Harry Potter 1-8 4K UHD (2001-2011)

[Geoff D]

Watched Goblet last night, oh it's such a blessed relief to be free of that shitty Blu-ray. Deeper blacks and some beautiful HDR moments like when Arthur leads the kids over the hill to the Quidditch World Cup, it looks quite dull and overcast on the BD but it's brighter and gorgeously warm-toned on the UHD. The colours are superb at times too, they're so much more vivid during the QWC stuff and the bright spotlights in that bit with Krum in the stadium are incredibly intense, I would not be surprised in the least if the MaxCLL is nearer 4000 nits than not. (No figures yet though)

After that the movie settles back down into a familar visual routine, looking more like Blu-ray with knobs on rather than outright 4K amazingness but, as with Azkaban, the HDR comes alive again during the finale. As I said before, all some people want from 4K is retina-shredding amazingness every time so these Potters will be a disappointment to such people, but this kind of respectful approach to catalogue titles - utilising HDR when appropriate, not turning the movie's look on its head for the sake of it - is fine by me.

[poddie]

Originally Posted by hariseldon

What did Amazon say when you asked them?
I think they are the only one who could answer since it's been asked here about 20 times and obviously nobody here knows

You honestly think the customer service rep that gets the question is going to be able to connect to the likely 2 people there that have any idea? It's frequently better to ask in a forum where people have often already gotten down to the bottom of it. My guess is if people here don't know, we aren't going to find out. If someone had just said "we haven't gotten an answer" I would have said "thanks!" and left it alone. As I will do now...

[pottyaboutpotter1]

As someone who's seen this movies 100s of times on various formats (VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray), so far these UHDs look like the ultimate visual refinement of them. Like most catalogue titles on UHD, they walk a fine line between improving the visuals of the film and respecting the original intent of the director and cinematographer. The only major departure from how the films originally looked I can find is removing the blue tint from the Forbidden Forest scenes in the first film.

The films look great as what UHD is supposed to do; give us a version of the film that is as close as possible to what the director wanted. The Potter films were always dim, dark and desaturated so people expecting them to be HDR eyepoppers were always going to be disappointed. These are probably the best release of the films widely available and I honestly don't know how they could look better by any significant leap (since Dolby Vision is more a refinement of HDR to my eyes)

[Doomsday Clock]

Just started watching my set. Man the train scenes, quidditch stuff, Harry sending Hedwig out in the snow are all so magnificently beautiful maybe reference tier quality. That shows the power of HDR, even some other scenes such as the library and dining hall ones are impressive too.

I have to say I'm excited to watch the rest this week after viewing Sorcerer's Stone.

[mysticwaterfall]

Watched the graveyard scene from GoF and I can definetly see where people are coming from. After playing around with it, James and Lilly's ghosts are okay, but Cedrics ghost is a total loss on any setting besides "HDR game", where you can see him very clearly - but of course throws off the picture as a whole. Comparing to the blu, the 4K definetly looks better in that scene besides the ghosts, so it's a shame overall.

[Geoff D]

And yet I can see Cedric just fine on my ZD9 (ooh, that rhymes). 'HDR Game' is the OLED setting which activates a wider range of tone mapping IIRC and that's the issue here in a nutshell: the grades for the HP movies appear to place the brightest highlights (usually reserved for magical moments, and rightly so IMO) squarely into the upper reaches of HDR and if your display isn't capable of mapping that high then you will lose a lot of highlight information. I tried to take some pics of Cedric before, they're NOT indicative of the shot as a whole because I had to fudge the exposure to get either one to register properly but what the hell, they're a close enough indicator of what I'm getting:

[Show spoiler]
BD



UHD

Heck, even on the Zed I get some clipping at the start of Goblet of Fire, all those spotlights in the Quidditch stadium when Krum flies around are visible in the SDR Blu-ray but some are significantly blown out in HDR in comparison even though I'm mapping the HDR out to 3000 nits already!! That's why I said I'd be surprised if the MaxCLL is anything majorly less than 4000 nits

[pottyaboutpotter1]

Watched Order of the Phoenix and by jove is this a great one. The HDR is fantastic here, especially in the final battle. The battle in the Prophecy chamber is positively amazing for contrast between light and dark; Ginny's blast of Reducto is almost blindingly bright. Another excellent Potter transfer.

As for Goblet, the ghosts appeared fine on my set. Maybe it's just how Sony sets handle tone mapping (I personally find the tone mapping on my mid-range Sony to be much better than the mid-range LG i had before).

[Vashetti]

Originally Posted by s2mikey

Oh? Didnt even realize such a cut existed. The film clocks in at almost 2.5 hours as is. Thats plenty long enough, IMO.

What important stuff was left out that the DC includes? Im not a die-hard Potter fan and never read the books.....

There are officially released Extended Cuts for the first two movies that re-insert all of the available Deleted Scenes.

ABC channel in America broadcasts their own versions of the later films with their Deleted Scenes re-inserted, but these haven't been officially released by WB.

So yeah, there was a lot of disappointed when it came to light that the first two movies in UHD wouldn't include the Extended Cuts.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Deleted Scenes - YouTube

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Deleted Scenes - YouTube

[Vangeli]

Today I watched Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince and I forgot how great these movies are. Absolutely loved the opening to Half-Blood Prince with the music and camera flashes. Video quality is on par with Goblet if not slightly better but at this point they're so samey that I'm not bothering to pay attention to the quality.

Super excited to watch the final two!

[mysticwaterfall]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

And yet I can see Cedric just fine on my ZD9 (ooh, that rhymes). 'HDR Game' is the OLED setting which activates a wider range of tone mapping IIRC and that's the issue here in a nutshell: the grades for the HP movies appear to place the brightest highlights (usually reserved for magical moments, and rightly so IMO) squarely into the upper reaches of HDR and if your display isn't capable of mapping that high then you will lose a lot of highlight information. I tried to take some pics of Cedric before, they're NOT indicative of the shot as a whole because I had to fudge the exposure to get either one to register properly but what the hell, they're a close enough indicator of what I'm getting:

[Show spoiler]
BD



UHD

Heck, even on the Zed I get some clipping at the start of Goblet of Fire, all those spotlights in the Quidditch stadium when Krum flies around are visible in the SDR Blu-ray but some are significantly blown out in HDR in comparison even though I'm mapping the HDR out to 3000 nits already!! That's why I said I'd be surprised if the MaxCLL is anything majorly less than 4000 nits

Yeah, as I understand it HDR game clips at 1800 nits or so, but besides giving detail back to Cedric it really messes with the picture, it actually makes it look more blue like on the bluray. So its,obviously doing something else you couldn't possibly watch the whole movie like that.

Of the 4ks I've watched so far I've certainly had to tweak the settings the most for HP. It was worth it for the first 2 though, they look amazing. 3rd one not quite as good, but I would certainly agree with your earlier post about things like when Snape catches Harry with the map, that really shows off the HDR well.

[thewoe]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

And yet I can see Cedric just fine on my ZD9 (ooh, that rhymes). 'HDR Game' is the OLED setting which activates a wider range of tone mapping IIRC and that's the issue here in a nutshell: the grades for the HP movies appear to place the brightest highlights (usually reserved for magical moments, and rightly so IMO) squarely into the upper reaches of HDR and if your display isn't capable of mapping that high then you will lose a lot of highlight information. I tried to take some pics of Cedric before, they're NOT indicative of the shot as a whole because I had to fudge the exposure to get either one to register properly but what the hell, they're a close enough indicator of what I'm getting:

[Show spoiler]
BD



UHD

Heck, even on the Zed I get some clipping at the start of Goblet of Fire, all those spotlights in the Quidditch stadium when Krum flies around are visible in the SDR Blu-ray but some are significantly blown out in HDR in comparison even though I'm mapping the HDR out to 3000 nits already!! That's why I said I'd be surprised if the MaxCLL is anything majorly less than 4000 nits

I noticed the blown out Whites in the 4K HDR version also in goblet of fire when the minister is Talking to everyone in the stadium, his face looked pure white, i dont remember it being that bright and in The end scene of 5 i think it was with Dumbledore vs voldemort his spells looked to blown out, voldermorts spell stream looked over blown, no detail in the spell.

[s2mikey]

Watched Azkaban last night. I wasnt as impressed with this title as I was the first two but its still better than the exisiting versions/formats. Mostly great blacks, good detail, solid overall. A few softer scenes here and there and some elevated blacks here and there. Not reference but certainly good enough. Nice HDR in most scenes too, especially the wand being lit in the woods a few other areas.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by mysticwaterfall

Yeah, as I understand it HDR game clips at 1800 nits or so, but besides giving detail back to Cedric it really messes with the picture, it actually makes it look more blue like on the bluray. So its,obviously doing something else you couldn't possibly watch the whole movie like that.

Of the 4ks I've watched so far I've certainly had to tweak the settings the most for HP. It was worth it for the first 2 though, they look amazing. 3rd one not quite as good, but I would certainly agree with your earlier post about things like when Snape catches Harry with the map, that really shows off the HDR well.

Sure, I didn't say that that mode was any good for watching on otherwise, just proving the point that tone mapping is at the heart of every single one of these "I can't see the ghosts" comments. And the same goes for this:

Originally Posted by thewoe

I noticed the blown out Whites in the 4K HDR version also in goblet of fire when the minister is Talking to everyone in the stadium, his face looked pure white, i dont remember it being that bright and in The end scene of 5 i think it was with Dumbledore vs voldemort his spells looked to blown out, voldermorts spell stream looked over blown, no detail in the spell.

The minister's face is hella bright on my TV and yet it still resolves more highlight detail than the Blu-ray which is incredibly flat and pale in comparison. This is why Dolby Vision has been seen to have such a drastic effect on some movies, it's the display being poor with mapping HDR10 rather than it being amazing with DV that's the difference. The better the HDR10 mapping then the closer the gap will be, and the Dolby zealots would do well to bear in mind that if a display actually met the target spec of the DV content then it would have a minimal need for mapping in the first place! (See slide from Dolby presentation here: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...2#post13605942) This is why theatrical DV does not carry any metadata, it doesn't require it because the laser projection installs are a known quantity.

[elwaylite]

Harry Potter Year 2

Improvement in PQ over the Year 1, enjoyed it.

[ImNotThePro]

Hey guys I browsed a couple dozen pages of this thread but couldn't find the answer.

Does anyone know if the BILINGUAL 8-disc 4K set sold in CANADA contains the "Sorcerer's Stone" or the "Philosopher's Stone"?

Thanks a million to anyone who knows!

[RustinCohle]

Sounds stupid, but I'm refusing to even watch these until I find the missing slips for 6-8. Still on the hunt, but if anyone in here wants to sell them, I'll pay for the slips and shipping!

[Vangeli]

Just watched the last two and they're great; the last one especially. Both aren't the sharpest and have wonky grain at times (as can be said for the rest of the collection) but I enjoyed them. All of them. What a series!

Now to watch Fantastic Beasts for the first time!

[elwaylite]

Its funny after going back and watching the first two, after only watching each one once the first go around, you pick up on things. Much nicer to watch all 8 over 2-3 months vs 10 years.

[Vashetti]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=300877

Re-releases incoming? lol

[i_max2k2]

Originally Posted by Vashetti

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=300877

Re-releases incoming? lol

I think I want to go from camp:'DV is heaven compared to HDR' to 'DV/HDR10+ is minimal difference compared to plain old HDR', for the sake of my wallet and marriage.