Blade Runner 4K UHD (1982)

[professorwho]

Looked at the UK set. Much better. Looks like I’ll pick up the UK Edition.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Adam_ME

I just tried out this disc again after getting a 7.1.4 setup and noticed that whooshing for the first time. There's no denying this is a very different soundtrack than what I'm used to on previous versions of the film that I've owned. That being said, it sounds amazing in Atmos.

Normally the purist in me hates this sort of thing(I still watch The Terminator with the mono track), but technically this "The Final Cut", so it's not meant to be Blade Runner as it was originally shown. Hell, even Blade Runner as it was originally shown isn't what was supposed to be originally shown.

I get that argument, I do, but another wrong doesn't make a right, you know? One thing that I loved about the Final Cut's 5.1 remix was that it did a brilliant job of expanding the soundtrack without it feeling like a major revision and yet it was a major revision nonetheless, they rebuilt a lot of the foley and effects in particular. But it felt so organic and was a very natural progression of what was there originally, while this new new mix seems hell-bent on throwing that organic flow out the window and making everything woosh and bleep and bloop from a bunch more speakers for the sake of it and that's the nightmare of every 'purist' like myself.

It's not the concept of a remix that perturbs me but the execution of it, having had 10 years to burn the audio of the Final Cut into my brain I've now got to contend with the ol' grey matter expecting to hear one thing but getting something quite different. I'll get used to it...in time.

[Adam_ME]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I get that argument, I do, but another wrong doesn't make a right, you know? One thing that I loved about the Final Cut's 5.1 remix was that it did a brilliant job of expanding the soundtrack without it feeling like a major revision and yet it was a major revision nonetheless, they rebuilt a lot of the foley and effects in particular. But it felt so organic and was a very natural progression of what was there originally, while this new new mix seems hell-bent on throwing that organic flow out the window and making everything woosh and bleep and bloop from a bunch more speakers for the sake of it and that's the nightmare of every 'purist' like myself.

It's not the concept of a remix that perturbs me but the execution of it, having had 10 years to burn the audio of the Final Cut into my brain I've now got to contend with the ol' grey matter expecting to hear one thing but getting something quite different. I'll get used to it...in time.

I can understand that. And I don't get why the original(well, Final Cut original anyway) soundtrack couldn't be included. But that's been an issue with WB dating back to the DVD era. If there's a remix on the disc, that's almost always the only audio offered.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I'll get used to it...in time.

Tears in rain, bro... tears in rain.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Adam_ME

I can understand that. And I don't get why the original(well, Final Cut original anyway) soundtrack couldn't be included. But that's been an issue with WB dating back to the DVD era. If there's a remix on the disc, that's almost always the only audio offered.

You wanna know the kicker? Warners have been providing DTS-HD MA 5.1 backups on most of their recent Atmos titles, that would've been the perfect opportunity of preserving the previous FC mix (which will now be lost...in time) but because Warners lowballed it and put it on a BD66 they had to leave out the DTS-HD. Jeez, even a lossy DD 5.1 rendition of the previous mix as the 'legacy' backup audio would've been something but nope, the DD 5.1 embedded track is a downmix of the new mix. Gah.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

You wanna know the kicker? Warners have been providing DTS-HD MA 5.1 backups on most of their recent Atmos titles, that would've been the perfect opportunity of preserving the previous FC mix (which will now be lost...in time) but because Warners lowballed it and put it on a BD66 they had to leave out the DTS-HD. Jeez, even a lossy DD 5.1 rendition of the previous mix as the 'legacy' backup audio would've been something but nope, the DD 5.1 embedded track is a downmix of the new mix. Gah.

Ain't it a smack in the face that a BD-100 probably could've solved both that omission and the evident compression niggles, giving us a pretty flawless release.

[Vangeli]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Ain't it a smack in the face that a BD-100 probably could've solved both that omission and the evident compression niggles, giving us a pretty flawless release.

Hey they need to save something for the 40th anniversary!

BD100, Atmos and original FC 5.1 mix, maybe even Dolby Vision. And the strange rotoscoped DNR (or just mismatched grain) during that tweaked downtown sequence being fixed/smothered in grain would be great too. And the digital color noise should be nixed...

Hmm, might not get all of this until the 50th anniversary now that I think about it.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Vangeli

And the strange rotoscoped DNR (or just mismatched grain) during that tweaked downtown sequence being fixed/smothered in grain would be great too.

Can you elucidate?

[Adam_ME]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

You wanna know the kicker? Warners have been providing DTS-HD MA 5.1 backups on most of their recent Atmos titles, that would've been the perfect opportunity of preserving the previous FC mix (which will now be lost...in time) but because Warners lowballed it and put it on a BD66 they had to leave out the DTS-HD. Jeez, even a lossy DD 5.1 rendition of the previous mix as the 'legacy' backup audio would've been something but nope, the DD 5.1 embedded track is a downmix of the new mix. Gah.

And that I don't get at all. Why are the DTS HD-MA 5.1 alternative tracks on new titles even necessary? Can't people just play the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 core? That's what I always did.

[Vangeli]

It's difficult to see in photos but very apparent in motion. Sprinkled all throughout the downtown sequence and probably more of the movie.

[Geoff D]

As I said before, that ^ shot having Ben Ford's face added into the shot is likely what caused the weirdness that you're seeing.

[Vangeli]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

As I said before, that ^ shot having Ben Ford's face added into the shot is likely what caused the weirdness that you're seeing.

It's all throughout the sequence though; signs on posts, random walls, random people. It's kind of a mess.

I figure it's everything they tweaked digitally, they just didn't match the texture with the shot and it's totally something they can and should fix for the next anniversary.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

As I said before, that ^ shot having Ben Ford's face added into the shot is likely what caused the weirdness that you're seeing.

Yep. I think it was re-grained and somewhere along the line there was some fault with that process.

[bradnoyes]

I must be a Bloopy Bleep-man cause I love this mix.

[Show spoiler]The fact that I primarily used to watch this film under the influence of any number of controlled substances might have something to do with it. The flashbacks induced by the bloopy bleeps are the closest I can get to experience a controlled substance these days...

[ROSS.T.G.]

It’s definitely one of the most bombastic remixes I’ve heard. I personally love it but they should have included the original mix to please everyone.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Adam_ME

And that I don't get at all. Why are the DTS HD-MA 5.1 alternative tracks on new titles even necessary? Can't people just play the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 core? That's what I always did.

Wanna know what the other kicker is? This new Atmos mix doesn't downmix at all well, a few people (not just deaf ol' surround-sound hatin' Geoffy) have noted how overcooked the music and effects are at the expense of dialogue when it's played back using the 7.1 core. (This is partly why I reacted so viscerally to the new mix when I first heard it, the newly added sound effects like the overhead fan in the Holden/Leon scene were BOOMING out which made them stand out all the more.)

Yes, the marketing tells us that the channel-based 7.1 core should be at least the equivalent of any standalone discrete mix and it's worked out pretty well so far, true enough, but it's not an automatic process. Care still needs to be taken that the downmix isn't compromised and BR '82 is the first such 'immersive' release where I really thought that something was flat-out 'wrong' with the 7.1. Again, with the lack of a DTS-HD option there's no channel-based backup to work around the problem, though someone kindly noted that switching the player's output to PCM could help and it worked very nicely indeed to rebalance the audio, making it sound far less obnoxious to my admittedly less-than-perfect hearing than the bitstreamed 7.1 TrueHD core.

[dlb99]

Geoff,

Have you contemplated ripping both the BD and UHD BD (using MakeMKV) and then remuxing the DTS track from the BD into the UHD mkv file?

Obviously you'll need a 100GB capable BD PC drive. But it should be possible depending on whether the MakeMKV crew have added Blade Runner UHD to the list of rip'able disks.

[Geoff D]

I have, but I haven't looked into it because I didn't realise things were so far along in that regard. I thought I had to drop a couple hundred quid on a proper UHD drive but I see that 'compatible' ones can be had for £40 or so. Hmmmmmmmm........

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by Vangeli

It's difficult to see in photos but very apparent in motion. Sprinkled all throughout the downtown sequence and probably more of the movie.

I noticed it too, it's very obvious in 4K:

Originally Posted by Pyoko

The UHD also revealed an absolutely horrible FC restoration or compositing mistake or something that I don't remember having noticed before, where during Deckard's walk through Animoid Row huge swathes of the image are completely blurred and they really stick out next to the areas with fine 4K grain.

As far as I can tell it only happens on this one extended sequence, from when Deckard is handed back the snake scale until he's done with Ben Hassan. It's possible it was some kind of error from the mouth replacement, maybe they were trying to blur something but they didn't have the masks set correctly and the effect was accidentally applied to the whole image and the entire length of the shot.

[Hulkster]

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