1058 The Irishman

[ford]

Not sure why they didn’t release this on UHD. I adore the film but haven’t purchased the Blu-ray and don’t plan to — can’t imagine it’s up to the quality of an HDR (Dolby Vision?) 4k stream from Netflix.

[Penti Mento]

Not sure why they didn’t release this on UHD. I adore the film but haven’t purchased the Blu-ray and don’t plan to — can’t imagine it’s up to the quality of an HDR (Dolby Vision?) 4k stream from Netflix.

Very few people in the US have access to the kind of internet that would convey genuine and consistent 4K quality. Even in large cities internet connectivity and bandwidth varies from community to community, even neighborhood to neighborhood. And - someone correct me if I'm wrong - there are no evidentiary procedures or regulatory oversight to prove or guarantee any streaming content is actually at the resolution promised.

So the BD is worth releasing. Naturally I'd prefer a UHD as well, as the film is a masterpiece.

[tenia]

Not sure about the regulatory side of things, but a contractual one, yes : if you're paying for the 4k subscription and it's a program stated as being 4k, you should receive a 2160p file. Now, since quality isn't just a matter of resolution, how this 4k looks is a whole different matter (for what it's worth, it could be an older master upscaled to 4k).

[ford]

Not sure why they didn’t release this on UHD. I adore the film but haven’t purchased the Blu-ray and don’t plan to — can’t imagine it’s up to the quality of an HDR (Dolby Vision?) 4k stream from Netflix.

Very few people in the US have access to the kind of internet that would convey genuine and consistent 4K quality. Even in large cities internet connectivity and bandwidth varies from community to community, even neighborhood to neighborhood. And - someone correct me if I'm wrong - there are no evidentiary procedures or regulatory oversight to prove or guarantee any streaming content is actually at the resolution promised.

So the BD is worth releasing. Naturally I'd prefer a UHD as well, as the film is a masterpiece.

But if you have a very high speed internet connection (I do), wouldn't a 4k stream, even if it doesn't hit full resolution, be at least as good as a 1080 bluray, especially adding the HDR?

[dekadetia]

Adding the HDR, I would say yes. Without that this would be harder to say definitively. The Netflix streaming file is approx 10GB smaller than the blu-ray file despite its image being 4x as many pixels; it is using a more efficient codec (h265 vs h264), but expecting this much efficiency would be asking a lot. Like so many things, it comes down to the quality of the encode.

One thing's for sure -- a properly maxed out UHD would best either option and remove any doubt from the equation.