Titanic 4K UHD (1997)

[lilboyblu]

Originally Posted by cgpublic

I stopped by Best Buy on my lunch break for a bit of Christmas shopping, where I caught a whiff of reality.

Not a single Titanic, Indiana Jones, Oppenheimer or Barbie UHD or Blu-ray on display. Not one.

I stopped at Best Buy yesterday and saw the empty slots of where all those had been. There was a single ripped slipcover Titanic and a single slipless Barbie left, but the others were cleaned out. Even checking online, they all look to be sold out at stores in my metro area.

[BrandonJF]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Bill Paxton looks like Bodhi from Point Break now

Wow. "Now." This 4K has completely changed his entire look.

[dorian]

Originally Posted by KMFDMvsEnya

Thank you and that is very interesting.

If you get a chance it would illuminating and appreciated if you could do similar with the other comparisons I posted.

The frames are slightly off but the comparison is still valid. I think all the 2012 publicity frames released were from a 2k master that have since been resized and compressed and who knows what else.

Here's a comparison of the two, overlaid

The UHD, being 4k, clearly has more detail. You can see the lace front on Billy Zane's wig. The UHD unfortunately has more digital manipulation too with what looks like noise reduction, then sharpening.

Here's a comparison of the chroma channel/s (histograms stretched for better visibility)

The 2012 publicity shot has been heavily compressed, hence the lower res and macroblocking. The UHD is strange. There is enough chroma detail to delineate strands of hair but no dye clouds whatsoever.

Here's a comparison of the luma channel

[KMFDMvsEnya]

Originally Posted by dorian

The frames are slightly off but the comparison is still valid. I think all the 2012 publicity frames released were from a 2k master that have since been resized and compressed and who knows what else.

Here's a comparison of the two, overlaid

The UHD, being 4k, clearly has more detail. You can see the lace front on Billy Zane's wig. The UHD unfortunately has more digital manipulation too with what looks like noise reduction, then sharpening.

Here's a comparison of the chroma channel/s (histograms stretched for better visibility)

The 2012 publicity shot has been heavily compressed, hence the lower res and macroblocking. The UHD is strange. There is enough chroma detail to delineate strands of hair but no dye clouds whatsoever.

Here's a comparison of the luma channel

Thank you.

[matbezlima]

Originally Posted by cgpublic

Everyone here is entitled to an opinion about this or any other disc, but a word of caution relative to the usual rhetoric. I stopped by Best Buy on my lunch break for a bit of Christmas shopping, where I caught a whiff of reality.

Not a single Titanic, Indiana Jones, Oppenheimer or Barbie UHD or Blu-ray on display. Not one.

What's on display?

Newly released titles that will likely sell no more than a few titles and overstock unlikely to sell a single copy more, some in Black Friday shippers, the others in a single display rack.

What that means is simply the overwhelming majority of viewers will be watching the above via a streaming service or a digital storefront, most likely in Standard mode with motion smoothing on compounded by a flavor of AI-branded image enhancement.

And there you have it, rhetoric versus reality.

Again the fallacy that most people have motion smoothing turned on in their TVs, I thought I had debunked this in the American Graffiti thread. Not in my experience, I see plenty of TVs on Movie Mode by default. Also, even just having motion smoothing turned on doesn't necessarily mean that one likes it. What it means is that it was on by default, and a lot of people are afraid of tinkering with settings, and wouldn't be even be able to know why exactly it looks off. I showed motion smoothing to my middle-brother, and he immediately noticed it looked weird. He couldn't say why though, he just said "it feels like the movie is played at the wrong speed". And some TVs don't have motion smoothing at all.

Also, different modes on TVs have different levels of motion smoothing. Some are far more noticeable than others. Us can probably tell any motion smoothing from miles away. Some people may only tell that something is off in higher and more aggressive settings of motion smoothing (the sensibility to motion smoothing varies wildly from person to person, though perhaps 30FPS would still be seen as a fine by a lot of people, while 48FPS gets plenty of people even feeling sick of theaters, such as The Hobbit screenings or Gemini Man). Vivid Mode usually has it at Max, blatantly noticeable. Standard usually has it at a far lower level. And Movie will often have it at zero. And then you have low settings that apply a subtle amount of motion smoothing, like Cinematic Motion in LG OLEDs, to minimize stutter while maybe even fooling some of us into thinking there is no motion smoothing at all.

Sharpening at Max sucks. It just looks so bad. In TVs that apply some sharpening by default, they will generally leave it in a setting low enough that it doesn't turn the whole screen into an ugly and very obvious sharpening mess, they will try to make the image look something like this Titanic transfer (though obviously with nowhere near the same level of work here to keep the artifacts at control).

[matbezlima]

Originally Posted by Cvalda

You're right! I haven't seen that disc in over ten years and it has not aged well. Anyway, here's the actual 4K shot, which looks even worse.

This shot feels "hard". The texture of his skin. That's how I would describe the sharpening here. That said, it's subtle to the point that many people aren't gonna notice. Hell, maybe I wouldn't notice without looking at the static frame and zooming in.

[Poya]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Cameron doesn't OWN his movies. He produced them via Lightstorm but didn't pay for them (a la Lucas) so they are still owned by their respective parties. But what Cameron has is contractual sway over said movies, from guaranteeing he has final cut to explicit approval of any new transfers. And due to the latter they have to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

Or Shyamalan. LOL. Dude's been paying for his own movies since The Visit.

[Jbabler]

Popped it in for a continued look - starting at the spot where Jack rescues Rose and the official "meet cute" on the first class deck. I have to say, my second impressions are more favorable than the first. Guess I'll keep the disc after all.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Jbabler

Popped it in for a continued look - starting at the spot where Jack rescues Rose and the official "meet cute" on the first class deck. I have to say, my second impressions are more favorable than the first. Guess I'll keep the disc after all.

I put my faith in you, good sir

[cgpublic]

Originally Posted by matbezlima

Again the fallacy that most people have motion smoothing turned on in their TVs, I thought I had debunked this in the American Graffiti thread.

While I'm sure you have anecdotal evidence to the contrary, that by itself doesn't 'debunk' the facts specific to how the overwhelming number of consumers watch a movie at home, especially a title such as Titanic, hand in hand with the default settings for TVs shipped from the factory.

To give additional context to the above, consider the fact the industry have made available to consumers a superior standard, Blu-ray/UHD, granted with an incremental cost expenditure, and the majority have chosen DVD.

Those in the home entertainment industry are no different than ourselves, in that they live in the world as it is, not as we want it to be. It's the inconvenient truth, the one that provides all the answers to why things are the way things are, popular titles which no longer appear filmic, empty shelves, etcetera, etcetera.

Or in other words, it's where rhetoric meets reality, redux.

Let's count our blessings that there are still a few studios and boutique labels serving a niche market for those of us who still believe that films shot on film should look like film.

[IndyMLVC]

Amazon now has this for $43 for the regular price. WTF is going on??

[blakninja]

Originally Posted by IndyMLVC

Amazon now has this for $43 for the regular price. WTF is going on??

Price always changes.. it might drop back soon.. I'm sure on boxing day it will drop too.

[THF90]

It’s been $43 on Amazon for at least 2-3 days.

[tsaville]

Amazon did the same with Oppenheimer when it was backordered, then dropped the price when it was back in stock. Titanic must be selling well...

[The Collector FX]

Per the Collectors Edition review on this website;

"...Of course the movie is one of the best ever made,"

With an outrageously arrogant statement like that, is anyone genuinely surprised the UHD quality review got called "perfect"? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion in regards to how much they enjoy a movie and put it on their personal, arbitrary GOAT list - but it's another thing when you present it as an uncontested fact.

Whoever did the review has zero regard for professionalism.

[spanky87]

I made a poll where people can vote if they think the UHD presentation of Titanic is great or not:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=369016

Curious about the results, but I think it’ll mostly be positive.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Poya

Or Shyamalan. LOL. Dude's been paying for his own movies since The Visit.

And making a profit, just like Cameron, only on a much smaller scale.

[blakninja]

Cameron should be careful with the AI tools he uses for remastering his movies.. one day the AI will take over and change his movies without consent.

[Jodi]

Originally Posted by IndyMLVC

Amazon now has this for $43 for the regular price. WTF is going on??

Good thing I only spent $31 at Best Buy today (12/8).

[punisher]

Originally Posted by GloveSlap

I don't have the disc yet, but have read the whole thread.

I just want to say to those that go deep on the transfer critiquing, keep doing it. I come here to be informed on potential purchases. I want to know everything, praise included.

On the subject of the director's word being gospel, it depends. The same person separated by decades of time isn't really the same person anymore. Tastes change.

but this is not an "owners only" thread..so beware of false info from 2nd and 3rd party trolls...