A Few Words About A few words about...™ Oblivion -- in 4k UHD Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert George]

Interesting discussion. Personally, I would have never considered comparing the UHD disc to the Blu-ray. Since I have a setup that makes this not too difficult, I decided to take a look. If I were prone to hyperbole, I'd say the difference was shocking. Instead, I will only say I found the results of a head-to-head comparison between 2K BD and 4K UHD of the same movie rather surprising, and not a little bit frustrating, at least with respect to Universal's UHD release of Oblivion.

The setup...Samsung UN85JU7100 85" UHD (not curved), Samsung UBD-K8500 UHD player, LG BD690 Blu-ray player. Both players routed through Yamaha RX-A2050 receiver with all video processing disabled. This receiver supports HDR pass-through. TV does upscaling of the Blu-ray signal.

First, the surprise. Yes, the BD is sharper, and in many shots, markedly so. While I'm not prepared to say the BD has more actual detail, it certainly has the appearance of more detail. There is no doubt the 4K disc does not appear to have any additional detail, at least not in the scenes I compared.

Now the frustration. When comparing these two discs, it was clear what HDR brings to the table in terms of contrast range and color density. The BD is sharper and appears more detailed with the accompanying improvement in rendering subtle textures. But the UHD wins in black level and color reproduction.

Damn. I guess we still have a ways to go.

 

[George_W_K]

Interesting discussion. Personally, I would have never considered comparing the UHD disc to the Blu-ray. Since I have a setup that makes this not too difficult, I decided to take a look. If I were prone to hyperbole, I'd say the difference was shocking. Instead, I will only say I found the results of a head-to-head comparison between 2K BD and 4K UHD of the same movie rather surprising, and not a little bit frustrating, at least with respect to Universal's UHD release of Oblivion.

The setup...Samsung UN85JU7100 85" UHD (not curved), Samsung UBD-K8500 UHD player, LG BD690 Blu-ray player. Both players routed through Yamaha RX-A2050 receiver with all video processing disabled. This receiver supports HDR pass-through. TV does upscaling of the Blu-ray signal.

First, the surprise. Yes, the BD is sharper, and in many shots, markedly so. While I'm not prepared to say the BD has more actual detail, it certainly has the appearance of more detail. There is no doubt the 4K disc does not appear to have any additional detail, at least not in the scenes I compared.

Now the frustration. When comparing these two discs, it was clear what HDR brings to the table in terms of contrast range and color density. The BD is sharper and appears more detailed with the accompanying improvement in rendering subtle textures. But the UHD wins in black level and color reproduction.

Damn. I guess we still have a ways to go.

As soon as I heard this was coming to UHD, I was ready to buy, but I've heard comments like this too many times and I'm holding off. If I had Atmos, I'd have a tougher decision. I don't even have a UHD player, but the bluray looks amazing on my OLED and I really enjoy this movie so I figured a UHD version was a no brainer.

 

[Robert Harris]

Interesting discussion. Personally, I would have never considered comparing the UHD disc to the Blu-ray. Since I have a setup that makes this not too difficult, I decided to take a look. If I were prone to hyperbole, I'd say the difference was shocking. Instead, I will only say I found the results of a head-to-head comparison between 2K BD and 4K UHD of the same movie rather surprising, and not a little bit frustrating, at least with respect to Universal's UHD release of Oblivion.

The setup...Samsung UN85JU7100 85" UHD (not curved), Samsung UBD-K8500 UHD player, LG BD690 Blu-ray player. Both players routed through Yamaha RX-A2050 receiver with all video processing disabled. This receiver supports HDR pass-through. TV does upscaling of the Blu-ray signal.

First, the surprise. Yes, the BD is sharper, and in many shots, markedly so. While I'm not prepared to say the BD has more actual detail, it certainly has the appearance of more detail. There is no doubt the 4K disc does not appear to have any additional detail, at least not in the scenes I compared.

Now the frustration. When comparing these two discs, it was clear what HDR brings to the table in terms of contrast range and color density. The BD is sharper and appears more detailed with the accompanying improvement in rendering subtle textures. But the UHD wins in black level and color reproduction.

Damn. I guess we still have a ways to go.

You've been at this about as long as anyone, Robert, and I'll remind readers that added contrast affects perceived sharpness.

The only quote that comes to mind in this situation is courtesy of Mr. Sakall.

"Vimen, Vimen, little rose petals..."

That about sums it up.

 

[DavidMiller]

A conversion is generally, a conversion, with a layer of HDR added.
Are you suggesting that either Mad Max or Oblvion was put through post again, in 4k, after the theatrical release.
Please keep in mind, everyone, that home video, regardless of resolution, is akin to reading a paperback book.
Everything is still compressed.

All I was saying was after watching "Lucy" this disc was just not on the same level. I'm not saying it was bad, if I'm ranking disks I would put it in the same range as Mad Max which was another 2K DI. I thought they did a great job with the Huntsmen discs as well so it just surprised me. This one is just an average UHD disc in the middle of the pack which is still better then the Blu-ray disc with the better contrast and color.

 

[OliverK]

Please keep in mind, everyone, that home video, regardless of resolution, is akin to reading a paperback book.

Everything is still compressed.

Looking at many DCPs having not much more than a 100GB file size with a lesser compression algorithm than UHD disc and also at color space and bit depth it would seem that differences could be minute IF the studios gave us a representation of the DCP and not HDR conversions where the motto seems to be that somehow anything goes.

So one could say that we do not necessarily get something inferior but something that is by choice different from the theatrical presentation which is a first in the history of home video.

 

[Keith Cobby]

I missed this film previously so bought the 4k. Good film and excellent 4k presentation. I much preferred the UHD image to the blu ray. Viewed it on my Panny OLED only as my projector is 1080p.