UHD Stream reviews

[Crimsoncleaver]

During the wait for UHD blu-Ray's, does anyone have a link to reviews of UHD streams?

Currently I have access to Netflix and Amazon Prime. Waiting for Ultraflix to come to the Fire TV.

Basically would like to know what the BEST source for UHD streaming is as may consider buying a digital UHD film.

[ray0414]

amazon is better than netflix IMO. netflix has a few good ones, such as blacklist season 1, house of cards, narcos, and sense 8. but the rest are compressed badly and look horrible, very grainy during dark scenes.

[d514]

Netflix is much better than Amazon.

I guess Amazon uses DNR to remove grain/digital noise from the picture to improve the compression. But by doing this details get lost.

Netflix is often more grainy and you can see that the compression has its problems in some scenes. It's important that you set up the picture correctly. I used the Spears & Munsil V2 Calibration Blu-ray to set up my TV and UHD on Netflix looks very good most of the time. I say that because when I stand in front of my TV (Samsung HU6900) the picture appears brighter. Maybe that's because it was a cheap model (for an UHD TV) but I always sit in front of my TV so I don't mind. But if I stand up while watching Netflix and the picture get's brighter, the compression artifacts become much more visible.

Just compare "Jessica Jones" or "Master of none" on Netflix UHD to "The man in the high castel" or "Mozart in the jungle" on Amazon UHD. Netflix is much better!

[whats4k]

Just a quick clarification, grain has nothing to do with compression. But noise created on the video "in camera" when the gain is increased to accommodate darker scenes for recording.

However compression does affect video quality in other ways, for example artifacts and loss of detail and texture.

[dvdmike]

what about ultraflix?

[Rasimov]

Originally Posted by dvdmike

what about ultraflix?

I've only seen the free offering of Terminator Genisys, and a few of the free short videos.

The short videos generally looked "okay" to "really bad" from the ones I sampled. None of them wowed me, and some just looked ugly due to compression issues.

Terminator Genisys looked okay, but for the most part nothing in it screamed "THIS IS 4K" at me. Some of the opening scenes with the Metal Terminators looked pretty nice, but generally I was disappointed with the picture.

Also, the opening scene showing a grass field didn't look right to me.

Maybe I'm being a harsh critic, but I expected a lot more detail. And due to it being 4k, all compression issues stuck out like a sore thumb.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Rasimov

I've only seen the free offering of Terminator Genisys, and a few of the free short videos.

The short videos generally looked "okay" to "really bad" from the ones I sampled. None of them wowed me, and some just looked ugly due to compression issues.

Terminator Genisys looked okay, but for the most part nothing in it screamed "THIS IS 4K" at me. Some of the opening scenes with the Metal Terminators looked pretty nice, but generally I was disappointed with the picture.

Also, the opening scene showing a grass field didn't look right to me.

Maybe I'm being a harsh critic, but I expected a lot more detail. And due to it being 4k, all compression issues stuck out like a sore thumb.

I had seen that too, was wondering more about the actual 4k stuff on there

[Adam_ME]

I've only watched a few shows on Amazon Prime. Red Oaks looks pretty good, as do Mozart in the Jungle and Orphan Black. I believe the first 2 are HDR. I've also sampled a few of the Sony movies. Jerry Maguire and Philadelphia were weak. Didn't look any better than 1080p.

On VUDU, I've only bought one movie, Edge of Tomorrow. It's at best a marginal improvement over the 2D Blu-ray. I did temporarily own both Sherlock Holmes flicks before VUDU removed them after disabling the D2D option for UHD. Those were also underwhelming. The first one was on par with the Blu-ray and the sequel was maybe a little bit better. Probably the best looking of the bunch on there is Magic Mike XXL. I was only able to preview the first 2 minutes since I refused to pay 30 bucks for it, but it looked very nice. I could be wrong, but I think that's one of the few actual 4K transfers out of all the WB movies they're selling. So that would explain why it's superior to the other pseudo 4K flicks I've sampled.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Adam_ME

I've only watched a few shows on Amazon Prime. Red Oaks looks pretty good, as do Mozart in the Jungle and Orphan Black. I believe the first 2 are HDR. I've also sampled a few of the Sony movies. Jerry Maguire and Philadelphia were weak. Didn't look any better than 1080p.

On VUDU, I've only bought one movie, Edge of Tomorrow. It's at best a marginal improvement over the 2D Blu-ray. I did temporarily own both Sherlock Holmes flicks before VUDU removed them after disabling the D2D option for UHD. Those were also underwhelming. The first one was on par with the Blu-ray and the sequel was maybe a little bit better. Probably the best looking of the bunch on there is Magic Mike XXL. I was only able to preview the first 2 minutes since I refused to pay 30 bucks for it, but it looked very nice. I could be wrong, but I think that's one of the few actual 4K transfers out of all the WB movies they're selling. So that would explain why it's superior to the other pseudo 4K flicks I've sampled.

I agree on Jerry its not a showstopper
Edge and Sherlock are 2k finishes

[ray0414]

Originally Posted by dvdmike

I agree on Jerry its not a showstopper
Edge and Sherlock are 2k finishes

We will go all day on this :P


But I'll say this. I purchased edge of tomorrow and mad max on vudu, both 10 bit. They look nice. BUT. The downloaded hdr movies on mgo looks much better. The martian in hdr has much better quality and the detail is alot better. Its in a different league. Yet both are 2k finishes. So let's not all assume that all 2k finishes are crap. IMO vudu is low quality when compares to a real version on disc. But the mgo stuff isn't perfect and I'm expecting disc to be much better as there are times when the mgo stuff looks softer than blu ray.

I ended up returning my roku and will just wait for uhd blu ray on those movies.

[dvdmike]

Who said 2k finishes are crap? They are just not 4k

[Adam_ME]

Originally Posted by ray0414

We will go all day on this :P


But I'll say this. I purchased edge of tomorrow and mad max on vudu, both 10 bit. They look nice. BUT. The downloaded hdr movies on mgo looks much better. The martian in hdr has much better quality and the detail is alot better. Its in a different league. Yet both are 2k finishes. So let's not all assume that all 2k finishes are crap. IMO vudu is low quality when compares to a real version on disc. But the mgo stuff isn't perfect and I'm expecting disc to be much better as there are times when the mgo stuff looks softer than blu ray.

I ended up returning my roku and will just wait for uhd blu ray on those movies.

Well I guess if we're counting M-Go(those are downloaded, not streaming to be technical), I've also seen parts of The Maze Runner and Exodus: Gods and Kings and both look very good. I haven't A-B'd them with the Blu-rays, but those are far more impressive than any of the VUDU UHD streams I've seen save for the first 2 minutes of Magic Mike XXL.

[Crimsoncleaver]

Originally Posted by Adam_ME

Well I guess if we're counting M-Go(those are downloaded, not streaming to be technical), I've also seen parts of The Maze Runner and Exodus: Gods and Kings and both look very good. I haven't A-B'd them with the Blu-rays, but those are far more impressive than any of the VUDU UHD streams I've seen save for the first 2 minutes of Magic Mike XXL.

Thanks for all the posts guys, I should have said DIGITAL instead of streaming, as was thinking any 4K source that's available now.

M-GO, is that Samsung only? - EDIT, found the device list.

So currently, Roku 4 has the most complete package of digital 4K sources?

[Rasimov]

Originally Posted by dvdmike

I had seen that too, was wondering more about the actual 4k stuff on there

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but at least Terminator Genisys was supposed to be 4K.

The music videos/short redbull videos/and a few of the other free offerings all looked underwhelming to straight up horrible to me. I was under the impression that the free short clips were supposed to be 4K, but some of them were so bad that I really hope they weren't.

There was one video (and I might be mixing two of them up) with a flamenco dancer (and I want to say it had some guy on a bike mixed into it for some reason). The compression artifacts in the dark background were beyond horrible.

And even though the rental prices are cheap, I wasn't impressed enough to feel the need to make a 4K rental to see if the video quality was any better on something else.

Also, I really dislike how the app works. It's super clunky, always goes back to the top of the list whenever you exit out of something so you have to scroll back to whatever you were browsing, and the constant bandwidth tests get annoying.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Rasimov

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but at least Terminator Genisys was supposed to be 4K.

The music videos/short redbull videos/and a few of the other free offerings all looked underwhelming to straight up horrible to me. I was under the impression that the free short clips were supposed to be 4K, but some of them were so bad that I really hope they weren't.

There was one video (and I might be mixing two of them up) with a flamenco dancer (and I want to say it had some guy on a bike mixed into it for some reason). The compression artifacts in the dark background were beyond horrible.

And even though the rental prices are cheap, I wasn't impressed enough to feel the need to make a 4K rental to see if the video quality was any better on something else.

Also, I really dislike how the app works. It's super clunky, always goes back to the top of the list whenever you exit out of something so you have to scroll back to whatever you were browsing, and the constant bandwidth tests get annoying.

Most was upscaled by harmy, things like Rocky, Robocop and the ones that have 4k masters on disc are native 4k.
Terminator was a 2k master