FilmQualityFanatic

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I just bought 4K Ghostbusters. The picture is awful. I rely a lot on the Digital Bits and here amd bluray.com on reviews but not seem to state tbis being as bad as it is.

I do have have a Panasonic 58" LED TV that whilst old and was a year before we knew anything of HDR or Dolby Vision but with a lot of time and effort, the picture is incredible with the right finished product that only up until recently have I seen a few tv's that may best it but not by much. My mate bought an expensive Sony OLED TV. Also, mine was a first edition but the premium model and it has done wonders with standard definition and especially on DVD. The crowd scene in Vantage Point almost looked like 4K but I held off buying anything digital TV until this TV and it really was the beat TV in the world for a good 4 plus years and atill bests virtually beyond juat a few specific models im the last couple of years. I knew what I was looking for and it took a very lomg timw to find the bext pictures but it really did it despite juat being LED. 58AX802B.

For reference where I've seen incredible and almost real so my eye sight and it just can't be the TV or player because of how extraordinarily good. I have virtually 20:20 vision. In no real particular order are the masters of the 4K standard:

Gemini Man - absolutely flawless and unbelievable reference of what van be done with 4K at a higher frame rate along with the other Ang lee Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.
Apollo 11 moon walk was like Neil Armstrong and the moon were in my living room.
Almost anything Attenborough.
Toy Story 4 opening scene in 4K
1917 long demolished street on fire scene.
Christine car
Anything Attenborough, mostly
Shaft 2
2001 space odyssey in parts
Wizard of oz is unbelievable whilst not necessarily 'real' it is one of the best in cleanliness and even detail. To think this was released juat 10 years before the fiest film with synchronised audio was released and even done in colour.

So, to Ghostbusters. Awful. Very heavy grain and the picture alters almost judders a lot but very, very small judder. It's the worst of my 600 4K disc collection by a huge margin.

The Atmos sound does some great work. Hardly reference and nothing as beautiful as Top Gun opening scene. I have Bose 700 full surround. I know Bose but I know Shure for inner earphones and am aware of all the others but they finally figured it out without the need for a seperate Equalizer.

I'm keeping it. I'll check the 4k restoration nlu ray and actually have the previous blu ray from 4k remaster, which may be the same from what the thedigitalbits.com said but I've had 6 years to advance froma crap 40 odd inch LED TV that was cack that made me. Issed my Sony CRT because what that did not have in colour and detail, all the digital tech brought too much artefacts and poor digital grain and my CRT was phenomenal for its time. I have really felt that digital tech has only really just started to deliver and we've been short changed besides my current Panasonic TV and a couple minor exceptions out of the hundreds of digital TV's released. Just like we have 20 new 4K variants released every year, they boast HDR and OLED, Dolby Vision. They're mostly crap.

So, anyway. I know better tv's exist and well 4k blu ray. Very little released so pretty sure only a could have bested it plus I have hundreds of 4K films including lord of the rings on 4K. I'm 40 with excellent vision capable of seeing very high details. I appreciate that i think certain hardware may work better with certain films. I'm certain there's nothing linear. Certain things do work best when you get the optimum hardware and software configurations.

I'm loat at just how poor 4k Ghostbusters truly is. There's not an awful lot I can find oit there with discussions getting too personal and emotional but I've registered on here to ask. Am I alone broadly? Does any of this resonate after explaining my setup, how I describe and indictate specific scenes rather than disc overall because various processes and cameras are used with certain scenes? Thank you
 
As to my mate buying a TV. It is only slightly bettwr than mine now. And, I accept that my words and thoughta could contain bias and are subjective thinking and not trying to sell myself as being the bwst and having the best just to explain that I've learned a lot. The tv took 5 yeara before I finally figured it oit, otherwise a few visits in the first couple years saw me get close to where I've had it aet as atma few months ago.

I waited it a lot of yeara before buying TV and blu ray and my ex bought the first led TV bjt I otherwise would have skipped HD entirely, which seeing the picture on the previous TV, I still did 😊 u til i saw the picture I wanted without any of the aloasing, strobing, judder and overall poor picture. Until I founs it. It took me 20 years before buying my first sound system plus I lobed the absence of all those wires but for film and TV i went around Harrods often waiting for the right TV as they put more effort in to giving each TV its own signal unlike virtually everywhere else though would also look in John Lewis and where I finally settled on a Panasonic TV, Richer Sounds. They did do the best Plasma before sadky fading away... Welcome coherent and well mannered opinions.
 
No offence pal, but you're comparing Ghostbusters to Gemini Man. They're going to look a tad different, and Ghostbusters is never, ever going to look like something like Gemini Man.

And yeah, am I reading your post right - you're not even using a 4k/HDR capable TV?

I think you're setting yourself up for a world of dissapointment.
 
Appreciate the comment. Just to correct you on your point about complaining. It was mildly frustrating. It didn't stop me smiling in a way I've done foe the back to the future films. Now that was a set that set the definition for mastering old films as a minimum bar for othwra to follow.

But, no. Really to understand whether it's my setup, my hardware or whether the film is the issue.

I know my eye sight isn't flawed or my observations are without merit but the point is with naming other films was simply to indicate I know what great work and outcomes look like so I'm not just publicly displaying disapproval. To your point though. Wasn't the first back to the future released before ghostbusters? Look at their release. Then you've got 2001 half a century old. Incredible. Christine. Really old 80's films. The car is a constant marvel and only slightly lacks realism of what can be achieved now with, to take your point regarding Gemini Man. Wizard of Oz one of the first of its kind that aet the way for not only first synchronised video with audio but feature films were still practically unheard of in 1938. Not to mention the use of colour where black and white would still be around for upwards of 5 decades yet it wowed me more than Gemini man. I felt teleported back to a century ago, just watching people's behaviours, manerisms. The way they talked. Design ideas. A marvel of its time and again now with display technology that can show it at its best. You should see the 4K transfer of that. I've started buying up other old films Cinema Paradiso, it's a wonderful life and anything else that comes out.

Are other people seeing a better version than with their setup of Ghostbusters is truly my question?
 
In short, Ghostbusters has always looked grainy. It will always look grainy, and yes I think the 4k release looks great.
 
^ This.

Due to the film stock, lighting and all other shooting conditions, GB will always look a little……grubby. It’s that simple.

I took some screenshots of my 4K GB playing on my professionally calibrated JVC N5 though a Panny 9000 and stuck them below. Remember, these are me holding my iPhone 11 up and taking a snap a few feet in front of my 92” screen so it’s not exactly the be all and end all of image capture!!!! But hopefully it will give you an idea of how this looks even on newer kit:

9424DD39-1BDE-43CE-A765-7F4F63142633.jpeg
FAE0CC4C-363F-4DDA-BB24-E2DBA30EC82D.jpeg
10BC023F-9847-4373-9D82-36ADCC87FB60.jpeg
AD78BDB9-304A-456B-A41B-0A27FBD4FE80.jpeg
18DFACC1-DAE5-44C5-842A-10D84572AAE1.jpeg

You can easily see the grain in the background and it’s constantly moving in the moving image.

So sadly there’s nothing you can do really - the graininess and associated visual ticks are part of the film.

But like you said, it’s worth it because, well, it’s Ghostbusters innit?!?!?!? :cool:
 
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@Coz22998 that's real damned decent of you. Thank you. You correctly deciphered my ramblings.

So, it is what it is but like you said. It's Ghostbusters. I come heralded feom the era of VHS, so I juat have to accept. It doesn't bring that realism factor that so many of the remastered bacm to the future scenes have that would have me so special. What a trwat. Maybe the processes will surface who can give it that. It's not about pristine you understand. It's just seeimg what was done with the bacm to the future trilogy tbat I didn't know I cpuld feel what I feel watching them films and did I smile some daft huge grin. I didn't know a film could make mw feel that. Though, some parts of Ghostbusters. I did have that.

So, if live with it I must. Then I'm still hopelessly (and pathetically) in love with this daft film and appreciate that the beat was done with the resources available at the time.
 
Wizard of Oz one of the first of its kind that aet the way for not only first synchronised video with audio but feature films were still practically unheard of in 1938.
Erm... 🤔
 
Also make sure you have any motion processing turned off on your tv, that won't help any juddering you are seeing (it's probably the cause) motion interpolation= the work of the devil GB is 24fps GM is 60fps so that weird fuid motion is particular to GM and billy lynn everything else should not look like that if it does then it's the motion interpolation on the tv, which should even be off for GM as the tv will handle the 60fps itself quite capably
 
I have ghostbusters on 4K and thought it was a decent picture I’m a grain hater and thought this was tolerable. Not leaps and bounds over the blu ray but it was worth the buy for 9.99.
 
Am I alone broadly?

Yes you are sadly. Ghostbusters has grain on it this was well publicised at the time it was released and discussed on here and other forums. It is still a brilliant UHD picture and after all its Ghostbusters.

What would you have preferred the waxwork processed 4k version a la Terminator 2 ?

I never noticed any judder when I watched it either. Dont be blinkered by modern digitally shot films too.
 
Your username FilmQualityFanatic is a paradox I believe.

I've seen Ghostbusters at the cinema, on VHS, DVD and of course on UHD -the 4K looks absolutely amazing and eye-poppingly great. It's everything I could want optically from the film sitting in front of my 65" TV.

You're comparing apples and oranges which is unfair. Obviously your comparsions make absolutely no sense unless ignorance is sensible (it can be I suppose). No offence meant.

Best sticking with the remake Ghostbusters where everything is new except the quality, writing, acting, production, direction and humour.


Wizard of Oz is a bad example also as it's always had an unreal feel about it with contrast and colours. I reckon memory also plays a big part in it as many people have seen it from being very very young. I'd say it looks beautiful and leave it at that.

Am I alone broadly?

Yes, at least on an AV forum but you're definitely not alone as you have the right to have things how you expect. This is called entitlement and it afflicts and affects 100s of millions of people. You should try to appreciate the technolgy of film and realise that's either the best that was available and is fixed in time and/or that's exactly what the director wanted.

Respect and appreciate the film experience if you can. Or, try to understand it at least and you can easily avoid it too if you wish.
 
Your username FilmQualityFanatic is a paradox I believe.

I've seen Ghostbusters at the cinema, on VHS, DVD and of course on UHD -the 4K looks absolutely amazing and eye-poppingly great. It's everything I could want optically from the film sitting in front of my 65" TV.

You're comparing apples and oranges which is unfair. Obviously your comparsions make absolutely no sense unless ignorance is sensible (it can be I suppose). No offence meant.

Best sticking with the remake Ghostbusters where everything is new except the quality, writing, acting, production, direction and humour.


Wizard of Oz is a bad example also as it's always had an unreal feel about it with contrast and colours. I reckon memory also plays a big part in it as many people have seen it from being very very young. I'd say it looks beautiful and leave it at that.



Yes, at least on an AV forum but you're definitely not alone as you have the right to have things how you expect. This is called entitlement and it afflicts and affects 100s of millions of people. You should try to appreciate the technolgy of film and realise that's either the best that was available and is fixed in time and/or that's exactly what the director wanted.

Respect and appreciate the film experience if you can. Or, try to understand it at least and you can easily avoid it too if you wish.
I think your assessment is somewhat off the mark for a few points but you do bring it back at least. My username was just made up of what is available and not necessarily how I perceive myself. That said. I do know a lot from experience, so try not to take away a lot from a little.

You used Wizard of Oz as an example to justify your argument but ignoring the other really old films such as 2001 so your comments are subjective at best.

That said. I respect you sharing your thoughts though you do contradict yourself by saying I'm alone where everybody, you included acknowledge there is issues with the film where compared to others of and before its time without expressly stating that.

So, regardless. I am correct. As to what I expect. Again. Off the mark. I didn't state expectations but my thoughts based on what I've seen in owning virtually every 4k released in the UK, Oz, US and German markets though yet to watch a fair amount of what I have though have seen the major benchmark films be it new and old and the variants inbetween. So, to seperate opinion from perception. It would appear that Ghostbusters does not have the Back to the Future touch and I can live with that entirely. I love films, and, ever since coming across Shure earphones and iMax, I love sound more though neither dominate my life but I do enjoy them and I do have a lot of technical knowledge in the visual and auditory departments. Thank you for sharing your honest thoughts, which is partly what I was after, less the casting aspersions part but that's the beauty of commenting on public forums. Plus, I am due a TV upgrade because my TV was released a year before any minimum standards were set, even existed from DV, HDR10/+, WCG and all that. All the best.
 
Your username FilmQualityFanatic is a paradox I believe.

I've seen Ghostbusters at the cinema, on VHS, DVD and of course on UHD -the 4K looks absolutely amazing and eye-poppingly great. It's everything I could want optically from the film sitting in front of my 65" TV.

You're comparing apples and oranges which is unfair. Obviously your comparsions make absolutely no sense unless ignorance is sensible (it can be I suppose). No offence meant.

Best sticking with the remake Ghostbusters where everything is new except the quality, writing, acting, production, direction and humour.


Wizard of Oz is a bad example also as it's always had an unreal feel about it with contrast and colours. I reckon memory also plays a big part in it as many people have seen it from being very very young. I'd say it looks beautiful and leave it at that.



Yes, at least on an AV forum but you're definitely not alone as you have the right to have things how you expect. This is called entitlement and it afflicts and affects 100s of millions of people. You should try to appreciate the technolgy of film and realise that's either the best that was available and is fixed in time and/or that's exactly what the director wanted.

Respect and appreciate the film experience if you can. Or, try to understand it at least and you can easily avoid it too if you wish.
Oh, and to your comment in sticking with new Ghostbusters. I have it but don't like it, not least the forced politics brought on by feminism. All for gender neutrality and I don't like being forcefed gender politics (which is less of an issue in UK) masquerading as a film though, not sure how I feel about that 1 sentence. It does feel somewhat condescending but maybe I'm giving too much thought to bits and bytes on a page that may have come across differently had we spoken in person, so point lost there. All I'd say is. Try to keep your opinions objective because it leads to your point getting lost. Thank you but then I could potentially take more offence from your previous paragraph that appears to be more insulting though you do excuse yourself. Could be also be interpreted by the current times of someone just wants to insult but to excuse themselves, which is perhaps my privilege as the recipient of comments. Not yours. Again. Could just be a question of written being different in how it would be conveyed by voice in person.

Still. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I haven't thought of everything and it only came from seeing a lot of old content in various formats or, as I explicitly stated. It could just be my hardware combination; works for near everything else perfect but this is the one that stood out. I expect it is the HDR trickery cheating the final product but does it very successfully, which is why others are seeing a better version than I but we all are agreed the source material does appear to be the problem over other releases before, during and since.
 
I think this is where so much of the marketing and critique of the 4K format has really let it down.

All we hear about if "4x sharper, clearer, betterer.....and with HDR that sears your eyeballs with colours that are more lifelike than life........."

And, we as a community, myself very definitely included, prattle on about exactly that - how detail is better than the previous version, how the colours this and the grain that.......almost how much of a justification for an upgrade it all is...........without openly discussing all the actual reality that surrounds this.

Film makers intent......their film may not have any wish to be associated with anything like 'lifelike' and yet the marketing goes about this and sets expectations. Sometimes very unfairly.

How film is actually created, especially actual film - grain is inherent, film stock causes fluctuations, as do things like optical wipes and fades and credit/subtitle overlays, all of this isn't really talked about by the industry who just want the latest buzzwords to sell their products to be simply 'better than before'. Which in some cases it is.......but by very small margins.

Even just something as simple as coming from best available materials - negatives or interpositives or from an actual print.......all has a huge impact on what we see on this newerer and betterer and lets not forget 4 x sharper and more detailed shiny disk we have just splashed our hard earned on. Which then ironically doesn't actually tell you of any of this important stuff either.

If UHD had actually been marketed correctly - '4 x better able to capture the film that was made' or similar type guff - then maybe some of the debate around all of this which takes up so much air in forums such as this (and, actually, I quite like and engage in because it gives us stuff to actually debate about and certainly in my case learn about) will start to dissipate.

To bring my waffle back to the thread, Ghostbusters is often seen as problematic because these things aren't openly discussed in mainstream forums (and again the problematic culture of reviews and ‘scores’ on these which are often taken on face value by readers without reading the actual content of the review, so very definitely a two way street here). Or in the media surrounding these formats. Or even on the disks themselves. Sure they are here, in the other niche forums and over certain review sites, but they're inherently for obsessives and enthusiasts (such as myself). For some who just want to watch the films in the best quality that they're told is best, there's not a lot to actually help manage expectations around certainly some of these older films (ironically another problematic disk I see crop up in discussions is another Sony disk, Labyrinth for the exact same reasons).

So the point of all this is that I do think its fair for people to make some comparisons which may seem unfair for those of us who turn our alarm off in the morning and instantly click to AVF (the enthusiasts) simply because why would it not be more widely known that the film stock and lens used on one film didn't match that of another which then had a massive restoration and clean up done and a sensitive HDR pass that DIDN'T exacerbate the already thick grain structure and make it more pronounced and therefore one film has a softer and grainier look than another......that's why people come here to ask about it. And isn't that the whole purpose of forums?

So I say bring on all the newbies and their 'stupid questions' (although I'm told at work as well as telling people that actually there are no stupid questions) and lets all help the discussion and spread the love and understanding........

........Christ I'm even making myself sick now.........
 
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I always found the digital 4k stream (Dolby Vision/Atmos) was much better than the 4k blu-ray version.

I have both and compared both. The disc version is smidgen more grainy and retains that finest high frequency detail but to discern this difference, you will have to seated close to the TV screen. :)
 
I agree that Ghostbusters looks awful. I swear I thought something was wrong with my setup... HDMI cable, settings?

Went and watched the bluray that came with the 4k version for comparison, was much better!?

I thought there HAD to be something wrong with my 4k copy, I returned it twice to get new copies. Guess what? All the same. What a disappointment. I love that movie.

If you feel as though it looks excellent, so be it, your opinion. But in my experience, I wouldn't purchase it unless you want to truly be disappointed.

Just my $.02
 
Thats because the bluray was a "cleaned up" version. People these days are too used to the digital age and forget when a movie was played there was all sorts of haze and 'hair' on the picture.

filmvsdigital copy copy.jpg
 
I got ghostbusters free with a magazine subscription back in the day, I'd just bought a state of the art Samsung 1080p 42" behemoth and a ps3 and was ready to show my missus at the time what hd was all about.
My God did i get a roasting, ghostbusters looked horrendous, like watching it through a swarm of flies, 2 grand in the hole and she looked at me like i had shot the dog, it was that bad.
The previous tv was a 32" Philips pixel plus 2 which was sublime for the time and the ghostbusters dvd looked great on it.
I had to end the relationship when i wanted a 4k oled...
The fact it looked so bad is the reason i haven't bought the 4k disc.
 
Another thread on Ghostbusters PQ had been closed to further comments; no doubt due to a consensus suggesting ‘its the best Ghostbusters PQ’ they have ever seen.

Sadly I am in with the three posters who recognised the movie as a garbage remaster.

saw the film in cinemas
have owned the picture on multiple formats; when I started moving to DVDs in 1998, bought the ‘gold release’ and loved the remastering!

I calibrate sound and screen, and have done so professionally and for many many years.
Always had reference grade picture and sound setups, generally worth much more than what most people spend on their households’ transport solutions.

Not a big adopter of 4K UHD, mostly due to my Oppo Bluray player being the ‘better transport’. (nearly bought a panasonic UB9000 last week, but not ready to retire the Oppo player just yet…)
Have less than thirty UHD discs, very much cherry picked reference discs (/generally ‘good examples’ of the format).

Ghostbusters is BAD.
The colour gamut is great. Better than the DVD
The lossless soundtrack is great. Being ATMOS’d; better than the original cinema release!

as for the picture quality?!
mixed bag: I understand many people want to defend the UHD release; saying it is “the best”.
To me - it looks like someone has played a ‘fake film grained’ version of the movie, on a projector or ‘screen of some sort’, and then refilmed it, again adding a grain process.
The issue that makes it ‘mostly unwatchable’ (if paying attention to the pixels), is like the difference between a CMOS camera sensor and that of X-Trans or Fovean sensors… the film grain is multi coloured! It is ‘a very digital’ film grain, and not like simply applying a digital ‘film grain’ pass on a source video.

The problem (and where I stopped watching) was roughly as the Ghostbusters logo rolled at the start of the flick.
Looking down the library steps (before the stanz and venkman enter), the statue in the bottom of the frame, arms reaching outwards and upwards, have a crazy moire patch (right arm), and another moire patch is on the left hand side of the screen, roughly ‘mirrored’ co-ordinates.
This suggests to me someone has pointed a digital camera at a screen and ‘re-recorded’ the footage.
It might be UHD colour, but the film grain has been taken too far, and is exceptionally poor quality (due to the Red-Green-Blue nature).

Wosrt 4K UHD disc I have seen. Embarrasing.
Next time I am likely to play my Ghostbusters DVD in the Oppo player, and lift the Atmos soundtrack from the UHD disc.
Hopefully they stay in sync.
The Oppo upscaling the DVD release wont create a coloured grain, and looks sufficiently sharp for my seated position.
Might miss the UHD wide colour (the books in the library, especially the red ones, looked amazing).

Of course the film is great (classic), and I’m not so fussy that I cannot sit back and enjoy it.
But I feel those complaining about this disc: there is merit to their words.
I suppose we expect a proper digital tidy up, or process from the master tapes.
Sadly they are generally perished and/or that workload is ‘high’.

Adding fake film grain; I believe mostly was an ‘anti consumer’ process to break DVD upscalers, right when bluray launched… has really caught this film out.
it is like it has 3x film grain processors, when ‘one would have done’; especially given the original films ‘in built’ grain.
 
UHD
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385B47CD-31BE-4453-9E71-C7552A81C9A2.jpeg

there is an obvious moire on the right forearm of the statue (obvious in motion), and at same point on other side of screen… <was this movie filmed ‘again’>


DVD
9F960254-F735-45E6-A673-B90D049B158F.jpeg
491AE998-273A-4AAD-8FD2-A1F04D4F6449.jpeg

4k UHD (a little closer)
A1A78E22-176F-49E6-A19A-60CA6A92BB5F.jpeg


(the coloured ‘grain’ makes some shots noticably worse…)


(ps I think I reversed the logo shots!!)
upshot: some sequences are natural and ‘better’ on DVD, and I agree HDR/Atmos sound do ‘on the whole’ make for an improved movie; but lets not dismiss other peoples opinions outright.
The DVD version is ‘an easier watch’….
 
could have added an ‘edit’; but definately furthering the above info:

just loaded and checked the bluray version, reds (of books) were vastly better than the DVD versions’, but either subdued or overblown/garish vs the UHD version.
the moire pattern over the statues’ right arm was evident, and must have contributed to the UhD version ‘becoming worse’.

the bluray has been given a film grain, and the UHD has been given another grain, so I stand by my first post: 1x grain (natural) on the DVD is the nicer watch (from a ‘grain’ perspective).
 
4k UHD (a little closer)
A1A78E22-176F-49E6-A19A-60CA6A92BB5F.jpeg


(the coloured ‘grain’ makes some shots noticably worse…)
Is this what happened to 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' 4K as well? (Added coloured grain.) Another Sony release.
 

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