Vudu Licence To Kill 4K - Grainy Or Bad Encode? (1 Viewer)

[Neil S. Bulk]

My main struggles with the James Bond films in 4K via Vudu have been discussed here. As those issues have been resolved I've been slowly making my way through the rest of the Bond films on Vudu. Today I watched Licence To Kill and I can't tell if it's an overlay grainy film or if the Vudu encode is terrible. There is at least one scene bathed in red where the image dissolves into noticeable blocks (around 1:55:15). Can anyone with this film in 4K on iTunes let me know how this looks on their display? Watching today via Vudu on my Apple TV had the image teetering right on the edge of blockiness from the start. Thanks!

 

[JohnRice]

Blocking is usually the result of insufficient internet bandwidth.

 

[Robert Crawford]

My main struggles with the James Bond films in 4K via Vudu have been discussed here. As those issues have been resolved I've been slowly making my way through the rest of the Bond films on Vudu. Today I watched Licence To Kill and I can't tell if it's an overlay grainy film or if the Vudu encode is terrible. There is at least one scene bathed in red where the image dissolves into noticeable blocks (around 1:55:15). Can anyone with this film in 4K on iTunes let me know how this looks on their display? Watching today via Vudu on my Apple TV had the image teetering right on the edge of blockiness from the start. Thanks!

If you're talking about that scene in which Don Stroud crashes through the wall while being impaled I see nothing wrong with the picture on iTunes.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

If you're talking about that scene in which Don Stroud crashes through the wall while being impaled I see nothing wrong with the picture on iTunes.

That's the sequence. I see compression artifacts on the wall behind him but also the reaction shot of Dalton and Lowell, which is especially bad.

It's not a bandwidth issue. I checked my speed and other titles look fine. I've tried this sequence on my Apple TV and with the televisions internal Vudu app, and it looks junky on both.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Possibly grain. I remember somebody else around here saying the Mexican lab they were using wasn't the most competant.

 

[Robert Crawford]

That's the sequence. I see compression artifacts on the wall behind him but also the reaction shot of Dalton and Lowell, which is especially bad.

It's not a bandwidth issue. I checked my speed and other titles look fine. I've tried this sequence on my Apple TV and with the televisions internal Vudu app, and it looks junky on both.

I was sitting less than three feet away from my 55" OLED and I didn't have any of that stuff.

 

[Mark-P]

My 4K iTunes version has none of those issues either. I think that somebody else who owns the movie on Vudu in 4K is going to have to chime in here to see if it is specifically related to Vudu's encode.

 

[Osato]

My 4K iTunes version has none of those issues either. I think that somebody else who owns the movie on Vudu in 4K is going to have to chime in here to see if it is specifically related to Vudu's encode.

I’ve noted that vudu doesn’t play back films as well as iTunes in terms of image quality. I also have an Apple TV 4K for playback.

I have the films on iTunes but I don’t recall watching LTK yet. It’s not a favorite but miles better than what the films have turned into recently IMO.

I really cannot believe all of the films are not on 4k disc yet. Especially as this is the 60th anniversary of the series this year. Maybe they will be out for holidays…

 

[Worth]

I don’t see any issues on the iTunes stream, though it was never a great looking film. The original release prints were particularly muddy. Siskel and Ebert even mentioned it in their review.

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

That's the sequence. I see compression artifacts on the wall behind him but also the reaction shot of Dalton and Lowell, which is especially bad.

It's not a bandwidth issue. I checked my speed and other titles look fine. I've tried this sequence on my Apple TV and with the televisions internal Vudu app, and it looks junky on both.

It’s fleeting but I see the same thing with my Vudu stream of that moment.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

It’s fleeting but I see the same thing with my Vudu stream of that moment.

Does the whole movie have coarse look to you? In the opening shot of the plane flying the background looks like it's bit starved.

 

[Osato]

Does the whole movie have coarse look to you? In the opening shot of the plane flying the background looks like it's bit starved.

I’ll pull up my iTunes 4k version later today and look at it for at least the opening sequence and titles.

 

[Osato]

I’ll pull up my iTunes 4k version later today and look at it for at least the opening sequence and titles.

Sorry for the long delay.

I watched the 4k film over the past 2 nights on Apple TV. Color is strong through the film. I did notice that the
Picture is ok for most of it but the desert sequences the picture seemed a lot more vibrant at times. Both with detail and color. Maybe ltk can only look so good as it was a late 80s film?

I will say I switched to To Catch A Thief right after finishing ltk. It seemed like that film has a more impressive transfer. But it’s vistavision too.

Other thoughts?