Originally Posted by Geoff D
Finished JP1. Not bad. Very much a newer transfer, it's solid as a rock compared to the 2011 BD which has a case of the wobbles (compare chapter 14 when Grant and the kids are walking up the hill, it's like they're in the middle of an earthquake on the old BD). A fair smattering of white (negative) dirt and scratches are visible throughout, not on the frequency or severity of the remastered Gladiator Blu-ray but regular enough. You might catch one or two flecks of dark (positive) dirt on the opticals used to generate the on-screen locations but that's printed in during that process.
Nice enough detail, not up to Sony's standards but as we've said before, who else is? There's still a definite increase in the finer spatial resolution over the Blu-ray in any case, hair and clothing is more refined and wider shots resolve more detail in the foliage. There's an ever-present amount of haloing around high contrast edges though, the ringing is mostly slight but it's definitely there. If I had to guess I'd say that they've rolled off the grain, there should be a visible scattering of the stuff on daylight exteriors and heavier grain on interiors and darker exteriors, however it's virtually non-existent in the former and only slightly more visible on the latter. And yet it rarely looks like an outright waxfest which is an important point to consider, although one of the location cards has been smacked with proper DNR, it's when Dodgson pulls up in the taxi cab to meet Nedry ('San Jose, Costa Rica') and it looks SUPER smudgy and soft (whereas they didn't feel the need to fudge that shot on the old Blu-ray transfer, it's fine there). Most of the other location opticals are fine though. And yes, this UK disc has the proper burnt in titles. Huzzah!
To echo what potty said, one area where the UHD presentation outright falls down is the CG as we're stretching the limits of what these ageing images can resolve, I heard they were done at around 1K and it really shows here. I've been a cheerleader for JP's digital VFX for the longest time but here it all badly lacks texture and sharpness, with pronounced edge ringing and very soft detail. It's funny but the CG actually blends a LOT better on the old BD because that disc is inherently lower resolution, is quite over-sharpened anyway and has more noise/grain to dither the images with. Perhaps if they'd left the grain in then it would've blended a bit better on the UHD, but it's too late for that now.
HDR is decent, a refinement more than a reimagining. APL looks to be on a par with the SDR version or thereabouts so it's not instantly dimmer. You'll catch more highlight detail in shots of clouds (like in the window behind Malcolm in the chopper as they're flying to the island) and various speculars that are on display e.g. car headlights, torch lights and so on. It's not eye-searingly bright in those moments but then HDR doesn't always have to be. Solid black levels, they're not greyed out to shit nor do they consume all shadow detail in their path, just a nice level of density commensurate to the scene. Alas, the extension in dynamic range that usually helps to better integrate CG VFX (IMO) ends up working against it because the highlights still burn out badly in the CG scenes, like the shot of Grant and Ellie looking up at the Brachiosaur into the sun, or the headlights of the CG jeep that falls when Rexy tips it over the edge, this is because they simply weren't rendered with enough range to begin with.
Colour is NOT the mud-brown 3D tint thank God, skin tones are healthy enough (you can really see the tans on some of their faces) and although the primaries might look a bit subdued when A-B'd with the almost neon-looking greenery in the old BD you gain back more nuance in those colours. As mentioned there's a weird bit with Gennaro in the jeep where it seems to drain the colour & range out as the shot progresses, but it looks like some sort of problem with the processing of the original negative to my eyes. (As was also noted upthread the digital tweaks done for the 3D version have been rolled back so you'll still spot the C-stand when Rexy flips over the car and the filament of spider's web is there on the final shot of the helicopter heading out to sea.)
Overall then it's not an amazing home run and definitely looks less organic than, say, Die Hard, never mind the average Sony joint. But it rarely tips over into Grease or T2 territory either, staying just the right side of the grain reduction devil and presenting a more detailed and dimensional looking image thanks to the decent HDR pass. Good, but not great.
|
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Linear Mode
