4K Blu-ray Confirmed, Coming in

[Pieter V]

Originally Posted by Pieter V

**FOX wave will be released earlier: February 9th instead of March 1st. Except for The Peanuts Movie (March 8th)**

https://www.foxconnect.com/4k-ultra-hd.html

Everything back to March 1st.

Since Sony, Lionsgate & Warner have March 1st also as release date, I think this is final then.

[Opips3]

Originally Posted by Pieter V

Everything back to March 1st.

Since Sony, Lionsgate & Warner have March 1st also as release date, I think this is final then.

Of course, standards of the top studios have on March 1st as release date. No trick.

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Sure, but a format can't survive on virtually static demo footage alone. I've downloaded some demo vids and they look extraordinary in plain old SDR 709, like a slowly moving photograph, but stick on something like Fifth Element in 4K and...yeah. Not so much of the wow factor there.

Those other vids & nature shows etc are so crisp and sharp precisely because they have a minimum of noise (normal people hate grain) and they ain't moving about a whole lot, and while that material is designed to look great on the shop floor the reality of what 'real world' content looks like day-to-day isn't so amazeballs if one is expecting 4K to automatically equal eyeball-ravaging gorgeousness every time, [edit] which is an assumption that also occured daily in the HD realm. I should know, I listened to enough customers complain about it when Eastenders at home didn't look quite as shit hot as the demo videos we ran all day.

Still, HDR is by its very nature designed to bridge that gap, to provide more colour volume and to squeeze out as much detail as possible from the source, whatever resolution it may be - so all this 2K kvetching may prove to be moot in the long run...

there's plenty of movies that have lots of that kind of content in them already. The Martian is ostensibly an "action" movie, but those big wide shots of Mars would look amaaaazing in true 4K.

I think we'll really start to see UHD blu ray shine a year or 2 down the road when we start getting movies out that were made end-to-end with UHD blu-ray in mind, but that was never going to happen day 1.

[Geoff D]

Indeed, especially when the likes of Sony are sitting on a goldmine of true 4K masters (ostensibly older films which don't have to worry about 2K VFX or whatever) but they'll be putting out crap like Hancock and Smurfs 2 first up. I just hope the format survives long enough so that we get a big helping of some large format gems.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by spectre08

there's plenty of movies that have lots of that kind of content in them already. The Martian is ostensibly an "action" movie, but those big wide shots of Mars would look amaaaazing in true 4K.

So is that the go-to movie to buy first or is it upscaled?

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by Derb

So is that the go-to movie to buy first or is it upscaled?

it's upscalled, but complicated. the studio said something about using higher resolution elements in parts.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by spectre08

it's upscalled, but complicated. the studio said something about using higher resolution elements in parts.

Ah well, Didn't really care for the film anyway.

So are there any 4K titles at launch that are 100% native?

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Derb

Ah well, Didn't really care for the film anyway.

So are there any 4K titles at launch that are 100% native?

Define native? Meaning they had a 4K master? Skyfall had a 4K master and it wasn't captured native 4K. There are LOTS of movies with 4K masters that aren't truly end to end 4K. If that is your qualifier for purchasing a UHD Blu-ray you're gonna have a REALLY small collection at this point. If done right this format would have substantial benefits even if the movie was released in 1080p on it, people need to stop their obsessing with the master resolution, it is the most insignificant thing in the presentation and driven mainly be buzz marketing because they LOVE LOVE LOVE their numbers!

[Frank@Chicago]

Tomorrowland would/could be the poster-child for UHD because it was shot and rendered entirely in 4K.

That's a disc that could really show what 4K could do, but Disney hasn't committed yet.

A disc like that could also make Fox look bad, because I think most their discs will be upconverts.

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by Frank@Chicago

Tomorrowland would/could be the poster-child for UHD because it was shot and rendered entirely in 4K.

That's a disc that could really show what 4K could do, but Disney hasn't committed yet.

A disc like that could also make Fox look bad, because I think most their discs will be upconverts.

Some of the Fincher films would serve this well too. I have no issue with their being non-4K films on UHD Blu-ray, I have more of an issue with false advertising a film has 4K if it is nothing more than an upscale. I think keeping things honest is always a better idea, plus it may force studios to start thinking more about true 4K if they see consumer dollars showing a preference for it with the format compared to non-4K titles on UHD. With the upscaling they can just always say 4K leaving the consumer in the dark. We ran into this with Blu-ray initially too when consumers would say why do I need Blu-ray when my DVD player is already HD because they were told it was. I think labeling everything 4K, even if it truly isn't, cheapens the effort that went into something that truly is what it says it is.

I applaud Fox if they are indeed making the kind of effort they state they are with The Martian, to use the best elements possible for all aspects of the presentation, but at this moment we have no idea if that is going to be the norm for them or any of the studios.

[eriaur]

Originally Posted by Frank@Chicago

Tomorrowland would/could be the poster-child for UHD because it was shot and rendered entirely in 4K.

That's a disc that could really show what 4K could do, but Disney hasn't committed yet.

A disc like that could also make Fox look bad, because I think most their discs will be upconverts.

what 4K HDR/WCG could do

As Michael Cioni said: “People often speak of 4K or HDR or Wide Color Gamut. But it isn’t “or,” its “and.” The video we’ll be editing in the future will contain higher-resolution images and greater dynamic range and wider color gamut. Think of it as three legs of a tripod supporting the video of the future.”

[Geoff D]

What happens when your tripod only has one leg?

[Geoff D]

Buy a new tripod. Badoomtish. Thank you, I'll be here all week.

[eriaur]

Tomorrowland is a tripod production, its not like all future productions must be tripods.
https://larryjordan.com/blog/the-fut...of-everything/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e80VuKcgwt4

[Geoff D]

Tell that to the filmmakers who apparently find the tripods to be so amazing that they won't even look at the one-legged version any more. That's ****ed up.

[ray0414]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

Some of the Fincher films would serve this well too. I have no issue with their being non-4K films on UHD Blu-ray, I have more of an issue with false advertising a film has 4K if it is nothing more than an upscale. I think keeping things honest is always a better idea, plus it may force studios to start thinking more about true 4K if they see consumer dollars showing a preference for it with the format compared to non-4K titles on UHD. With the upscaling they can just always say 4K leaving the consumer in the dark. We ran into this with Blu-ray initially too when consumers would say why do I need Blu-ray when my DVD player is already HD because they were told it was. I think labeling everything 4K, even if it truly isn't, cheapens the effort that went into something that truly is what it says it is.

I applaud Fox if they are indeed making the kind of effort they state they are with The Martian, to use the best elements possible for all aspects of the presentation, but at this moment we have no idea if that is going to be the norm for them or any of the studios.

Finn told me via twitter, which I posted the conversation here last week, that Fox plans to make all their uhd hdr versions the same way they made the martian.

[eriaur]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Tell that to the filmmakers who apparently find the tripods to be so amazing that they won't even look at the one-legged version any more. That's ****ed up.

yep. I do not like the "delegating the SDR master" part.

“It is easy to make a 2K, even a 1080 version of a 4K master file. Those conversion transforms are well known and don’t damage the image. However, with HDR, there’s no easy way to convert from HDR to SDR. For those cases, you’ll need to create two different color grades of your material.”

lots of HDR worries

[jaaguir]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

So will studios just rely on the 2K final comp, or will they go further and upscale the separate VFX elements before recomping them into the 'raw' >2K footage? The latter could represent a substantial amount of work for whatever action-filled blockbuster people might have in mind, so I think we'll only see that happen if this 4K malarkey really takes off.

Recomping? I don't think that will ever happen. UHD will be too small a market to routinely spend such money on every title. Every popular franchise of the past 10 years is full of cgi, and those are the movies I assume will be released first. You can argue, the studios could then use the re-done master also for streaming and everything else, but I don't think too many people renting through streaming will worry much if they get "true" 4k or a 2k upconvert.

Now look at "The martian". Apparently, shots without vfx (few as they may be, I imagine) have been taken from the camera digital files (a >5k camera, I believe) for this UHD release. While everything else will be 2k upconvert. Plus HDR. It will be very interesting to see if anyone can perceive a difference in sharpness betwen the former and the latter sets of shots. If they do, it will be very funny (as I mentioned in another thread, everything about this is launch so funny).
What I mean is, remember really old movies, when every visual effect or just the credits, or montages, done with optical printing would mean those shots were noticeably softer than the rest, because they'are at least one additional generation removed from the original negative? Now here we are in 2016 talking about the top technology of our time, and again we might have similar situations!

Oh well, I guess it won't come to that. Maybe everybody will love how every 2k upconvert looks on UHD.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Indeed, especially when the likes of Sony are sitting on a goldmine of true 4K masters (ostensibly older films which don't have to worry about 2K VFX or whatever) but they'll be putting out crap like Hancock and Smurfs 2 first up. I just hope the format survives long enough so that we get a big helping of some large format gems.

Not just large format movies, I hope. Eventually I'd like to see 1990s movies, for example. I'm guessing the best film stocks of the last photochemical decade of movies were good enough that they can benefit from UHD's added resolution and improved contrast, weren't they?

Talking about large format, you know that one movie that's going to be released on UHD for sure, because it feels like the studio is re-releasing it every two years since vhs, and I'm sure they'll give it a try, even if the format fails. I mean "Ben Hur"(1959), of course.

Which reminds me, in my mind it will always be a shame that movies wider than 1.78 can't use all the horizontal lines of the format. DVD had it good between 1.33 and 1.85 with "anamorphic encoding".

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

What happens when your tripod only has one leg?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1374989/

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by eriaur

lots of HDR worries

you're lucky you only google and don't serve on the RG 24 group.