Why UHD Blu-rays aren’t actually 4K (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a beautifully shot movie. I just don't know that it needed the UHD treatment.

I'm glad it did as it looks better than the Blu-ray.

 

[Robert Crawford]

More importantly -- playing those discs on a 4K TV -- can most people reliably pick which is which without being told.
If someone picked the 50-100 best/worst looking titles out of the 600 (from 2018-2019 since I'll give them 16-17 as a learning curve) would it be significantly more than 50% of each or is it more of Real 3D/Fake 3D where there is no reliable difference is good/bad looking (non-Golden-Silver Age titles).

Trust me, I've done several comparisons and I couldn't tell for the most part. Initially, I was in the "only buy" 4K native club until I started experimenting around and found I couldn't really tell the difference between non-4K native and 4K native discs. Perhaps, those with larger than my 65" OLED could see the differences more easily.

 

[Lord Dalek]

You know what's overkill? Toy Story. That was actually rendered at LESS than 1920x1080 (actually 1536x922!) in 1994-95. So even the regular blu-ray is an upscale!

 

[owen35]

Older films don't have DIs. Anything that was shot on film prior to the year 2000 was entirely completed on film, so the negative can be scanned at any resolution. They could go back and rescan at 8K or higher, but in the case of 35mm, it's not going to yield results any better than 4K.

More than likely I misunderstood what the person was saying, but once a film is scanned at 4K, those digital files are then used for color grading, etc., and then finally exported for disc. The production house would continue to work with those 4k files, not smaller files to expedite the process and reduce render time, correct?

 

[David Norman]

You know what's overkill? Toy Story. That was actually rendered at LESS than 1920x1080 (actually 1536x922!) in 1994-95. So even the regular blu-ray is an upscale!

And yet most people who have seen it have been impressed with the improvement over the BD and 3DBD. Much of that may be related to HDR, some of it just a better encode, but overkill to me means 4K for the sake of 4K with no upside

 

[Worth]

You know what's overkill? Toy Story. That was actually rendered at LESS than 1920x1080 (actually 1536x922!) in 1994-95. So even the regular blu-ray is an upscale!

Which just goes to show how unimportant resolution really is.

 

[Worth]

More than likely I misunderstood what the person was saying, but once a film is scanned at 4K, those digital files are then used for color grading, etc., and then finally exported for disc. The production house would continue to work with those 4k files, not smaller files to expedite the process and reduce render time, correct?

A 4K scan is the first step to creating a new, digital 4K master. So the 35mm negative is scanned at 4K, then cleaned up, colour graded etc. to create a 4K master. That is then used as the source for 4K and 2K DCPs for theatrical presentations, UHD discs and blu-rays, DVDs, digital sales and rentals, television, streaming, and so on.

 

[Wayne_j]

I think I remember hearing about the toy story films being re-rendered in 2K in preparation for the 3D releases.

Here is a story about it:
https://pixarplanet.com/blog/toy-storytoy-story-2-re-rendered/

 

[Michel_Hafner]

Which just goes to show how unimportant resolution really is.

No it isn't. If it were so we would all be still happy with VHS.

 

[Mike2001]

The very first disc I purchased in 4K UHD back in the day was Life of Pi. It falls in the “fake” side on that obnoxious website. When I bought it, I did A/B comparisons with the Blu-ray where I synced them up on two different players (Oppo 103 for the Blu-ray and early Samsung for the 4K, watching on an early LG 65” OLED) and the differences were immediately obvious in the opening shots of the zoo. Not only in respect to HDR, where the deeper colors on the 4K made the Blu-ray appear flat and lifeless, but also in resolution. There is a scene that pans across tree branches against a sky background where the improvement in resolution was obvious. So, right from the start, I was never too concerned about that “real” vs “fake” distinction because “fake” still offered great improvement.

 

[Brian Husar]

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a beautifully shot movie. I just don't know that it needed the UHD treatment.

The problem is, and this is a problem with Disney and Fox and even Sony, if you want the Dolby Atmos track, you have to get the new 4k disc as Disney never puts an Atmos track on the blu rays, only the 4K blu rays.

 

[Todd Erwin]

The very first disc I purchased in 4K UHD back in the day was Life of Pi. It falls in the “fake” side on that obnoxious website. When I bought it, I did A/B comparisons with the Blu-ray where I synced them up on two different players (Oppo 103 for the Blu-ray and early Samsung for the 4K, watching on an early LG 65” OLED) and the differences were immediately obvious in the opening shots of the zoo. Not only in respect to HDR, where the deeper colors on the 4K made the Blu-ray appear flat and lifeless, but also in resolution. There is a scene that pans across tree branches against a sky background where the improvement in resolution was obvious. So, right from the start, I was never too concerned about that “real” vs “fake” distinction because “fake” still offered great improvement.

The 4K disc was also mastered at a much higher bitrate using a much more efficient codec, so much more detail from the DI is likely to be retained than on the Blu-ray.

 

[TJPC]

I hate to bring up an old whine, but the only way or reason to watch this movie is in its spectacular 3D version!

 

[Stephen_J_H]

The problem is, and this is a problem with Disney and Fox and even Sony, if you want the Dolby Atmos track, you have to get the new 4k disc as Disney never puts an Atmos track on the blu rays, only the 4K blu rays.

As a post note to this, the companies that are good for putting Atmos or DTS:X on non-4K titles are Warner and Universal, with the sole caveat that for whatever reason, Warner refuses to put Atmos on its 3D discs, which is ironic considering they did it early on and released some impressive tracks. Mad Max: Fury Road comes to mind.

 

[Brian Husar]

As a post note to this, the companies that are good for putting Atmos or DTS:X on non-4K titles are Warner and Universal, with the sole caveat that for whatever reason, Warner refuses to put Atmos on its 3D discs, which is ironic considering they did it early on and released some impressive tracks. Mad Max: Fury Road comes to mind.

Paramount is pretty good as well with putting the Atmos track of atleast newer movies on Blu ray.