List of UHDs that include a new Blu-ray

[Brandon K]

Preamble

The goal of this thread is to help Blu-ray fans who haven't yet made the upgrade to 4K to find 4K catalog releases that they might want to purchase because the Blu-ray included with the 4K is NOT an old disc but rather is, and this is the criteria for this list:

a new Blu-ray encode that has been created from the same new master / transfer / etc used for the 4K UHD.

There are so many films that have low bitrate, VC1, inferior audio, etc on their initial Blu-ray release or even in subsequent re-releases, that need an updated Blu-ray. With 4K now, catalog titles especially may not be seeing new Blu-ray releases, but are being released on 4K instead, and the included Blu-rays may or may not be just the original releases.

This list will help fans find movies with new Blu-ray masters, identify problems with those releases (which is also sadly an issue), and future proof for an eventual upgrade.

Anything worthy of note mentioned in this thread regarding the new Blu-ray version, such as new grading (for better or worse), improved audio (specifically what the audio is), etc, will be included at the bottom of this post.

This list relies on the feedback in this thread. Please contribute if you can! Please post releases with the "bd" bbcode so that there's no confusion regarding country or studio. And if you see a mistake, just point it out and I'll correct it.

List of UHDs that include a NEW Blu-ray using a NEW master

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Notes

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - "the UHD version of the new transfer preserves the lowlights which the new BD crushes down to shit." [source]

It's A Wonderful Life - UK release, NOT US release.

Matrix - One review on this site says: "Warner seems to have opted for a poor SDR conversion made out of the HDR UHD disc... and it looks terrible. Luminance is all over the place: white tones are brighter than they should be, contrasts are completely washed out and color grading looks nothing like Bill Pope's cinematography (I mean from the 2004 re-issue mastering). It could have been a very strong disc, but this is just unwatchable."

Shawshank Redemption - Non NA releases only.

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Batman Begins - NOT included on the list because: "Batman Begins does NOT use the newer 4K transfer for the pack-in BD, it's the previous transfer given a new AVC encode and DTS-HD 5.1 audio (old release was VC-1 and Dobly TrueHD 5.1)."

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - NOT included on the list because: "It should be noted that the new Tomb Raider disc uses an old 2009 AVC encode however. The lossless audio is new though."

Prestige (non-US, WB not Disney) - NOT included on the list because: "Prestige is not a new master, it's a re-encode that does improve on the UK's original release (codec) and the US's original release (bitrate), but it's the same old master."