UHD Review A Few Words About While we wait for a few words about...™ West Side Story (2021) -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[cinemiracle]

Sorry I thought 'Cool Boy and Krupke were much better in the original.

I never said that they weren't They were indeed better in the original but in the remake, they were stand-outs in an otherwise disappointing film.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Well, of course, in that movie she was chased around a room by Jonathan Winters wearing naught but a very skimpy bikini...

Why would anyone want to watch Jonathan Winters running around a room in a bikini?

 

[Malcolm Bmoor]

Recently I was very kindly helped on this forum in researching whether it was worthwhile buying 4K discs when I have a 4K player but only a 1080P Panasonic Plasma TV and Epson EH-TW5650 Projecter with 16:9 92" 204x115 cm screen.

WEST SIDE STORY arrived this morning and I watched the first sequence, up to the end of the cops scene, three times: 4K 1080 and 4K using the two discs in the set. Most importantly there's no adverse effect with breaking the rules and I'm sure there's a slight advantage. It seemed to me that going from the 4K disc to the Blu-ray my eyes didn't feel quite right, as if I wasn't seeing things properly anymore. It was very slight and then returning to the 4K things felt right again. But there certainly wasn't a dramatic difference.

So this is to reassure people that starting to buy 4K in readiness for a future upgrade is, in my opinion, a good idea. I should note that the long HDMI cable around the room to the projector isn't 4K.

As for the film, based on seeing only that sequence, so far I like it very much and look forward to seeing it all later today. I don't have Atmos but listening in 7.1 TRUE HD was terrific. The score, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, is stunning.

Thanks again to people who advised me to give 4K/hybrid! a try.

 

[Will Krupp]

WEST SIDE STORY arrived this morning and I watched the first sequence, up to the end of the cops scene, three times: 4K 1080 and 4K using the two discs in the set. Most importantly there's no adverse effect with breaking the rules and I'm sure there's a slight advantage. It seemed to me that going from the 4K disc to the Blu-ray my eyes didn't feel quite right, as if I wasn't seeing things properly anymore. It was very slight and then returning to the 4K things felt right again. But there certainly wasn't a dramatic difference.

Let me preface this question with the admission that I MAY not understand exactly what I'm talking about so please bear with me (and if you'd like to forgive me in advance for my potential ignorance that would be sweet, too! ) but isn't the 4K disc encoded with HDR? Isn't the HDR encode "broken" (for lack of a better term) when you play it back on a display that can't read it? Did you wind up with a picture that was overly dark or were you able to "defeat" the unreadable HDR by turning it off at the player level?

I know that my old, original 4K TV (a Samsung) never properly decoded HDR and I wasn't overly impressed with the format as a whole until I upgraded to an OLED that did.

Is that a dumb question?

 

[Malcolm Bmoor]

Will:

I didn't make any adjustments but just played the disc and it was fine. I wondered if it was going to be darker (seen that mentioned previously) but it gave me a picture (as I've said above) virtually identical to the normal Blu-ray but slightly clearer.

I don't really understand HDR either but it wasn't an issue.

 

[Will Krupp]

I wondered if it was going to be darker (seen that mentioned previously) but it gave me a picture (as I've said above) virtually identical to the normal Blu-ray but slightly clearer.

Thanks for answring, Malcolm. I assume you had HDR switched to OFF rather than ON or AUTO from the player(s) used? It's all very interesting!

 

[Dick]

Why would anyone want to watch Jonathan Winters running around a room in a bikini?

Yeah...you wouldn't know I was a writer, would you

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Will:

I didn't make any adjustments but just played the disc and it was fine. I wondered if it was going to be darker (seen that mentioned previously) but it gave me a picture (as I've said above) virtually identical to the normal Blu-ray but slightly clearer.

I don't really understand HDR either but it wasn't an issue.

Curious. Which 4K player do you have?

_Man_

 

[Matt Hough]

I streamed it from Disney+ tonight with Dolby Vision in 4K. Looked very, very nice.

Dear lord, what a maze of conflicting emotions I had watching this version of this musical! There were things I liked and didn't, things that I felt worked and didn't, changes to the script that were inspired and others that wrecked special moments.For me, it was definitely inferior to the original which made it a dance show far more than this did (none of the dancing lingers in the mind here: all of the dancing seemed special in the original). But I will eventually buy it. It simply won't be my go-to version when I'm in the mood for West Side Story.

 

[Malcolm Bmoor]

4K HYBRID ADVENTURES - CONTINUED

When I bought the new player I didn't look into the detailed setup menus as it worked playing ordinary Blu-rays. To answer Will's question I've now looked and, as he'd suspected, HDR was set to Auto, which is why there is no adverse effect when playing 4K into non-4K displays. I'm very happy with the machine and it also plays SACD.

It therefore seems to be a good idea to begin collecting 4K discs and I look forward to whenever I can afford to upgrade the projector but meanwhile enjoy a sliight improvement.

There hasn't yet been time to watch the whole film this weekend so I've still only seen the opening up to the end of the cops scene. A good test moment is with the chain link fence before the cops arrive. The 4K disc had slightly better definition than the Blu-ray using the 1080P Epson.

Sony UBP-X800M2 MULTIREGION 4K Ultra HD ICOS Multi Region All Zone Code Free Blu-ray Player. Blu-ray zones A, B and C, DVD regions 1-8 - Includes SlimHDMI 4K HDMI Cable​

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[Will Krupp]

Hey guys, I apologize for the momentary thread derailment!

To answer Will's question I've now looked and, as he'd suspected, HDR was set to Auto, which is why there is no adverse effect when playing 4K into non-4K displays.

Now, I'm REALLY confused because that's actually the OPPOSITE of what I was getting at, LOL. I have the x700 and our machines behave in mighty similar ways. The way I understand it, AUTO detects HDR signals coming from the DISC not the capabilities of the TV. Bearing that in mind, It SHOULD only work in the way you describe if the HDR is set to "off" on the player but, as I said, I don't really understand it all (much as I try) so WHATEVER is working for you, just go with it!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

4K HYBRID ADVENTURES - CONTINUED

When I bought the new player I didn't look into the detailed setup menus as it worked playing ordinary Blu-rays. To answer Will's question I've now looked and, as he'd suspected, HDR was set to Auto, which is why there is no adverse effect when playing 4K into non-4K displays. I'm very happy with the machine and it also plays SACD.

It therefore seems to be a good idea to begin collecting 4K discs and I look forward to whenever I can afford to upgrade the projector but meanwhile enjoy a sliight improvement.

There hasn't yet been time to watch the whole film this weekend so I've still only seen the opening up to the end of the cops scene. A good test moment is with the chain link fence before the cops arrive. The 4K disc had slightly better definition than the Blu-ray using the 1080P Epson.

Sony UBP-X800M2 MULTIREGION 4K Ultra HD ICOS Multi Region All Zone Code Free Blu-ray Player. Blu-ray zones A, B and C, DVD regions 1-8 - Includes SlimHDMI 4K HDMI Cable​

Now, I'm REALLY confused because that's actually the OPPOSITE of what I was getting at, LOL. I have the x700 and our machines behave in mighty similar ways. The way I understand it, AUTO detects HDR signals coming from the DISC not the capabilities of the TV. Bearing that in mind, It SHOULD only work in the way you describe if the HDR is set to "off" on the player but, as I said, I don't really understand it all (much as I try) so WHATEVER is working for you, just go with it!

Interesting... When I was still using a Sony x700 w/ a 1080p PJ, I had its HDR set to Auto, but definitely found a need to make substantial adjustments to the player's (rather modest/spartan) display settings. I even kept a separate, dedicated profile to toggle on/off, which can't be accessed until playback begins, to satisfactorily handle discs encoded w/ HDR content (to convert/tonemap to SDR)... but then again, I was trying to strike a good balance to recover some otherwise blown highlights (that HDR offers) while not resulting in a much too flat (contrast-wise) picture...

I don't have that x700 in my setup anymore -- moved onto a Panny 420 to go w/ my Epson 5050UB faux-K PJ upgrade roughly a year ago...

_Man_

 

[Will Krupp]

I even kept a separate, dedicated profile to toggle on/off, which can't be accessed until playback begins, to satisfactorily handle discs encoded w/ HDR content... but then again, I was trying to strike a good balance to recover some otherwise blown highlights (that HDR offers) while not resulting in a much too flat (contrast-wise) picture...

All I know is that I don't do any tweaks to the player itself, only to the display. My OLED has separate viewer profiles (that can be individually calibrated) for SDR, HDR, and Dolby Vision that kick in automatically when each encode (am I using that right?) is detected.

But seriously, we really should take this somewhere else if you want to continue it. I feel bad using this thread for this discussion as we're going to (justifiably) irritate people, if we haven't already.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Okay guys, time to get back to West Side Story (2021)!

 

[DarkVader]

Behind the Scenes Feature - "The Stories of West Side Story: A Steven Spielberg Film"

 

[Mark-P]

Like Matt, I wasn’t completely satisfied with this version either. It‘s not necessarily any better or worse than the original, and it’s reason to exist should have been to give us something completely different, rather than a faithful remake with a few tweaks. Changing the character of Doc to Valentina (Rita Moreno) and then giving her “Somewhere” to sing over a montage, was an inspired change that I liked. Moving ”I Feel Pretty” to after the rumble, was completely inept. I guess they wanted to break up the tragedy with some levity, but even though Maria doesn’t yet know what has just happened, we the viewers know and can’t join in with all the happiness of being in love that the song is supposed to convey. The one superiority it can claim is that all the actors did their own singing in this version.

 

[Malcolm Bmoor]

Having only commented on the film's 4K disc on a non-4K display I'll now give an opinion since seeing all of it.

Neither my partner nor myself are ever in the audience for violent films and were left more shocked and drained by the explicit violence than we believe ought to be the case for a musical, and she's seen it on stage more often than I have.

I agree that this version has remarkable qualities of fresh thinking and powerful performances, with the music presented with outstanding integrity but, beginning with the nailed ear, we found the violence way over the top. We didn't expect the Tarantino approach.

I believe the film to be a great achievment and think that the late Arthur Laurents, with whom I once recorded a BBC interview, would be grateful for the overall stronger approach than he was permitted in 1961.

I need to apologise for misleading technical conclusions last week. The look of the opening scenes is so heavily manipulated that I missed a very slight darkening on the 4K, even with HDR & Dolby Vision switched off on the player, compared to the Blu-ray on my non-4K display. Today I've spent time on a more thorough comparison and now see that what people have said is true - there's a marginally dimmer result which didn't spoil seeing it in its entirety. Sorry.