Hymn: Sarah Brightman in Concert 4K UHD (2018)

[McCrutchy]

Dreamusic / Ward Records released Hymn: Sarah Brightman in Concert (2018) on December 22nd, 2021.

[McCrutchy]

Because I'm always looking for unusual titles on 4K UHD, I had this in a to buy list and noticed that it may be heading out of print, so I picked up a copy and am watching it now.

This is technically an Eagle Rock / Universal Music disc, but for whatever reason, it was only released by the Japanese licensee, Dreamusic, whose distributor is Ward Records. I believe Dreamusic did their own encode, just like Ward Records does their own encoding for other Eagle Rock titles in Japan.

The video is 2160p at 59.94 fps in SDR. Audio options are the same as the Eagle Rock Blu-ray (which I don't own and haven't seen) and include LPCM 2.0 (the default), DTS-HD MA 5.1 (which was left off the cover and obi strip) and Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 core) in that order, while all audio tracks appear to be 48 kHz, 24-bit.

There are optional Japanese subtitles only for the very small amount of dialogue during the concert, none of which occurs until the 55th minute of the film. All dialogue is in English.

In his review of the Eagle Rock Blu-ray, Jeff mentions "some minor banding (probably exacerbated by the use of dry ice and/or stage "fog") and a couple of moments of combing artifacts in some fast movement (noticeable when the string players are in the frame)". These issues are virtually non-existent on this 4K UHD disc, though as ever, there may be some banding and posterization hiding from me, as I'm not the most eagle-eyed (sorry) person out there. I will say that there is a ton of dry ice used here, and the scan of the Blu-ray I found showed a 1080i AVC encode at just 19997 kbps (with a disc size of 36,610,035,479 bytes and a feature size of 25,771,094,016 bytes), so perhaps it's not surprising that the Blu-ray struggles to present an immaculate image. The packaging claims the 4K UHD is a 100 GB disc, but I only see two rings on the data side, so it looks like a 66 GB disc to me. The video bitrate goes from the 30s to over 110 Mbps, but mostly stays in the 40s to the 80s.

The 4K UHD has the same 49 minutes of extras as the Blu-ray, here nominally in HEVC 4K SDR and 59.94 fps. Not that it really matters, but the video does not look as impressive as the concert, so the extras could easily be upscaled from 1080 resolution. Here there are also some conversion issues, with slight stuttering visible, especially in the interviews for the album production and track-by-track album review extras. Audio is Music / English: LPCM 2.0 (48 kHz, 16-bit), with optional Japanese subtitles where necessary. The menus look identical to the Eagle Rock Blu-ray and are entirely in English.

The disc comes in a clear amaray case, which unfortunately is DVD-sized, and includes a full-color leaflet in English (which must also be in the Eagle Rock releases) and has credits for the songs and the Eagle Rock Blu-ray and DVD mastering. There is also a smaller black and white leaflet, with commentary in Japanese. Unfortunately, there are no credits to be found for the 4K UHD mastering or authoring and the only other content on the 4K UHD disc which I can find is a Dreamusic logo when the disc loads and a Japanese copyright screen after the concert film ends.

I'm not that familiar with Sarah Brightman or classical crossover music in general, but this concert was very interesting, visually impressive and slickly produced, without the rapid-fire editing that has ruined many modern concert films. The film only runs 98 minutes and it rather flies by, so much so that I was surprised when it was over. I'm very pleased with the purchase and if you're already a Brightman fan, you should probably pick up a copy.