Blu-ray, in General

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm a little confused- is there a difference between a 4k scan and a 4k presentation? Because it seems like people on here got all excited about, for instance, Olive's The Quiet Man being the former.

[Brian C]

I'm a little confused- is there a difference between a 4k scan and a 4k presentation? Because it seems like people on here got all excited about, for instance, Olive's The Quiet Man being the former.

I'll try to explain although someone a little more expert can probably do so more clearly...

But the short answer is yes. I'm not sure how common 4K projectors are in cinemas at this point in time, but the theater I work at is capable of 4K presentation. A handful of movies are distributed in 4K files; The Master, Lincoln, Django Unchained, Argo, Samsara, Premium Rush, The Dark Knight Rises, and Skyfall are all recent examples. But the industry standard is to finish a film on a 2K digital intermediate, and the one thing that all of the aforementioned films have in common (besides Premium Rush, which may or may not fit in here, who knows) is that they were either large-format releases and/or filmed on actual film instead of digitally.

But Blu-ray is roughly equivalent to 2K, meaning that the 4K master (if it exists) is downconverted for Blu. The reasons that people are excited about The Quiet Man are twofold. One, it indicates that it's a new transfer instead of an old one captured in the early days of HD, now outdated and simply repurposed for the Blu. And two, it signals that the studio spent some money to do it right instead of on the cheap. Neither guarantees quality (it's my understanding that Children of Paradise was restored in 4K as well), but it's a promising sign that we're not getting some old transfer off the shelf, and that it's been done right.

Some will also claim that a 4K master downconverted to 2K just looks better than native 2K, but I don't think there's any real evidence for it. People say all kinds of crazy things, after all.

[MichaelB]

But Blu-ray is roughly equivalent to 2K

This is true in terms of resolution (we're talking 1920x1080 versus 2048x1080), but Blu-ray has substantially more compression, which is why BDs generally look pretty crappy when blown up to a cinema-sized screen.

Which is fine, as that was never the format's intention, but I agree with you that "sourced from 4K" probably means "sourced from a recent, high-quality master" rather than "this absolutely blows away other BDs on principle".

[jedgeco]

Well-put. But as to this:

Some will also claim that a 4K master downconverted to 2K just looks better than native 2K, but I don't think there's any real evidence for it. People say all kinds of crazy things, after all.

Wouldn't a 4K master downconverted be analogous to producing an SD DVD from a high-definition source? Or is the difference just too marginal when you're already starting at 2K?

[Brian C]

But Blu-ray is roughly equivalent to 2K

This is true in terms of resolution (we're talking 1920x1080 versus 2048x1080), but Blu-ray has substantially more compression, which is why BDs generally look pretty crappy when blown up to a cinema-sized screen.

Yes, thank you for this clarification. I was unclear on this point, and was referring simply to resolution. I certainly did not want to give the impression to people that a DCP (which is the digital file being projected at your average megaplex, at least here in the US) is equivalent to a Blu when shown theatrically, because a DCP is a significantly higher quality product. Blu is consumer-grade, after all.

[Brian C]

Wouldn't a 4K master downconverted be analogous to producing an SD DVD from a high-definition source? Or is the difference just too marginal when you're already starting at 2K?

I don't know that a DVD produced from an HD master is *automatically* better than an SD master, either. In fact, I highly doubt that a clear majority of even the sharpest-eyed viewers could reliably tell the difference, all other things being equal.

[Minkin]

IGN's list of the Top 25 Worst Blurays

[tenia]

IGN's list of the Top 25 Worst Blurays

It would have been nice to update this list, because frankly, there are plenty of discs in it which are just not especially good or just disappointing, but clearly far away from being the worst Blu Rays. However, most of the first 10 are quite deseriving.

[swo17]

I have a question regarding resolution vs. compression--all else being equal, how good an indicator of quality is filesize? For example, if I had to choose between a 480p DVD that takes up about 6GB and a 720p HD rip (e.g. a TV broadcast) that takes up about 4GB, can one be expected to be better than the other (again, all else being equal)?

[MichaelB]

This is a real "how long is a piece of string?" question, because it depends on a whole host of characteristics of the original material.

For instance, as a general rule, the grainier the image, the greater the filesize required, because it will have to record more changes between frames - whereas with film you get a single individual image per frame, compressed digital media merely records the differences between frames, so in theory a digital file of Derek Jarman's Blue would be minuscule (though in practice my Artificial Eye DVD was sourced from a cinema print, complete with specks and other damage).

In fact, one of the reasons DNR is so popular with TV broadcasters is that it reduces the file size and makes streaming easier.

To answer your question directly, I'd probably favour the DVD, though it really depends on what it contains.

[kuzine]

Also depends on the codec used. The HD rip is likely to be MPEG-4, the dvd MPEG-2 (the former being superior). But in your example there's of course about 3 times the pixels to take care of with 50% more bytes available so wouldn't want to call that one in advance.

[matrixschmatrix]

IGN's list of the Top 25 Worst Blurays

It would have been nice to update this list, because frankly, there are plenty of discs in it which are just not especially good or just disappointing, but clearly far away from being the worst Blu Rays. However, most of the first 10 are quite deseriving.

Also, they don't bother to mention that there actually is a new release of The French Connection out there, without the recolored look.

[Drucker]

IGN's list of the Top 25 Worst Blurays

It would have been nice to update this list, because frankly, there are plenty of discs in it which are just not especially good or just disappointing, but clearly far away from being the worst Blu Rays. However, most of the first 10 are quite deseriving.

Also, they don't bother to mention that there actually is a new release of The French Connection out there, without the recolored look.

The Best of list includes The Dark Knight and North By Northwest.

[willoneill]

Also, they don't bother to mention that there actually is a new release of The French Connection out there, without the recolored look.

I noticed that too, but I checked the article and it's actually a bit old, from before French Connection was re-released.

[swo17]

This is a real "how long is a piece of string?" question, because it depends on a whole host of characteristics of the original material.

I should clarify--I didn't mean to ask whether Film A that takes up 6GB will always look better than Film B that takes up 4GB, but rather, will Film A at 6GB invariably look better than Film A compressed to 4GB, even if the latter file has higher resolution?

[MichaelB]

This is a real "how long is a piece of string?" question, because it depends on a whole host of characteristics of the original material.

I should clarify--I didn't mean to ask whether Film A that takes up 6GB will always look better than Film B that takes up 4GB, but rather, will Film A at 6GB invariably look better than Film A compressed to 4GB, even if the latter file has higher resolution?

Given the difference in resolution, the most sensible answer is "probably".

However, if the resolution is the same, a 4GB transfer could well be better than a 6GB one, especially if the latter is a decade older and the 4GB transfer was created with more sophisticated algorithms.

[swo17]

Yes, I suppose I should further clarify that I am talking about a comparison between two files that originally come from the same source. Here is perhaps a better question: Say a 35mm source is (1) scanned at 1080p and then compressed to 8GB, and (2) separately scanned at 480p and then compressed to 6GB. Is (1) inherently going to look better than (2) because the file size is larger, or is it, as I suspect, going to look better in some respects (because of the higher resolution) and worse in others (because more compression is going on)?

[tenia]

Normally, everything should be a question of bitrate VS Surface / resolution. I remember it be called "pixel quality" or something like this The idea is to compare the bitrate VS the resolution, as you would speak of pixel density for instance.

In your example, I would guess that the 1080p compressed at 8 Gb would be marginally better, because 6 Gb for a 480p source is clearly overkill, whereas 1080p at 8 Gb could be quite OK-ish depending of your set up.

After that, as Michael wrote, you can have discrepencies if you compare things which are done with different encoders. For instance, old Xvid VS x264.

[domino harvey]

The Squid and the Whale is getting a Blu-ray release from Mill Creek March 26th, paired with Running With Scissors-- hey, can't win 'em all!

EDIT: No, this is a worse good/bad double-bill: Rossen's Lilith and Kramer's Ship of Fools Blu-ray twofer also on the same date

[knives]

I saw that, but won't bother as the DVDs are probably better.

[domino harvey]

Mill Creek's not a shitshow with their Blus, though

[Gregory]

On that cover, Marvin pretty much sums up the right response to Mill Creek's style of presentation:

[knives]

Mill Creek's not a shitshow with their Blus, though

I've heard some terrible things about many of their Blus. Though the only ones I've breached are the Gameras which are very good.

[manicsounds]

The Gamera set had its troubles though. The problematic subtitles on the 3rd film (which was later corrected), wrong audio/spec info on the back covers, and the terrible authoring of the bonus features, which had no selections, just a straight up play-all for everything.

The "Daimajin" set was much much better though.

[captveg]

FYI, these newer double features are available at Walmart currently for $5 each until the wide release date.