Sony "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray Titles May 14 and July 16

[Toptube]

Originally Posted by Tech-UK

although some of these titles already have come from a 4k source~~, in which case only a difference due to a higher bitrate will be seen and any other sort of digital improvement done.

bitrate helps, for sure. but a big portion of the difference will come from it being ao different scan of the film and how much care is taken to make it as good as possible (hopefully better). Basically, it is difficult to take exactly the same picture of something, twice.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever even watches these transfers before they send them off to the Blu-ray press. It sometimes seems like they just press some buttons and expect a decent product because....because. Example: leaving out subtitles in portions of/all of Karate Kid.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Toptube

bitrate helps, for sure. but a big portion of the difference will come from it being ao different scan of the film and how much care is taken to make it as good as possible (hopefully better). Basically, it is difficult to take exactly the same picture of something, twice.

It is not going to be a different scan of the film for any of these 4K DI titles. Why would they re-scan something they already have a 4K master of

[tylergfoster]

Originally Posted by Spicoli

Apparently it is scheduled in two waves.

I thought that this blurb of a HDD article is what I suspect is going on.

With all that said, at least one of the new “Mastered in 4k” discs is genuinely compelling. The original Blu-ray release of ‘Ghostbusters‘ was a total dog of a video transfer, with blown-out contrasts and crushed detail. For the new copy, it has been confirmed that Sony re-scanned the movie from the original film elements with proper colors and contrast. This disc should be a huge improvement. Of course, that has more to do with Sony simply correcting its past screw-up than anything specific to the “Mastered in 4k” program.

As far as I’m aware, none of the other titles in this wave were similarly re-scanned. I would expect only minimal improvements over the older Blu-rays for these movies. The other titles are: ‘Angels & Demons‘, ‘Battle: Los Angeles‘, ‘Glory‘, ‘The Other Guys‘, ‘Spider-Man‘, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man‘, ‘Taxi Driver‘, and the recent remakes of ‘The Karate Kid‘ and ‘Total Recall‘.

Until I get a 4K TV I doubt I will be getting any of these. I'd only be double dipping on two A&D and The Other Guys.

It really is Super-Bit Blu-ray

Wow, whoever wrote that HDD article doesn't know what they hell they're talking about. New scans from negative is a core goal for the "Mastered in 4K" line, according to Sony in two THR pieces.

EDIT: If this was the article -- http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...Ultra_HD/11781 -- I notice the guy seems to have already updated his post to make himself look a little less uninformed.

[Cactus]

They're "optimized for 4K Ultra HD TVs"? What does that mean exactly?

[tylergfoster]

Originally Posted by Cactus

They're "optimized for 4K Ultra HD TVs"? What does that mean exactly?

It means Sony expects you to get the most out of the disc if you own a 4K TV and a player to upconvert the disc. That's the one part of the whole deal that is kind of BS -- I'm sure the additional benefit of this upconversion aspect is pretty minimal.

[Tech-UK]

Originally Posted by Toptube

bitrate helps, for sure. but a big portion of the difference will come from it being ao different scan of the film and how much care is taken to make it as good as possible (hopefully better). Basically, it is difficult to take exactly the same picture of something, twice.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever even watches these transfers before they send them off to the Blu-ray press. It sometimes seems like they just press some buttons and expect a decent product because....because. Example: leaving out subtitles in portions of/all of Karate Kid.

Why have you edited my post for quoting. I clearly said its mainly down to them being struck from a 4k master, as 42041 said, why would they do new scans for the titles already scanned at 4k.

[GP Legend]

Being "optimized" for 4K tvs doesn't mean anything. It's equivalent to saying DVDs have been optimized for HDTVs. At the end of the day, these are still 1080p blurays. I personally think upconverting sucks. Blowing up an image past it's native resolution won't make it look better.

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by GP Legend

Being "optimized" for 4K tvs doesn't mean anything. It's equivalent to saying DVDs have been optimized for HDTVs. At the end of the day, these are still 1080p blurays. I personally think upconverting sucks. Blowing up an image past it's native resolution won't make it look better.

Makes sense...

[double_l4488]

Originally Posted by GP Legend

I personally think upconverting sucks. Blowing up an image past it's native resolution won't make it look better.

It does on a Oppo.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Cactus

They're "optimized for 4K Ultra HD TVs"? What does that mean exactly?

Without revealing the proprietary algorithm, it means exactly what’s written in the second paragraph here - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...hm#post7512866

The real-world significance of such will have to be determined by individual consumers.

[Cactus]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Without revealing the proprietary algorithm, it means exactly what’s written in the second paragraph here - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...hm#post7512866

The real-world significance of such will have to be determined by individual consumers.

Right. So it's optimized for *Sony* 4k sets.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Cactus

Right. So it's optimized for *Sony* 4k sets.

Yes, I thought that was clear from my explanation. Here’s a visual aid from a Powerpoint demo -

[JimSD]

4K BRAIVA? Did Sony change the name or is that a counterfeit PowerPoint?

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by 42041

It is not going to be a different scan of the film for any of these 4K DI titles. Why would they re-scan something they already have a 4K master of

I believe it was said, to the effect, by Van Ling (correct me if I'm wrong), but scanning machines improve rather rapidly and it's not inconceivable a 4K scan done a few years ago could benefit from a newer, better scanning machine today.

Perhaps Penton-Man can comment on this.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Without revealing the proprietary algorithm, it means exactly what’s written in the second paragraph here - https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...hm#post7512866

The real-world significance of such will have to be determined by individual consumers.

I wonder if this is going to generate any anti-trust grumblings. In theory content divisions and hardware divisions are supposed to act like separate entities.

[blu-ray_girl_fan]

Originally Posted by airborn007

I guess this is what happens when you buy things too early....The Karate Kid chapter 7 has no subtitle when the chinese language is being spoken. Not sure if this problem persist later in the movie too. Tested on a different blu ray and is the same. The only work around is to turn on english subtitles. I own the original non remasterd version and this problem doesn't exist email already sent to sony support.

Update: No english subtile translation for chinese spoken language through entire movie.

Originally Posted by Kryptonic

I'm having a problem with this new disc. It loads fine and my Denon receiver displays x.v color. It flickers when it switches over from the menu to the film and the image looks spectacular, but I'm only about 17 minutes into the movie and the screen has already flickered three times to a black screen. I've checked all of my cables and everything is fine. Does anyone have any idea what this could be? My receiver and UT50 are compatible. Turning Deep Color, 24p, etc. off and on does not change it. It always shows up x.v. color in the receiver information screen. Did I just get a bad disc maybe? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Indiana Jones

I posted a warning regarding this very issue last week as I experienced the exact same problem when playing the disc on my LG 620, any scene which seemed to top 40mbps caused the screen to black out (library card scene/proton pack first firing in hotel) yet the audio is unaffected, strangely it plays fine on my PC and PS3 so must be authord in a way that is causing issues with certain players, hopefully a firmware update will sort it in time.

So, in addition to The Karate Kid with subtitles not appearing correctly, Ghostbusters is causing some combinations of players and receivers to "black out".

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I believe it was said, to the effect, by Van Ling (correct me if I'm wrong), but scanning machines improve rather rapidly and it's not inconceivable a 4K scan done a few years ago could benefit from a newer, better scanning machine today.

Perhaps Penton-Man can comment on this.

It's not so much the '4K from scratch' aspect that 42041 is referring to, but rather the movies that have been finished on 4K Digital Intermediates. The DI is the finished digital record of the film, i.e. there's nothing to 're-scan'. The 4K source used for the new BDs of Battle LA or Amazing Spider-Man or Angels & Demons will be the exact same 4K source used for the old BDs. Ergo, any appreciable improvements in quality will be due to deficiencies in how the movie was originally mastered to Blu-ray (xv colour aside).

In some ways that's true even for the movies which have actually received new 4K scans; the blown out contrast of Ghostbusters and middling detail reproduction of Spider-Man haven't been 'fixed' via the magic of 4K, it's simply that they're brand new transfers with less fiddling. 4K is just a bonus.

[Iamspartacus]

I don't want to scroll through so bottom line: are The Other Guys, Spiderman, and Glory improvements over the original blurays? Those are the three I'm interested in upgrading. Thanks

[mzupeman]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's not so much the '4K from scratch' aspect that 42041 is referring to, but rather the movies that have been finished on 4K Digital Intermediates. The DI is the finished digital record of the film, i.e. there's nothing to 're-scan'. The 4K source used for the new BDs of Battle LA or Amazing Spider-Man or Angels & Demons will be the exact same 4K source used for the old BDs. Ergo, any appreciable improvements in quality will be due to deficiencies in how the movie was originally mastered to Blu-ray (xv colour aside).

In some ways that's true even for the movies which have actually received new 4K scans; the blown out contrast of Ghostbusters and middling detail reproduction of Spider-Man haven't been 'fixed' via the magic of 4K, it's simply that they're brand new transfers with less fiddling. 4K is just a bonus.

Right, in many respects to certain (newer) titles, the upgrade is only going to matter if you care about having a 'better' encode with higher bitrates.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by JimSD

4K BRAIVA? Did Sony change the name or is that a counterfeit PowerPoint?

Jim! I had thought you might have passed….https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ed#post7545925

The pic is not counterfeit. It comes, for one, right out of a presentation from this event on the Sony lot last month…




You don’t understand, I mean, if executives are going to forgo their bonuses….http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/0...orego-bonuses/

then it's safe to assume that the company sure as hell is not going to employ spellchecking administrative assistants when needed . Don’t induce paranoid counterfeit-ism into the minds of others, for, if you do, then you’ll have me thinking that the first pic here is not real….when in fact it is…and deserving of the Gold Medal as was awarded to Beth ….

http://dsclabs.com/cia_winners.htm