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Yes, always keep to the original aspect ratio. Always. It's the way the director shot them and the way he wanted us to see them.
I don't care about 4K. We don't need more pixels, we need better pixels. HDR 2K beats the crap out of SDR 4K in every way shape and fashion. Trouble now is they've spent the money on Lowry so they wont likely do HDR scans anytime soon (as that would require another cleanup pass). Off the cuff I don't know now much dynamic range Lowry was able to capture the last time around, hopefully enough to reclaim some. Next deliverable in the consumer space will probably be crappy 4K instead since consumers blindly respond to those "numbers".
That doean´t however change the fact that the Bond brs as they are available look worlds better than any previous release. Since I am no tech wiz, I couldn´t tell if that´s due to pixel numbers, or perhaps just due to the restauration work they did.
HD is the brass ring of course but a lot of that is the restoration work. If you look at the last DVD collection, the so called Ultimate Edition, and compare it to the previously released Special Edition (which was the same master as the previous THX release), its an incredible difference. I'm not usually a huge fan of their work, but in this case Lowry really did a fine job making them look they were struck from a brand new negative. :)
The Blu-rays we have now are from the same master, albeit a 1080 line encode of course revealing as much detail, color depth, and dynamic range as current consumer hardware can realize. The real pisser for me is that, when the catalog was handed over to Sony, they halted the at the time ongoing remastering of the Patrick McNee narrated docs resulting in half of the BDs getting HD versions, the rest actually looking worse than they did on the DVDs.
If anyone is interested in learning about HDR vs. UHD, here is a good primer.
Yes. These are the best. The blue gun barrel covers followed.
There is a cold, nontheatrical element to 4K quality that seems to take away from the experience. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it is not really 'better'...
What are you basing that on? What did you see in 4K, where and on what equipment did you see it, and what are you comparing it to?
Precisely.
Almost no one has actually seen UHD as of yet (which is why I asked what AceHole was basing his assessment on). Virtually everything on the market right now does not implement it correctly or fully. Its so bad that they have decided to come out with a "UHD Premium" program which in oversimplified terms will mean that equipment will actually have to conform before they are allowed to use the new name and logo (which, one would think, they should have done from the start).
Having said that, as I've said elsewhere, I'm no proponent of UHD in the consumer space where we already have plenty of pixels (see my previous posts about better pixels vs. more pixels). In the theater though, we need 4K proliferation and we need it bad. On the filming/production side, we need 8K and beyond, like now. With 15/70mm being ripped out of IMAX facilities left and right, the world is taking a huge backward leap in motion picture benchmarks.
Digital is only just now reaching 35mm equivalence with 4K cinema (as distinct from consumer UHD). If you see a movie delivered in actual 4K cinema, and you find it "too sharp" or whatever, that would be a choice on the part of the director, cinematographer, et all, not an inherent attribute of 4K.
There is also a Virtual Drive-in App where you can sit in a classic 60's car on a scenic hilltop with a massive movie screen outside. Also, if your friends have Oculus, they can watch something with you. You will be able to see their avatar sitting in a seat beside you. Neat stuff.
I think that once you get beyond the initial novelty, spending 2 hours with that thing on your head is going to get old. Academically speaking you'd actually get a better movie screening by simply sitting close to a 1080 line TV in that the ORs environment sim means that the movie proper will be getting less than the visor's native res, not to mention scale/rotating/perspective artifacts. On a somewhat related note I'll actually be publishing an article this quarter explaining why our brain isn't "fooled" by a tiny screen up close as compared to an enormous one at distance even though both may occupy the same subtended angle of view.
VR for flight sim is great, but for taking in a 2 hour movie, frankly, I'd like to be able to see my wife sitting next to me and not have to fumble for the pop corn... and inevitably spill my wine. LOL.
Well, I didn't expect the Spanish inquisition (nobody does, you know) about it, so I had to ask the good people at Kinepolis, where I saw the film, what kind of projector they use...
barco.com/en/Products/Projectors/Digital-cinema-projectors/Ultra-bright-4K-Barco-Alchemy-DLP-Cinema-projector-for-screens-up-to-32m-105ft.aspx
It is a Barco, Belgian made.
When you talked about it being overly sharp, were you referring to SPECTRE in particular? I saw it in 4K myself but definitely would not have have characterized it as overly sharp. In fact I'd say that the 4K intermediate served the shot-on-35mm portions very nicely.
I think it´s hard to really get a reliable impression at a cinema unless you have people there who are trained well and have a visual sense.
I don´t know how it is in your respective countries, and a cinema attendant able to tell the make and model of the projector is definitely a good sign, but where I come from, unfortunately hardly anyone working at a cinema knows shit about their stuff. I went to see one of The Hobbit films in a theater otherwise showing high quailty visually, and it had this soap opera effect many flat screen tv sets show when you buy them new, before you spent three weeks adjusting the settings. Where all the characters look as if they´re standing beneath a neon lamp. It looked incredibly un-cinematic. Me and my sister got reasonably mad, I went two times and asked two different guys working there if they please could correct the picture, with the only result that they both tried to convince me that the picture has to be like that because its HFR, which is the least logic explanation I could ever imagine. And they seemed to have understood what my complaint was about.
I´d like to try one of those.
Regrettably, all else being equal, what you describe was in fact what most people perceived of The Hobbit in HFR. Not saying there wasnt something wrong with the facility's alignment, there may well have been, but even if everything was correct theater operators were getting inundated with complaints related to HFR at the time, so its not at all surprising how they answered your inquiry as such.
Personally, I've traditionally been a fan of THX certified facilities for this very reason: no special technology, rather an assurance that things are setup and operated properly. Its sad to have seen the program's decline over the past decade or so. Seems coincident with a lowering of the showmanship bar at cinemas in general. Some feel that LieMAX is the new THX but I'm not a strong proponent as they break many basic cinema setup tenets and as such I don't feel they represent a correct baseline.
My main purpose for buying it is gaming. I spend the majority of my free time playing PC games. The ability to watch movies, tv shows, and youtube through Oculus is just kind of a bonus feature. I just thought it would be cool to get to see all of the Bond movies in a theater setting that I never had the chance to see at the movies.
What in particular do they break? I am with you on the baseline, tho. In my experience in Austin, not all IMAXes are created equal and I also saw the Hobbit in HDR, which had a sped up looking quality to it and the sound didn't quite match.
I believe that will be possible. I will definitely share some screenshots when the time comes.
No it was The Force Awakens, not SP that I saw in 4k.
Great visuals from a tech perspective, but I did not find the ultra crisp resolution did the film many favours... perhaps I'm just old fashioned. Star Wars should look like film (as opposed to digital), and I think Abrams shot it on film... so keep the warm, cinematic resolution, I say. I'm no expert, merely basing this on my impressions and limited knowledge.
I'd compare it to listening to a Stones album - 'Exile On Mainstreet' was recorded in a rickety French chateau with grimy equipment, and it sounds like it. But the polished remaster just sounds too purified & sterile to me...
Apparently there will be an even more exclusive steelbook edition of "SPECTRE" that includes an exclusive lenticular slip cover (a bit like the ones I posted in my previous post), an extensive production booklet, post cards from the film and a signed card mentioning it is one out of a limited edition of 500 copies. The 500 steelbooks will be released in China and Japan, but can also be bought by us on the various webshops.
The news comes from a very relaible source on Forum.Blu-Ray.com:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=270646 &
http://123.103.16.28/bbs/forum.php
To give you an example of these very rare steelbook sets, here are some images of previous films released this way in Asia and the USA (HD Zeta, Blu RayMondo, Film Arena & Kimchi):
You hear any information on that Blufans version, let me know. I may have to get it.