Lawrence of Arabia 4K UHD (1962)

[DKLou]

Originally Posted by trespoochies

Marginal returns at this point, the current release is very much reference for a film like that. Zero need for a new remaster.

I think its really good overall. Perfect? Probably not but I am satisfied with my steelbook release. . Got lucky and paid a "sane" price for it about a year ago.

[trespoochies]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Funny how y'all who don't care still care enough to tell us that you don't care. Never understood that mentality, shirley your time would be better spent not wasting it on us at all? We complain about movies, you complain about people complaining about movies, and I'm not sure which one is sadder.

And yet...I did. So...both sad.

[Caprica_U-87]

i gave in and bought from a $100 scalper.

[Robert George]

I saw a comment in a post several back about the streaming version, which I have never seen, having some preceived improvements over the UHD, which I have. I was intrigued so did a quick check and was able to "acquire" a full size rip of the Movies Anywhere stream.

Since I have the UHD available on my home server, I downloaded the MA stream to the same making comparison easier. What got my interest was I just watched the UHD a couple of days ago enjoying the improvements of the new OLED panel (83" LG C4). I decided to see what I would see.

For some setup, I will note the MA stream is over 43 GB without foreign dub tracks. Two full size MKVs of the two UHD discs with only English audio is less than 95 GB. Yes, the stream is around half, but for a stream, that's pretty good bit rate.

Looking at the two, I'm going to make some guesses/assumptions about the UHD encode. As good as it is, it does appear there is some visible grain reduction going on. I conclude they rolled off some high frequency information to smooth it out some then threw a shitload of bits at it to preserve as much fine detail as was left.

Then it came to the master for streaming. The knew they would not have the bit rate they had on disc, so we got the master without grain reduction. With half the bit rate, grain structure is more pronounced as is sharpness and fine detail. The textures of the rumpled uniforms, complexions and hair are visibly better in the MA stream. I was more than a little suprised at the differences between these two encodes.

Would the heavier grain been the cause of more complaints if the UHD looked like the stream? Probably, but that file is now my go-to for watching this movie. Even though I just did the nearly 4 hour sit, I'm thinking of a second rewatch is a week.

[Trekkie313]

Originally Posted by Caprica_U-87

i gave in and bought from a $100 scalper.

It'll come back in print or you can buy it used from here, Reddit or marketplace.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Caprica_U-87

i gave in and bought from a $100 scalper.

Ouch. I would try to flip it while you can...eventually you'll find it for a fraction of that price.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Robert George

I saw a comment in a post several back about the streaming version, which I have never seen, having some preceived improvements over the UHD, which I have. I was intrigued so did a quick check and was able to "acquire" a full size rip of the Movies Anywhere stream.

Since I have the UHD available on my home server, I downloaded the MA stream to the same making comparison easier. What got my interest was I just watched the UHD a couple of days ago enjoying the improvements of the new OLED panel (83" LG C4). I decided to see what I would see.

For some setup, I will note the MA stream is over 43 GB without foreign dub tracks. Two full size MKVs of the two UHD discs with only English audio is less than 95 GB. Yes, the stream is around half, but for a stream, that's pretty good bit rate.

Looking at the two, I'm going to make some guesses/assumptions about the UHD encode. As good as it is, it does appear there is some visible grain reduction going on. I conclude they rolled off some high frequency information to smooth it out some then threw a shitload of bits at it to preserve as much fine detail as was left.

Then it came to the master for streaming. The knew they would not have the bit rate they had on disc, so we got the master without grain reduction. With half the bit rate, grain structure is more pronounced as is sharpness and fine detail. The textures of the rumpled uniforms, complexions and hair are visibly better in the MA stream. I was more than a little suprised at the differences between these two encodes.

Would the heavier grain been the cause of more complaints if the UHD looked like the stream? Probably, but that file is now my go-to for watching this movie. Even though I just did the nearly 4 hour sit, I'm thinking of a second rewatch is a week.

Erm...but that's just it: they didn't "throw a shitload of bits" at the UHD, that's why the two encodes could fit onto a single UHD100 with room to spare. As said, splitting it over two discs allowed Sony to place something like 14 audio tracks on there, 5 of them lossless, and so a whole bunch of them bits are being gobbled up by the audio, the average bitrate is in the mid '50s.

With the right handling then that's still a decent enough bitrate, sure, but the low pass filter applied to the 4K HDR master itself doesn't seem to have done it much favours encode-wise as there are visible compression artefacts on the 4K disc(s), it just can't deal with the the noisy, clumpy grain that's left behind. Whoever did the encode for the 4K HDR version on streaming/digital/whatever seemed to be much more savvy about applying what bits to what moments, I'm sure it's got its own artefacts to contend with in different places to the UHD disc but it's kinda sad that a stream can outdo a disc (to say nothing of the 4K SDR stream which is sharper still). Makes me wonder if this hobby is worth all the bovver when shit like this happens.

[batmaster]

Ugh, i'm so annoyed sometimes. I bought the steelbook over a year ago, but then I got volume 1 for a very, very good price and sold my steelbook so somebody else could enjoy it. Why don't they just release this movie without being limited... fans should enjoy it!

[Robert George]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

>>>Makes me wonder if this hobby is worth all the bovver when shit like this happens.

Yeah, it's still worth it. We've gotten some pretty great movies on some pretty great discs these past years with 4K UHD. That said, with the current state of the art, most, if not all, movies appear to be able to easily fit a BD66 disc with a spectacular encode and multiple soundtracks.

But then, you would have places like this b!tching about preceived quality without any real technical knowledge to base it on. What some of us call "talking out your ass".

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Robert George

Yeah, it's still worth it. We've gotten some pretty great movies on some pretty great discs these past years with 4K UHD. That said, with the current state of the art, most, if not all, movies appear to be able to easily fit a BD66 disc with a spectacular encode and multiple soundtracks.

But then, you would have places like this b!tching about preceived quality without any real technical knowledge to base it on. What some of us call "talking out your ass".

Alas, the "state of the art" re: compression hasn't filtered through to the companies who supply studios and indies alike, which is why encoding is such a constantly b!tched-about topic on here. Paramount are a bastion of awfulness and Kino's brickwalled encodes are set-and-forget laziness personified. Even Sony are farming out encodes now for their MOD releases and they're not great, they don't seem to be using dual-zoned encodes and aren't even using the default transfer rate option, they appear to use the low TR mode which doesn't peak over 81 Mbp/s e.g. https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=18441&d2=18440&c=6722

But the streamers and rippers? Wow. They can do incredible things with a comparative handful of bits, give them a 66 or 100 to play with and you'd never get a bad encode again. Trouble is, they don't work for the disc authoring companies!

[HeavyHitter]

So is Movies Anywhere the best place to download the 4K SDR version? I don't have a PC set-up for HT. Maybe I can just put it on a thumb drive?

[Infallible Presence]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

So is Movies Anywhere the best place to download the 4K SDR version? I don't have a PC set-up for HT. Maybe I can just put it on a thumb drive?

It's in HDR10, but if don't have the equipment it should dumb down to SDR.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Infallible Presence

It's in HDR10, but if don't have the equipment it should dumb down to SDR.

I don't want them tone mapping it...if I'm understanding. I just want the native 4K SDR.

[Infallible Presence]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I don't want them tone mapping it...if I'm understanding. I just want the native 4K SDR.

I don't know what process they go through, sadly. Just know the few times I've watched my 4K movies on a non-4K or old non-HDR 4K TVs they still played fine. But, I'll admit I'm not an expert on this. So, you may have to seek someone else help to be sure.

[unsung122212]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

So is Movies Anywhere the best place to download the 4K SDR version? I don't have a PC set-up for HT. Maybe I can just put it on a thumb drive?

Sorry, no place (MA, iTunes, FAH, Amazon, GP, Microsoft) lets you download the 4K file, only up to HD (1080p). The studios don’t allow the 4K download. It’s only available via streaming.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by unsung122212

Sorry, no place (MA, iTunes, FAH, Amazon, GP, Microsoft) lets you download the 4K file, only up to HD (1080p). The studios don’t allow the 4K download. It’s only available via streaming.

Do you know if iTunes has the 4K SDR stream? I use my ATV iTunes for almost all movie streams.

[JohnCarpenterFan]

The novelty of HDR has worn off for me (not that I don't enjoy great HDR presentations), especially when it's used on SDR masters. I find myself getting distracted at times because I notice things that just don't look quite right. Obviously these HDR passes are usually much better than a TV forcing SDR content into HDR, but I find myself seeing some of the same issues albeit not to the same extent. Between that and extra noise being brought out or tools being used to mitigate that which sometimes affects other aspects of the image, I find myself gravitating towards SDR UHDs for content mastered in SDR if the option is there.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan

The novelty of HDR has worn off for me (not that I don't enjoy great HDR presentations), especially when it's used on SDR masters. I find myself getting distracted at times because I notice things that just don't look quite right. Obviously these HDR passes are usually much better than a TV forcing SDR content into HDR, but I find myself seeing some of the same issues albeit not to the same extent. Between that and extra noise being brought out or tools being used to mitigate that which sometimes affects other aspects of the image, I find myself gravitating towards SDR UHDs for content mastered in SDR if the option is there.

But if the master is in log space then it's not SDR, is it? I'm not sure if you're equating this practice to Lawrence's HDR treatment but if you are then I don't think that's a correct conclusion here. HDR by its very nature is exposing areas of the image that SDR glosses over, not just the highlights but the mid tones, and it can do it quite ruthlessly, exacerbating grain/noise pretty much by default. Lawrence was caught out in HDR by being such an extensive digital patchwork of a restoration, yes, as it was designed around an SDR output, but just forcing the SDR version into HDR doesn't reveal anything like the schmutz seen on the actual HDR version. To actually capture that crap they had to go back to the log files in the first place.

Reminds me of Gladiator's 4K UHD, that had a 4K remaster some years prior and on the UHD there's lot of white speckles in the bright areas of the image that were blown out on the SDR Blu-ray, in other words the files had originally been dust-busted according to a linear SDR output but for the HDR capture it now revealed all those clipped areas. So the master still has the logarithmic range to go into an HDR grade, but it wasn't adequately prepared for it at the time. It's not like the HDR grades on, say, RoboCop or Great Escape which literally are the SDR masters transposed into HDR space - but then I think they look quite nice for what they are and ironically enough don't expose any extra restoration crud because the highlights are already blown!

As much as you've just moaned about not wanting 'forced HDR' on anything, I think I'd rather have had a nibble of fake HDR on top of Lawrence's extant SDR master rather than them going back to the log files and having to wrassle all that junk left behind by the 2012 restoration, because it didn't quite work. Like I said earlier, this one deserves to have a Final Restoration that's designed for the HDR arena.

[Caprica_U-87]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I don't want them tone mapping it...if I'm understanding. I just want the native 4K SDR.

To my understanding, if you view the dolby vision MKV file on an SDR display it should show the SDR 4k version if you're using a program that doesn't display HDR. Only DV titles do this, not HDR10 only.

[JohnCarpenterFan]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

But if the master is in log space then it's not SDR, is it? I'm not sure if you're equating this practice to Lawrence's HDR treatment but if you are then I don't think that's a correct conclusion here. HDR by its very nature is exposing areas of the image that SDR glosses over, not just the highlights but the mid tones, and it can do it quite ruthlessly, exacerbating grain/noise pretty much by default. Lawrence was caught out in HDR by being such an extensive digital patchwork of a restoration, yes, as it was designed around an SDR output, but just forcing the SDR version into HDR doesn't reveal anything like the schmutz seen on the actual HDR version. To actually capture that crap they had to go back to the log files in the first place.

Has it been said that the final deliverables were saved in log? Considering Lawrence of Arabia's restoration predates HDR even becoming a standard (and I still don't think such files are commonly saved in log) then I wouldn't be so sure. This was a laborious and serious restoration project so it might have been an exception but I still wouldn't be sure.

None of the schmutz seemed that distracting to me, but plenty other schmutz that I've been observing on a number of these UHDs is actually something that could be revealed by using HDR on an SDR source. I believe I posted my own demonstrations showing how this could even be done in the SDR realm just by simple grading choices in 2018 when Arrow released their Blu-ray of City of the Living Dead. I was one of the people really upset with how the "grain" and noise looked on that disc and noted how it was actually obscuring detail. I was told it was color grain and that modern film scanners didn't pick up any noise. Not even a couple years later, the same scan was used and graded differently where none of the ghastly noise or over-accentuated grain was present; lots of extra fine detail also appeared too. The person who oversaw the newer grade confirmed my speculations and what I had been saying, and it shows in the end product.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Reminds me of Gladiator's 4K UHD, that had a 4K remaster some years prior and on the UHD there's lot of white speckles in the bright areas of the image that were blown out on the SDR Blu-ray, in other words the files had originally been dust-busted according to a linear SDR output but for the HDR capture it now revealed all those clipped areas. So the master still has the logarithmic range to go into an HDR grade, but it wasn't adequately prepared for it at the time. It's not like the HDR grades on, say, RoboCop or Great Escape which literally are the SDR masters transposed into HDR space - but then I think they look quite nice for what they are and ironically enough don't expose any extra restoration crud because the highlights are already blown!

I can't say I paid much attention to that re: Gladiator so I'm not sure, but what you've described can also happen with bringing SDR into the HDR realm. There's usually always more detail in the shadows and highlights than you actually see during viewing. Taking that and putting it into the HDR space allows for far greater control over such areas without washing out the entire image or whatever (this can be done in strictly SDR too though not to the same extent). Digital crud or even dirt/damage obscured in shadowy areas in SDR can easily be exposed with the application of HDR for example.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

As much as you've just moaned about not wanting 'forced HDR' on anything, I think I'd rather have had a nibble of fake HDR on top of Lawrence's extant SDR master rather than them going back to the log files and having to wrassle all that junk left behind by the 2012 restoration, because it didn't quite work. Like I said earlier, this one deserves to have a Final Restoration that's designed for the HDR arena.

Agreed re: the last sentence. Before anybody gets upset, I must stress that I am happy with the existing UHD of Lawrence but there is certainly room for improvement. Just don't expect to see it any time soon as the existing restoration is still way beyond serviceable and to restore the film yet again would be an incredibly arduous task.