A Few Words About A few words about…™ Lawrence of Arabia - in 4k UHD Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Rob W]

I think the question many of us are wondering is if Sony's 4K DCP of Lawrence is even available in a Dolby Vision version for theatres or is it just the standard version?

I know that a DV 4K disc does not mean the theatrical DCP is also DV.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I’m disappointed that RAH didn’t evaluate the 2012 Blu-Ray with the foresight of a format that wouldn’t exist for another four years and a disc released four after that. Inexcusable.

 

[Mike Frezon]

We really need to drop that issue now and move on with other comments about the release.

Thanks.

 

[JediFonger]

doing a little googling about the film non-music soundtrack. meaning, not the music score, but some of how the audio portions of the films were put together:

Wide Angle / Closeup: Interview With Robert Harris

So they had to be re-recorded?

Well, let's define "re-recorded." Performed again? No. What we had to work from were combined stereo tracks, M&E and D (music/effects and dialogue), and then we had an M&E track for the foreign version — everything without the dialogue. And what I did in some situations, for example where we would be missing some music, I would try and go in to the M&Es and steal it from somewhere else in the film.

A perfect example would be the intermission music; it's actually the music that's played under the sand dunes the first time. So we were able to take it from that and change it and clean it up.

LAWRENCE was a 3-track mix, L-C-R (left-center-right front channels). In a few situations there was an effects track in the rear, it really wasn't a surround. What we did was to spread it by creating a surround channel to give it a little more atmosphere, especially as the music builds, so that it can move through the theatre, and we also added low frequency information on channels 2 and 4.

The "boom tracks."

i understand that 'stereo' and 'surround sound' soundtracks in films are mixed in studio, it's not "captured live" in stereo (in most cases, i'm sure there are exceptions).

i'm curious to know that since UHD is encoded with Atmos, did they consult you with adding those height effects? or did they do that themselves?

i also understand that the goal of catalog films like this is emulate what it was like originally and all these extra surround channel is to try to make it sound like it was theatrically.

just curious about what kinds of information are in those height channels. i dont have atmos myself yet, still rocking old school truehd/dts-hd master in 7.1 via the blu-ray of this film.

 

[Paul Rossen]

What is the date of the RAH interview as referenced above?
The reason I ask is the comment about the Spartacus music session tracks. They have long thought to be lost forever. Varese Sarabande had released a complete recording on 2 CDs with terrible mono sound and an expanded stereo cd with less than half the score. A full score reconstruction in dynamic sound would truly be a miracle to fans of the Alex North score.

 

[Robert Harris]

What is the date of the RAH interview as referenced above?
The reason I ask is the comment about the Spartacus music session tracks. They have long thought to be lost forever. Varese Sarabande had released a complete recording on 2 CDs with terrible mono sound and an expanded stereo cd with less than half the score. A full score reconstruction in dynamic sound would truly be a miracle to fans of the Alex North score.

I just read that. It’s dated 1992, and I have no memory of doing it. I presume I must have.

As to Mx tracks, I never considered what was thought “missing.” Only what we needed, and could not find.

There was one reference, on the old paper files, of Jean Simmons nude scene at the lake, presumably for a foreign version. Original negative. No masters. No reference in computer files.

Gone.

Much like the stereo Mx track for Storm Cloud Cantata, for which there was an empty 1000 foot can.

Spartacus was a confusing mess, because negative deletions and trims no longer survived. What we had was the shorter version of the film, and masters. The masters had problems, and were incomplete. Not cut, but incomplete. It made zero sense.

I would spend evenings and weekends going through production and post-prod files. And it was over a weekend that a lightbulb went on.

I had several different post files, inventories, interrelationships of element cutting, production, etc, and between different files finally realized that the after the preview, and censorship, during the recut down to 26 reels...

The separation masters, which were our prime element in 1989, were being produced at Technicolor, literally as the re-cut was occurring.

Dates, comparing different records, showed that rolls of negative were being moved from neg cutting to the lab, literally in the middle of the cut. Which meant that, with little rhyme or reason, some units would have material we needed, some would not, and some were in that mid-stage, being moved back and forth, as needed, while the masters were being exposed.

Which means that for some sequences, we had only two records, and not three of some deletions.

We had to fake color with alternate records.

One of the wonderful things about that project, was that we had a filmmaker who knew film from a tech perspective. I could go to Stanley, explain the problem, and he fully understood why I’d need to time a sequence for late afternoon / early evening, and concur. He got it. He knew, in his mind, what something would look like.

Then... he’d ask how the Yankees were doing.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

i have asked this on another thread... but it may be relevant to this thread.
i'm not sure if the latest 4k DCP of Lawrence has been screened theatrically... but it gets me thinking since ya'll chatting about commercial projectors. is this how Dolby Cinema claims to project Dolby Vision on theatrical releases, using these commercial behemoth? i've heard that they need to use two separate projectors to achieve enough lumens for Dolby Vision to be effective on a commercial size.
on the consumer side, we know that (thus far) projection tech. cannot achieve the same 'nits' as OLEDs direct displays.... that is how i'm wondering it can be accomplished on the commercial front. i assume these 1/4 to half a million dollar projectors is far brighter than consumer ones... but still falls short of OLED panels no? i know it's not apples to apples as no one is watching OLEDs in the commercial space. but with emerging tech like MicroLEDs "walls" from Samsung it may (theoretically) be possible to supplant projection tech to achieve higher nits.
anyways... my direct question is would commercial cinema like the Dolby Cinema projection go about accomplishing showing DV titles like Lawrence? i've read about Apocalypse Now for example being shown in DV on these cinemas.
i have seen DV films for new titles, just not the catalog restorations yet.

Dolby Vision cinemas have their own versions of a Christie Eclipse kind of projector, but older tech. And the DCPs playing are graded specifically for these cinemas which have 31 foot lamberts top (about 100 nits) so falling way short of consumer HDR discs with 1000 or 4000 nits top whites. Playing UHD discs there would require tone mapping. With the Eclipse tone mapping may be required too depending on lumens and screen size. When you shine the 30000 lumen model on a 4m 16:9 screen it will be brighter than an Oled (over 1000 nits).

 

[Robert Harris]

Dolby Vision cinemas have their own versions of a Christie Eclipse kind of projector, but older tech. And the DCPs playing are graded specifically for these cinemas which have 31 foot lamberts top (about 100 nits) so falling way short of consumer HDR discs with 1000 or 4000 nits top whites. Playing UHD discs there would require tone mapping. With the Eclipse tone mapping may be required too depending on lumens and screen size. When you shine the 30000 lumen model on a 4m 16:9 screen it will be brighter than an Oled (over 1000 nits).

To translate, the standard for theaters running film, is 14 foot lamberts.

 

[Reed Grele]

Minor tragedy. My replacement bonus disc arrived via FedEx today but looked as if it had been stepped on. The BD box was cracked and the disc sustained a severe bend. Oh well, try, try again.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Minor tragedy. My replacement bonus disc arrived via FedEx today but looked as if it had been stepped on. The BD box was cracked and the disc sustained a severe bend. Oh well, try, try again.

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That sucks!

 

[Mike Frezon]

Wow. You really have to go some to inflict THAT kind of damage!

 

[Reed Grele]

That sucks!

No biggie. I just wrote Sony Customer Care an e-mail and included a link to the photos. I'm sure they will make things right.

As T.E.L. would say: "Alright, alright, just fetch another."

 

[Mike Frezon]

Wow. You really have to go some to inflict THAT kind of damage!

 

[Robert Crawford]

I wonder if that dude still is employed by Fed-Ex?

 

[B-ROLL]

Minor tragedy. My replacement bonus disc arrived via FedEx today but looked as if it had been stepped on. The BD box was cracked and the disc sustained a severe bend. Oh well, try, try again.

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You have my deepest sympathies! The Kino Outer Limits Season 2 replacement blu-ray disc came in a cardboard sleeve and no other packaging

No biggie. I just wrote Sony Customer Care an e-mail and included a link to the photos. I'm sure they will make things right.

As T.E.L. would say: "Alright, alright, just fetch another."

Minor tragedy. My replacement bonus disc arrived via FedEx today but looked as if it had been stepped on. The BD box was cracked and the disc sustained a severe bend. Oh well, try, try again.

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You have my deepest sympathies! The Kino Outer Limits Season 2 replacement disc came in a tagboard sleeve and no other packaging.

 

[TravisR]

I wonder if that dude still is employed by Fed-Ex?

He was promoted to CEO.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I wonder if that dude still is employed by Fed-Ex?

He could always get a job replacing the gorilla for American Tourister.

 

[dpippel]

 

[jayembee]

I wonder if that dude still is employed by Fed-Ex?

He was promoted to CEO.

The Peter Principle: People tend to rise to their level of incompetence.

The Peter Paradox: Some people are too incompetent to rise to their level of incompetence.

 

[Patrick McCart]

While I sampled a few minutes immediately upon receiving the Columbia Classics box, it took me until Monday night to finally watch the entirety of the film. Not that it wasn't a priority, but one doesn't spend 3 1/2 hours plus with one of the greatest films ever made as if it's just any movie to toss onto the screen.

The first caveat is that because my 4K display was made in late-2015 and I'm using a 5.1 soundbar, I'm not getting the Dolby Atmos or Dolby Vision experience - just plain HDR10.

Just to get the sound out of the way, I watched with the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track (same as the Blu-ray from what I can tell) since the Atmos track collapsed to 5.1 sounded odd, as expected. A great mix overall.

Picture-wise?

While seeing this on my 60" display is a far cry from the gigantic screen I saw theatrically back in 2012 (via 4K projection), this is flat-out gorgeous from start to finish. I think I might have seen a single speck of dirt and I can't be sure that was actual dirt (or sand) as photographed.

I was noticing all sorts of things I had never noticed before. Like the mural behind Lawrence after "They'll come for me" or the outright tactile nature of sand and fibers. I did notice some fluctuation in grain structure at times, so I'm guessing shots were from separation masters instead of OCN? (Particularly the very first shot after the main titles and the goggles). They were more or less transparent on Blu-ray, while I can see the subtle variance in grain here.

There's also a lot of little details like the first shot of Lawrence emerging from the Nefud after rescuing Gasim. On DVD, there's maybe a single pixel (almost invisible on the first "enhanced" DVD), while maybe a few more on Blu-ray, while I can actually make out a figure here. I also noticed for the first time, after Tafas is shot by Ali, you can see him bleed out as the shot goes on.

One shot that's haunting is after the massacre of the Turks, there's a shot of Lawrence where you can barely make out his face in the dark, but you can see dots of light in his eyes - sort of reminding me of the big cat in the Dawn of Man sequence in 2001.

And of course, the color is marvelous. Gold in particular just jumps out as if there's metal on the screen. Black levels are inky and perfect.

Literally the only negative thing I have to say about this is the fact that the second disc starts up with the Sony logo instead of either going directly to the main menu or the beginning of Act II (the Superbit DVD went immediately to the continuation of Act II upon loading). Maybe they'll fix that for the individual release, but I doubt it's worth the trouble.