The Future of Home Video

[Manny Karp]

HTPC also altered my movie watching habits. Call me weird, but I like to go QUICKLY from about 30 minutes of one movie, to a scene from another genre, followed by the intro/first scene from a totally different era. Usually there is some link like the director/setting/actor, but sometimes I just need a change up.

And also, I always wanted to re-watch certain parts of films to concentrate on them fully because I couldn't (or didn't) fully appreciate them when viewing them within the context of 2 straight hours of a film.

The HTPC has made that much more easy than using physical media, and I couldn't go back now to ONLY watching films from beginning to end.

Plus I seem to break/scratch/chip everything I own anyways.

[calculus entrophy]

Hmmm....I I'm still watching films start to end, but now able to do that PLUS the ADHD thing on films I have watched dozens of times.

Is it bad form to watch only the scenes in the King of Comedy where Rupert is in a dissociative fantasy, then to only the scenes in Naked Lunch where Burroughs is in Interzone, followed by only the scenes in Network where Beale is hosting his show if you've seen these films dozens of times all the way through?

I'm either coming across as gauche, pompous, or both.

[tenia]

I don't think doing digest of movies you've seen dozens of time is actually very unusual. You might want to rewatch a specific sequence you enjoy a lot or fast forward the boring parts.
I know I can't watch Matrix anymore without fast forwarding through parts of it, for instance.

[Noiradelic]

Is it bad form... if you've seen these films dozens of times all the way through?

No, if you've seen the complete films at least a few times, you're pretty much off the hook. Viewing eccentricities that casual movie fans might find peculiar have been mentioned in this forum more than once. At least one has its own thread.

[domino harvey]

Calculus entrophy, did you sit next to Steven Soderbergh on a flight?

[colinr0380]

It does seem touching that Soderbergh feels that action films are watched primarily for their dialogue or narrative. Is that why Haywire wasn't a success?

[calculus entrophy]

Calculus entrophy, did you sit next to Steven Soderbergh on a flight?

LOL! I guess I'm like an arthouse version of "that dude". This moment reminds me of back in the 80's when we would take a longer funk/disco track and just sample the breakdown and loop it.

Good thing that never took off.

[FrauBlucher]

DVD is dead, long live DVD

[tenia]

DVD is dead, long live DVD

Which is a very good read, but people already buying BDs from independant labels like Criterion and Arrow won't learn a thing.

[Tommaso]

The vinyl vs digital comparison is rather misguided. Those who say that vinyl sounds better than cd have never listened to music on a really good cd player (if you play your cds on a dvd player it's a different story, though). It's more like cd versus mp3, with the quality of streams or mkv rips being the mp3 equivalent to the real thing, i.e. blu or dvd.

[Trees]

A little project I have been working on for almost two years now: I now have all of my movies on a portable harddrive, which is about 3.5TB and very fast: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HXAV0X6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; I have rips of every disc I own as MKV on this drive, so no matter where I travel, I always have all of my movies with me. I have these sortable by director name and title, as well as, in some cases, by studio. For example, I have all the Ghibli titles sortable. I am getting ready to start on Drive 2 soon, as the 3.5TB capacity is almost filled up.

I know some people like to keep films in the cloud, but for me, my travel so often takes me to places with poor internet connections that I feel better having the files in hand.

[mfunk9786]

4K Blu-ray is off to a shaky start: If Martin Liebman is to be believed (which... eh), The Martian's 4K disc is an upscaled 4K transfer sourced from a downscaled 2K digital intermediate

[Ribs]

It's not - the effects are upscaled from 2K but the source video is proper 4K.

[mfunk9786]

Note to self: never listen to Martin Liebman about anything

[Emilio]

It's not - the effects are upscaled from 2K but the source video is proper 4K.

How so? The DI of 'The Martian' is 2K isn't it? No matter that it was shot in 5K. Or do you think somehow a new master was created?

[Ribs]

Here's a note from a Fox representative that was tweeted a few weeks ago

[mfunk9786]

Same 2K->4K thing mentioned in the review that just went up for Exodus: Gods and Kings

[perkizitore]

A UHD BD can hold twice the data of a standard blu-ray, so even from a 2K scan you should be getting a better picture! That's good enough for me, I doubt that we will see the majority of art house films getting 4K scans in the near future.

[tenia]

Here's a note from a Fox representative that was tweeted a few weeks ago

They got me at "2K assets up-converted to 4K".

It's not - the effects are upscaled from 2K but the source video is proper 4K.

How so? The DI of 'The Martian' is 2K isn't it?

Indeed, and that's actually the case for most of the movies released in this 1st wave of UHD BD.
So, except if I'm totally wrong regarding the whole process flow, when he says "it's 5K down to 2K up to 4K", Martin should actually be quite spot-on.

A UHD BD can hold twice the data of a standard blu-ray, so even from a 2K scan you should be getting a better picture!

Not only that, but they're also using the more efficient (well, when used properly of course !) H265 encoder.

[Emilio]

Here's a note from a Fox representative that was tweeted a few weeks ago

They got me at "2K assets up-converted to 4K".

It's not - the effects are upscaled from 2K but the source video is proper 4K.

How so? The DI of 'The Martian' is 2K isn't it?

Indeed, and that's actually the case for most of the movies released in this 1st wave of UHD BD.
So, except if I'm totally wrong regarding the whole process flow, when he says "it's 5K down to 2K up to 4K", Martin should actually be quite spot-on.

A UHD BD can hold twice the data of a standard blu-ray, so even from a 2K scan you should be getting a better picture!

Not only that, but they're also using the more efficient (well, when used properly of course !) H265 encoder.

Yes well. Try not to spill the Kool-Aid, or were you being sarcastic?

And especially in the case of 'The Martian' and 'Exodus...', which are VFX-dominated films, it seems quite meaningless to speak of 5K raw camera assets, when the path of said camera assets is hardly direct-to-the-DI. Understatement of the week.

Oh and there have already been some, admittedly rather subjective, pic comparisons between UHD and the BR where there is NO visible increase in detail/resolution whatsoever. 5K assets my a...

[Brian C]

Unless a lot has changed in the last year, when I stopped working at a movie theater, most big studio films aren't released theatrically in 4K, much less the indie releases.

And here's the thing - I defy anyone to be able to tell the difference between 2K and 4K theatrical without prior knowledge of what you're seeing.

This whole 4K Blu thing is basically a snake-oil scam, as the explanation posted by Ribs above proves. Look at the contortions they have to go through to justify calling it 4K.

[tenia]

Try not to spill the Kool-Aid, or were you being sarcastic?

I wasn't sarcastic at all, quite the opposite actually.
I truly find it flabbergasting (and fascinating somehow) for the UHD to be launched with a whole bunch of titles which aren't even sourced from a native 4K master. It seems just silly overall. There are movies who have 4K DIs, why not using these instead ?
(on the other end, Skyfall had a 4K DI despite being shot at 2.8K, so...).
There is an article on Highdefdigest summing this up : http://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/ultra ... always-4k/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Every single film that Warner plans to release on the 4k Ultra HD format is a 2k movie.

When adding FOX,

that’s 13 launch titles from two major studios, and only a single movie was actually produced at 4k resolution and even that one was mostly photographed in 2k

However,

‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ – Shot on 35mm, with a 4k DI
‘Chappie’ – Shot in 5k, with a 4k DI
‘Hancock’ – Shot on 35mm, with a 4k DI
‘Salt’ – Shot on 35mm, with a 4k DI
‘The Smurfs 2’ – Shot in 4k, with a 4k DI

Elysium also had a 4K DI from a 3.3K shooting, so it would have been better than all of those 13 titles.

Look at the contortions they have to go through to justify calling it 4K.

"We had a Blu Ray, we downgraded the picture to DVD resolution, and then we uprezzed it again to HD. It must thus be HD ! Or, and there's something else which was done by some professional guys who doesn't have anything to do with resolution but hey ! IT WAS DONE BY PROFESSIONAL GUYS !"

What stuns me the most though is how much communication is shifting more and more from the increased resolution to the HDR and color reproduction (while forgetting to remind everyone that the 2-steps norm makes many 1st Gen UHD TV limited in this specific area).
I alos read a fascinating discussion on homecinema-fr about how UHD video-projectors might have difficulties to reach the peak whites needed to properly exploit HDR... except by using algorithms allowing to remap the whole color grading but adapted to the video-projector (which is what Dolby Vision algorithm seems to be doing, but that comes with a cost).

Plenty of fun at the horizon !

I also wish plenty of luck to all the studios to get the movies' colorists to do frame-by-frame adjustments for each of their UHD releases. I guess these guys have plenty of free time.

[calculus entrophy]

What a time......more simultaneous change than I've seen at one time.

changing business models
changing studios
changing formats
changing infrastructure

[TMDaines]

tenia is correct. You are essentially paying for pre-rendered upscaling. Very odd.

Then again people have been positively reviewing Criterion's practice of having HD versions of extras on their Blu-rays that are clearly bloated upscales.

[Emilio]

Try not to spill the Kool-Aid, or were you being sarcastic?

Plenty of fun at the horizon !

It's a funny thing indeed to read the pro/consumer reviews of the titles released so far. With all the (aforementioned) inconsistencies in the chain multiplied one senses the headscratching when trying to properly evaluate the picture quality.