A Few Words About A few words about...™ It's a Wonderful Life (Corrected)-- in 4k UHD Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[ghostwind]

I’m running on an Oppo, which runs DV.

Oh! I remember reading a thread about the 9000 that you wrote and I just assumed that’s what you were using. It’s easy to turn off DV on the Panasonic. Not possible on the Oppo?

 

[Noel Aguirre]

Oh, good! I thought it was just my 63-year-old eyes that were glazing over. I have an Oppo 203, a 55" Panasonic Plasma 3D set and a halfway decent sound system. And I just insert the disc, press play and let the picture and sound fall where they may. And most of the time my blurays look and sound spectacular and my DVDs look nearly as good thanks to the Oppo's uprezzing.

The new IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE remastered blu ray looks and sounds fine on my set. Certainly a far cry from the old Kartes VHS tape I bought in 1981.

Dear gawd 4 k release seem to be a mess.
I’ll stick with a Blu-ray and an upscaled Blu-ray 4K watch and iTunes freebie.
So sorry you all have deal with this 4K format MESS!

 

[ghostwind]

Dear gawd 4 k release seem to be a mess.
I’ll stick with a Blu-ray and an upscaled Blu-ray 4K watch and iTunes freebie.
So sorry you all have deal with this 4K format MESS!

It's is a mess, but I like to think we are the type of people that sort of embrace the bleeding edge, because even with its pitfalls and growing pains, when it works, it's better than anything out there in terms of image quality. Most of my films are Blu-rays, and my system is perfectly calibrated to that standard, so it's pretty much "plug and play", and I don't have to think or doubt things. But for the films I love, I absolutely buy and try the 4K UHD versions, even if it's more "plug and pray" Like I said earlier, these discs will only look better and better as display technology catches up to the 4K UHD standard. So at the very least, they are a good investment. I think the different standards, HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, complicate things needlessly, but I also remember the Blu-ray HD-DVD days too. In any case, there has never been a better time for videophiles, even if it means some extra work at times.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Dear gawd 4 k release seem to be a mess.
I’ll stick with a Blu-ray and an upscaled Blu-ray 4K watch and iTunes freebie.
So sorry you all have deal with this 4K format MESS!

It's mess for some people, but, on my LGOLED it looks beautiful.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

It's mess for some people, but, on my LGOLED it looks beautiful.

As I mentioned, via my Sony 4K player and my LG OLED, I thought it looked great but I did have spotty instances of a too dark image.

It wasn't repeatable - the scenes that looked too dark later looked fine if I stopped and played them again.

I chalked it up to my player but I guess it's something funky with the disc itself. Weird that it'd come and go like that and not repeat even if I played the same scenes!

 

[OliverK]

It's is a mess, but I like to think we are the type of people that sort of embrace the bleeding edge, because even with its pitfalls and growing pains, when it works, it's better than anything out there in terms of image quality. Most of my films are Blu-rays, and my system is perfectly calibrated to that standard, so it's pretty much "plug and play", and I don't have to think or doubt things. But for the films I love, I absolutely buy and try the 4K UHD versions, even if it's more "plug and pray" Like I said earlier, these discs will only look better and better as display technology catches up to the 4K UHD standard. So at the very least, they are a good investment. I think the different standards, HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, complicate things needlessly, but I also remember the Blu-ray HD-DVD days too. In any case, there has never been a better time for videophiles, even if it means some extra work at times.

And not to forget: Those new masters for the UHD releases can lead to very good looking new Blu-rays, too so even people who want to stay with Blu-ray can enjoy improved picture quality, like for example with the new Blu-ray of Léon: The Professional:
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=744&y=277&d1=6748&d2=6749&s1=63739&s2=63756&l=0&i=4&go=1

Unfortunately Blu-rays based on new masters used for UHD releases seem to be more rare than they should be, hopefully with time this will improve.

 

[ghostwind]

And not to forget: Those new masters for the UHD releases can lead to very good looking new Blu-rays, too so even people who want to stay with Blu-ray can enjoy improved picture quality, like for example with the new Blu-ray of Léon: The Professional:
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=744&y=277&d1=6748&d2=6749&s1=63739&s2=63756&l=0&i=4&go=1

Unfortunately Blu-rays based on new masters used for UHD releases seem to be more rare than they should be, hopefully with time this will improve.

Yes, I'm always hoping for a new and good/proper Blu-ray to be included with a new 4K UHD disc. Especially if it's a remaster, restoration, etc.

 

[Dave H]

I think we're fortunate to even have UHD BD. Remember back in 2014 and even as late as earlier 2015, there were a lot of people (some of whom in the industry) that doubted the format would actually happen.

 

[OliverK]

I think we're fortunate to even have UHD BD. Remember back in 2014 and even as late as earlier 2015, there were a lot of people (some of whom in the industry) that doubted the format would actually happen.

Several aspects of the UHD Blu-ray format have been handled very badly, like the complete lack of support for projectors when UHD Blu-ray first came to market and adding to that the complete and utter chaos of different HDR formats. There had been predictions that this would happen and indeed these issues came true.

Still I have to say that many UHD 4k discs have given me a picture quality that previously was not attainable with even a very good Blu-ray so I guess I consider myself very lucky to be able to watch movies at home in this kind of quality.

 

[Mark Stenroos]

I took a look at the colorized BluRay - the last 9 minutes of the film (starting when George returns to the bridge) are still disfigured by a scratch running down the right side of the image. This scratch has been removed in the 4k version.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I took a look at the colorized BluRay - the last 9 minutes of the film (starting when George returns to the bridge) are still disfigured by a scratch running down the right side of the image. This scratch has been removed in the 4k version.

Yes, the colorized version is based on the previous master and is the exact same disc included in the 2009 release.

 

[Mark Stenroos]

Yes, the colorized version is based on the previous master and is the exact same disc included in the 2009 release.

Yes. I mentioned it as some earlier posts in this thread remarked that doing a good, cleaned-up UHD version can often mean an improvement in the standard BluRay version.

That certainly is not the case here. Same-old, same-old.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Yes. I mentioned it as some earlier posts in this thread remarked that doing a good, cleaned-up UHD version can often mean an improvement in the standard BluRay version.

That certainly is not the case here. Same-old, same-old.

There is a new B&W Blu-ray available separately from the 4K which includes said improvements.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

There is a new B&W Blu-ray available separately from the 4K which includes said improvements.

Sadly (and frustratingly), Paramount did not include that w/ the 4K instead of the colorized.

Would make this upgrade exercise less painful/befuddling if they did me thinks...

_Man_

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Sadly (and frustratingly), Paramount did not include that w/ the 4K instead of the colorized.

Would make this upgrade exercise less painful/befuddling if they did me thinks...

_Man_

Agreed. Bean counters probably limited them to two discs, and marketers probably wanted the package to say that it came with B&W and color in the same set. But it was still a poor decision.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Considering the issues, this lack of inclusion of the remastered/restored BD and Amazon’s current B2G1 deal, I’m just about ready to just go w/ the new BD (w/ fingers crossed) and worry about the 4K much later when I finally have a good 4K FP setup (that I feel confident enough for long haul) — maybe in a couple years...

_Man_

 

[Trancas]

Sadly (and frustratingly), Paramount did not include that w/ the 4K instead of the colorized.

Would make this upgrade exercise less painful/befuddling if they did me thinks...

_Man_

Order it from UK Amazon. It includes the remastered B/W blu ray in addition to the 4k disc. Both are region-free.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wonderful-...Wonderful+Life+4k&qid=1573270837&s=dvd&sr=1-1

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Considering the issues, this lack of inclusion of the remastered/restored BD and Amazon’s current B2G1 deal, I’m just about ready to just go w/ the new BD (w/ fingers crossed) and worry about the 4K much later when I finally have a good 4K FP setup (that I feel confident enough for long haul) — maybe in a couple years...

_Man_

If you’re in the US and an AppleTV user, the digital code included with the new Blu-ray redeems in 4K on iTunes. So I have the new BD disc and a 4K version in my digital library. I’m good.

 

[OliverK]

If you’re in the US and an AppleTV user, the digital code included with the new Blu-ray redeems in 4K on iTunes. So I have the new BD disc and a 4K version in my digital library. I’m good.

The 4k version is free in this case but its usefulness may depend on what you think about film grain as it is possible that it will be reduced significantly. Saw this a few days ago with my itunes UHD version of The Big Lebowski - very disappointing. It might be that IAWL is different as the grain reduction does not seem to affect all titles in the same way but when it happens it seems to happen even at maximum bandwidth, at least it was like that for The Big Lebowski.

 

[Robert Crawford]

The 4k version is free in this case but its usefulness may depend on what you think about film grain as it is possible that it will be reduced significantly. Saw this a few days ago with my itunes UHD version of The Big Lebowski - very disappointing. It might be that IAWL is different as the grain reduction does not seem to affect all titles in the same way but when it happens it seems to happen even at maximum bandwidth, at least it was like that for The Big Lebowski.

Also, I think the apparent film grain reduction is dependent on HT equipment and an individual's awareness of it. The iTunes 4K digital has been out there for a year and nobody said a word about film grain reduction until this thread.