The Abyss 4K UHD (1989)

[themadpanner]

I am in the uk and the digital code won’t work so I have one, any takers.

[chelray1]

Originally Posted by themadpanner

I am in the uk and the digital code won’t work so I have one, any takers.

sure pm it my way. I cant get Abyss right now because its out of stock

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Croweyes1121

Not sure how that's possible. If both players were actually playing back the same track, you'd hear the same thing. Surely one of them must be doing something differently than the other.

Right? If I use my UHD test disc of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - which has a DD 5.1 backup that's gotta be at least 20 seconds out of sync with the picture - then both players perform identically, the DTHD is decoded properly and the stupidly out of sync backup is decoded properly. But with these Camerons...

[deadmanjones57]

Originally Posted by geomon

Didn't we just get a 4K release of Paprika that was AI upscaled that looked pretty good (outside of some line smearing)? At least to me it did.

I watched the Paprika 4K and it looked absolutely astonishing, especially for an upscaled animated film which tend to look a little funky sometimes. I don't want to give any hard-leaning opinions on using artificial intelligence for upscaling, though I will say it tends to be used a lot more commonly on animated films because of the medium. The Abyss probably was not a good film to use such techniques in that regard.

[Jutty]

Originally Posted by timfitz99

I got mine at Walmart. I'll try a refund too. Did your replacement work? I'm keeping the slip though just in case

It sure did,, but i bought my replacement from Target. ( same day i got my refund , i went ahead and ordered 2x Abyss & 2x Aliens from Target..long story)

[Pointlesstime]

Still patiently waiting for Amazon to get this back in stock.

[Trixter]

I'm a little worried about how it's out of stock everywhere (amazon, target, walmart, best buy). I missed the announcement and wasn't able to order it, but want to. Does anyone know if it was a limited pressing, or if they are working on making more?

[kishiro]

Originally Posted by Trixter

I'm a little worried about how it's out of stock everywhere (amazon, target, walmart, best buy). I missed the announcement and wasn't able to order it, but want to. Does anyone know if it was a limited pressing, or if they are working on making more?

It was not limited. They didn't quite anticipate the demand. The amount pressed these days are less than it used to be because of streaming. I guess there will be a new batch coming pretty soon.

[BirthofSerpents]

Originally Posted by Trixter

I'm a little worried about how it's out of stock everywhere (amazon, target, walmart, best buy). I missed the announcement and wasn't able to order it, but want to. Does anyone know if it was a limited pressing, or if they are working on making more?

I even preordered and didn't get it. At least I'm supposed to get Aliens tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

[crazy brit]

Mine showed up from Amazon today, with a slip cover. Keep the faith

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by peppapigstan

AI for upscaling isn't actually the worst option ever, we've seen Discotek use AstroRes for anime that have lower quality elements that will stick out from higher quality footage (Memories, Urusei Yatsura: Only You, and Violence Jack) or anime that deserve to be on Blu-ray but don't have the best sources available (Digimon or Re:Cutie Honey) and those turned out good for the most part (not a fan of the Shaman King upscale though)

Originally Posted by deadmanjones57

I watched the Paprika 4K and it looked absolutely astonishing, especially for an upscaled animated film which tend to look a little funky sometimes. I don't want to give any hard-leaning opinions on using artificial intelligence for upscaling, though I will say it tends to be used a lot more commonly on animated films because of the medium. The Abyss probably was not a good film to use such techniques in that regard.

But that's just it, isn't it? 2D animation is, let's be honest, not the most detailed medium around so there's not a lot there for the AI to f*ck up. It can latch on to the clean, contrasty line art and go from there and in that respect it's not so different from regular sharpening, it's all about enhancing contrasting edges, it can just do so without causing all the shitty artefacts that old-school sharpening creates (it just creates a load of weird new artefacts instead, lol). Same with video games to be honest, matey keeps bibbling on about them too but there's a certain geometric certainty to graphics that makes it easier for the AI to process, as well as an inherent 'uncanny valley' to the graphics so the AI isn't making it look any weirder.

Bombshell of the week: video games ain't live action, animation ain't live action. There's a certain mathematical unknown about real peoples which AI is desperately poor at recreating for full motion video in 4K rez. Yes it'll get betterer blah blah blah, but again: it was never needed for ANY of these Camerons in the first place, and never will be needed for anything with a cut negative.

Titanic and exspecially The Abuse look so good because there's so much information there in those 4K masters to begin with, the AI is just providing a finishing touch and they'd have looked 99% as good without the AI (or rather betterer still, as the film grain would be intact) so aren't poster children for how amazing the process is, they're merely proof of how superfluous it is. Aliens and True Lies are starting with much more challenging sources, be they 2K, or swarming with coarse grain, or shot softly/more out of focus than not, and the AI is struggling badly with all of those facets. Not ready for prime time.

[Ben_UK]

Originally Posted by kishiro

It was not limited. They didn't quite anticipate the demand. The amount pressed these days are less than it used to be because of streaming. I guess there will be a new batch coming pretty soon.

The fact that its not been available on disc for 20+ years, combined with the fact that at the moment its a US only release, I guess meant that not only all the 4K collectors in the US but also those all over the world have been trying to import a US copy. They should have seen it coming frankly.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

But that's just it, isn't it? 2D animation is, let's be honest, not the most detailed medium around so there's not a lot there for the AI to f*ck up. It can latch on to the clean, contrasty line art and go from there and in that respect it's not so different from regular sharpening, it's all about enhancing contrasting edges, it can just do so without causing all the shitty artefacts that old-school sharpening creates (it just creates a load of weird new artefacts instead, lol). Same with video games to be honest, matey keeps bibbling on about them too but there's a certain geometric certainty to graphics that makes it easier for the AI to process, as well as an inherent 'uncanny valley' to the graphics so the AI isn't making it look any weirder.

Bombshell of the week: video games ain't live action, animation ain't live action. There's a certain mathematical unknown about real peoples which AI is desperately poor at recreating for full motion video in 4K rez. Yes it'll get betterer blah blah blah, but again: it was never needed for ANY of these Camerons in the first place, and never will be needed for anything with a cut negative.

Titanic and exspecially The Abuse look so good because there's so much information there in those 4K masters to begin with, the AI is just providing a finishing touch and they'd have looked 99% as good without the AI (or rather betterer still, as the film grain would be intact) so aren't poster children for how amazing the process is, they're merely proof of how superfluous it is. Aliens and True Lies are starting with much more challenging sources, be they 2K, or swarming with coarse grain, or shot softly/more out of focus than not, and the AI is struggling badly with all of those facets. Not ready for prime time.

Are you kidding? Gaming is a complicated beast due to the constant rapid movement and sometimes multiple different textures applied to backgrounds, objects, etc.. Add real time A.I raytracing to that, and it’s far from straightforward.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Are you kidding? Gaming is a complicated beast due to the constant rapid movement and sometimes multiple different textures applied to backgrounds, objects, etc.. Add real time A.I raytracing to that, and it’s far from straightforward.

It's data. Cold hard data, all generated entirely out of ones and zeros to begin with, that the AI can use. It's got to do it in real time, yes, but if it's not smart enough to do that then it shouldn't be called an AI. But something shot on film, especially something as grainy as Aliens, presents an entirely different challenge because of the inherent randomness of celluloid from literally one frame to the next. And AI is not a catch-all, they certainly couldn't use the same AI that does such "complicated" things with gaming for upscaling film, or if they did then they were idiots and it proves that the human factor was indeed the failure here, not the tech.

[Vincanws]

The cheapest I can find to buy this US copy new for my collection in UK is £47.99 right now without trying my luck with bidding … Before I take the plunge does anyone know of somewhere like wowhd had that has some stock going for cheaper?

[sojrner]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Are you kidding? Gaming is a complicated beast due to the constant rapid movement and sometimes multiple different textures applied to backgrounds, objects, etc.. Add real time A.I raytracing to that, and it’s far from straightforward.

Remember that, today, most "A.I." is just an algorithm in software development that (sometimes) operates on a larger data model for comparison processing than what is readily available in its current environment. (think upscaling interpolation where instead of looking at only the pixels to the left and right, it compares thousands of similar images to determine what color that new pixel might be) It's only slapped with the AI moniker for marketing purposes and is no more artificially intelligent than what was used to render Toy Story in the 90s or produce Google search results in the early aughts. It can just process more data more faster, appearing more smarter.

Nothing here is saying real-time game rendering is not complicated. The thing to realize is that in rendering you have a built-in expectation from the player/audience that "it's not real," which gives latitude for uncanny-valleyness. Waxy face, janky walk, rubbery lip movements? Yeah, it's not like I'm in a movie or looking at a photo, right? Real-time rendering for games is better every day, but "photo-realism" is still anything but. (just like the AI label) We accept a ton of oddities in graphical animation (real-time or otherwise) that just do not fly in live-action movies.

Running around a game environment that looks close to Tron Legacy garners high praise indeed, yet the rendered young Jeff Bridges is not acceptable as anything but an obvious NPC bot in live action. You take a real human face and make it look like game graphics, and no matter how much you sprinkle new grain on it, it's still not right, whether or not you can tell a normal map from a road map.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by sojrner

Remember that, today, most "A.I." is just an algorithm in software development that (sometimes) operates on a larger data model for comparison processing than what is readily available in its current environment. (think upscaling interpolation where instead of looking at only the pixels to the left and right, it compares thousands of similar images to determine what color that new pixel might be) It's only slapped with the AI moniker for marketing purposes and is no more artificially intelligent than what was used to render Toy Story in the 90s or produce Google search results in the early aughts. It can just process more data more faster, appearing more smarter.

Nothing here is saying real-time game rendering is not complicated. The thing to realize is that in rendering you have a built-in expectation from the player/audience that "it's not real," which gives latitude for uncanny-valleyness. Waxy face, janky walk, rubbery lip movements? Yeah, it's not like I'm in a movie or looking at a photo, right? Real-time rendering for games is better every day, but "photo-realism" is still anything but. (just like the AI label) We accept a ton of oddities in graphical animation (real-time or otherwise) that just do not fly in live-action movies.

Running around a game environment that looks close to Tron Legacy garners high praise indeed, yet the rendered young Jeff Bridges is not acceptable as anything but an obvious NPC bot in live action. You take a real human face and make it look like game graphics, and no matter how much you sprinkle new grain on it, it's still not right, whether or not you can tell a normal map from a road map.

Haven’t you seen the new Sora demos of human faces and humans in various complicated environments? It’s a huge jump.

[Telemachus]

These AI debates are hilarious. These discs would look better without the AI, period. These are film negatives that could be scanned at 8k or higher. GeoffD isn't wrong. Anything else is just gaslighting at this point. None of these discs will be looked on fondly in some years, they are lazy releases to test new tech. You think prequel CG looks bad now, these discs will look way worse in way less time.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

These AI debates are hilarious. These discs would look better without the AI, period. These are film negatives that could be scanned at 8k or higher. GeoffD isn't wrong. Anything else is just gaslighting at this point. None of these discs will be looked on fondly in some years, they are lazy releases to test new tech. You think prequel CG looks bad now, these discs will look way worse in way less time.

We live in an age where machine learning can generate any video scenario you can imagine from a text prompt, I don’t think anyone can conclude that the case is closed.
It’s just a discussion, no one is getting hurt here.

And I have no idea what gaslighting is, but it sounds like one of those dreadful social media phrases that the kids say, so I won’t research it.

Of the four releases, Titanic and The Abyss are rather good to be fair, so that’s also open to opinion. I get True Lies on Tuesday so I will weigh in with opinions on that one when I see it.

[weezer17]

I preordered from Amazon on March 11 and still haven't gotten it. Sites should not allow preorders that exceed the stock they have.