Ghostbusters 4K UHD (1984)

[JimDiGriz]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

IMO it's more a question of both gamma and PQ being EOTFs that film's logarithmic response was never designed to be displayed in, so they both need care and sensitivity to ensure the best possible translation of the intent from film to video. While HDR can undoubtedly display more of the range of an image, the question is always how much of that image was meant to be displayed?

That question still keeps some folks awake at night but for me it circles back around to my first point: by definition a video transfer is a revision and it's safe to say that plenty of Blu-rays that people have ogled over the years had very little to do with the original creative intent. Not that two wrongs make a right when it comes to HDR's inherently wider scope for revisionism, but unless something is such a radical departure that it no longer resembles the movie that I know then I can usually live with it, and that applies to SDR just as much as HDR. I've still yet to see anything on HDR that was as batshit insane as the first Blu-ray of The French Connection, say.

And yes, HDR as an EOTF can exaggerate grain but let's not forget that most of these proper 4K transfers like GB are going back to the camera negatives, thereby unveiling the grain in a way that was arguably never meant to be seen in the first place. They knew full well that - negative or "show" prints and 70mm blowups aside - their images would be refracted through a copy of a copy of a copy which wasn't a lossless process in the analogue domain, losing high frequency detail with every step and ultimately affecting the grain along with it, turning it into something softer yet more coarsely defined at the same time. With these o-neg transfers we're getting the grain resolved in a much finer but more densely concentrated form, hence the swarm-o-vision that people are experiencing, including myself to some degree before I finally nailed down my settings.

Anyhoo, after seeing this thread get resurrected I popped GB in last night to flick through a few scenes. My God, it's beautiful. Grainy as balls to be sure, it will not be to everyone's taste and can be pushed into unwatchable hideousness depending on settings and displays and whatnot, but there's so much detail and filmic texture there it's like watching a pristine negative print only with the added kick of HDR. Wow wow wow.

Congrats Geoff. Youve now made me keep an eye out for Ghostbusters 4K now! Im pretty happy with the remastered blu but comments here have persuaded me.

[TheSweetieMan]

Easily my favorite catalogue release on the format so far in terms of video quality.

[ROSS.T.G.]

Originally Posted by JimDiGriz

Congrats Geoff. Youve now made me keep an eye out for Ghostbusters 4K now! Im pretty happy with the remastered blu but comments here have persuaded me.

You will NOT regret it.

[imsounoriginal]

Been dragging my feet on this one. Keep hoping to find a cheap used copy but it hasn't happened yet. Gonna just grab it next time Amazon or BB has it on sale.

[jj5206]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

Been dragging my feet on this one. Keep hoping to find a cheap used copy but it hasn't happened yet. Gonna just grab it next time Amazon or BB has it on sale.

Amazon is doing a 3 for $50 on select 4k titles until the end of the month. Ghostbusters 1 and 2 are part of the sale. I think i'll end up doing that to get those.

[ROSS.T.G.]

GB2 looks really nice as well.

[JimDiGriz]

Originally Posted by ROSS.T.G.

GB2 looks really nice as well.

I bet it does. It always did look better than the first one in terms of PQ.

[ROSS.T.G.]

Originally Posted by JimDiGriz

I bet it does. It always did look better than the first one in terms of PQ.

It’s a little cleaner looking. The HDR pass is a little more refined. I watched them back to back and it’s the first thing I noticed. Fans of the era and movies won’t be disappointed.

[guachi]

Indeed GB2 is cleaner looking. GB1 has obvious grain.

Unfortunately GB2 isn't nearly as good of a movie. It's like a pale imitation with too much similarity to the original.

From a technical standpoint I give Sony credit yet again for producing a UHD that looks as good as can be expected. It really did remind me of watching a movie in a theater. Albeit a really small theater.

[bradnoyes]

Shameful that it took so long but I finally grabbed these with Amazon's "3 for $50" sale. My son likes watching Answer the Call and it's really weird to me that the older movies won't be his first experience with the franchise. Speaking of first experiences, the original Ghostbusters was the first movie I saw in the theater and the opening library scene scared the **** out of me.

[imsounoriginal]

Watching this now, nothing to add to what others have said for months. This thing looks just about perfect. Only minor quibble would be that black levels are a little high. HDR seems relatively subtle so far. The grain doesn't bother me but I can see how others would call it overbearing. Anyway, great movie and disc.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

Watching this now, nothing to add to what others have said for months. This thing looks just about perfect. Only minor quibble would be that black levels are a little high. HDR seems relatively subtle so far. The grain doesn't bother me but I can see how others would call it overbearing. Anyway, great movie and disc.

I saw this in a 4K theater in 2014 for its 30th anniversary. The 4K UHD is about identical to what I saw on screen.

[Darthbooth1978]

Just watched this today, and while I found the Grain distracting at first, I also couldn’t stop thinking how great it looked too. It gave me a feeling I’ve never had before when watching previous releases on VHS/LASERDISC/DVD/BLU, that it took me back to the feeling of seeing it at the cinema all those years ago? I don’t know why, given that I would have been seven years old back then, and wouldn’t have any detailed memories about the picture, but it did. I would like to ask though, and forgive my naivety as I don’t know anything about film grain etc...but why would something like Ghostbusters look so grainy on 4K, and yet something like Blade Runner which was released two years earlier not look as grainy? Just curious

[brainofj72]

To my eyes, Blade Runner on UHD doesn’t look as grainy as it should. I have a feeling WB has been applying some subtle grain management to their catalog titles, and as a result, Sony’s work looks far superior, IMO. Nothing WB has released even comes close to either Ghostbusters disc in terms of fine detail.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by brainofj72

To my eyes, Blade Runner on UHD doesn’t look as grainy as it should. I have a feeling WB has been applying some subtle grain management to their catalog titles, and as a result, Sony’s work looks far superior, IMO. Nothing WB has released even comes close to either Ghostbusters disc in terms of fine detail.

Funny, I'm about to post something along those lines in the TDK trilogy thread. That said, Blade Runner is still easily the grainiest of any Warners catalogue do-over I've yet seen, perhaps to the point where their (or rather their authoring house's) encoder has shit the bed but I've done that argument to death so I'll leave that there.

[HeavyHitter]

This might have been posted already, but capaholics has the 4K comparisons uploaded. I don't have a 4K monitor, but the UHD increase in detail and grain very evident even at 1080p. GBII is posted as well. I need to grab both of these movies on the next sale.

https://www.caps-a-holic.com/c.php?g...110713&i=0&l=0

[The Fallen Deity]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

This might have been posted already, but capaholics has the 4K comparisons uploaded. I don't have a 4K monitor, but the UHD increase in detail and grain very evident even at 1080p. GBII is posted as well. I need to grab both of these movies on the next sale.

https://www.caps-a-holic.com/c.php?g...110713&i=0&l=0

Absolutely beautiful.

[HeavyHitter]

What's pretty cool as is the case on many UHD BDs sourced from 35mm....the grain (and thus, overall detail) takes on a more resolved, tighter look which looks even better in motion and the larger the screen to seating distance, the more this shows. The BD grain looks more globular and larger from the lack of resolution (and probably encoding to some extent). You're getting that much closer to the original source with UHD BD.

[The Fallen Deity]

It looks like the HDR was done really tastefully for both films.

Sony have done a great job.

[guachi]

I've said this before, but the grain on Ghostbusters was very distracting at first. As others have said, though, the UHD has better resolved grain and it's not as blobby as you'd get on a Blu-ray (though I'm still impressed by how nice, for example, the Blu-ray of The Adventures of Captain Marvel serial from 1940 looks. I guess it's relative after seeing so many poor quality old B-movies

I really feel like I'm watching a movie at a theater... in my house. I'm sure I saw Ghostbusters in the theater; it was the hit of the summer of 1984 when I was eleven. But every OTHER time I saw it was in a relatively low quality DVD or VHS.

It's such a wonderful feeling seeing something again... for the first time. Bring on the high quality catalog UHD releases, I say!