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After finally getting it, Arrow"s True Romance is, not surprisingly when compared to Warner's old BD, a "worth it." The lighting and smoke in the Hopper/Walken scene looks great, and the lighting in the sequence where Saul Rubinek is driving along the coast (which I think is supposed to take place as the sun has started setting) is really on point.

But how does it compare with the Arrow BD ?

That's definitely a "fairer" question since one would hope a new 4K restoration would look better than some ancient high-def master...

Comparing it to a handful of scenes on the BD in the Arrow set (I didn't watch the whole film on Blu-ray) I'd still say it's worth it. The restoration is a solid one and it looks great on the Blu-ray disc and if that was all I had I'd still be happy with it. Admittedly resolution doesn't look that much better; it's subtly better, and can be seen in the smoky interiors and the particles floating around, but HDR could be playing into that more, giving the appearance things are sharper. But it comes down a lot to the lighting, with Scott loving his smoky interiors and these scenes all look so much better on the UHD. During the Hopper/Walken sequence, there's light coming through a skylight and that ray of light is cleanly rendered around the edges, doesn't bleed at all into the darker areas whereas the Blu-ray shows that subtle bit of bleeding and the contrast in the scene just isn't as clean. That may seem small, but then it plays into the smoke and the shadows of the scene as well, where you can make out more details, even if subtly, in the darker areas (Walken sits in the shadows and you can see every line on his face clearly) and the smoke ends up standing out more as it swirls around in the light. The light reflecting off of Hopper's jacket is striking but the highlights aren't blown out at all. The disc overall manages highlights rather well, only a handful of sequences presenting highlights or lighting that could be called "excessive," like Oldman's lair, which has all sorts of bright red lights scattered about, but it's suiting. Oldman's lair is a far darker setting and even though the Blu-ray looks fine there can be a flatness and murkiness to the blacks sometimes. The UHD isn't perfect during this sequence, but the shadows look better and there at least feels to be a better sense of depth.

Gradients in the colours are also noticeably better, and I think that also helps that scene I mentioned with Rubinek driving along the coast as the sun sets; the sky just blends so well, and the lighting just feels right coming off the car and his face. The Blu-ray looks perfectly fine, but a lot of the sequences just look better on the UHD and if I had simply just owned the Blu-ray I would definitely jump to the UHD if I saw it.

Finch wrote: Wed Sep 08, 2021 11:58 pm Can we also list films that have been botched on Blu-Ray but fixed on UHD? Big Lebowski and Predator come to mind. Anything else?

The Blu-Ray of THE SHINING had major color issues -- the UHD 4K release finally makes that little tennis ball yellow again.

Dont Look Now is a good example IMHO. I believe the BD and UHD were both David M joints, use the same new 4k restoration so technically both discs should be amongst the best the respective formats should allow for. But the colour, contrast and grain on the UHD is very noticeably better and there is a decent bump in detail too (although it really isnt the main game).

Also, the UK version of The Fifth Element is far superior to the Sony disc as it uses a restoration from the negative rather than an IP. The Sony, like the previous mastered in 4k BD, looks sharpened.

Grease is a strange one. Some scenes look great with the Grain intact and others look awful, like a diffusion filter was in place or maybe DNR?

Grease's new restoration is visually bonkers. The grading is a nightmare and it's vastly DNRed.

I have an OLED and I have seen Goodfellas a million times on each Blu-ray and the UHD is the best and most certainly worth the upgrade.

Don't buy the US release of Blade Runner 2049 as Warner applied some light DNR. Get the Sony release from UK.

For Arrival you want the US/UK releases which use the same encode and not the European release.

For those who recommend The Shining in 4K, does the accompanying BD also reflect the improved picture quality and correct color?

Has anyone seen the UHD release of The Sting? I remember the regular blu-ray being a typical Universal meh-disc, and believe I read that the UHD is from the same restoration.

ianthemovie wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:58 pm For those who recommend The Shining in 4K, does the accompanying BD also reflect the improved picture quality and correct color?

It does but the compression is not great.

Forrest Taft wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:44 pm Has anyone seen the UHD release of The Sting? I remember the regular blu-ray being a typical Universal meh-disc, and believe I read that the UHD is from the same restoration.

Detailed review from Geoff D.

Forrest Taft wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:44 pm Has anyone seen the UHD release of The Sting? I remember the regular blu-ray being a typical Universal meh-disc, and believe I read that the UHD is from the same restoration.

I agree with the comments bluesforyou linked to at Blu-ray.com above. I thought it looked pretty good, and he's right that HDR is appropriately applied considering the look of the film. But as mentioned there are some odd effects during transitions and such (which I guess are attributed to noise reduction or a deterioration in the material, and that makes sense) and I also recall moments that came off noisy and blocky. Yet I thought it looked great overall. I only had the DVD prior and haven't looked at the included Blu-ray, but I'm happy I picked it up, warts and all.

And I'll throw in Animal House as a "worth it" while I'm at it, since I got it at the same time. It offers a solid little upgrade over the older Blu-ray.

Having a few UHD titles (though not all that many discs yet, and that probably won't change), my highest recommendation goes to The Big Lebowski, in that it is a total transformation for a film that is brownish and kind of washed out and grainy on prior disc releases. It looks like an entirely new thing (but not in a way that violates the film grain and cinematography). Probably not what you'd think of first, but it is absolutely worth picking up if you're just getting into the format and have fondness for the film. Isn't even within my five favorite Coens, but it's the best upgrade I've made thus far.

ianthemovie wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:58 pm For those who recommend The Shining in 4K, does the accompanying BD also reflect the improved picture quality and correct color?

This is likely my choice for best overall image quality I've seen in the format so far, and the colors are totally what I expected/wanted. Buy buy buy

One that might be in the "buyer beware" category is The Lord of the Rings. From what I can tell the consensus is that the transfers are better than any Blu-ray edition but DNR was applied liberally (and my untrained eye agrees with that assessment). The Atmos mixes are great though.

Off the top of my head, my best looking discs are The Shining, Phantom Thread, Alien, Spaceballs, Blade Runner (original and 2049), Star Wars: The Last Jedi, A Few Good Men, all of the BBC nature docs (Seven Worlds One Planet is probably my favorite)

LotR UHDs have remasters that correct a few things compared to past BDs, especially the color grading of the first movie, but they're slathered with DNR and EE, negating a part of the overall upgrade balance.

tenia wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 6:18 pm LotR UHDs have remasters that correct a few things compared to past BDs, especially the color grading of the first movie, but they're slathered with DNR and EE, negating a part of the overall upgrade balance.

Resolution aside (which to be fair is a big deal, especially in this case), are the extended edition DVD boxes of the LotR movies still the best versions out there? IIRC the BD's messed with the color, correct?

Anybody got any words on the 4K GOODFELLAS?

Thanks for the replies regarding The Sting, I might pick it up after all.

Roscoe wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 8:08 pm Anybody got any words on the 4K GOODFELLAS?

See the first page of this thread, or to recap: it's apparently been unfairly maligned in some corners

hearthesilence wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 8:00 pmIIRC the BD's messed with the color, correct?

IIRC too, the BD's Extended Cut of the 1st movie is the most problematic, while the other movies and both their cuts are about fine.

I think Anatomy of a Murder can safely be placed in the Worth Upgrading column, and that's before even considering the HDR benefits.

The old Criterion transfer, albeit a 4K one, was harvested from the notorious Spirit 4K datacine wasn't it? The image had a coarse, fake-4K look even at the time of release. Lucky it's a Sony title and eventually gets what it deserves. Not so much hope for other Criterion releases that also utilized that scanner and shared the same look, like Yi Yi.

What's with Sony's insistence on NOT including audio acommentaries on the 4K disc? All other major studios oblige with this tiny little service. Groundhog Day doesn't have it. Now it looks like Taxi Driver and Anatomy of a Murder in the new set won't carry any audio commentaries (even if they make a new commentary just for this Anatomy release). It looks like Sony is treating their 4k blu-ray as some sort of a Super-Bit DVD or "Mastered in 4K" BD that goes extra miles to exclude any form of special features. Again, it's not like a AC-3 2.0 track takes much space or any production time. Are they assuming that people won't like listening to commentaries while watching the films in the highest quality available?

How reliable are sites like Capsaholic if one is not viewing the images with a 4K monitor? I know the site is very popular among blu-ray.com members but I suspect many of them are viewing the caps on 1080p monitors. I'll look at the site every now and then but treat their offerings as a suggestion of what movies may look like. Also, I find it difficult to judge quality unless I can see it motion.

Thought I'd put that out there. I'd be interesting in reading feedback and I might even learn a few things. Thank you!

It's reliable to judge the resolution upgrade (details, etc) but pretty much useless for anything color-grading related. Sure, you'll be able to catch big differences, but you can't do subtler more precise analysis since it's downconverted to SDR (and also, I think, from the WCG too).

As for the screencaps vs in-motion, except very specific exceptions (like fake grain such as on the German UHD of American Werewolf in London), you can very much accurately judge things from a (properly taken) screencapture (including for UHD).

I'm myself using a 1080p monitor and it's not a problem : I'm looking at it barely 1 meter away from the screen, you can zoom, select only a part of the screenshot, etc. And the 4k cap will appear at its proper resolution, so it'll be bigger than my screen forcing me to scroll, but at the proper resolution nevertheless. It's not downscaled.