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

[Vangeli]

And the price is even pretty good. I remember seeing the regular Blu-ray for the fifth or sixth season going for $60 in a local video shop. The first season new in UHD for less, and with new bonus material? Not bad at all. Should be fairly enticing and I hope it sells well. I definitely have my pre-order in.

[krismate]

Originally Posted by Aragorn the Elfstone

Season 1 was shot in 1080p, so aside from potential compression improvements, there won’t be any increase at all.

They really should have just called the format “Ultra HD” (or maybe even HDR HD), and dropped “4K” completely.

But what about HDR and WCG? I'm not familiar with "HDCAM SR" but it seems like it can capture 10 bit 4:2:2 so I imagine there will be improvements in those areas too?

Still, I fully expect the later season like season 5 and onwards to have a larger increase, simply due to the source.

I'll be pre-ordering either way. I can mostly likely sell my bluray seasons for at least $15cdn each.

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by krismate

But what about HDR and WCG?

WCG is only useful if you actually have colors so saturated they'd fall outside the normal Rec709 gamut, GoT seems like kind of a drab-looking show.

As mentioned 1080p, not 4:4:4, not Raw. At least the Alexa has always had a pretty nice dynamic range so they may be able to do something with the HDR; I would expect potential improvements to be more or less limited to that.

[Nothing371]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

No.
Look at the TNG HD thread, especially the early part. The same "I'm going to wait for the complete series set" - People making the discs: "Please buy them on release or there won't be DS9 in HD" - guess what happened.

I don't have to guess what happened. They released a complete series set at a budget price later and everybody who bought the individual seasons got completely screwed having spent 4-5x more money. It's a catch22. It's also a prisoner's dilemma. It's not as simple as "oh Nothing, you or PeterTHX should have spent more money on the TNG blus." It doesn't work that way. At some point, the studio has to take accountability for both their messaging and their own business decisions. In the end, they simply don't care as much as you'd like to believe they do.

Customers don't need to buy something when its always on a streaming service they already have a subscription to. If you want to support a company then that's your own prerogative. It's not every poor man's job to overspend in order to get studios to sell us things we want to buy. It's not our job as customers to be their venture capitalists. I didn't like DS9 and had no intentions of buying it anyways.

In those previous posts you're talking about idealism, but I'm talking realism. Sales have nothing to do with some tidbit that was posted online. What does a thread on the blu-ray.com forum have to do with the number of customers that bought a disc release? Perhaps people didn't buy the individual seasons because they knew it would add up to be incredibly expensive and they (correctly) figured a complete series would eventually come out. Perhaps Paramount didn't sell enough copies of the complete series because they produced a dogshit boxed set for TNG. You're preaching to the choir anyways since I'm looking at the box set of TNG I purchased right now. I also purchased every individual season on DVD which is why I didn't purchase them again on blu. If they hadn't devalued their individual seasons by making a complete set, then more people would have bought the seasons. Paramount could have come out and said "there will be no complete series". Instead they are chasing their tails and trying to recoup costs with a value set and cheapening their brand in the process in order to make a buck. Maybe they should have offered a trade-in program for everyone who already bought the DVD sets at much more expensive prices. Maybe they should have made them limited and numbered. In any case, you and I are talking about two completely different things, now that you have amended your intent to be referring to the individual seasons and I was talking about the complete series. But I certainly don't owe the studios anything for not letting them shear my wool for a second or third time; that's ludicrous.

On the same token, me buying or not buying individual 4K seasons of GoT has no bearing on the near-certainty that there will be a complete series release on 4K UHD sometime in the future. I also certainly don't owe them any donations as I've bought over a dozen seasons of Game of Thrones on blu-ray. Me, and people like me, have already proven that the demand is there for a 4K UHD release. It's time for them to do their jobs and sell us one of the most successful TV series of all time in 4K. It's not our job to subsidize their yearly cashflow for continuing projects These companies can't even be bothered to make uniform, matching box sets with the collector in mind, most of the time. They drop the ball constantly. Some of those Star Trek seasons hit shelves without slipcovers FFS. These companies don't give a shit. You need to come to grips with understanding that. Plus they were never available all at once. Why is someone going to go buy 3, 4 and 5 off the retail shelves? Are they banking on Joe Blow walking into an electronics store on release day every time a new set comes out and paying $60 for it each time? Seriously? DO A BETTER JOB.

I know that's more than anyone wants to read, but the situation is a lot more complicated than a dismissive "well people should have supported Star Trek on disc". Because customers have supported it. Sorry for the long post and any redundancies. (I'm sure most people will skip it ) I'm very passionate about these things.

Now its up to HBO to do a good job. I'm fairly certain the public has shown enough interest and given enough financial support for the series. The onus is on them to create a product that people want to buy.

[PeterTHX]

Give me a break. EVERY TNG season had a slip, even the standalone 2-parters. They spent millions on those remasters and it seemed like the *fans* didn't give a crap. They expected bargain basement pricing because they have no concept of value. The entitlement complex here just reeks.

[amoergosum]

I'm thinking about purchasing an OLED TV. The Panasonic EZW954 looks pretty good. Panasonic doesn't support Dolby Vision though. Now we have titles like Game of Thrones which have Dolby Vision. So HBO made their choice.
But I also read that HDR10+ is going to be the winner since it's open source. So now I really don't know anymore what the right TV is. Is Panasonic going to release a Dolby Vision firmware update if Dolby Vision is the winner? Nobody knows. They really make it difficult for customers.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by amoergosum

I'm thinking about purchasing an OLED TV. The Panasonic EZW954 looks pretty good. Panasonic doesn't support Dolby Vision though. Now we have titles like Game of Thrones which have Dolby Vision. So HBO made their choice.
But I also read that HDR10+ is going to be the winner since it's open source. So now I really don't know anymore what the right TV is. Is Panasonic going to release a Dolby Vision firmware update if Dolby Vision is the winner? Nobody knows. They really make it difficult for customers.

HDR10+ is not as "open source" and "royalty free" as one would think given the PR spin. There are a bunch of "gotchas" attached to using Samsung's lesser HDR format (yearly licensing fees, no display model targets, a lot of guess work, and possible disclosure of proprietary trade secrets to Samsung from HDR10+ user partners). And yes, it looks to be inferior to Dolby Vision when properly implemented.

It's not yet assured HDR10+ will be anything but a flash in the pan.

[Pieter V]

High res:



*Digital HD not available in 4K

[Vangeli]

Why does it look G1 sized?

[ProjectB]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

The Atmos re-mixes are a given. They also started adding Atmos on the regular sets outside of the steel book editions. Too bad they can't dig into the archives again and try a do-over on the first two seasons' Atmos tracks. They couldn't find the separate elements because of poor archiving and the mixers couldn't make very good Atmos tracks for those seasons because of that.

Where was this info from? It seem unlikely they would not properly archive their most popular show.

[s_har]

Originally Posted by Pyoko

WCG is only useful if you actually have colors so saturated they'd fall outside the normal Rec709 gamut, GoT seems like kind of a drab-looking show.

As mentioned 1080p, not 4:4:4, not Raw. At least the Alexa has always had a pretty nice dynamic range so they may be able to do something with the HDR; I would expect potential improvements to be more or less limited to that.

Is it known for a fact it was not recorded in 4:4:4?
HDCAM SR supports 10-bit 4:4:4 recording and in this article it is mentioned that the camera's 4:4:4 output was recorded onto HDCAM SR tapes:
http://www.studiodaily.com/2012/03/g...-for-season-2/

The Alexa was also used for the show’s first season, but the camera’s 4:4:4 output was captured to HDCAM-SR tape and followed a conventional tape-based workflow through editorial, visual effects, color-correction and final assembly.

Regardless I assume they actually recorded this in some sort of LOG format so if they go back and give the whole season a new HDR grade for this release I think they should be able to bring forward improved dynamic range and colors compared to the old blu-ray release.
If not then I'll be holding out for the inevitable complete boxset instead.

[Vangeli]

Also the UHD disc will have 4x the chroma sampling (1080p on a UHD disc is essentially 4:4:4 IIRC) and with that alone it should have better defined detail over the regular blu-rays.

[tjritter79]

The popularity of this show and its world-wide appeal just screams that these UHD releases are going to come every couple of months....timed that way....so by the time season 8 is ready to roll, we are all caught up with seasons 1-7. Keeps the show in everyones mind through the ....winter!

[Sabre95]

Since I don't own any season I might just get this one and buy the rest as they eventually come to 4K blu-ray.

[Vilya]

This article discusses how season 1 was shot.

"The production shot with ARRI ALEXA digital cameras."

http://www.arri.com/news/news/alexa-...me-of-thrones/

Cinematographer Alik Sakharov said this about the HDcam matter:

"We recorded to HDCAM SR and concurrently to SxS cards. To be honest we didn't follow the normal routine of dailies; that workflow was eliminated and instead the LUT was recorded on the slate and the post house could use that information to apply the right look. On set we had monitors calibrated to the LUTs and I relied heavily on that. As soon as the SxS cards were taken from the camera, our DIT plugged them into his computer, pulled up the references, applied the look and put up the stills. At the end of the day he would give me a flash drive with all the images on it, already corrected and with the LUTs applied; in a way, those images were my rushes."

http://www.versluis.com/2010/02/what...-and-hdcam-sr/

[TheZoof]

I will hold out on this until the final season is completed. If I don't like how the story ends then I will have no need for this set.

[Tru-way]

Looking forward to this release! Those low level light scenes seem to struggle on the blus producing lots artifacts/banding. The 4K should definitely help with that!

[DJViking]

Finally TV Shows in UHD Bluray. Thought it would never come.

Currently UHD is still too expensive compared to HD. In my book not worth it. I buy UHD Bluray only on sale.

This is US Region A, and I surely hope they will release it in Europe Region B. A UK release would suffice so long as they include subtitles.

I already got the complete Game of Thrones on Bluray Steelbook so far. Not sure if I want to invest in the UHD if the material is only upscale. Lets see if http://realorfake4k.com/ will provide some insights.

[zetruz]

Originally Posted by krismate

Surely season 1 won't have a major increase in PQ due to the source?

Originally Posted by Aragorn the Elfstone

Season 1 was shot in 1080p, so aside from potential compression improvements, there won’t be any increase at all.

They really should have just called the format “Ultra HD” (or maybe even HDR HD), and dropped “4K” completely.

Originally Posted by Pyoko

As mentioned 1080p, not 4:4:4, not Raw. At least the Alexa has always had a pretty nice dynamic range so they may be able to do something with the HDR; I would expect potential improvements to be more or less limited to that.

I would expect the main improvement to be the removal of compression artifacts. Higher bitrates and HEVC over H.264 makes a big difference.
A 1080p-to-4K upscale can probably be better done by a studio than by the TV's built-in algorithms, so that's also perhaps slightly better.
HDR might make a slight improvement, though I struggle to see which scenes in season 1 would benefit much. Most of the scenes benefitting greatly from HDR are in the later seasons, like the Battle of Blackwater Bay or various dragonfire scenes. But there are some torchlit or otherwise sharply lit (contrast-heavy, chiaroscuro-like) scenes where the blacks may be helped by HDR.

Originally Posted by Pyoko

WCG is only useful if you actually have colors so saturated they'd fall outside the normal Rec709 gamut, GoT seems like kind of a drab-looking show.

Even a drab-looking show can have banding in the sky, which always bothers me.


All in all, unless they completely mess up the upscaling or HDR grading I'm sure this will be a nice-but-not-huge improvement mostly because of less compression artifacts.

[krismate]

Originally Posted by DJViking

Finally TV Shows in UHD Bluray. Thought it would never come.

Currently UHD is still too expensive compared to HD. In my book not worth it. I buy UHD Bluray only on sale.

This is US Region A, and I surely hope they will release it in Europe Region B. A UK release would suffice so long as they include subtitles.

I already got the complete Game of Thrones on Bluray Steelbook so far. Not sure if I want to invest in the UHD if the material is only upscale. Lets see if http://realorfake4k.com/ will provide some insights.