Superman: The Movie 4K UHD (1978)

[punisher]

Originally Posted by HunterTech

......I didn't even detect anything slightly negative in what Geoff was saying there.

I swear every Superman thread has someone trying to ruin the fun for whatever stupid reason......

that's Geoff for you and 2001 too. he just is never satisfied with ANYTHING. Perhaps he should do the next big release transfer himself.

[ditcin]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

The black level's pretty light to begin with on this transfer, although the background in the opening credits should be 'letterbox' black at least. What now? I dunno. Can you connect the 203 to the TV directly, just to rule out any shenanigans with the AVR passthrough?

Yes. I will try that next. Thanks.

[MisterXDTV]

Originally Posted by Cliff

Holy Christ... that's MY interview. I did that interview with Thau for DVDFile in 2001. I haven't seen it in years. Was fun reading it again, so thanks.

No, thank you! I wish I could read an article like yours, today. So much depth in that interview. Now even disc reviews are shallow. Where is a site like DVDFile for UHD BD???

Glad I could recover it for you!

[infiniteCR]

Originally Posted by ditcin

Just tried what you suggested - no good. The contrast is terrible. No blacks, very dull. Even the "black" bars in the letterbox image are dark.

What now?

Do you have your local dimming disabled/adjusted somehow?


Maybe just switching to another video mode that has no tweaks to see if it is working in any of the other modes would also help troubleshoot.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by MisterXDTV

Now even disc reviews are shallow.

You're not kidding about that...

https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/7344...ZZpmiNQweEMH5g

...this just might be one of the worst Blu Ray reviews I've read. Does it even count as a "review"?

[HunterTech]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

You're not kidding about that...

https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/7344...ZZpmiNQweEMH5g

...this just might be one of the worst Blu Ray reviews I've read. Does it even count as a "review"?

You know it's bad when the audio section is now the second video section, which would be such an easy thing to fix. Like wow.

[ditcin]

Originally Posted by infiniteCR

Do you have your local dimming disabled/adjusted somehow?


Maybe just switching to another video mode that has no tweaks to see if it is working in any of the other modes would also help troubleshoot.

Did all that too. Thanks.

[tcripe]

Man this disk is hard to find. Sold out everywhere! Luckily at my local Target they had one copy left that i was able to snag!

[Erzengel]

Got mine at Amazon with slip cover.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by punisher

that's Geoff for you and 2001 too. he just is never satisfied with ANYTHING. Perhaps he should do the next big release transfer himself.

Dude, you attacked StingingVelvet last week saying the same exact thing, and now you're saying the same crap about Geoff?

Please. In both cases you're wrong.

[Optimus]

Originally Posted by punisher

that's Geoff for you and 2001 too. he just is never satisfied with ANYTHING. Perhaps he should do the next big release transfer himself.

Did he pork your missus or something? I've seen you attack him several times already

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Optimus

Did he pork your missus or something? I've seen you attack him several times already

He did the same thing with StingingVelvet several times last week. I have no idea what his problem is.

[pottyaboutpotter1]

I watched this last night.

It's such a confusing release. It changes from looking great to just passable every few seconds. For every shot that looks fantastic, there's some that... well don't. The shots of the Statue of Liberty in the Flying Sequence stick out like a sore thumb because they look tons better than the rest of the film. Now I'm sure there was limitations of film stock and cameras and such they had to work around to make this release, but it's strange that this film just looks passable when other catalogue titles from the same era look stellar. Halloween was released in the same year and had a much lower budget, but it's UHD looks a thousand times better than this. I dunno. Who knows what happened here?

But when it looks good, it looks REALLY good. But most of the time it just looks ok. And personally I think looking ok just isn't enough for a title of this calibre. Imagine if Sony had done this with Close Encounters?

The film still holds up really well and thankfully is engrossing enough that you can sort of forget about the picture quality.

I'm underwhelmed. I really expected a lot more from this. And this makes me worried Batman might suffer the same fate next year.

[Geoff D]

A lot of it is still to do with how the movie was shot as Geoff Unsworth just didn't go for super sharp photography - this was never gonna look like the Zsigmond-shot CE3K in some respects no matter who handled it - but then the UHD presentation ladles more issues on top, like them sucking out the colour in certain scenes and the strange "grainless" feel that a lot of shots have. And in a funny sort of way this feels more "unrestored" than what 2001 does.

I mean, they've still done a lot of digital correction on STM 4K to restore the proper colour on Supes' suit in the opticals and to erase the wires elsewhere, but then they leave in the garbage mattes around baby Kal's ship and WTF happened with the sunrise shot I've no idea. And from looking at the 'Lex with Kryponite' dupe section again I'm convinced that the 4K contains the original dupe so lamented by Michael Thau (made from separations and not the superior IP section used for the SE) because I can clearly see the green and purple fringing that's endemic to mis-registered seps. It looks much better in the SE, which is fair enough, but when even the TV cut Blu-ray looks superior (because it also avoided being printed from the damaged section) then I can't help but feel that they missed a trick here.

Still, I say this often enough to other people: be careful what you wish for. I wanted the theatrical cut and by jingo I got it, warts and all. Well, maybe not with all the warts but enough to make it feel curiously unfinished at times. If Warners ever do the special edition in 4K then one assumes they'll run it with the 'C' roll of fixes and refreshed opticals that was created by Thau for the 2001 recut of the film.

[punisher]

Originally Posted by optimus

did he pork your missus or something? I've seen you attack him several times already

lol.....

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Optimus

Did he pork your missus or something?

Geoff D would never tell a lie to punisher's wife!

[punisher]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Geoff D would never tell a lie to punisher's wife!

she's dead..how nice of you to remember..

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by pottyaboutpotter1

I'm underwhelmed. I really expected a lot more from this. And this makes me worried Batman might suffer the same fate next year.

My guess is Batman's original source materials will be in a better condition which means less of a chance things will go wrong in an attempt to "correct" or handle things.

I'll admit, I'm a bit less impressed with Superman on my second viewing but I was also more awake (watched it very late at night falling half asleep on my first viewing. lol).

[5x10]

I watched some scenes on the blu Ray and 4K back to back
The scene was the helicopter failure

When Clark was looking at the phone booth, the blu Ray looked much clearer
The blu Ray also didn’t look as dark, a bit brighter than the 4K

After the heli scene, when supes is flying and the screen is rotating, the blu Ray had a blue hue in the sky where the 4K was black

Not sure the darker 4K was due to my projector and not a 4K tv
I am using the Panasonic ub820, for its hdr to sdr dynamic tone mapping

[Agent Kay]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

My guess is Batman's original source materials will be in a better condition which means less of a chance things will go wrong in an attempt to correct or handle things.

They managed to fupk the BD, so let's see