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Best 4K/UHD Movies

Started by Chedney Honks, August 15, 2020, 02:53:45 PM

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Chedney Honks

Sparked by some chat in the Film Grain thread, I wonder which 4K Blu Ray discs people would recommend as their favourites, or as best examples of the format?

I will start by recommending Alien.

The clarity and detail and texture are fantastic but it's really all about the depth of the darkness and the shadows. I've seen it several times on DVD and VHS over the years, it's not an all time favourite but I do really enjoy it. This is the most atmospheric it's ever been, though. Highly recommended.

Shit Good Nose

2001, Blade Runner and Jaws are all stunning, but the absolute daddy for me so far has been Apocalypse Now - it's an unreal experience almost like it's all taking place right inside your TV.  I can't recommend it highly enough.

Chedney Honks

Thanks, I love Jaws and really enjoyed the other three but not enormously familiar. I'll keep an eye out for Apocalypse Now for less than twenty notes to will snap that up. Cheers!

wooders1978

Agree on apocalypse now - immense

Bladerunner 2049 also gawjus

Nolan's Batman's are very nice too

JamesTC

The Mummy (1999) looks absolutely incredible. Probably the best looking 4K in my collection.

greenman

Beyond those mentioned....

Angel Heart
The Elephant Man
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Shining
Flash Gordon
Don't Look Now
The Deer Hunter
Dunkirk

You'd need to import them from the US(but UHD is region free) but Suspiria and Fulci's Zombie are both very well done for small lables.

Chedney Honks

Excellent, many thanks for the recommendations.

I've just gone for a dedicated 4K BD player to replace my Xbox One X. I'd thought that one player was as good as another but from reading around further, it seems that there's quite a lot of variation and capacity for improvement over what I've been using.

I went for the Sony UBP-X700 and got a really good price on it, seemingly.

https://www.whathifi.com/sony/ubp-x700/review

If there's no perceptible difference to me, I'll just send it back, but worth a go. Looking forward to getting stuck in.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Chedney Honks on August 17, 2020, 12:56:00 PM
I went for the Sony UBP-X700 and got a really good price on it, seemingly.

That's the one I've got, except mine's chipped for multi-region (I've got a LOT of region A blu rays).  It's a great player, however sorry to say I can't make a direct comparison with the XBox.

wooders1978

Get a smart telly and stream it is my advice - internet speeds permitting

Chedney Honks

I do have a smart telly (LG C9) with ethernet connection, and the built-in app streams seem a bit better than through the Xbox apps. On the other hand, picture and especially audio are definitely better via blu ray discs than streaming. I've got several versions of a few films (physical and digital) and I was surprised by the comparisons.

Streaming UHD is absolutely brilliant as a thing but same as streaming music isn't quite the same as playing lossless files. I'd say it's about 90% as good though, which is impressive.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Chedney Honks on August 17, 2020, 02:13:07 PM
Streaming UHD is absolutely brilliant as a thing but same as streaming music isn't quite the same as playing lossless files. I'd say it's about 90% as good though, which is impressive.

Agreed.  I don't want to get into that argument, but, where I've been able to directly compare a 4K disc (or an HD blu for that matter) with its digital or streamed counterpart, I've yet to see one that comes close to matching its physical media equivalent.  And it's not like trying to compare high bitrate MP3 with its source, where most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference - there are tangible digital artifacts.

Also, isn't streamed 4K actually 2K?

Quote from: Chedney Honks on August 17, 2020, 12:56:00 PMI've just gone for a dedicated 4K BD player to replace my Xbox One X

Uh-oh, this snowball is already getting bigger.
It'll be like that time you turfed a load of Russian military grade audio equipment into the sea and went back to listening to mp3s on your iphone speaker.
You'll have one of those little pocket tellies before the months out!

Chedney Honks

Haha. It was either Tung-Sol 5998 NOS or tinnitus induced suicide. Still never sure if I made the right decision.

Good to see you round. I thought you'd forgotten your password or something!

Don't encourage me. I'm barely palatable even in small doses.

QuoteGiven that high quality 35mm film shot with quality gear can yield 20 megapixels or more of resolution when scanned with high-end equipment it becomes readily apparent how it's very easy for movie studios to go back and, assuming they've preserved their original negatives properly, completely remaster a film to look absolutely amazing compared to what they released on VHS in the 1980s and DVD in the 1990s.

Aaaah. I thought that films would have to be filmed in 4k to begin with the get the full benefit.

greenman

#14
Its quite hard to qualify just how much detail film has on it, obviously the differences in the film itself, the lenses, the format size, etc play a part their but also its much less cut and dry than digital when you've maxed out on detail. To get every last bit of detail out of a decent 35mm print from say the 80's you'd probably need 8K but the difference relative to 4K would probably be quite sublte.

Quote from: Chedney Honks on August 17, 2020, 02:13:07 PM
I do have a smart telly (LG C9) with ethernet connection, and the built-in app streams seem a bit better than through the Xbox apps. On the other hand, picture and especially audio are definitely better via blu ray discs than streaming. I've got several versions of a few films (physical and digital) and I was surprised by the comparisons.

Streaming UHD is absolutely brilliant as a thing but same as streaming music isn't quite the same as playing lossless files. I'd say it's about 90% as good though, which is impressive.

Even UHD disks aren't loseless files(besides the audio), their limited to 100 gig and the original files would probably be terabits in size but they do still have 3/4 times the bitrate of most streaming.

Got the same TV as you in the C9 but UHD Player wise I'v got a Panasonic UB-450, there most basic model at £150(just a no fills box with a small controller) but they are sposed to have the best coverage in terms of features, UHD has been a bit of a mess there as its been done piecemeal adding in extra quality like Dolbyvision that many players/TV's can't handle. Not had any issues with it failing to play a UHD disk correctly so far.

Chedney Honks

Quote from: ImmaculateClump on August 17, 2020, 03:33:18 PM
Don't encourage me. I'm barely palatable even in small doses.

Ehhh, bollocks to all that, champ. Good to see you.

Thanks man. I thought I'd still been here chipping in now and then, but I've just checked and there are canny gaps between my most recent posts.
I must have just been doing that thing where you type out a post and then ditch it.
I've been busy, I know that. Nothing to worry about :D

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: greenman on August 17, 2020, 03:46:01 PM
Its quite hard to qualify just how much detail film has on it, obviously the differences in the film itself, the lenses, the format size, etc play a part their but also its much less cut and dry than digital when you've maxed out on detail. To get every last bit of detail out of a decent 35mm print from say the 80's you'd probably need 8K but the difference relative to 4K would probably be quite sublte.

Even UHD disks aren't loseless files(besides the audio), their limited to 100 gig and the original files would probably be terabits in size but they do still have 3/4 times the bitrate of most streaming.

Got the same TV as you in the C9 but UHD Player wise I'v got a Panasonic UB-450, there most basic model at £150(just a no fills box with a small controller) but they are sposed to have the best coverage in terms of features, UHD has been a bit of a mess there as its been done piecemeal adding in extra quality like Dolbyvision that many players/TV's can't handle. Not had any issues with it failing to play a UHD disk correctly so far.

There's a massive difference between the 35mm out the camera and what one sees at the cinema as well; an optically printed cinema print probably can only show 2000 vertical alternating bars, not a kick in the arse off 2k.but the original prints had much more detail than that. Probably part of the reason 70mm 'blow ups' were common, althought that had a lot to do with multi-channel sound before doblby digital/dts as well (e.g. ET was blown to 70mm for that reason).

Josef K

I know digital 4K will never quite be as good as UHD Blu Ray, but has anyone used Apple TV to stream 4K movies? They're generally pretty cheap - £6 to £10 to buy - and Apple doesn't charge you a 4K premium, unlike the cunts at YouTube/GooglePlay.
Wondering what the quality's like, and I'm not going to get a UHD BR player until I get a PS5

Shit Good Nose

Never actually used Apple TV, but...

Quote from: Josef K on August 18, 2020, 12:43:59 PM
Apple doesn't charge you a 4K premium, unlike the cunts at YouTube/GooglePlay.

isn't that just because they're already charging a 4K premium on everything, i.e. including stuff which is just in HD?  Last time I looked at it (which was last year) their HD offerings were between 50p and £2 more (depending on how new/popular etc) than most other platforms.

Chedney Honks

Fucking hell. A proper 4K BD player twats the Xbox. Boostah.

greenman

Theer is talk that Disney are going to stop doing archive UHD disk releases besides Starwars and their animated stuff which would mean no more Fox stuff, we'd already got Alien, Predator and Diehard I spose.

I suspect part of the threat to the format will be not only sales but studios looking to keep 4K content exclusive to their own streaming services.

QDRPHNC

Quote from: Chedney Honks on August 18, 2020, 06:51:43 PM
Fucking hell. A proper 4K BD player twats the Xbox. Boostah.

Don't tell me that ffs

Chedney Honks

Yeah, even the apps via the BD player are better than the Xbox apps or the LG TV apps. Sound quality is also noticeably better.

This Sony UBP-X700 is brilliant value, if you do end up going for a dedicated player. Bit plasticky and no display but the actual picture and sound are fucking fantastic.

Josef K

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on August 18, 2020, 12:52:04 PM
Never actually used Apple TV, but...

isn't that just because they're already charging a 4K premium on everything, i.e. including stuff which is just in HD?  Last time I looked at it (which was last year) their HD offerings were between 50p and £2 more (depending on how new/popular etc) than most other platforms.

It definitely sounds like they've got their act together on pricing since then.
E.g. - Blade Runner 2049 in 4K is £4.99 on Apple TV, £13.99 on YouTube.
Dark Knight is £7.99 on Apple, £9.99 just for HD on YouTube.

Seems like brand new releases are generally the same price as other platforms though

Chedney Honks

Thank you for the Apocalypse Now recommendation. Just shit my kecks.

non capisco

Started laughing out loud in disbelief at how good the Apocalypse Now one looks when all the trees catch fire in the opening shot. Daft twat still left that boring ass French Plantation scene from the Redux in though.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: non capisco on August 19, 2020, 09:30:56 PM
Started laughing out loud in disbelief at how good the Apocalypse Now one looks when all the trees catch fire in the opening shot. Daft twat still left that boring ass French Plantation scene from the Redux in though.

I think I'm the only person on the planet (other than Coppola) that actually likes the French plantation sequence.  It's a part of the war that doesn't get a look in in any other 'nam film and it acts as a nice bridging section between conflict and Kurtz.

I'm glad he got shot of the extended Playboy bunny sequence though - Coppola is not very good at comedy.

Starlit

I just watched a 4K disc of Apocalypse Now and didn't think it looked good at all.
I've never liked the film, but I've quite often enjoyed films because of how they look not because of what they are.
I found it to be grainy, poorly focused, just generally dull looking. The only half decent bit was the phosphor explosions along the river.
And it's stupidly long.

Off the top of my head, the films that I've been most impressed with from a visual point of view have been Ready Player One and Sicario 2.

buzby

#29
EDIT:Ignore