King Kong 4K UHD (2005) (Ultimate Edition)

[Geoff D]

Good old AustinJerry, me and him had that X900A thread sewn up tight a few years ago. Can't be arsed with AVS nowadays though, the site still slows my browser(s) to a crawl and it seems like there are far too many self-proclaimed experts around nowadays. I know that's rich coming from the King of the Armchair Experts™ but still, it just doesn't seem like as nice a place anymore.

[DJR662]

Actually you, Jerry and 10K have been my "go to" guys when it comes to calibration settings.

[gwsat]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Good old AustinJerry, me and him had that X900A thread sewn up tight a few years ago. Can't be arsed with AVS nowadays though, the site still slows my browser(s) to a crawl and it seems like there are far too many self-proclaimed experts around nowadays. I know that's rich coming from the King of the Armchair Experts™ but still, it just doesn't seem like as nice a place anymore.

You are right that, without naming names, there are posters at AVS Forum who tend to be, uh, dogmatic. On the whole, though, I think it is usually a pretty pleasant place where most posters can be relied upon to try to help others where they can. Unfortunately, any site devoted to technical discussions, AVS, Blu-ray.com, and others, have their fair share of posters trying to prove how much smarter than everybody else they are.

[StingingVelvet]

The be fair, AVS is bombarded with dumb questions on a daily basis.

[Geoff D]

Finally got done watching this last night (started watching it the previous evening, started to fall asleep so left the last hour for the next night) and boy is it a mixed bag. Wall of text follows:

First off: Contrast. Yowza. They've ramped up the intensity of the highlights in a big, big way, not just in the opening NY segment but throughout. Some shots really do show more highlight detail in that typical HDR way, some don't, but when comparing with the regular Blu you're not losing anything in those bright areas unless your display's tone mapping is clipping them away. What the UHD trades off is the black levels, it crushes down the darker parts of the image vs the BD which only adds to that feeling of intense contrast and deep "letterbox" blacks. So many times throughout this UHD I forgot the black bars were even there, and although you lose a bit of shadow detail vs the BD I can live with it because That's So Geoffy*™.

What I found more interesting about the opening reel is the colour, I mean the whole movie has lost the pervasive green tint of the BD (yet another UHD to do so) but it's the skin tones that stand out, it almost looks like an old-timey pastel Ektachrome effect or something whereas the BD is much more ordinary. Once they get on the ship it seems to settle down but the improvements to the colour are still hugely obvious, especially in all those shots of sunsets/sunrises and so on which look stunningly gorgeous. I loved the fire during the sacrifice scene behind Naomi as she's lowered down to meet Kong, it looks so good with the HDR and WCG.

As for the grain, there's definitely a difference between the two but what people call "grain" on the regular Blu I call "noise" with a healthy dose of dodgy compression to boot, I was shocked at how untidy certain scenes are. The UHD removes that colour noise and leaves a fine patina of grain behind which is compressed sooooooo much better than the BD, so the move to a 100GB triple layer (yes Freaky, it's really a TL) really paid off. Some scenes do still look grainier than others and some scenes look a lot more sharpened than others, with the kinds of smudgy dark halos around bright edges indicative of such processing, but this being a 2005 DI (still quite early for that process) it's bound to be as uneven as it is.

Naomi Watts' face suffers the most, they used a lot of tinkering to smooth out the top of her forehead where the curly wig was fitted (she looks like a literal egghead, I kept getting distracted by it!) and they also target the area around her mouth a lot for whatever reasons. And because the UHD reveals more spatial resolution than the BD despite being an upscale (just look at the detail on hair and clothing) it makes this digital smoothing stand out a lot more too.

That said they DO seem to have done additional processing for this UHD, like the shots of Naomi during the "beautiful" scene when she's held by Kong atop the Empire State building near the end. They've smoothed her over so much in the UHD she looks like a waxwork whereas the BD is much more natural, there's also some oddness during a couple of shots of Jack Black when he's announcing Kong at the theatre near the end, he looks REALLY blocky and weird while the rest of the shot around him is fine. BD doesn't have the same problem.

I did spot a hint of banding in a couple of shots during the Skull Island approach in the fog, but it's nothing like as bad as some folks make it out to be (true 10-bit TV FTW). And I thought the CG in general blended extremely well in this version, it's amazing how much of a difference the lighting makes to things like this and even the infamous stampede wasn't anything like as naff as I remember. Those bugs that take a closer look at Naomi looked incredible, so real and 'dimensional', and I was struck by how much the movie used that depth, at times there are so many things poking out at you (fnarr) it felt like watching a 3D movie in 2D.

So, yeah. A mixed bag but definitely way more pluses than minuses for me, it's gonna be fascinating to see how the LOTR movies will turn out on UHD if this disc is any indication as to that intent (presuming that Jackson or someone at Wingnut actually had any say in it).

[madfloyd]

Thanks for your thoughts, Geoff. I haven't checked it out on my system yet so I really enjoyed reading this.

[gwsat]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Finally got done watching this last night (started watching it the previous evening, started to fall asleep so left the last hour for the next night) and boy is it a mixed bag. Spoilered wall of text follows:

[Show spoiler]First off: Contrast. Yowza. They've ramped up the intensity of the highlights in a big, big way, not just in the opening NY segment but throughout. Some shots really do show more highlight detail in that typical HDR way, some don't, but when comparing with the regular Blu you're not losing anything in those bright areas unless your display's tone mapping is clipping them away. What the UHD trades off is the black levels, it crushes down the darker parts of the image vs the BD which only adds to that feeling of intense contrast and deep "letterbox" blacks. So many times throughout this UHD I forgot the black bars were even there, and although you lose a bit of shadow detail vs the BD I can live with it because That's So Geoffy*™.

What I found more interesting about the opening reel is the colour, I mean the whole movie has lost the pervasive green tint of the BD (yet another UHD to do so) but it's the skin tones that stand out, it almost looks like an old-timey pastel Ektachrome effect or something whereas the BD is much more ordinary. Once they get on the ship it seems to settle down but the improvements to the colour are still hugely obvious, especially in all those shots of sunsets/sunrises and so on which look stunningly gorgeous. I loved the fire during the sacrifice scene behind Naomi as she's lowered down to meet Kong, it looks so good with the HDR and WCG.

As for the grain, there's definitely a difference between the two but what people call "grain" on the regular Blu I call "noise" with a healthy dose of dodgy compression to boot, I was shocked at how untidy certain scenes are. The UHD removes that colour noise and leaves a fine patina of grain behind which is compressed sooooooo much better than the BD, so the move to a 100GB triple layer (yes Freaky, it's really a TL) really paid off. Some scenes do still look grainier than others and some scenes look a lot more sharpened than others, with the kinds of smudgy dark halos around bright edges indicative of such processing, but this being a 2005 DI (still quite early for that process) it's bound to be as uneven as it is.

Naomi Watts' face suffers the most, they used a lot of tinkering to smooth out the top of her forehead where the curly wig was fitted (she looks like a literal egghead, I kept getting distracted by it!) and they also target the area around her mouth a lot for whatever reasons. And because the UHD reveals more spatial resolution than the BD despite being an upscale (just look at the detail on hair and clothing) it makes this digital smoothing stand out a lot more too.

That said they DO seem to have done additional processing for this UHD, like the shots of Naomi during the "beautiful" scene when she's held by Kong atop the Empire State building near the end. They've smoothed her over so much in the UHD she looks like a waxwork whereas the BD is much more natural, there's also some oddness during a couple of shots of Jack Black when he's announcing Kong at the theatre near the end, he looks REALLY blocky and weird while the rest of the shot around him is fine. BD doesn't have the same problem.

I did spot a hint of banding in a couple of shots during the Skull Island approach in the fog, but it's nothing like as bad as some folks make it out to be (true 10-bit TV FTW). And I thought the CG in general blended extremely well in this version, it's amazing how much of a difference the lighting makes to things like this and even the infamous stampede wasn't anything like as naff as I remember. Those bugs that take a closer look at Naomi looked incredible, so real and 'dimensional', and I was struck by how much the movie used that depth, at times there are so many things poking out at you (fnarr) it felt like watching a 3D movie in 2D.

So, yeah. A mixed bag but definitely way more pluses than minuses for me, it's gonna be fascinating to see how the LOTR movies will turn out on UHD if this disc is any indication as to that intent (presuming that Jackson or someone at Wingnut actually had any say in it).

Geoff -- Thanks for your review. Glad you enjoyed it. I was blown away by the film's final act, showing a snow covered 1932 theater district and Kong and Ann atop the Empire State Building as the sun comes up over the East River. I am less sensitive to what are to my eyes at least minor artifacts than most here are, though. As I have said before, this may be a function of my never Golden and now aging eyes.

I liked the film's earlier depiction of NYC and those on the ship and island too but didn't think any of those images were in the same world as those shown in the final act.

[Geoff D]

When they return to NY it doesn't have the same kind of pastel look but the highlights are still super-bright is my point, like the lightbulb-festooned exterior of the Alhambra theatre.

[rbg08]

Thanks, Geoff. I too have been holding off on viewing this (mostly due to the large number of releases lately and the length of this film). I was afraid that the grain on this 4K version would be unbearable after revisiting Crouching Tiger recently. Glad to hear you felt it was an overall improvement to the regular Blu-ray. Hopefully I can make some time in the coming weeks to give it a spin and offer my own impressions.

[imsounoriginal]

Still need to get around to watching this, just haven't been in the mood. Also have seen the movie so many times over the years lol

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by rbg08

Thanks, Geoff. I too have been holding off on viewing this (mostly due to the large number of releases lately and the length of this film). I was afraid that the grain on this 4K version would be unbearable after revisiting Crouching Tiger recently. Glad to hear you felt it was an overall improvement to the regular Blu-ray. Hopefully I can make some time in the coming weeks to give it a spin and offer my own impressions.

It's the opposite re: grain to Crouching Tiger, Kong UHD has a much less 'busy' look than the Kong 1080p Blu-ray by dint of less noise and FAR better compression. This is a very long movie with some very hectic action scenes, the UE Blu-ray's average bitrate is only 16-ish Mb/s and it's VC-1 to boot which isn't the greatest codec when placed under those kinds of bitrate demands.

What the UHD does is reveal a much greater inconsistency in the source, looking processed to all get out one minute and organically sharp & detailed the next, but the DI was a fairly new process back then and PJ pushed it to the hilt. On the UHD even Naomi Watts' eyes seem to glow in some shots, I don't mean in a hyperbolic Superman-heat-ray kinda way but there's a definite kind of brightening to them, it's quite a common thing in DIs these days to isolate the eyes and bring them up like that.

The colourist on Fury Road noted that there were very few shots in that film which hadn't had people's eyes roto'd and enhanced, and that UHD presentation reminds me of Kong's in several other ways. It's similarly uneven which displays more discrepancies in the source material than in SDR 1080p and they've plugged up the blacks a bit, but when it sings it does it oh so sweetly.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Finally got done watching this last night (started watching it the previous evening, started to fall asleep so left the last hour for the next night) and boy is it a mixed bag. Spoilered wall of text follows:

Pretty much everything you said lines up with what my thoughts were, which is cool. Really seems like roughly comparable televisions make for consistent presentations even in this wild and woolly HDR world.

[davcole]

Watched last night.

I still find a filtered look to the transfer and while the contrast was much better, the color range isn't that more brilliant than the Bluray!

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk

[Geoff D]

Oh yes it is! Oh no it isn't! (Traditional British panto humour )

[bga84]

Picked this up from HMV today. To my eyes, it looks like we've another great transfer from Universal hampered slightly by the original DI, which is mostly fine but inconsistent (as you pointed out, Geoff). The scrubbing of Naomi Watts' face and neck are the most obvious problems for me.

I was pretty stuck by the increase in detail and I noticed a nice fine layer of grain. The colours look much better to me than the BD. The contrast seemed fine - hotter and punchier than the BD but it didn't strike me as off. Also, I'm sure it's there but I didn't see the banding during the fog scene - I was watching in a bright room though.

Overall I'm very happy with it and with this and The Mummy, I'm looking forward to some of the big Uni catalogue titles we've got coming

[StingingVelvet]

If you were watching in a brighter room that's probably why the high contrast didn't bother you at all. Same with me and my bias light. I could see it being way too intense in the dark, it's pretty hot hot hot.

Agree on Watts' smoothing. Much more noticeable on UHD and pretty bleh. She wasn't even that old.

[Geoff D]

Heck of it is the DI "beauty pass" actually looks a lot more seamless than many later uses of the tech I could mention, not that that excuses it (this being Peter Jackson playing around in his digital sandbox so expect all that shit and more) but the stuff around her mouth and neck ain't so bad, it's her smoothed forehead that cracks me up because it looks like an egg with a wig stuck on it.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Heck of it is the DI "beauty pass" actually looks a lot more seamless than many later uses of the tech I could mention, not that that excuses it (this being Peter Jackson playing around in his digital sandbox so expect all that shit and more) but the stuff around her mouth and neck ain't so bad, it's her smoothed forehead that cracks me up because it looks like an egg with a wig stuck on it.

[Geoff D]

That's not so far off the mark

[Dubstar]

I'm confused - if I redeem the digital code through flixster does it give me the UHD 4K streaming via vudu or do I have to set up a fandangnow account and merge that with Vudu ??