Still not convinced

[saprano]

If you're not ready to buy anything and prefer to wait till everything is more sorted out, then do so. Don't feel like you need to buy into this just because it's new and everyone else is doing it. I'm going to wait a little while longer. See what other studios like Paramount, Disney, Universal and the rest are bringing in terms of catalogue titles. Then there's the display issue. I want to see how OLED advances to other manufacturers and hopefully true RGB. I was going to buy a player from either Panasonic or Oppo and get benefits from downscaling, but i'm not sure yet.

There's no need to rush. I was watching the movie Dope last night and it really doesn't get any cinematic and realistic than that. The daytime outdoor scenes of LA are gorgeous. I wasn't thinking to myself "damn, i really need to go buy another display for more resolution, color, and HDR."

Take your time and decide how you really want to go about this.

[jaaguir]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

And I'm still not convinced by HDR - especially when arguments in its favour consist of statements such as "I don't care much about director's intent".

I was just expressing my taste, a very subjetctive thing. Hardly the best defense of HDR that can be made, it wasn't even meant like that.

I'm not a complete brute. I understand the concern for "director's intent" by true film-lovers. I'm just not afraid of HDR. I don't believe they will alter the original look drastically. Fans wouldn't like it and some outspoken directors would very likely make public protests. I believe that they will not damage the meaning or integrity of movies with the kind of changes HDR is meant to make.

Also, and again, this is just my personal opinion, most movies are made by hacks, and it really wouldn't be possible to seriously hurt them even with more drastic changes.

Originally Posted by ouchmyfacehurts

Not an invalid argument. However, to counter this: all of recorded history was in a resolution lower than this up until The Amazing Spiderman 2.

That said, the amount of pre-existing content that literally could not possibly be upgraded so outweighs what is out there (about 49,000 to 5).

Only the last 10-15 years of moviemaking history have been finished in 2k DI-s. 100 years that went before, shot on film, have the potential to look better on UHD. Well, not 1930s movies and the like, but hardly 49000 to 5.

[jaaguir]

Originally Posted by saprano

If you're not ready to buy anything and prefer to wait till everything is more sorted out, then do so. Don't feel like you need to buy into this just because it's new and everyone else is doing it. I'm going to wait a little while longer. See what other studios like Paramount, Disney, Universal and the rest are bringing in terms of catalogue titles. Then there's the display issue. I want to see how OLED advances to other manufacturers and hopefully true RGB. I was going to buy a player from either Panasonic or Oppo and get benefits from downscaling, but i'm not sure yet.

There's no need to rush. I was watching the movie Dope last night and it really doesn't get any cinematic and realistic than that. The daytime outdoor scenes of LA are gorgeous. I wasn't thinking to myself "damn, i really need to go buy another display for more resolution, color, and HDR."

Take your time and decide how you really want to go about this.

I agree with this very much. If I had thought out my first post on this thread properly I would have added a last sentence:
"That doesn't mean you have to re-buy all your collection. To what extent and how fast you do that is up to you."

I just meant that if you're going to improve your hardware in the future, UHD is probably going to be there, and you'll probably try it out at some point.

I'm going to wait myself. The first Premium certificated tv sets are going to be released this spring! I mean, right now is still really early times for this format.

[JJ]

Originally Posted by jaaguir

Only the last 10-15 years of moviemaking history have been finished in 2k DI-s. 100 years that went before, shot on film, have the potential to look better on UHD. Well, not 1930s movies and the like, but hardly 49000 to 5.

Yes! Thank you for this. People forget about the entire area of movies shot on film that would benefit.

They read "2K DI" somewhere once & start using it left and right as to why they can't justify buying into 4K.

[Rocklandsboy]

Originally Posted by JJ

They read "2K DI" somewhere once & start using it left and right as to why they can't justify buying into 4K.

Oh, there are many reasons:

1. The one player on the market appears to be riddled with problems and its delicate array of settings are beyond sensible! The Panasonic (my personal brand of choice) is going to be quite expensive (and right now I'd rather buy more movies!)
2. LCD and LED technologies are flawed and OLED is too expensive
3. HDR appears to alter the colour palette of the film from its theatrical presentation - at the whim of whoever masters the disc. Once upon a time this was considered heresy, since UHD it doesn't seem to matter.
4. The improvements provided by 4K appear dubious, especially on smaller displays. The best example so far is the grill on the back of a monitor in one shot of The Martian? (I realise photo images/captures are hard to do but... really?)
5. 4K screens instantly make older formats harder to watch. Still no first hand reports on how DVD looks. While, at the same time, a good percentage of transfers will be upscales. It's kind of a lose/lose scenario - on paper at least.
6. None of it is actually "necessary". In that, blu-ray doesn't *need* to be improved like VHS, laserdisc and DVD did.
7. The failure of 3D makes me wary of anything "new".

Trust me, I've thought about this long and hard and, genuinely, I can't justify it - either financially or artistically!

[dvdmike]

OLED is also flawed

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

HDR appears to alter the colour palette of the film from its theatrical presentation - at the whim of whoever masters the disc. Once upon a time this was considered heresy, since UHD it doesn't seem to matter.

This isn't any different from VHS, DVDs and Blu-rays. Home video hasn't been able to represent what's shown in theatres 100% accurately in all but a few cases. They've had to tweak the colour palettes in most cases to accommodate the home video technology.

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

Still no first hand reports on how DVD looks.

People have said they look great, it's just down to the source material. Members here have been impressed with results then that's a pretty good recommendation.

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

While, at the same time, a good percentage of transfers will be upscales. It's kind of a lose/lose scenario - on paper at least.

A good percentage of what's shown in theatres includes upscaled material, especially if there's a 4K digital projector in use. If you're not concerned with watching upscales in the theatre I don't think you need to worry about upscaled footage on UHD BDs. My only concern is that they should be clearly labelled in the specifications.

[Cobolisdead]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

Oh, there are many reasons:

5. 4K screens instantly make older formats harder to watch. Still no first hand reports on how DVD looks. While, at the same time, a good percentage of transfers will be upscales. It's kind of a lose/lose scenario - on paper at least.

5. DVDs look like DVDs on my 4K Vizio.

[JJ]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

Oh, there are many reasons:
1. The one player on the market appears to be riddled with problems and its delicate array of settings are beyond sensible! The Panasonic (my personal brand of choice) is going to be quite expensive (and right now I'd rather buy more movies!)
2. LCD and LED technologies are flawed and OLED is too expensive
3. HDR appears to alter the colour palette of the film from its theatrical presentation - at the whim of whoever masters the disc. Once upon a time this was considered heresy, since UHD it doesn't seem to matter.
4. The improvements provided by 4K appear dubious, especially on smaller displays. The best example so far is the grill on the back of a monitor in one shot of The Martian? (I realise photo images/captures are hard to do but... really?)
5. 4K screens instantly make older formats harder to watch. Still no first hand reports on how DVD looks. While, at the same time, a good percentage of transfers will be upscales. It's kind of a lose/lose scenario - on paper at least.
6. None of it is actually "necessary". In that, blu-ray doesn't *need* to be improved like VHS, laserdisc and DVD did.
7. The failure of 3D makes me wary of anything "new".

Trust me, I've thought about this long and hard and, genuinely, I can't justify it - either financially or artistically!

1. This is the plight of the early adopter. It's the same way with early bluray players, that needed constant firmware updates, were slow as molasses, refused to play some discs, etc, etc. But it's what we have. Ideally, I'd love the Panny too - my first BDP was a $600 BD10A from Panny in 2007. New tech has never entered the market easily. Sure, it sucks, I hate it too, but it's part of the game.

And, I'm having no issues with my K8500/JS8500 combo to report.

2. All display technologies are flawed. Even plasma - and I own(ed*) two of the best plasmas ever made, a Kuro, and a ZT60. If they weren't flawed, they'd still beoperating perfectly. But they're not. So I have to use LCD/LED. Because all we have to make compromises. OLED is flawed too - and I refuse to accept "expensive" as an excuse. This is a hobby. It costs money. You need to pay to play for the best tech. I couldn't justify dropping 5K+ on a large OLED either. So what, I was just going to have no display?

3. The people who claim in the movies section that, "the movie doesnt look at all the way it did when I saw it in the theater" - when it's a movie decades old...always drove me nuts. While I somewhat agree with you here, if the people involved with it sign off on it or work on it, what's the big deal? These aren't arthouse movies we're getting here. Is a little more shadow detail and brighter colors going to destroy my viewing experience of "The Expendables 3"? The difference in commercial theater tech and home tech has meant we've never seen 100% of what we see in theaters.

4. I've done A/B comparisons now that I have a 4K player at home. Anyone who says they "appear dubious" haven't done this side by side. We all agree it's not night and day like BR to DVD, but it is more than noticeable. Smaller displays again, is a money issue, and I'd like a Ferrari to drive, but I have to settle for something else.

5. It still depends on the source. DVD is DVD. "Harder to watch" - I'll pop in some DVDs tonight just to see if it's any more unbearable to watch in 2016 on 4K than it was since bluray came around.

6. None of it IS necessary. It's a hobby. Blu-ray isnt necessary either. And this is a remarkably Luddite statement, so I have nothing else to add to the matter.

7. 3D was a different animal altogether, but I'm not even gonna get into this.

It sounds like "financially" is a bigger dealbreaker for you than anything else based on your points. I can't fault you for that, we all work hard and have to compromise somewhere. But don't try to disqualify or demerit all of 4Ks benefits simply because "it's unaffordable"

Oh my god, I argued with someone on the internet. I vowed to never do this. Point by point! Christ.

But hey, I understand where you're coming from. Hopefully in a year or two everything comes down in price to where you can afford it and join in with us, by then maybe we'll have far more director/cinematographer approved 4K/HDR transfers.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Cobolisdead

5. DVDs look like DVDs on my 4K Vizio.

Same on my Sony

[doctor_who]

All you need to do to be convinced is see the 55 or 65 inch LG OLEDs hooked up to a 4k source. It's over, it's all over, impossible to not be convinced after that. Expensive yes, but so is all tech to begin. OLED has come down quite a bit frankly, I'll be picking up this year's 55" OLED 4k HDR LG E6 series since it's going to be the best I can afford right now. I'll get 70" or bigger when I move to a house and can afford it in a few years.

[dvdmike]

I am 5-10 years before buying OLED

[Ian B]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

Okay so I'm staring at my Amazon order page, poised to drop The Martian and Sicario into my basket. I put the BD editions in, removed them, put the UHD editions in (it's good to future proof right?), removed them, put the BD editions back in...

I'm just not sold on the concept/theory of 4K and, especially, of HDR...

It's a frequently discussed fact that most movies are native 2K or similar. Upscaling aaaaall of those movies doesn't feel right to me. Plus I have a lot of TV DVD titles and I don't much like the idea of them looking like crap (despite many questions in many threads nobody is keen to keen to answer what DVD looks like on a 4K display)

Where to start with HDR? Once you recover from threads that suggest no two films are the same and constant tinkering is required, you have to wonder how it changes the motion picture image. I've seen some comparison shots and the HDR images, while undeniably pretty, don't look like motion picture images. The format is still in its "wow" phase I guess, but when did it start to be okay to "treat" the image differently for home viewing?

Comments in the Samsung owners thread about the playing performing all sorts of automatic picture adjustments fills me with dread. AND I'm not a bit fan of LCD or LED screens (I hate clouding more than I hate banding) and OLED screens are just too darned expensive!

And then they announced a DE of The Martian. So buying the UHD now wouldn't be future-proofing at all! All in all a bit of a mess when, truly, regular old BD looks absolutely superb on my 42 inch Panasonic plasma!

BD had obvious advantages over DVD. The colour improvement was magnificent. The image stability striking. Hell, in the UK and Europe (PAL territories) it was the first time that movies were presented at the right speed! But this upgrade still feels loaded with fakery and gimmickery.

What a dilemma...

I did this test yesterday between the bluray and the UHD copy. What you need to remember is after seeing the UHD, reset tv output to 1080p and put the bluray. Now when you play the bluray, you will definitely see the difference between the bluray and the UHD version. If you dont, it is either your settings, your vision, too close to tv or tv size is too small to notice difference.

Ian B

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

7. The failure of 3D makes me wary of anything "new".

Same level of oddities, too. It's not good - and I already have an obsolescent 4K set. Bad.

[Rocklandsboy]

Originally Posted by JJ

It sounds like "financially" is a bigger dealbreaker for you than anything else based on your points. I can't fault you for that, we all work hard and have to compromise somewhere. But don't try to disqualify or demerit all of 4Ks benefits simply because "it's unaffordable".

It's not "unaffordable". It's merely very, very expensive for what appears, to me, to be fairly minor gain, when that money could be better spent on dozens (hundreds?!) more movies on blu-ray (a format which even the most hardened 4K admirers admit still looks fabulous!)

[JJ]

Originally Posted by Rocklandsboy

It's not "unaffordable". It's merely very, very expensive for what appears, to me, to be fairly minor gain, when that money could be better spent on dozens (hundreds?!) more movies on blu-ray (a format which even the most hardened 4K admirers admit still looks fabulous!)

But see, that's the compromise!

That's the law of diminishing returns so prevalent in Home Theater.

Bluray does look fabulous. Still takes my breath away. To me, the increase in quality to 4K - again, emphasis on the "to me" much like how you stated - is worth the $. To you, it is not.

Just like how to me, I cannot justify building a Dolby Atmos system. To someone else in the HT forums, they can justify it, because to them it is worth the price for the increase in quality.

But the bottom line is, there is an increase in quality. And my other points still stand.

I look forward to you joining the HDR/4K fray in a few years for your updated opinion.

[MisterXDTV]

Originally Posted by chip75

This isn't any different from VHS, DVDs and Blu-rays. Home video hasn't been able to represent what's shown in theatres 100% accurately in all but a few cases. They've had to tweak the colour palettes in most cases to accommodate the home video technology.

There's a big difference: with VHS and DVDs we couldn't represent what was shown in theaters because of technological limits of NTSC/PAL Systems and Telecines...

With Blu-ray those limits were removed and we finally could achieve high-fidelity to the theatrical presentation (let's say 80% fidelity)

Now with UHD-BD they are choosing to go another direction going BEYOND what theaters can do, basically changing movies presentations...

That is just crazy to me...

[infiniteCR]

I am still mostly confused by all the new changes. I swing to and fro deciding whether to buy a UHD player soon. With Bluray it was simply a matter of price that caused me to wait, with UHD, even if the price were equal to bluray right now, I'd be hesitant.

[Mr. Joshua]

Originally Posted by JJ

Holy crap, you have the same Prism TV stand I do.

I haven't seen anybody else with one of those EVER, they're rare as hell.

My Grandma has it now.

[Badas]

Originally Posted by doctor_who

All you need to do to be convinced is see the 55 or 65 inch LG OLEDs hooked up to a 4k source. It's over, it's all over, impossible to not be convinced after that. Expensive yes, but so is all tech to begin. OLED has come down quite a bit frankly, I'll be picking up this year's 55" OLED 4k HDR LG E6 series since it's going to be the best I can afford right now. I'll get 70" or bigger when I move to a house and can afford it in a few years.

The problem with that type of statement is some members like myself would never watch a film on a 55 or 65" screen. Too small.

There is not a lot of 4K options in 120". I'm lucky I have one. Not sure about HDR. I will have to check with the manufacture.