Black Panther 4K UHD (2018)

[fighthefutureofhd]

I think I'm having a heart attack.

[ROSS.T.G.]

So after pages of pages of saying we are all wrong he didn’t even watch the movie?

[VonMagnum]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

So after pages of pages of saying we are all wrong he didn’t even watch the movie?

No, you didn't read. I said I was waiting on the movie to arrive from England (it just got here yesterday). I was talking about the comparisons to THOR 3 and some other Disney movies, which sounds considerably better than this movie, despite also having strangely low levels. Turned up, it sounds pretty good, not the greatest, but very good. Here, the bass is off the charts turned up to where voices are normal, but the sound effects are way too low. The low volume thing has been an issue with newer Disney releases, but the overall sound quality varies quite a bit, IMO. One some titles, as long as you can get the volume up to where it needs to be (and that could be an issue with some systems), some of them still sound pretty good. Others, do not. LFE in Thor wasn't as high as here, but it still had better sound overall, IMO. Tron Legacy blows both of them away.

[RockyIII]

I watched this in both DV and 3D and the sound sucked in both formats. Like others already stated, master volume must be raised to almost 0 dbl and even then it still sounds like shite

[KcMsterpce]

Originally Posted by VonMagnum

After finally getting to watch the 3D version with 7.1 DTS MasterHD sound, yeah, I'd have to agree the sound is not great. Once, the volume is raised up to where it should be (almost 0dB here once again), the bass levels here are almost crazy loud (almost cool really, except they overdo the earthquake thing in so many scenes that it loses something). Vocals are clear. Surround sounds go to the back often. But sound effects lack "punch" (worse than Thor 3, IMO where it's at least "decent" sounding once the volume it up in that regard--meaning the punches there were better than here, IMO. It's not the worst thing I've ever heard, but it should be better to match the visuals. I don't know what Disney is doing to these soundtracks lately, but some are worse than others). So it's not just the Atmos mix that lacks.

What the- WHAT?

I didn't know why Geoff D was hallelujah-ing, but then I viewed the post.
Now I'm confused... what happened from page 64-69... to this?
Did a roommate come in and take control of someone's computer?

Originally Posted by VonMagnum

No, you didn't read. I said I was waiting on the movie to arrive from England (it just got here yesterday). I was talking about the comparisons to THOR 3 and some other Disney movies, which sounds considerably better than this movie, despite also having strangely low levels. Turned up, it sounds pretty good, not the greatest, but very good. Here, the bass is off the charts turned up to where voices are normal, but the sound effects are way too low. The low volume thing has been an issue with newer Disney releases, but the overall sound quality varies quite a bit, IMO. One some titles, as long as you can get the volume up to where it needs to be (and that could be an issue with some systems), some of them still sound pretty good. Others, do not. LFE in Thor wasn't as high as here, but it still had better sound overall, IMO. Tron Legacy blows both of them away.

Oh, so... dozens of posts about everyone being wrong about the audio on BP, but this whole time you were making examples and comparisons about Thor 3. Hm.

Tron: Legacy was directly referenced as something "good" versus recent Disney flat-sounders, yet there was still debate about it not being about "volume", but about no one understanding fidelity and/or dynamics. Thus, these Disney movies are still deemed "better" than even Tron.
As for Thor 3, I think it has perhaps the worst audio. GotG Vol. 2 sounds "alright" when I raise the volume up several notches, and is better than many of the other ones that people mention. Thor 3, though... ugh.
It's possible that Age of Ultron is just as bad. I wrote in my movie review on my website about how bad it sounded in theater, and my friend and I had just watched GotG at my place an hour before seeing AoU in theater. We walked out and he said, "Yeah... movies sound better at your place." I had to tell him that most movies don't sound THAT bad in theater, but "thanks" lol
I had issues with hearing Ultron's dialog, because James Spader's vocal frequency was a perfect victim to the bad volume setting and the overall Disney Flat-Sound Curse. When I bought the movie, I remember turning the volume WAYYY high at home. However, I didn't spend much time paying attention to it, because I essentially just skipped to some key scenes in which I had no freaking clue what Ultron said, and I wanted to hear those lines. It filled in some of the missing plot elements that I couldn't interpret on my first viewing. I never watched the movie again in its entirety haha

As for BP, I found the bass basically kicks in for most of the R&B tracks, with some notable moments of LFE (the "earthquake rumble" thing you mentioned, I believe) in a few scenes, such as the beginning when the Legend of BP is being narrated... but everything else is just empty and anemic.
I think perhaps the hip hop songs themselves might have been left untouched from the way they were produced, and added to the movie's soundtrack - AFTER the weird audio tweaks were done for the movie's audio channels/levelling (?). There was probably a little bit of coloring from the music as it was produced for final level tweaking, but those strange magic tricks used to make the movie sound like an empty vessel did not color those songs as much as the rest of the movie.
That's a completely unjustified fabrication to present a potentiality; I have zero information that confirms nor denies that. I write, play, record, and mix multi-channel music, have been doing it for 15+ years... there are so many ways to mix audio tracks, with so many different types of tools (physical and software-based) that there's no way for me to explain the Dolby AtMouse enigma more than as an uninformed - but slightly trained - guess.

[lokir1]

Originally Posted by RockyIII

Maybe you are less sensitive to it, I doubt that it is due to calibration. It's in the source. Standard bluray is proof of that.

I have crushed blacks in Dolby vision on my Vizio p-65f1 playing on an oppo 203 the apt scene the jungle rescue scene and the Busan club scene all look horrible in Dolby vision forcing hdr10 these scenes look fine

[mcvitie]

This refuses to load on my Panasonic UB900. Anyone else have similar issues?

[Dreamliner330]

Originally Posted by mcvitie

This refuses to load on my Panasonic UB900. Anyone else have similar issues?

It worked fine on my UB900. Good chance your disc is bad.

[mcvitie]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner330

It worked fine on my UB900. Good chance your disc is bad.

Cheers I'll try an exchange. Lovin your 4K collection btw

[benji888578]

Originally Posted by mcvitie

Cheers I'll try an exchange. Lovin your 4K collection btw

Assuming you've got the latest firmware update?

[benji888578]

Originally Posted by VonMagnum

After finally getting to watch the 3D version with 7.1 DTS MasterHD sound, yeah, I'd have to agree the sound is not great. Once, the volume is raised up to where it should be (almost 0dB here once again), the bass levels here are almost crazy loud (almost cool really, except they overdo the earthquake thing in so many scenes that it loses something). Vocals are clear. Surround sounds go to the back often. But sound effects lack "punch" (worse than Thor 3, IMO where it's at least "decent" sounding once the volume it up in that regard--meaning the punches there were better than here, IMO. It's not the worst thing I've ever heard, but it should be better to match the visuals. I don't know what Disney is doing to these soundtracks lately, but some are worse than others). So it's not just the Atmos mix that lacks.

It DID have a very nice 3D picture, though (didn't notice any crushed blacks and the LG player can actually boost light levels even further making daylight shots in 3D actually look like daylight instead of like having sunglasses on. No more PS4 for BD playback for me).

So you played both Atmos & the DTS audio? Yeah. In the regular cinema, (harder to tell w/IMAX, as they do a special mix for IMAX and it has auto-calibration during the showing), I've noticed the same things about the audio, especially this film and Infinity War. It's not just in the home mix....

Disney seems to have been cutting corners on production they think most people won't notice, to keep up with their schedule, which I really despise. I'm telling you, it's in the production of the audio and the mix.

[VonMagnum]

I've read some studios been leaving out things like "top middle" speakers out of the home mixes as well, although Disney was mentioned, I'm not clear if that was DTS:X (which currently appears to have an 11.x channel limit for home outputs for some reason, theoretically going to be addressed with a firmware update by next year some time) or Atmos (I don't think Disney uses DTS:X, just 7.1 Master HD at home so far, yet I didn't realize "objects" could be left out of an Atmos configuration; I thought it used what you had and that was the whole point of objects).

Either way, limits like that or sloppy mixes are a nice slap for those shelling out a ton of dough for 7.1.6 or 9.1.6 or even greater (Trinnov Altitude 32) type configurations or more. I think I'd rather have a "really great" 5.1 mix than a "bad" Atmos mix with muted sound effects, low volume levels and other weird crap.

[benji888578]

Originally Posted by VonMagnum

I've read some studios been leaving out things like "top middle" speakers out of the home mixes as well, although Disney was mentioned, I'm not clear if that was DTS:X (which currently appears to have an 11.x channel limit for home outputs for some reason, theoretically going to be addressed with a firmware update by next year some time) or Atmos (I don't think Disney uses DTS:X, just 7.1 Master HD at home so far, yet I didn't realize "objects" could be left out of an Atmos configuration; I thought it used what you had and that was the whole point of objects).

Either way, limits like that or sloppy mixes are a nice slap for those shelling out a ton of dough for 7.1.6 or 9.1.6 or even greater (Trinnov Altitude 32) type configurations or more. I think I'd rather have a "really great" 5.1 mix than a "bad" Atmos mix with muted sound effects, low volume levels and other weird crap.

Apparently what is happening is some studios are doing Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 discrete mixes, instead of object based, which is what I thought Atmos was, I didn't even know they could dumb it down like this. I asked about the discussion on this over at avs forum and I've not read all about it yet, but here is where they pointed me to start: https://www.avsforum.com/forum/90-re...l#post56089708

(I'm unsure about if they are doing something similar with DTS:X)

[VonMagnum]

Yeah, I think they've been calling that "Atmos Light" over there. I've read nearly ALL home DTS:X soundtracks are purely channel based, only some import titles have been using objects with DTS at home. I don't know why the studios are doing this. The whole damn point of the Atmos/X is objects that conform to the speakers available to the system rather than set layouts. Are they saving some money on the mixers or something or is it simpler for them to do a mix that way with less time? I have NO IDEA. You'd think Dolby and especially DTS (since they're not using it properly at all in the West) would put their collective feet down. Ironically, Auro 3D's home format is all channel based (what the mixers seem to prefer) and it gets almost no attention at all save a dozen titles in Europe and a lot of music. Its upmixer (Auromatic) is pretty popular with some people, though.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by VonMagnum

Yeah, I think they've been calling that "Atmos Light" over there. I've read nearly ALL home DTS:X soundtracks are purely channel based, only some import titles have been using objects with DTS at home. I don't know why the studios are doing this. The whole damn point of the Atmos/X is objects that conform to the speakers available to the system rather than set layouts. Are they saving some money on the mixers or something or is it simpler for them to do a mix that way with less time? I have NO IDEA. You'd think Dolby and especially DTS (since they're not using it properly at all in the West) would put their collective feet down. Ironically, Auro 3D's home format is all channel based (what the mixers seem to prefer) and it gets almost no attention at all save a dozen titles in Europe and a lot of music. Its upmixer (Auromatic) is pretty popular with some people, though.

According to FilmMixer on AVS, the Atmos mix sessions (normally done in Pro Tools with the Atmos Production Suite) still use object panning and this option to do a fixed speaker position print-out was only really added for streaming and ATSC 3.0 broadcasts as object based tracks take up more space and bandwidth. It was never meant to be used for disc based Atmos tracks.



Disney and a few others seem to be deliberately rendering out channel-based Atmos tracks without objects. Whether it's to do a catch-all Atmos encode, so they don't have to render two separate tracks, one for streaming, one for disc and they go with the lowest common denominator... who knows?



All I know is that this rush to move toward streaming is lowering the quality for EVERYTHING.

[benji888578]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

According to FilmMixer on AVS, the Atmos mix sessions (normally done in Pro Tools with the Atmos Production Suite) still use object panning and this option to do a fixed speaker position print-out was only really added for streaming and ATSC 3.0 broadcasts as object based tracks take up more space and bandwidth. It was never meant to be used for disc based Atmos tracks.



Disney and a few others seem to be deliberately rendering out channel-based Atmos tracks without objects. Whether it's to do a catch-all Atmos encode, so they don't have to render two separate tracks, one for streaming, one for disc and they go with the lowest common denominator... who knows?



All I know is that this rush to move toward streaming is lowering the quality for EVERYTHING.

Disney does seem to be cutting corners to keep their schedule, and are doing things for their own streaming service, long term, ...audio is an area where the average consumer might not care as much, or even notice, so, what you say makes total sense, though I find it to be a turn toward lower quality that might bite them in the long-term.

However, I thought DD+ Atmos (for streaming) was identical to Dolby True HD Atmos except for being a lossy encode? Are you saying DD+ Atmos is discrete channel based?

...It's just that, when I read about Dolby Atmos a few years ago, it was all about the fact it's object based, so, it would work with up to 128 channels in a cinema and up to 24 channels in the home, but, if the cinema only had a 7.1.10 (or less) channel setup, it would utilize that setup, just like in the home, AVRs could start out at 5.1.2 or 7.1.4, (later 11.2.8) and the same object based audio would "steer" to the appropriate speakers in any given setup. This all makes sense to me, (and sorry, might not be describing it well), what doesn't make sense is:

1) If they are already doing an Atmos mix for Dolby Atmos cinemas, don't they already have an object based mix, they should just be able to remaster that for the home, right? (What kind of audio do the cinemas get anyway? I would think Dolby True HD Atmos or DTS HD MA 7.1 or PCM would be standards used, but, I have no idea.)

2) Unless there has been an issue with compatibility somewhere along the line I have not heard about? As far as I know, the backward compatible Atmos tracks work just fine in 5.1 or 7.1 setups, (I've played Atmos HD blu-ray tracks in older 7.1 or 5.1 AVRs just fine.)

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by benji888578

Disney does seem to be cutting corners to keep their schedule, and are doing things for their own streaming service, long term, ...audio is an area where the average consumer might not care as much, or even notice, so, what you say makes total sense, though I find it to be a turn toward lower quality that might bite them in the long-term.

However, I thought DD+ Atmos (for streaming) was identical to Dolby True HD Atmos except for being a lossy encode? Are you saying DD+ Atmos is discrete channel based?

...It's just that, when I read about Dolby Atmos a few years ago, it was all about the fact it's object based, so, it would work with up to 128 channels in a cinema and up to 24 channels in the home, but, if the cinema only had a 7.1.10 (or less) channel setup, it would utilize that setup, just like in the home, AVRs could start out at 5.1.2 or 7.1.4, (later 11.2.8) and the same object based audio would "steer" to the appropriate speakers in any given setup. This all makes sense to me, (and sorry, might not be describing it well), what doesn't make sense is:

1) If they are already doing an Atmos mix for Dolby Atmos cinemas, don't they already have an object based mix, they should just be able to remaster that for the home, right? (What kind of audio do the cinemas get anyway? I would think Dolby True HD Atmos or DTS HD MA 7.1 or PCM would be standards used, but, I have no idea.)

2) Unless there has been an issue with compatibility somewhere along the line I have not heard about? As far as I know, the backward compatible Atmos tracks work just fine in 5.1 or 7.1 setups, (I've played Atmos HD blu-ray tracks in older 7.1 or 5.1 AVRs just fine.)

Cinema Atmos has 62.2 outputs... a 9.1 channel "bed" plus space for an additional 118 discrete, per-speaker-addressable audio objects at one time (no mix to-date has gone that hog wild).



Home Atmos has the capability (whether or not a studio now utilizes it is another matter) of 34.1 outputs (24.1.10)... a 7.1 channel + 2 fixed object "bed" (for backwards compatibility with BDA requirements of a maximum of 8 channels per audio format) plus a maximum of approx. 20-some discrete objects at one time. If the cinema mix has more than the maximum object "slots" filled, then the extra objects are lumped together using spatial compression where objects with similar coordinates are placed with other like objects and their positioning and speaker addressing becomes more multi-speaker/grid-like rather than granular and per-speaker.



According to Filmmixer, most cinema Atmos tracks tend to have about the same amount of objects as the home Atmos version as too many objects zipping around make for a very cluttered and busy mix. At one time, he stated the translation from cinema to home Atmos was mostly an automated process (with minor tweaks to objects that go astray or got buried in the cinema mix) + the standard near-field adjustments to kill off the X-Curve (making cinema mixes too treble heavy for the home), plus some light (emphasis on light) reEQ and dynamic range control so as not to create a HOT mix that can destroy most home speakers. With Disney, they go WAAAAAY too far on the latter.

[RockyIII]

Not sure what was worse, the bad atmos track or the bad CG final batte scene.
Loved the costume designs though!

[mrmerol13]

I wonder if one day Disney will remaster this to sell again, in like a "4K Diamond edition" with upgraded sound track

[imsounoriginal]

I think you mean Vibranium Edition.