My current opinion on the state of 4K UHD

[LettuceJUMP]

Some may gloss over this post. Some may find it interesting. Either way here I go.

I'm a movie lover and collector. Owned over 1,200 dvd's, jumped on hd-dvd, over 1,000 blu-rays and now 4k uhd's.

I had multiple dlp 80-90" tv's, 75" lcd's and now my LG 65" oled.

I've owned several Oppo dvd and blu-ray players and currently use my xbox one s for uhd's. (I have mixed feelings on the player)

I love 4k. Love the format, the discs, and the streaming on netflix.

I have 70 4k uhd movies in my collection. I bought most of them on ebay for 12-15 each without the other discs or digital copy. I often have company over to watch with me and my wife, but a reoccurring trend is glancing through my collection and not finding anything worthy of viewing.

I do not view the price of the players or price of the discs as the issue so far, but the movies that are being released. It's a catch 22 because big companies don't want to release their films if no one owns the players, but no one buys the players to watch Smurfs 2, Angry Birds, Lucy and Pacific Rim. When you look through what is available to buy it is disappointing. People want one of three things - top imdb film (godfather, goodfellas, lawrence arabia etc,), high grossing big budget films (avengers, avatar, star wars, dark knight), and genre classics that people watch over and over (comedies, romance, action classics - die hard, titanic, when harry met sally etc) my examples might not be the best but you get the idea.

Catalogue releases on this medium will not be as common as blu-ray, because not all transfers will see benefits, depending on how they were filmed and how the original film is stored.

Releases like goodfellas, argo, the town, underworld and great gatsby excite me. I'm hoping this becomes more and more common.

That's my little state of 4k and me story. I love the format. I want more more more. I read most articles on this forum and do not usually comment.

[Thatonelad94]

Originally Posted by LettuceJUMP

Some may gloss over this post. Some may find it interesting. Either way here I go.

I'm a movie lover and collector. Owned over 1,200 dvd's, jumped on hd-dvd, over 1,000 blu-rays and now 4k uhd's.

I had multiple dlp 80-90" tv's, 75" lcd's and now my LG 65" oled.

I've owned several Oppo dvd and blu-ray players and currently use my xbox one s for uhd's. (I have mixed feelings on the player)

I love 4k. Love the format, the discs, and the streaming on netflix.

I have 70 4k uhd movies in my collection. I bought most of them on ebay for 12-15 each without the other discs or digital copy. I often have company over to watch with me and my wife, but a reoccurring trend is glancing through my collection and not finding anything worthy of viewing.

I do not view the price of the players or price of the discs as the issue so far, but the movies that are being released. It's a catch 22 because big companies don't want to release their films if no one owns the players, but no one buys the players to watch Smurfs 2, Angry Birds, Lucy and Pacific Rim. When you look through what is available to buy it is disappointing. People want one of three things - top imdb film (godfather, goodfellas, lawrence arabia etc,), high grossing big budget films (avengers, avatar, star wars, dark knight), and genre classics that people watch over and over (comedies, romance, action classics - die hard, titanic, when harry met sally etc) my examples might not be the best but you get the idea.

Catalogue releases on this medium will not be as common as blu-ray, because not all transfers will see benefits, depending on how they were filmed and how the original film is stored.

Releases like goodfellas, argo, the town, underworld and great gatsby excite me. I'm hoping this becomes more and more common.

That's my little state of 4k and me story. I love the format. I want more more more. I read most articles on this forum and do not usually comment.

So you've purchased 70 4k titles and you think there not worth viewing? Wow dude why on earth have you been 70 then???? There ain't 70 titles worth owning yet

[Thatonelad94]

I can't seem to understand why people are rushing and buying nearly all the 4ks that are out?? Whole point of a collection is to buy the movies you like and have a connection too. Buying all the movies in 4K to have more than others is ridiculous

[cynatnite]

I do understand when it comes to being a completist. I'm that way on certain aspects of what I own.

[jess1581]

Meh... I'm good with blu-ray. Not gonna drink the 4k kool-aid. I'm a film lover too, but I'm old school and watch older films more than new films. New movies are shot in digital with 4k intermediate etc etc, where my love for film resides mostly in classic 35mm. Also my tv will never go any bigger than 70 inches, because I do care about the overall set up of my living room without a gigantic honker taking up wall space that it would most certainly take to fully use 4k to it's max potential. I do want to get an OLED tv some day, but couldn't care less about 4k.

[Stanton]

Originally Posted by LettuceJUMP

I have 70 4k uhd movies in my collection. I bought most of them on ebay for 12-15 each without the other discs or digital copy. I often have company over to watch with me and my wife, but a reoccurring trend is glancing through my collection and not finding anything worthy of viewing.

This part resonates for me...but in a different way.
I have owned VHS/LD/DVD/BD/UHD (and still have some of each). As time goes on, I find there are less and less movies worth owning (e.g. multiple viewings), but the video/audio quality is now "movie theater reference" (a good one that is). So, I buy less movies than I used to, but I tend to enjoy the ones I buy more.
I went "all in" on 4K last year (see sig) and couldn't be happier (even Blu-Rays look better).

[cynatnite]

Originally Posted by jess1581

Meh... I'm good with blu-ray. Not gonna drink the 4k kool-aid.

Just call me a kool-aid addict.

[MechaGodzilla]

Dude, don't lump Pacific Rim in with Angry Birds and Smurfs 2!

[ack_bak]

I am treating 4K/UHD as a strictly new release format. I wait for deals and only try to buy movies that have good 4K/HDR transfers. As a mostly new release format it will be hit or miss depending on how good the movies are that are coming out.

Once Disney gets on board things will improve.

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by Thatonelad94

I can't seem to understand why people are rushing and buying nearly all the 4ks that are out?? Whole point of a collection is to buy the movies you like and have a connection too. Buying all the movies in 4K to have more than others is ridiculous

Especially when the majority of these films are absolute trash. I mean, they probably look good on the eye for 2 minutes when you first switch it on... then what?

[kansashoops]

My recollection is that there was a similar period when DVD and blu-ray came out, where most of the releases in the new format were sub-par films. The difference in this case is that the difference between 4K blu-ray and upscaled blu-ray on a 4K TV is not nearly as great as the difference between VHS and DVD, or DVD and blu-ray. Maybe it's more noticeable on a projected image, but on my 65" Sony, it's pretty minor. I'm not talking about 4K vs 1920x1080; I see a big difference between my 4K TV and my old 61" Samsung DLP. I'm talking about 4K blu-ray vs upscaled blu-ray on a 4K TV.

So it may be that 4K blu-ray never becomes the dominant format. My hope is simply that it is successful enough that going forward we will see every major movie come out on 4K blu-ray with an Atmos/DTS:X soundtrack, and that the quality of those releases will be comparable to the best of the current batch, like Pacific Rim. I don't really care much about catalog releases of most older films, because few of them will look substantially better than upscaled blu-ray, and most of them won't sound nearly as good as more recent movies that were released to theaters with 7.1/Atmos/DTS:X soundtracks.

[ack_bak]

HDR/DV and wide color gamut, to me, is a much bigger reason to upgrade vs resolution alone. As the hardware and software improves the differences will be even bigger vs standard 1080p. We are still in the infant/crawl phase.

[Seilerbird2]

The format is brand new. It is like a year old. It takes time for any new format to gain traction. Meanwhile I enjoy upscaled Blu rays just as much as UHD discs. Patience grasshopper.

[benhoppel]

Originally Posted by jess1581

Meh... I'm good with blu-ray. Not gonna drink the 4k kool-aid. I'm a film lover too, but I'm old school and watch older films more than new films. New movies are shot in digital with 4k intermediate etc etc, where my love for film resides mostly in classic 35mm.

Classic 35mm is restored in 4K all the time. And will eventually be released in 4K as well. Some already is.

[Geoff D]

Give it time, as the format isn't even a year old. Studios ALWAYS wheel out the shite early doors, you rarely get all the crown jewels until a good few years into the life of whatever format.

That said, I own 34 UHDs and every single one of them is a movie that I like/love and would revisit again and again. There's modern classics like Revenant and Sicario and Fury Road, enjoyable fluff like Shallows, Lucy and Pacific Rim (which is AWESOME, fact), franchise collections such as Hunger Games, the X-Men First Class trilogy and the DCEU, and finally some proper old-school goodness like Labyrinth, ID4 and the two Ghostbusterses.

My personal tastes have been served rather well, but then I haven't bought every piece of shit movie that's been released on UHD just because it was cheap. You couldn't pay me enough money to own something like Smurfs 2.

[LettuceJUMP]

I knew some people would shoot down my post, but I appreciate everyone else's opinions and input.

I like Geoff's response which is very glass half full. Positive approach.You definitely shine our current state in a nice light.

And sorry MechaGodzilla, Lucy and Pacific Rim are far superior films to Smurfs 2. But they are still average films at best.

Thatonelad94, I never purchased films to win some contest or say I have more. I like films to showcase the TV and the format, I consider myself a videophile, and by purchasing these early releases maybe I give some confidence to the companies releasing them that there are people interested. But yes I am a collector and enjoying building my collection for my own joy. I never personally stated they were not worth viewing. But the average person might not love the selection available.

I am encouraged for the future, and hope CES brings us some news this week of things to look forward to.

[RJ MacReady]

I love watching UHD's on my 65" LG that does HDR, and now that I just got a 7.2 system that can decode Atmos, I'm really in love with the format. Magnificent Seven was the first one I watched after setting up my new system, and it was mindblowing.

BUT, and this is a big but, I still prefer, if it's a choice, buying movies in 3D. Passive 3D to my eyes even beats the theater experience.

I wish all the studios would get on board with what Sony is doing with their UHD combos and include the 3D disc too.

I have bought two movies on UHD that I already owned the 3D BD of—Mad Max Fury Road and Batman v. Superman—and that's because they're two of my top 10 movies of the past couple years. I hear a lot about how awesome the HDR in Pacific Rim is on UHD, but I don't see it worth shelling out $30 when the 3D disc is already amazing.

Now, if they ever decide to encode 3D discs in HDR, I'd be in heaven. Or is it even possible?

[StingingVelvet]

I like the added detail, smoothness and crispness UHD offers on most titles. I also like HDR when I feel it is working right. However none of it "blows me away" like DVD and BD did. It's a subtle and nice upgrade, and I will keep getting combo packs and look forward to getting a better player and better TV to enjoy it more, but it's not something that really excites me honestly. Also the lack of calibration standards (and so many in this section boosting contrast, color and whatever else to make it look more pleasing to them) really bums me out.

But then I have never been a tech guy, I've always just been a movie guy who stumbled into tech stuff trying to see his movies look their best. Maybe BD is my "good enough" like DVD was for a lot of people. I will still get UHDs, but it's just not exciting me too much. I am happy so many of you are enjoying it so much though.

[Crimsoncleaver]

I get where the OP is coming from.

I have 4 situations leading me to a similar feeling:

1) Avoid double-dipping blu-rays and UHD films - e.g. don't buy any non-UHD blu-rays – last year I only bought 2 (3D Star Force Awakens and Civil War) blu-rays!! If you'd have said I'd only buy 2 blu-rays in a year in 2015 I would have laughed. The lack of 3D with UHD titles is also annoying me, but holding fast and not buying both.

2) The UHD films I have aren't the most immediately re-watchable - I have only 26 (will be 28 by end of week) UHD titles.
I've managed to not buy everything, however probably Peanuts, Tarzan and Exodus I would say are on the naff end (even BvS I think I will struggle to look at again). I will probably never watch those again so may need to sell them soon.

3) Streaming services. Sadly streaming services are now catching up with releases too. So struggling to not watch things that will go onto UHD. Otherwise I also end up with the situation where I'm always buying films that I've already seen (not necessarily a bad thing).

4) US releases almost a month ahead of UK - I keep spending too much on imports. I gave in somewhat this week and bought a Magnificent Seven UHD from the US, just so I wouldn't watch it else where and so that I didn't have to await another 3 weeks... The problem with that is, the "value" of each film feels a lot less. As I'm just spending too much on them, but then don't want to double-dip/rent etc to reduce the "value" again. First world problems I guess!


Overall, his means I'm now with barely anything to watch disc wise.
Occasionally I'll go through my blu-ray collection, but have watched and watched my favourites too many times.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by NEP010314

A lot of that depends what you're watching and watch you're watching it on. HDR is probably as important to UHD as the 4K resolution, maybe even more so. Have you checked out some of the HDR demos online to really see what the technology is capable of? You don't have to worry about compression, as most of these have very high bit rates. I'd find it hard to believe that you won't be blown away by any of those demos.

As far as 4K discs, you just have to find the right settings on your player. There are some that look spectacular. Some, not so much. But it's still a new format, and it should only get better from here on out.

My set has weak HDR and I am sure that is part of it. Maybe on my future OLED with 4,000 nits and Dolby Vision I will be blown away, but we'll see when I get there. For now I definitely see what it is doing and like it. The Yorktown sequence in Star Trek Beyond is probably my fave with lots of sunny highlights interacting with the darker tunnel the ships fly through. However it doesn't really blow my skirt up, like I told Geoff the other day. It's neat, but... just not something I get all worked up over (at this current time).

Also I am very much a film purist so I do worry about how intended it is and all that. I wouldn't want it for any movie made before 2010 or so, but studios are forcing it onto every UHD disc, which bums me out.