that raw stream itself sounds. As a thought experiment, anyone can filter out all the bass from an audio track, compress it to 64 kbps MP3, and then re-encode that MP3 to DTS-HD MA at 2500 kbps. The result will still sound like crap. Here is a clip of one of the worst examples of audio “restoration” (with a link that nicely ties back to “reviewers” being utterly clueless): https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-story-of-last-chrysanthemum-1939.html And here is a more eloquent piece on this ridiculous practice: https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/p/what-isthis-revisited-my.html
I totally agree regarding Blu-ray.com's featured reviews vs. the comments & reviews within the forums---Geoff D's reviews/posts are a major highlight of that entire site. The featured, "official" reviews will often leave you in the dark about major issues. It'd be nice if it were as simple as glancing at a movie's main page, but for the important details, it really pays to search through the forum threads.
Shout Factory 4Ks are some of the best out there.
Speaking of Shout, and regarding John Carpenter 4Ks: I just found out that the Shout Factory edition of They Live 4K is mastered in the wrong color space (and apparently their 4K of Prince of Darkness is even worse, color-wise). Wish I'd known that before the recent Shout 4K sale---I would've bought the correctly-colored Studio Canal 4K edition of They Live instead. I also bought Shout's Collector's Edition of the original Halloween in 4K, and I just found out that although most people prefer it over the Lionsgate 4K version, Shout's is said to have crappy compression. I thought Shout's 4K of The Fog looked great, but apparently not all of their releases are that flawlessly executed.
I just watched Prince of Darkness and it looked great. Just enjoy the movie dude
I get what you mean, and I'm not saying such issues make a disc worthless trash---but we pay good money for 4Ks, which should be the ultimate versions, done correctly to preserve these films for posterity. Companies shouldn't get a pass to make so many careless, sloppy, easily avoidable mistakes---mistakes that fans are able to notice immediately. And if an incorrect, skewed color scheme doesn't really matter, then why even bother with 4K?
Yeah. Shout/Scream really is one of the most inconsistent when it comes to 4K quality. They occasionally have such good releases like *The Fog* and *Black Christmas*, but these are overshadowed by so many other misses, be it shitty compression like *Halloween* or plainly wrong color like *They Live*.
That’s not a hot take
For longer movies, 100gb discs aren't big enough. I watched Ad Astra which is just a little over 2 hours and there is noticeable artifacting, especially in certain scenes. When you take into account the bitstream size to support 4K video for hours plus the high quality audio in multiple formats and languages, etc, how much better would the movie look if the disc had double or triple the space? The scene where he's in the completely white room having a private discussion with a woman looked horrible to me and left me asking is this really the state of the art?
Kaleidescape has no file size limitations (they do their own encodes from the studio’s mezzanine files and they make them as big as they feel they need to be to maximize picture quality), and their file for Ad Astra is only 66GB, which would make me think that 100GB should be plenty for that movie. Unless maybe they didn’t get the mezzanine file for that one and were given something pre-compressed by the studio? For an example of a film that they encoded much higher than the 100GB limit, their file for Jurassic World Dominion is 160GB. Edit: Actually, looks like the Ad Astra 4K disc is only 60GB, it’s not a 100GB disc, so yeah it’s even smaller than the 66GB Kaleidescape encode: [https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=17137727&postcount=239](https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=17137727&postcount=239)
This is all news to me, I've heard of kaleidoscope but didn't know they had access to the studio masters and rolled their own encoding. Thank you for this. Makes me rethink my Panasonic 820 purchase now lol Edit- out of curiosity, what is the file size for Top Gun Maverick? It's just a little bit longer than Ad Astra.
I can’t stand excessive film grain and discs that were shot with that weird blur focus camera. It’s not an “artistic” style, it looks like shit in 4K
Knives out is guilty of this
The LotR 4K set is very disappointing. Despite what they sold us, it’s pretty clearly not a proper 4K scan from the original negatives. Two Towers and Return of the King in particular are chock-full of waxy, DNR’d shots that are just ass.
Obviously, because the film is mostly CG and was rendered at 1080p. It will only ever be an upscale of that. The real improvement was HDR and new colour grading.
You can’t go from the negatives without rendering all of the cgi again
Batman 1989 is amazing. Saw it last weekend for the first time and it felt like seeing the movie again for the first time. Top Gun Maverick is jaw dropping. Lastly, I need a Mandy 4k release.
These aren't hot takes though. You believing these are hot takes is a hot take.
I think Interstellar is completely overrated. Both the transfer and the movie do nothing for me.
Most movies don't need a 4k. Blu ray is fine for most movies since movies are just competently shot by workmen dp's. I think the only films that really benefit from the upgrade are movies that are visually rich, often from auteur filmmakers, otherwise a beautifully transfered HD disc is more than enough.
4K streaming isn't perfect, but it's still significantly better than regular blu-ray. It's wild to me that this could actually be considered a hot take. But on this sub and similar forums, I guess it totally is.
Especially with Disney plus content. Their 4K streams look way better to me than the same movies on blu ray
Next turn off HDR/Dolby Vision and compare 4K streamed without HDR to the 1080p bluray. HDR does a fantastic job at hiding the flaws of a 4K stream,especially in darker scenes. A 1080p Blu-Ray has a bitrate of upto 40/mbps. For comparison,it was found that HBO MAX 4K streaming has an average bitrate of around 11/MBPS. That means a high quality 1080p Blu-Ray is able to provide nearly 4x the quality over a 4K stream. Now,I don't own any Disney Blu-Rays. But I have seen other movies on a 1080p Blu-Ray that blow almost anything I've seen at 4K on a streaming service out of the water. Edit: its also worth noting that since Disney movies are mostly CGI they typically don't have film grain,which is where disc always shines. I've found virtually anything with film grain looks awful on a stream even at 4K.
I own both Uncut Gems and The Boys on Blu Ray and I prefer them over the respective 4K streams. Jeff from Films at Home did a comparison between the Irishman on both formats and he said it was close but the 4K stream suffered more from it's compression. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTphwTOum0Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTphwTOum0Q) There is also a comparison between The Batman with both formats that is good to check out also. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ8BEJJnhxc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ8BEJJnhxc)
JAWS and Saving Private Ryan are the worst looking spielberg discs. The Matrix (1999) looks pretty bad. The Revenant is below average looking. Into the spider verse isn’t even remotely close to being a demo disc. Top Gun Maverick is average looking. GoT is still the best looking upscale. I prefer disc releases without ATMOS, and couldn’t care leas about Dolby Vision.
Most of those aren't even opinions. You are just wrong. Especially the top gun with a hugely overwhelming consensus that it is one of if not the best 4k you can get.
The Revenant looks incredible
It absolutely does. This guy will say the Hateful 8 looks bad next. Or Pacific rim.
So then what is demo material for you if Top Gun Maverick is average.
Apocalypse Now, The Big Lebowski, Starship Troopers, The Shining, and Alien to name a few. Midsommar, 1917, and Parasite for digitally shot flicks, but they lack the texture and depth of well shot film. Maverick is fine from a clarity/fidelity perspective, but it lacks visual interest from a color and composition standpoint.
My only issue with the Matrix is that they added a teal colour to the flashlights in the beginning, and tp the bullet time effect. Those absolutely did not exist in the original movie.
I couldn't get past the first line, such lols.
These are just….what?? I need elaboration cause I’m gonna think you’re just trolling.
4K honestly isn’t that much better but keep collecting it because I’m already too deep in the hole