Lawrence of Arabia 4K UHD (1962)

[Geoff D]

Ja, I didn’t think there was a mini Death Star waiting inside every player!

[Mister_Kidd]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Ja, I didn’t think there was a mini Death Star waiting inside every player!

It's a trap!

[Hammerlover]

You may fire when ready.

[steel_breeze]

"Miniaturized Death Star tech"...

[trespoochies]

Sounds like the next big thing. I'm in.

[samuelkhan999]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

The laser in a DVD or blu-ray machine is not strong enough to burn discs. I've heard this term used by gamers to refer to discs that are scratched by other means, sometimes by coming into contact with the lens of the laser, not caused by the actual laser itself.

Laser burn is famous due to xbox360. It was notorious in killing x360 discs. Rill date Game UK sells £1 insurance on discs.

[ClassicCraig]

Originally Posted by samuelkhan999

Laser burn is famous due to xbox360. It was notorious in killing x360 discs. Rill date Game UK sells £1 insurance on discs.

Had to look it up.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...f-2826a01b79d0

For what it's worth:

Laser burn is a misnomer, the laser isn't powerful enough to burn the discs. The perfect circle you can see on your disc is caused by the disc coming into physical contact with the DVD lens. It's the lens that causes the scratch, not the laser.

[Bugg]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Laser burn?

That reminds me Marty, you better not play any discs on the 4K, there's a slight possibility of overload.

[Fakejb]

Well, I wanted to pick this up but the prices are insane. How is this not in print? It’s a travesty.

[concolt]

I just sold my steelbook for $95. I have a feeling we will see a normal release soon.

[Hammerlover]

Originally Posted by concolt

I just sold my steelbook for $95. I have a feeling we will see a normal release soon.

Same here, on both counts.

[thebarnman]

Glad I bought mine when the getting was good.

[matbezlima]

I have a question: reviews everywhere, including here, say this 4K blu-ray looks unbelieavably stunning and is one of the best 4K blu-rays of all time even. But I have glanced at some users in this thread expressing even disappointment for this restoration, and talking about digital noise.

So, I ask: what is happening here? This is confusing to me, honestly.

[kingdoxie]

Originally Posted by matbezlima

I have a question: reviews everywhere, including here, say this 4K blu-ray looks unbelieavably stunning and is one of the best 4K blu-rays of all time even. But I have glanced at some users in this thread expressing even disappointment for this restoration, and talking about digital noise.

So, I ask: what is happening here? This is confusing to me, honestly.

The Blu-ray was one of the best on the format regardless of modern or catalogue films so I think some, including me, were a little underwhelmed with the 4K when compared with other titles.

[matbezlima]

Originally Posted by kingdoxie

The Blu-ray was one of the best on the format regardless of modern or catalogue films so I think some, including me, were a little underwhelmed with the 4K when compared with other titles.

First, thanks for replying.

So, this is also a situation of the blu-ray setting too high a standard? Also, could you elaborate more on the issues with the 4K, and what other titles you have in mind by comparison too? Last, but not least, do you see a new 4K transfer being released in the future that could adress all current issues?

[matbezlima]

To be clear, none of my comments are meant to criticize anyone, I'm just legitimately curious.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by matbezlima

I have a question: reviews everywhere, including here, say this 4K blu-ray looks unbelieavably stunning and is one of the best 4K blu-rays of all time even. But I have glanced at some users in this thread expressing even disappointment for this restoration, and talking about digital noise.

So, I ask: what is happening here? This is confusing to me, honestly.

The latest 4K transfer was from what I've read really stunning; it's what they did to the transferred source when it was put onto UHD Blu-ray. According to Geoff, high frequency detail was rolled off making the UHD Blu-ray less than what it could have been. In other words, really fine detail that normally should have been included on the UHD Blu-ray disc simply isn't there.

The new UHD Blu-ray disc isn't bad, it's just that it could have been much better, and maybe even really stunning. The film source...the detail from the 65mm original camera negative is a treasure and if compressed in a way with us end users in mind...could have presented us with something very close to that source...a presentation that UHD Blu-ray could have closely resembled if done correctly. Taking away that extra fine detail is not what any of us asked for.

[matbezlima]

Could a future release fix these issues?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by matbezlima

I have a question: reviews everywhere, including here, say this 4K blu-ray looks unbelieavably stunning and is one of the best 4K blu-rays of all time even. But I have glanced at some users in this thread expressing even disappointment for this restoration, and talking about digital noise.

So, I ask: what is happening here? This is confusing to me, honestly.

It’s an interesting one. The negative was extensively damaged so it needed a lot of work for the 4K restoration, work that is practically seamless in SDR. But HDR is more unforgiving and it exposes the restoration work, making things like frozen grain more apparent. The grain itself is quite strong, the HDR also exposing it like never before. Usually we’re w@nking ourselves silly over film grain but here it makes the image look a lot grittier than I’d ever expect a 70mm movie to look. And maybe because of those factors Sony decided to gently filter it, removing a trace of sharpness that’s visible on the streaming 4K SDR version. Lastly, despite splitting the movie over two discs there’s some compression artefacts (blocking) in places, this is because Sony stuffed the encode with so many audio tracks they took up a lot of bitrate by themselves.

What does that mean to the average viewer and YouTube guru? They’ll love it, especially as the image “pops” in the grand tradition of the Sony Light Cannon™️ (it’s not as bright as some of theirs but it still zings). All things considered it still looks verr good, but to me and my eyeses it’s got one too many niggles to classify it as an all-timer of a transfer. As I said at the time it’s not like we demand every single movie to have an all-timer of a transfer but this is Lawrence of Arabia, one of the greatest movies ever made, and if there’s one flick that deserved perfektion this is it. And the UHD falls short IMO.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by matbezlima

Could a future release fix these issues?

Yes, but just like getting a new 4K restoration for Jesus Christ Superstar's 50th anniversary, it's going to take a miracle.