Lawrence of Arabia 4K UHD (1962)

[1924]

almost every review calls this an incredible presentation, yet we have some people still nitpicking here. Sad.

[moreorless]

Originally Posted by 1924

almost every review calls this an incredible presentation, yet we have some people still nitpicking here. Sad.

As mentioned though its in comparison to an already excellent BR although again one that did have edge enhancement. That tends to be improvements in detail are a bit less obvious and depend rather were your looking.

[gooseygander2001]

So I watched the UHD amazon stream again last night and A/B'd it against the BD. It is a noticeable upgrade in resolution and more obvious in medium/long shots especially the detail in rocks, mountains, pebbles, sand etc. The BD has better compression obviously and better sound but for me I'll be watching the stream until I pick up the 4k disc.

This looks beautiful in 4k SDR and I honestly wonder how much the addition of HDR will bring as the colours are so rich in places and given the day for night photography, there are no scenes where anything is hard to see or requires any major expansion. If as some members are suggesting, the 4k disc has been filtered, that is sad because detail wise, the 4k SDR stream has scenes with some of the best detail for a catalogue title that I have seen.

[kedavis]

I made it through the entire movie plus all the (included) extras. I saw the movie twice on the big screen when it was re-released in 1989. I might have seen it at home since then.
The film looks and sounds amazing, especially for something shot 60 years ago. I had no playback issues. The only PQ issue I had was a couple daytime desert shots where there seemed to be faint white vertical lines. It could have been a fade-out from the previous scene, an intentional effect from the director or editor, a film artifact, or a digital processing one. I don't really care. It's extremely brief and barely noticeable.
In the extras, it's mentioned that the director was given advice: if you want to surprise your audience, bore them to tears first.
Two of the extras on Blu-ray disc 2 are almost identical. One is vintage and the other more recent, but they use the same images and script. Only the narrator is different.
On Blu-ray disc 1, there's what's called "A Picture-in-Graphic Track." The words on the screen disappear after a few seconds, and the only way to go back to a previous graphic if you haven't finished reading is to start over at the beginning. The only controls are forward, exit, and home.
Maybe my favorite extra was Steven Spielberg discussing his take on the film.
I'm glad I bough this and watched again. Now onto the other 5 movies in the set, all of which I've seen but not recently.
I have 3 of the films on Blu-ray already (2 unopened, the 3rd never watched), and I'm trying to unload them on eBay (I have a single $2.99 bid on a single set so far) or give them to friends. Constantly upgrading to the latest format is quite a bother.

[Cook]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

I think people are missing the fact this thing needed TWO full (actual) restorations - one analog and one digital - to even get this film in the shape it's in now. Yeah, it was done in 2012 but they've spent millions of dollars over those 2 restorations.

That's the problem with people throwing out the term "restoration" with every 4K remaster that's had a couple scratch removals and simple color correction. It degrades the work done on actual film rebuilds like Lawrence, Spartacus, My Fair Lady, etc. Films that were close to being lost forever. I think it's a minor miracle Lawrence looks as good as it does when you consider the state it was in.

I had no idea LOA was that bad off prior to 2012. Are there any written articles or good videos about the restoration process and what they had to do to restore the film?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by DR Herbert West

Caps of Arabia

Cap #3 is exactly where I spotted some of the iffy compression in motion, the grain is very chunky throughout that shot while it's so much finer on the old Blu-ray.

The rough compression is partly what's making it look grittier than the Blu, it's not just "old source is old", it's the UHD encode making a hash of it. And why, when they had all that space to play with?

Originally Posted by moreorless

As mentioned though its in comparison to an already excellent BR although again one that did have edge enhancement. That tends to be improvements in detail are a bit less obvious and depend rather were your looking.

People keep saying this about the old Blu and even the UHD but I just don't see any electronic EE in either of them. You'd think it would show up in the caps of either version but nope, there's none there either.

[DR Herbert West]

This looked good, but not much of an improvement over the Blu.

It feels wrong saying this, but Zombie looks better on UHD. Weird times.

[NLScavenger]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this, but the old UK 1080p BD screenshots on caps-a-holic were not captured correctly. Chroma is shifted to the right because of nearest neighbor chroma upscaling. Screenshot #7 also has wrong colors.

EDIT:

Issues aside, the reds look much better in the UHD. I hope that one day 4:2:0 chroma subsampling dies.

UHD


Old UK BD (captured from my own disc, Jinc+anti-ringing for chroma upscaling, cubic upscale in Gimp)

[gooseygander2001]

Totally agree Geoff, absolute nonsense. Most of the halos are result of high contrast fringing common in analog film cameras. No EE here at all.

After my earlier post, I compared the SDR stream and Dolby Vision stream on iTunes.

A beautiful image and I'd forgotten how good this movie was....4 hours felt more like 2 and few films immerse the viewer quite as much as this one.

After pouring over the 4K HDR in a heavily darkened room I will say that this is absolutely gorgeous and the fine detail is there in spades and is very similar to the 4K SDR in that sense....stunning and this is only the Dolby vision stream, columbia set just shot to the top of my buy list!

I would definitely advise watching the HDR stream or disc in a dark viewing environment as is always the case with HDR for best results....especially true for this title IMO

[moreorless]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

People keep saying this about the old Blu and even the UHD but I just don't see any electronic EE in either of them. You'd think it would show up in the caps of either version but nope, there's none there either.

Looking at some clothing shots in that comparison close up there seems like their are lines on the BR that aren't there on the UHD. I'm assuming thats edge enhancement? otherwise clothing does seem to be were the UHD offers most extra detail.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by moreorless

Looking at some clothing shots in that comparison close up there seems like their are lines on the BR that aren't there on the UHD. I'm assuming thats edge enhancement? otherwise clothing does seem to be were the UHD offers most extra detail.

I can't see any halos or ringing in any of the capsaholic shots.

[hoejunter]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I can't see any halos or ringing in any of the capsaholic shots.

Samesies

[MisterXDTV]

Originally Posted by Cook

I had no idea LOA was that bad off prior to 2012. Are there any written articles or good videos about the restoration process and what they had to do to restore the film?

https://wwwm.creativecow.net/interst...et/article.php

[moreorless]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I can't see any halos or ringing in any of the capsaholic shots.

No your right I can't either, if its edge enhancement its pretty well done and only shows up in some situations.

[4LOM]

Originally Posted by Cook

I had no idea LOA was that bad off prior to 2012. Are there any written articles or good videos about the restoration process and what they had to do to restore the film?

The Restoration of "Lawrence of Arabia" (Columbia Pictures, 1989), in70mm.com.

The Resurrection of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ : The rise, fall and rebirth of David Lean’s epic is a saga as full of paradoxes as the subject himself (Cliff Rothman, 1989), Los Angeles Times

Lawrence of Arabia: Sony's Beautiful 4K Restoration (Debra Kaufman), CreativeCOW.net

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by andreasy969

No. We're not. (Dammit. )You don't seem to get (or ignore it) that we're also looking at and comparing it with what's already out there and what is stemming from the same restoration. And the web rip has clearly more detail. It's just one cap, but I can basically see the same softness on the UHD throughout, so I think it safe to say that the UHD has been filtered throughout.

So you're basing everything on screenshots.

FWIW I've also seen the webrip and it does not seem have more detail throughout. Seeing things in actual HDR vs SDR and not tamped down on the PC.

[bradnoyes]

Originally Posted by DR Herbert West

This looked good, but not much of an improvement over the Blu.

It feels wrong saying this, but Zombie looks better on UHD. Weird times.

Yeah, but Zombie looks better than just about anything.

[moreorless]

That does probably make up my mind not to bother with the boxset when really only LOA and Strangelove are what I'd be interested in.

[MisterXDTV]

https://slow.pics/c/w2O1jStz

Web-DL


UHD BD



https://account.slowpoke.me/login

[TravisTylerBlack]

Fine detail looks to be rendered with slightly more precision in the UHD screenshot.

Either way, my sincerest apologies to Sir Alec Guinness for zooming in on his frown lines.