A Guide to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

[Steve Withers]

A new 4K disc format has arrived in the form of Ultra HD Blu-ray. In this guide we take you through the technology, the players and the discs themselves.
Read the article.

 

[UMAR 3:16]

So according to the list of movies that have been listed, most of them will not really be 4k?

 

[RickyDeg]

Great article, but I think I'll pass on this format. For the time being at least.
Current 'standard' Blu-ray is more than enough kick-ass!

 

[chaz]

In the Cinemas the films they show are only done from 2K masters and do not think that homes have screens that are as big as they have! I do not know why you are worrying about whether it was taken from a 2k master or native 4K

 

[Pecker]

Great article.

It's very strange to note that three of the four releases originally shot on film were shot on S35. That's an absolutely bizarre format to choose from, as S35 effectively has the lowest resolution of all 35mm films. The actual 'scope area extracted from the negative is smaller than a standard 1.85:1 extraction, or an anamorphic production which uses the whole of the frame.

The exception would be Techniscope films, which will have used a very slightly smaller area.

I know you've mentioned it elsewhere, but I thought it might have been worth mentioning in the article about the studios' reluctance to use HDR on most catalogue releases, making the release of most films on UHD a fairly meagre upgrade, at best.

Thanks again for the great read.

Steve W

 

[Stridsvognen]

I think ill wait a year or 2 before i think about UHD discs and player, ill prefer to wait for 2nd generation OPPO uhd player, maybe then its more common to shoot movies above 4K and master them in 4K.
I doubt there will be much to gain buying re releases in UHD of older movies, unless maybe some 70mm films mastered for the best UHD quality.

There will for sure be a ton of issues with players discs and displays not working together, or not sticking to the standards, so i bet it will be a bit like trying to guess what you get out of a HTPC, just like with a lot of Blu Ray players was, and still is. And sony will most likely continue in the foodsteps of the remastered in 4K edition of The Fifth Element, wich is just god awfull way to destroy a perfectly good reference movie, by enhancing and tinting it.

 

[Chris2302]

I really hope this pushes production companies in a big way to shoot more films at 6K+ cameras and most importantly to finish the DI in 4K as a well as the visual effects, (not just upscaled 2K VFX).

Overall great article Steve!

 

[Geoff_D]

^ That's the salient point. You can shoot on film or however many pixel-bits you want, but if the damned finish is just 2K...

 

[Chris2302]

I heard that the movie Oblivion (shot on the Sony F65) was going to be mastered at 4K but in the end it was 2K because of the extra time and money. I heard from the behind the scenes that it was going to take an extra 6 weeks if it was done in 4K (including VFX) which is was the director wanted but the production compiled overruled in post production.

 

[Geoff_D]

A new 4K disc format has arrived in the form of Ultra HD Blu-ray. In this guide we take you through the technology, the players and the discs themselves.
Read the article.

Write your own review for Panasonic DMP-UB900

Steve, The Martian was given a new 4K build for the HDR version, inclusive of upscaled 2K footage and raw 5K camera acquisition; whether that was a one-off (the film was originally finished in 2192x1156 res) or is indicative of Fox's intentions going forward is anyone's guess. Info taken from Fox rep James Finn's twitter:

 

[Chris2302]

I'm sure it will still look fantastic but it will still only be upscaled 2K.

 

[Geoff_D]

Great article.

It's very strange to note that three of the four releases originally shot on film were shot on S35. That's an absolutely bizarre format to choose from, as S35 effectively has the lowest resolution of all 35mm films. The actual 'scope area extracted from the negative is smaller than a standard 1.85:1 extraction, or an anamorphic production which uses the whole of the frame.

The exception would be Techniscope films, which will have used a very slightly smaller area.

I know you've mentioned it elsewhere, but I thought it might have been worth mentioning in the article about the studios' reluctance to use HDR on most catalogue releases, making the release of most films on UHD a fairly meagre upgrade, at best.

Thanks again for the great read.

Steve W

Use of Super 35 in 4K is "absolutely bizarre"? You're not known for such hyperbole, Steve.

While I agree that anamorphic is the daddy, let's not forget that the 'K' in 2K, 4K etc comes from the horizontal axis, and in that respect Super 35 acquisition has slightly more res than other formats which use the regulation aperture with the sound offset; Super 35 reaches across the entire frame as per the old silent aperture.

Yes, a 2.40 S35 extraction has got much less in the vertical than anamorphic or even flat 1.85, but given how something shot in 2-perf Techniscope can look as stunningly detailed as the 4K remaster of TGTBATU then it's not a problem for me. And given how older anamorphic glass loses a significant amount of resolution to the distortion and general detail roll-off of the lenses, it's not always about sheer acreage IMO. Complaining about S35 in 4K is akin to the ****ing contest that people indulge in with digital cameras, it becomes about what the technicalities are on paper rather than what the actual end result looks like.

FWIW, I saw the 4K remastered Titanic (shot nice and thick on Super 35, it's El Cameroon after all) blown up to 15/70 on the biggest IMAX in the country and it looked fabulous, so I think UHD can cope.

 

[Geoff_D]

I'm sure it will still look fantastic but it will still only be upscaled 2K.

No, you misunderstand, they also incorporated original 5K footage where they could when they did the regrade for HDR. It's kinda ironic that an improvement in spatial resolution was almost a by-product of a process that's entirely dependent of spatial resolution (HDR).

 

[Geoff_D]

Another one for @Steve Withers: Sony and Warners have announced tie-ups with Dolby Vision for mastering their HDR movies at the source level, but there's been no mention so far of the two companies' respective launch UHD discs actually being encoded with the 12-bit DV enhancement layer. Looks like it's just HDR10 thus far...

 

[Batman2]

4K Blu-ray Reviewed: Ultra HD Equipment Selection, Setup, and Initial Thoughts

 

[jedi master]

Have a question. Looking at the list, a number of those films where filmed at 4K or above but the digital intermediate is 2K. So the Ultra HD will be upscaled. Why don't they just create a brand new 4K digital intermediate from the original footage?

 

[LicensedTaximan]

As stated before on other threads, after having migrated through sooo many formats (audio as well as video) I will stick with what I have got apart from when my 50" Panny 3D capable VT30 plasma TV gives up the ghost.

On the audio front I have had.... and i'm missing out quite a bit of upgrading with various bits of hi-fi and AV equipment.... deep breath.... A wind up 78 record record player with copious amounts of 78's all long gone now, LP's and I still have about 600 of those (vinyl to the non baby boomers of this World, i'm 64 now) and still played on a Thorens TD125 Mk 2 TT with an 9" SME 3009 fixed head arm + a Shure V15 MK 111 cartridge. Cassette recorders and therefore compact cassette's, CD's plus a hi-fi CD recorder and therefore CD-r's excluding the one's you use on a computer.

On the AV front.... VHS, S-VHS decks and now DVD recorders. VHS & S-VHS tapes, DVD's, DVD-r's, Blu-ray's, 3D blu-ray's. One older 2D BD player as well as a 3D capable BD player. I started in the early days of home theatre with an add on Marantz Dolby surround unit then onto a Yamaha E-200 add on Pro-logic processor mated to my (then Luxman) main stereo amp.

Now I have up to 7.1 DD & DTS surround with a THX capable Denon AVCA11XV AV amp. So that's it, even though technology will always push the envelope forever upwards and forwards, and apart from the TV when it passes on, i'm sticking.... Unless of course....

 

[Chris2302]

No, you misunderstand, they also incorporated original 5K footage where they could when they did the regrade for HDR. It's kinda ironic that an improvement in spatial resolution was almost a by-product of a process that's entirely dependent of spatial resolution (HDR).

Oh I see. Basically parts of the movie that did it need any VFX they used original 5K footage down sampled to und

 

[Geoff_D]

That's about the size of it, yep. But when the 2K VFX looks as good as the shot below anyway, do we really need to pining for dat 4K VFX any time soon?

Blu-ray.com - Screenshot

 

[Chris2302]

Have a question. Looking at the list, a number of those films where filmed at 4K or above but the digital intermediate is 2K. So the Ultra HD will be upscaled. Why don't they just create a brand new 4K digital intermediate from the original footage?

Because if I understand you correctly that would be very costly especially a movie with lots of VFX.

 

[Geoff_D]

Have a question. Looking at the list, a number of those films where filmed at 4K or above but the digital intermediate is 2K. So the Ultra HD will be upscaled. Why don't they just create a brand new 4K digital intermediate from the original footage?

See post #10 for the next best thing (which isn't actually all that different from true 4K finishes, most of which have 2K upscaled VFX anyway).

 

[Chris2302]

That's about the size of it, yep. But when the 2K VFX looks as good as the shot below anyway, do we really need to pining for dat 4K VFX any time soon?

Blu-ray.com - Screenshot

4K VFX makes a big difference. The film tomorrow land (not a great movie). Shot on the Sony F65/F55 mastered at 4K with 4K VFX, it made a big difference even compared to the best 2K VFX. The bluray is one of the absolute best looking.

 

[Geoff_D]

4K VFX makes a big difference. The film tomorrow land (not a great movie). Shot on the Sony F65/F55 mastered at 4K with 4K VFX, it made a big difference even compared to the best 2K VFX. The bluray is one of the absolute best looking.

I'm just saying, tomorrowland is a VERY isolated case in the world of end-to-end 4K finishes (although it STILL had some upscaled 2K VFX for shots with low spatial and/or temporal resolution, e.g. dark scenes for the former or fast-moving scenes for the latter).

People shouldn't be too hung up on hearing that 4K movies will have 2K upscaled VFX, or that 2K movies will be rebuilt thusly for UHD, because it really is standard practice.

 

[Chris2302]

See post #10 for the next best thing (which isn't actually all that different from true 4K finishes, most of which have 2K upscaled VFX anyway).

Yeah that's true. But for production companies to make a completely new 4K DI without upscaled VFX specifically for uhd bluray would be ridiculously costly.

 

[Geoff_D]

I didn't say anything about new 4K VFX just for UHD Blu-ray? I'm pointing out that the process for the 4K rebuild for The Martian isn't far removed from what an ACTUAL 4K finish would've been in the first place.

 

[Chris2302]

I'm just saying, tomorrowland is a VERY isolated case in the world of end-to-end 4K finishes (although it STILL had some upscaled 2K VFX for shots with low spatial and/or temporal resolution, e.g. dark scenes for the former or fast-moving scenes for the latter).

People shouldn't be too hung up on hearing that 4K movies will have 2K upscaled VFX, or that 2K movies will be rebuilt thusly for UHD, because it really is standard practice.

That is true it is very very isolated. I think only some of Christopher Nolans Imax films have used 4K VFX such as Interstellar. For Interstellar they scanned Imax 70mm at 8K, VistaVision 35mm at 6K and regular 35mm at 4K with a 4K digital pipeline.

 

[Chris2302]

I didn't say anything about new 4K VFX just for UHD Blu-ray? I'm pointing out that the process for the 4K rebuild for The Martian isn't far removed from what an ACTUAL 4K finish would've been in the first place.

Oh yes I see what you mean, especially the scenes using original 5K footage down sampled of course.

 

[SOUNDVISION]

From what I have seen on Netflix UHD the quality is not a great leap looks just like a 1080p Bluray to me, think I will just stick to HD Netflix cheaper as well.
Sounds like it is going to be quite a while before all this new UHD 4K format is sorted out properly, judging by the disaster of the Samsung UHD player should not have been released till it was working properly.
For the moment I am quite happy viewing my 1080p Bluray movies upscaled on my Samsung UHD tv, picture looks great

 

[Geoff_D]

That is true it is very very isolated. I think only some of Christopher Nolans Imax films have used 4K VFX such as Interstellat. For Interstellar they scanned Imax 70mm at 8K, VistaVision 35mm at 6K and regular 35mm at 4K with a 4K digital pipeline.

Yeah, people often cite IMAX shows as examples of >2K VFX but - without wanting to sound the smartarse - that kinda goes without saying when you're dealing with integrating VFX into 15/70 source material which is said by the filmmakers to resolve close to 18K at the negative level. As it is, the IMAX VFX for Dark Knight Rises was rendered at 'only' 5.6K for lasering out onto 15/70.

It's more the movies that are shot on regular 35mm or digital that I'm thinking of when referencing 4K VFX and the lack thereof.

 

[jedi master]

Because if I understand you correctly that would be very costly especially a movie with lots of VFX.

Fair enough.

See post #10 for the next best thing (which isn't actually all that different from true 4K finishes, most of which have 2K upscaled VFX anyway).

OK.