81 replies to this topic

[Highjinx]

Some std BR vs High BitRate BR comparisons......looks good to me.

http://www.avsforum....0#post_23316390

[deandob]

Isn't the issue here that for the vast majority of existing film masters the original quality isn't that great (especially for 35mm and with 24 fps motion blur)? How often do we come across movies where it is the Blu-ray medium holding back the PQ? Not often in my experience. Maybe for a small number of high quality masters there will be a small benefit but unless you sit close the extra 4K resolution won't help much and the higher bitrate will help only for the occasional scene.

I think the benefit here is in more attention to the mastering process rather than the medium itself.

[Highjinx]

Agree, the Master & the 2K encode are important, most masters are stored at a around 250Mbs......then compressed to sub 30Mbs for BR....looking at LoA and what a superb encode that is, one must agree that BR is far from being exploited to its'  full potential.

[cwt]

Thanks for the link HJ . Looks like it's dvd superbit for bd's instead - some worth it - some ''wait for real 4k''. Newer films from 4k masters benefit less than older 2k ones and some titles completely remastered ..

http://www.avsforum....0#post_23304984

[MLXXX]

There are some potential downsides to a transfer to Blu-ray that is closer to the look of the raw footage. Grain in the scan of the film negative or noise of a video camera capture, typically masked by high-frequency filtering in a transfer to Blu-ray, may be revealed. Examination of the three frames in the AVS Forum post to which Highjinx linked does reveal more detail (noticeably more), but also more noise.

Views from different camera angles with different aperture settings can look decidedly different in their finer detail; causing a distracting change when viewing a feature film at close range that alternates between different camera angles. One can become conscious of changes in depth of field, disturbing the viewing experience. (I sometimes notice this when watching old black and white movies.)

A very significant issue is the blurring when panning horizontally and shooting at 24fps with conventional exposure times (a 180 degree shutter). Even with frame interpolation in a display device, horizontal detail drops dramatically during a horizontal pan. If we really want to increase visibility of fine detail we will need to increase the frame rate of the shooting of the movie.  This was done recently in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, albeit with what was probably a compromise. The exposure angle used was 270 degrees instead of the traditional 180 degrees. This I presume would have been a compromise for later projection at 24fps of every second captured frame for conventional projectors; and at the full 48fps for the new high frame-rate projectors. To have exposed each frame for only 1/96th second would have been too short a time for projection at 24fps: it would have introduced a noticeable strobing effect for some cinema goers, worse that the usual jitter during a medium paced 24fps pan.

Edited by MLXXX, 18 May 2013 - 01:19 AM.

[Highjinx]

Good link the 4K restoration of Taxi Driver......

http://magazine.crea...i-driveri-in-4k

True 4K would be no compromise path.....but for us 1080p projector owners the higher bit rate disks will/could be a interim solution as long as there is no premium charge.......and agree all BR encodes should be optimised....but I feel for cost sake the studios auto encode most of the stuff.

[OzHTfan]

I just read some positive feedback on the Mastered for 4K titles over the owners thread on AVS for the 4K Sony VW1000. I'm going to give a couple of them a shot, just for the fact they cost bugger all. Can't wait for the real Sony 4K player though. Having just moved to 2:35 in 138" diagonal screen from my old 110" 16:9, I am truly loving using the digital 2:35 mode for movies. So much more fun minus the black bars. The Hobbit was sensational. Plus 1:85 zoom mode works a treat for normal TV series and sports, it's like having 2 screens in one so to speak.