UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[Finch]

Dune Part One: I did not find a review from Geoff but another user says the HDR10 encode is flawed. Dolby Vision may be better but from my skim reading of the 100+ (!) pages, I couldn't see any detailed feedback. I'm also not seeing any comparisons to the Blu-Ray.

[Mire]

I really appreciate the replies and additions to the list so far. I look forward to the continuation with the rest of the films I mentioned.

Concerning Braveheart, Geoff's opinion was interesting reading. I tried to check out the differences myself, on my own telly. EDIT: Although I definitely noticed some differences between the Blu-ray and the 4K UHD edition (mainly how dark the scenes in the dusk were), I figured it could have been worse. After all, the only UHD edition I can get my hands on here in Northern Europe is Fox' release. That one is said to have somewhat (to a certain degree) livelier colours than Paramount's US release – which is also being hypothesised about later in the same thread.

[Finch]

I must admit to not being a Star Wars fan, so I'm not looking forward to skim-reading the 100+ pages on the 1977 film alone, never mind the other 8 films from the three trilogies and the spin off films. I'm really hoping any member here who is a fan of these films can advise. From what I am aware of, the UHDs are big upgrades over the 2011 BDs, especially for the colors and skin tones, but I gather the 4ks of the first two trilogies still have shortcomings to varying degrees. I think the BD enclosed with the 1977 film is from the 2021 transfer but I don't know if that is true of Episodes 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 as well. I seem to recall Geoff saying Empire Strikes Back had the most DNR applied of the original three films and so looks the worst (figures as it's the best). I believe people were very happy with the Rogue One UHD. No idea about Solo and the sequel trilogy.

[senseabove]

Screencap comparison of the original Olive, Olive Signature, new French BD, and new French UHD for Letter From an Unknown Woman.

[Finch]

on the other forum and his own social media feed, davidhare said he couldn't recommend the Letter UHD due to the gamma issue which he found hard to fix to his satisfaction and the French subtitles are forced so you'll need a player capable of moving them off screen.

[jsteffe]

screengrabs from Arrow's The Last Emperor

I received the Arrow UHD of The Last Emperor and watched a generous portion of it tonight. The Dolby Vision UHD looks just gorgeous. It has a richness and luminosity that sparks memories of when I saw a 70mm blowup print in Los Angeles during its first release. I can't say that it looks the same--that was too long ago--but it gives me a similar feeling. One thing that struck me this time was the number of scenes in the Forbidden City shot during the magic hour. The scene of the young Pu-Yi at the lily pond in particular is a huge improvement over the older Blu-ray editions, which discard the magic hour effect trying to give everything a dead-neutral color balance. On the whole, the older Blu-ray editions look really desaturated and flat in comparison.

[Finch]

The Remains of the Day (Sony)

[M Sanderson]

Hearing that our old friends Teal & Amber have made a prominent appearance in the TRAINING DAY UHD.

[rrenault]

Just to note that we can veto Criterion's Three Colors UHD set being placed in the reference column right here and now:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=18069 ... 1&go=1&l=1

^^This was shared by someone on blu-ray.com.

[EddieLarkin]

Yes terrible, though it goes for both the Potemkine and the Criterion discs that you're not seeing the fully encoded image in those caps, vs. what you'll get in Dolby Vision.

[tenia]

It looks as if some authoring houses are experimenting new ways of not correctly encoding a movie !
It's fascinating, these are 2 totally different ways of botching an encode : one has the grain intact (which means it's not a frame in which it has collapsed completely) but is choke-full of chroma issues, and the other one has a weird gradient of blockiness mixed up with what could be perceived as a selective DNR of the frame.
Still, the Criterion disc seems to be doing better than the Potemkine one : https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 18&i=1&l=0

[Finch]

The Magnificent Seven (Shout Factory)

[Finch]

The Sisters Brothers (Arrow)

[Finch]

Sticking Training Day in the solid upgrade column with a caveat for now. It looks much better than the old Blu-Ray but I don't know if Antonine Fuqua approved the grading.

EDIT 2/26/23: samlop's review

[Apperson]

The Sisters Brothers (Arrow)

What's the review/forum link for this one?

[FrauBlucher]

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is currently playing on TCM. They must be using the new Paramount restoration. It looks awful. I see lots of waxiness and can't see any grain. Has anyone seen the UHD or bluray? I looked at the bluray.com review which the guy raves about but he doesn't mention grain once

[M-A]

They probably DNRed it for the broadcast. The UHD (compression aside) has grain intact except for a few shots that have heavy DNR (e.g. a shot of James Stewart in the classroom)

[Drucker]

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is currently playing on TCM. They must be using the new Paramount restoration. It looks awful. I see lots of waxiness and can't see any grain. Has anyone seen the UHD or bluray? I looked at the bluray.com review which the guy raves about but he doesn't mention grain once

I watched the blu-ray last night, and it definitely has some shortcomings. It has the same weird ghosting effect I noticed on Last Train From Gun Hill in several shots. Grain wise nothing really caught my eye about it being too scrubbed, but there is definitely something a bit off about the whole presentation that probably boils down to too much tinkering.

[Finch]

samlop10 has screengrabs and first positive impressions of Rocky (1976).

EDIT 1: caps and thumbs up for Rocky II

[Finch]

A BR user says the Rocky UHD's "original theatrical English track" is actually a stereo downmix of the 5.1 remix instead of the original mono. Key giveaway is the piano cue that should be present during the last fight.

[Finch]

Yet more issues with the Rocky set. Rocky II is set at too low a pitch as are the foreign dubs on Rocky III. Rocky IV has an aspect ratio error at the 10:17 to 10:24 timeframe where it changes from 1.85:1 to 1.78:1. Word is WB is aware of the errors now.

samlop on Rocky III

Rocky IV DC

Rocky IV TC

Rocky IV TC > DC > BD

Bottom line: the presentations except for the DC of IV seem to be pretty good but as per samlop, the DC is still an upgrade over the corresponding BD.

Between the carelessness of majors like WB and Paramount and the repeated scratches on the back of the 4k discs issued from the Mexican plant, it's not a great advertisement for physical media. If it wasn't for the boutique labels....

[Finch]

sync error on 88's 4k of House on the Edge of the Park; no official announcement yet if this gets recalled

Debate ongoing as to which framing (88's 4k is cropped compared to Severin's Blu-Ray) is correct

[rrenault]

the repeated scratches on the back of the 4k discs issued from the Mexican plant

I'm surprised this doesn't get discussed more often on this site, considering Criterion discs are often affected too.

[therewillbeblus]

I wasn't aware that there was an identified source, but that makes sense. I've noticed 4K discs from certain companies like VS are almost always clean and play perfectly, whereas others don't (at least for me) or are damaged. Didn't think to link them to the processing plant

[bitsofme]

My copy of Saving Private Ryan has both scratches and what I can only describe as a thick oil film on the underside of the disc.