4K - Worth it?

Worth it yes but I’ve gone back to buying Blu-ray Discs as some of the UHD HDR discs were a little too realistic - strange but true. I run an LG OLED fed from an Oppo 205 and find that the 4K upscaling on Blu-ray and even SD content is just fine to these eyes at least!

1 Like

Having had my 4k since Xmas I would say it’s not really worth it unless you have a huge huge screen. HDR on the other hand is worth it when it’s done right.

For film content 4k is still 99% upscaled from 2k content. I work in the industry and post production costs are still too high to deal with 4k especially on the big effects heavy blockbusters so they are still masterd to 2k. There are exceptions but they are few and far between.

Netflix content if their own productions is mainly finished at 4k from 4k or above sources.

There is very little film/movie 4K… but starting to appear slowly. I like AppleTVs approach, HD content magically upgrades to 4K when available (and your broadband supports). The thing I notice is the colour gamut increase and colour accuracy on 4K content due to the better codecs… really enjoy it with older films where when remastered / rescanned for 4K, the film pops out at you. You also notice things like dust on lenses and frames … that seem to be invisible or lost in the HD masters, no doubt to the lack resolution and lossy compression…quite apparent when you have both to compare.

I’ve always noticed dust and such, part of the job to me and at any resolution. The thing is with old films being mastered to 4k from the original print film is that they are starting at a significantly lower resolution so HD is not loosing anything infact its higher than the line resolution of a final print due to the mastering process as it goes from negative to interpositive and internegative before it gets to the final print… H265 which is used for 4k is a lot better than h264 used in standard Bluray but there is no reason not to use it for HD to, but they tend not to so you see a bigger difference at 4k from the HD master. I agree the wider gamut in color can help make it pop but often this is not how it would have ever looked on release so you essentially changing the master, much like remasters in music. Funny how we can be happy to have upscaled images but if you where given a upressed audio file we would be less than happy. If they remaster from the original neg cut then this can be scanned to 4k and maintain as much resolution as possible but the quality of this is very dependant on the original film stock and not always is better at 4k than 2k.

Today very little is printed to film, there a few directors who still cling on to the old ways, Chris Nolan and Tarantino spring to mind and they still try to even use film colour timing as opposed to the digital intermediate route for mastering, only using digital scanning when needed for visual effects. 35mm Film can these days be scanned at 4k but is still more often done at 2k unless they shoot using 70mm and 65mm Film which is bloody expensive. Most productions are shot with digital cameras though and shoot between 3k and up to 8k but this is more often rescsaled down to either 2k and occasionly 4k. The costs are still very high as is the increased data sizes. We don’t use compressed images so your shifting a lot of data around and rendering images at 4k is still pretty slow depending on what your doing to them. Technoolgy will eventually catch up but this is significant overhead and then costs rise.

Until all acquisition and mastering in 4k is a thing then the technology of 4k TV’s is pretty much being held back. TV is where its at for pushing this, which is odd as they actually produce more data overall than films do,

I also maintain HDR is a much bigger bump than 4k ever will be.
.

I agree HDR can be good (but you did need to calibrate your TV and the standardisation is weak at present with too many variation), but I often prefer HD without HDR, and 4K with HDR10 or Dolby Vision . A good HD master encoded to ITU Rec. 709 can work really well… on a calibrated TV… it might be what I am used to.
As far as 4K and the film popping out… I am referring to the film type. A 4K scan of a good Kodachrome 1960s master can really look good… you can see the colour profile of that wonderful film type … (I love my film types). If you are watching say a 4K scan of Dr No, the Kodachrome colour space feel takes you back to the 1960s… it’s all part of the viewing experience… Watch the Rec 709 equivalent and you don’t get that same feel from the colour space.
I treat my films like my music recordings :slight_smile:

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.