Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season 4K UHD (2011)

[TheSweetieMan]

Just finished the entire season.

A very good video and audio transfer on all fronts.

I’m glad HBO handled this transfer over Warner.

While I enjoyed the video transfer for ‘WESTWORLD’—more than most, in fact—I still don’t think Warner would’ve went through the trouble to squeeze every ounce of detail out this transfer that HBO was able to capture. I didn’t watch the standard blu-rays, but based purely on a 4K/HDR presentation, this just goes to show that similar to Cloverfield, a superior encoding method, better chroma, and a wider range of color, highlight, and shadow information, can result in a stellar looking presentation.

This title epitomizes pixel QUALITY over pixel count.

[Vangeli]

Originally Posted by TheSweetieMan

...

This title epitomizes pixel QUALITY over pixel count.

100%

[HumanMedia]

Originally Posted by zmarty

I watched all seasons so far on Blu-Ray (with Atmos) and I think the encoding was severely bit starved, with a lot of compression artifacts. If somebody points them out you cannot unsee them.

Hopefully the ~4K version is much better in that regard.

My experience was exactly the same. GOT was always a poor example of shows that were presented on BD. The UHDs are definitely much better, but still could do with a higher data rate.

[Staying Salty]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarc.../#24c58d9ba69c

Put all these HDR and color-expanding strengths together and you get pictures that often take on an almost painterly beauty - no matter how harrowing their content might be.

This is especially true for anyone able to watch the show in Dolby Vision, which does a lovely job of adding even more dynamism to the show’s many high-contrast shots, while also delivering a more controlled and consistent look to colors - especially skin tones during dark interior sequences.

[roguejp]

Originally Posted by HumanMedia

My experience was exactly the same. GOT was always a poor example of shows that were presented on BD. The UHDs are definitely much better, but still could do with a higher data rate.

Can't tell if you're kidding or not.....a poor example of shows that were presented on BD, really?
Each season on BD has gotten very high scores for PQ from reviewers and understandably so. The black levels could be better on occasion, but that's it.
I have no idea how reached that conclusion.

[TheSweetieMan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFVD...ature=youtu.be

My review.

[aetherhole]

Game of Thrones is one of my most favorite TV shows of all time. I hope the last season does the rest of the series justice (unlike Dexter...).

Peter Dinklage is absolutely brilliant in this show and absolutely the best part of the show for me.

I was originally not interested in double dipping, however, hearing reviews of its improvements, it sounds like it might just be enough for me to warrant a purchase.

Also, TheSweetieMan, love the ED-209 sitting behind you!

[TheSweetieMan]

Originally Posted by aetherhole

Game of Thrones is one of my most favorite TV shows of all time. I hope the last season does the rest of the series justice (unlike Dexter...).

Peter Dinklage is absolutely brilliant in this show and absolutely the best part of the show for me.

I was originally not interested in double dipping, however, hearing reviews of its improvements, it sounds like it might just be enough for me to warrant a purchase.

Also, TheSweetieMan, love the ED-209 sitting behind you!

I was very happy with the transfer. And considering it was my first time experiencing the show in a dedicated manner, I couldn't have asked for a better experience. HBO knocked it out of the park--and I don't think the 3.5/5 video transfer from Blu-Ray.com does it justice. We get so caught up in the resolution side of things, that we forget how important quality encoding/compression is--as well as how impressive it is to see something shot at a much lower resolution than 4K, still looking shockingly impressive when upscaled for this format. Again, quality pixels and encoding > pixel count. You'll be happy with these discs, IMHO.

Also, that ED-209 is my set piece for sure.

Fun fact: the head next to him, is a prop from Neill Blomkamp's short film, 'Yellow', which was made by Alec Gillis, a very renowned SFX artist.

Neill himself gave that to me.

Cool gift!

[aetherhole]

Originally Posted by TheSweetieMan

I was very happy with the transfer. And considering it was my first time experiencing the show in a dedicated manner, I couldn't have asked for a better experience. HBO knocked it out of the park--and I don't think the 3.5/5 video transfer from Blu-Ray.com does it justice. We get so caught up in the resolution side of things, that we forget how important quality encoding/compression is--as well as how impressive it is to see something shot at a much lower resolution than 4K, still looking shockingly impressive when upscaled for this format. Again, quality pixels and encoding > pixel count. You'll be happy with these discs, IMHO.

Also, that ED-209 is my set piece for sure.

Fun fact: the head next to him, is a prop from Neill Blomkamp's short film, 'Yellow', which was made by Alec Gillis, a very renowned SFX artist.

Neill himself gave that to me.

Cool gift!

Very cool! I'm a fan of Neill's work, at least the work that I've seen. I know District 9 was a very polarizing film, but I absolutely loved it, start to finish. I'll have to check out 'Yellow' as well.

Regarding this release, I'm in the camp that would rather not know what the DI/DCP or any of the pixels associated with it. Pixels are one part of the equation. There are many more factors that weigh just as important in the picture quality (as you already know). People are just so quick to think, "What do the K's tell me I have to think about this transfer?"

I get that the resolution gives an easy and quantifiable reference for improvement (4x the resolution!!!), I just wish they could figure out a way to market the real reasons to upgrade, things like the encoding/compression, chroma res, WCG/HDR.

[Konrad]

Originally Posted by TheSweetieMan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFVD...ature=youtu.be

My review.

Thank you for this review TheSweetieMan, I totally agree. I was surprised by how exceptionally good it looked as I bought it solely on account of the Atmos track which is not on the Blu-ray set I own. I didn’t expect too much of an upgrade in the video department having read Jeffrey Kauffman‘s review.

Sometimes I‘m really shaking my head and feel for the people doing an excellent, meticulous job and then are rewarded with reviews that simply don‘t do it justice. I only read the forum here because I wanted to know if I was the only one who liked this presentation.

For me 4K quality is absolutely a five, as you said: reference quality.

[eddievanhalen]

I hadn't almost never seen Game Of Thrones before this UHD BD release (watching half of first episode a couple of years ago doesn't count) which I borrowed from a friend and I'm very very surprised at the picture quality they got out of those 10 bit HDCAM SR which is the format they used for shooting season 1. The resolution may not be demo quality but color and contrast are wonderful. I was very exceptical about this release and I must admit they got a very nice and beautiful looking picture regardless of original cameras and masters resolution. From season 2 on they started using even better equipment with better cameras, codecs and bit depth so if season 1 looks this good we can expect and improvement for the next seasons.
After watching my friend's UHD BD set I got my own's. I'm not going on watching it on HBO, which is not expensive in Spain, I want to watch them all in 4K HDR regardless of the time I have to wait for that.

[Alwayshappy]

Has anyone received an UK copy lately? Ordered one a week ago and it will ship along with some other dvd's in 3 weeks from now. When I ordered the picture on amazon still showed a slip, but not anymore. Kinda worried I'll be getting one without a slip.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by TheSweetieMan

[

[Show spoiler]url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFVDjailrI4&feature=youtu.be"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFVD...ature=youtu.be[/url]

My review.

Just wait til season 3. The Atmos tracks improve quite a bit since the audio post house HBO switched to archived the sound elements better and that allowed for a more immersive Atmos remix. The Atmos engineers had a harder time with Seasons 1 & 2 due to a lack of separate audio elements to work with... probably just 5.1 stems and a lot of upmixing to fill in the speaker gaps.

Then in the later seasons HBO mixed with Atmos in mind natively.

[Konrad]

Originally Posted by Alwayshappy

Has anyone received an UK copy lately? Ordered one a week ago and it will ship along with some other dvd's in 3 weeks from now. When I ordered the picture on amazon still showed a slip, but not anymore. Kinda worried I'll be getting one without a slip.

Received mine from amazon.co.uk last Friday. Came with Slip.

[Pieter V]

http://www.hdnumerique.com/dossiers/...-saison-1.html

[TheSweetieMan]

The UHD seems to clean up a lot of compression artifacts and aberration effects. The skin tones looks especially improved. By comparison, they look like dead bodies on the standard blu, whereas they feel much warmer, but naturally so, on the UHD.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

I might get this if it drops in price like Westworld finally did. It's not my favorite... it's one of those overly gratuitous 'cause it's HBO kind of shows.

[TwistedAmnesia]

Still an amazing series even if you look past that aspect of it. There was already plenty of "gratuitous sexuality" and violence in the books, which doesn't bother me in the slightest btw. The network just kicked it up a few notches in typical HBO fashion. The past 3 seasons they've really toned it down with that stuff. Been tempted to grab this at 48 CAD but I don't trust them to release the other seasons individually quite frankly.

[Cook]

Yeah the sex and violence in the show is pretty much on par with the books. Sometimes the books are way more gratuitous than the show. Just look at what Ramsay Bolton does to Reek in the book. It makes what happened to show Reek seem like a picnic.

[Mister B Gone]

Any word on a release schedule for the other seasons? I thought this looked quite noticeably better than the blu-rays.