Latest DVD and Blu-ray Purchases

[Storm Eagle]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

You are a film buff so I thought you might. I look every year to see which films I enjoy get honored. Aside from Charade (1963) I felt underwhelmed with this year's selections. Each year I submit my picks. Didn't know if you did the same.

I may have a lot of movies and a large DVD/Blu-ray/4K Blu-ray collection, but I'm not exactly a movie buff. I just enjoy movies. I don't have much insider knowledge on most of them.

[rav4ge]

I bought The Hobbit Trilogy on 4K Blu-ray. It was a good price and I’m interested in revisiting the series. I have to admit, though: 4K streaming is so good these days that the picture quality vs. Blu-ray is becoming nearly imperceivable. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to rationalize physical media purchases much longer.

[Storm Eagle]

Originally Posted by rav4ge

I bought The Hobbit Trilogy on 4K Blu-ray. It was a good price and I’m interested in revisiting the series. I have to admit, though: 4K streaming is so good these days that the picture quality vs. Blu-ray is becoming nearly imperceivable. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to rationalize physical media purchases much longer.

What about 4K streaming vs. a physical 4K disc?

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by rav4ge

I bought The Hobbit Trilogy on 4K Blu-ray. It was a good price and I’m interested in revisiting the series. I have to admit, though: 4K streaming is so good these days that the picture quality vs. Blu-ray is becoming nearly imperceivable. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to rationalize physical media purchases much longer.

Just curious as to what manufacturer and model of TV you are running?

[rav4ge]

Originally Posted by Storm Eagle

What about 4K streaming vs. a physical 4K disc?

Sorry, that's what I meant. 4K stream vs (4K) Blu-ray. I don't think a standard 1080p blu-ray wouldn't make for much of a comparison

Originally Posted by IMJ

Just curious as to what manufacturer and model of TV you are running?

Sure!

TV: LG 65" 4K OLED UHD TV Television (A1) - OLED65A1PUA.ACC
Player: Sony UBP-X700 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player (2018 Model)

[MikeandRaph87]

For those of us who are not initiated, what does 360,480,720, and 1080 all mean? I see it on YouTube and download sites all the time but don't really know what it means and how it correlates to DVDs and the like.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

For those of us who are not initiated, what does 360,480,720, and 1080 all mean? I see it on YouTube and download sites all the time but don't really know what it means and how it correlates to DVDs and the like.

Those numbers represent the number of lines that comprise a T.V.'s resolution - 480 lines, 720, or 1080 lines. For a while, the manner in which the TV would "build" the lines had an impact on picture quality as well.

For example, those numbers used to be supplemented by an "i" or a "p" but now all of them are "P" meaning "Progressive scan". So back in the day your normal TV was commonly 480i and then there were some sources that could produce 480p and the picture looked "cleaner". 480 was standard definition.

Then, early High Definition TV's were 720p and 1080i; although the best "early" HD TV's produced 1080p. There's more to that story such as international standards (i.e., the 360 vs the 480) and how the interlace versus progressive scan works, but that's there for you if you become interested in home theater.

After that we got Ultra HD with 4k, indicating 4000 lines of resolution (i.e. more detail and sharper lines). Nowadays it's all progressive scan and instead of that being the variable, the new variable is whether or not a 4k TV can produce local or area dimming. Local or area dimming dictates how your TV will produced HDR (high dynamic range) shadows and brightness.

So in a perfect world you'd now have a 4k TV with good processing (Sony's processing is top notch) that has a panel that does local dimming and can yield a high NIT measurement (aka the brightness value that compliments "Contrast ratio"). Most of the companies actually use LG panels now in their high-end TV's. In the future you can expect 8k next, but around that point it becomes debatable whether or not it's worth it because there is a resolution threshold wherein the difference becomes imperceptible to most people.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Those numbers represent the number of lines that comprise a T.V.'s resolution - 480 lines, 720, or 1080 lines. For a while, the manner in which the TV would "build" the lines had an impact on picture quality as well.

For example, those numbers used to be supplemented by an "i" or a "p" but now all of them are "P" meaning "Progressive scan". So back in the day your normal TV was commonly 480i and then there were some sources that could produce 480p and the picture looked "cleaner". 480 was standard definition.

Then, early High Definition TV's were 720p and 1080i; although the best "early" HD TV's produced 1080p. There's more to that story such as international standards (i.e., the 360 vs the 480) and how the interlace versus progressive scan works, but that's there for you if you become interested in home theater.

After that we got Ultra HD with 4k, indicating 4000 lines of resolution (i.e. more detail and sharper lines). Nowadays it's all progressive scan and instead of that being the variable, the new variable is whether or not a 4k TV can produce local or area dimming. Local or area dimming dictates how your TV will produced HDR (high dynamic range) shadows and brightness.

So in a perfect world you'd now have a 4k TV with good processing (Sony's processing is top notch) that has a panel that does local dimming and can yield a high NIT measurement (aka the brightness value that compliments "Contrast ratio"). Most of the companies actually use LG panels now in their high-end TV's. In the future you can expect 8k next, but around that point it becomes debatable whether or not it's worth it because there is a resolution threshold wherein the difference becomes imperceptible to most people.

Comcast my local television and internet provider redirects to the HD version of a channel whenever one turns directly to a channel. So the few hundred DVDs that I have are 720p? Now, its common for 1080p? The number of pixels(lines) on a fitted screen determines the quality of picture. Okay. It's gotten to where its assumed common knowledge, but its never explained. I cannot tell much difference at all on a DVD vs Blu-ray. How much better can a picture quality get anyway? Now, if I read this correctly, 4k refers to 4,000 pixels opposed to the now common 1080?

I don't know if its supposed to be understood to the common consumer or not, but it makes me feel like I am not with the program. Thanks for the clear up.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

Comcast my local television and internet provider redirects to the HD version of a channel whenever one turns directly to a channel. So the few hundred DVDs that I have are 720p? Now, its common for 1080p? The number of pixels(lines) on a fitted screen determines the quality of picture. Okay. It's gotten to where its assumed common knowledge, but its never explained. I cannot tell much difference at all on a DVD vs Blu-ray. How much better can a picture quality get anyway? Now, if I read this correctly, 4k refers to 4,000 pixels opposed to the now common 1080?

I don't know if its supposed to be understood to the common consumer or not, but it makes me feel like I am not with the program. Thanks for the clear up.

Well.... some of that is further down the well.

Think of it like this - the control in the science experiment are the resolutions. The variable in the experiment is a variety of other things such as the native source (i.e., DVD, HD-DVD aka Blu-Ray, 4k discs, or even the T.V.'s ability to upscale low resolution sources, etc). In short, your regular, old-school DVD's pump out a 480i picture and depending on your old-school player, hook-ups and TV that picture might be available in 480p.

But, if you ran your old-school DVD (i.e. your copy of "The Crow" from 1997) through an HD-DVD player, then that player could "upconvert" the picture to maybe 1080p by a process called "pixel-interpolation". And if your player doesn't do this, then most likely your TV itself will do it to varying degrees of success. Commonly however, native High definition sources (i.e. a Blu-Ray disc) will look better than a synthetically upconverted DVD source.

And the performance of TV's varies significantly. There are a lot of people out there who buy the cheap "Hinsensai" or "Vizio" TV's and really believe they dived into HD incredibly well until they see a truly solid HD setup. There is a lot to HD to absorb. The effects on the picture largely revolve around resolution, color gamut, and contrast ratio. But then there's another x-factor called "Motion Enhancement" that is a tremendously debated topic in the hobby. Motion enhancement can often be confused with "the" High-Definition picture - making the mistake that the "real world, soap-opera look" of HD is the HD, when in fact that is actually frame-interpolation.

I could have an entire conversation on the merits and detriments of the soap opera effect, which I personally don't hate by any means at all. Until you pop in a disc that is so close to reference quality that it removes the experience of the soap opera effect completely. For example, it's really neat watching Batman Begins on Blu-Ray with some motion-interpolation and seeing a real Batman running around a real city looking like it's happening in real life behind the glass of your TV. But then those Blu Rays are so cleanly encoded that when you change your settings to something more akin to a "cinema mode" the picture now instead looks like the cleanest 30fps celluloid somehow being pumped magically out of a digital disc. And so there's a lot to be said about watching a movie using Motion enhancement and then watching it again without it.

[rav4ge]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Well.... some of that is further down the well.

You seem to know your stuff! What home theater setup are you rockin' these days?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by IMJ

For example, those numbers used to be supplemented by an "i" or a "p" but now all of them are "P" meaning "Progressive scan". So back in the day your normal TV was commonly 480i and then there were some sources that could produce 480p and the picture looked "cleaner". 480 was standard definition.

Because the "i" stands for Interlaced. Meaning it's skipping over every other frame in horizontal layers.

The thing is, the old pre-LED, pre-plasma CRT TVs give footage "the CRT effect" that actually made crappy resolution footage look pretty OK by... making it look even crappier. What do I mean? It's this:



It's like CRT TVs interlaced footage in BOTH directions, and then softened up each little pixel within it.

So now you take that image on the right and blow it up on a 4K LED TV today, it's just going to be block city. The same kind of principle with lower resolution sources, like your average 480p DVD.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Because the "i" stands for Interlaced. Meaning it's skipping over every other frame in horizontal layers.

The thing is, the old pre-LED, pre-plasma CRT TVs give footage "the CRT effect" that actually made crappy resolution footage look pretty OK by... making it look even crappier.

Exactly. But that's more deep-dive info - I wasn't going to go there. The truth is that the whole interlace line construction thing is an artifact of the past now instead of an option to be aware of. They've solved that issue completely - for example I run my PS2 easily now on a 1080p Bravia using a pound cable and it looks terrific.

Originally Posted by rav4ge

You seem to know your stuff! What home theater setup are you rockin' these days?

Uhh well I have a few setups in different rooms for various things.

My "Mancave" is set up purely for nerd-Blu-Rays and gaming and gets almost zero use time. But in there I've got an array of each Playstation hooked up to a 55" Bravia KDL-EX model which has crisp lines and decent color gamut. On the rare occasions I use it, it runs anime blu rays or fun stuff like "Alan Quartermaine and the Lost City of Gold" basically as background noise because that's where I do a lot of my Wave 1 Collectibles photography.

Our master bedroom runs a Bravia 4k X850D 55" that we basically only use at night before bed for Netflix or Hulu or the occassional news stream. That one has HDR-10 and only produces area dimming which are fine but the typical Sony picture gives really amazing lines and detail. Live T.V. looks really good on it. I turn the contrast enhancer off because the area dimming doesn't do anything for me on it - all I see are quadrants of bright illumination in the corners when it runs.

I gave the kid my old 1080 KDL Eco model Bravia for her room. That T.V. is something else, man. It, inexplicably, has the best processing I've ever seen and produces the best 1080p picture I've ever seen as well.

My family room is where my actual "Home theater" is, I suppose. There I'm running a 77" Sony A80K with Dolby Vision and local dimming. That is fed by an Oppo UDP-203 which I use for disc content as well as a pick-up for my 4 terabyte Home Media Server. I painted the room in Benjamin Moore "Platinum Grey" (HC-179) which yields almost no shadows and matte reflectivity so with the lights down, it's all screen and ambience in the room.

Sound comes through a powered JBL sub, a Sony center channel and the rest are Polk Audio tower speakers driven through a 7.1 Pioneer deck with HD pass-throughs. Thankfully the Oppo player is so high-end that I run one HDMI from the player direct to the TV for 4k video; and a separate HDMI from the player to the Pioneer deck for audio. That Pioneer deck is amazing and the world's best kept audio secret. You could consider going higher-end, but I run a Pioneer VSX-series deck and the internal configurations available on that thing are amazing. Pioneer VSX series - lots of big-money audiophiles would tell you that it's a "normie" deck, but if you ask me it's the best kept secret in home theater. One demo of Top Gun Maverick or a T-Rex roaring in the rain and a light saber igniting and you'd be an instant believer.

I do my own screen calibrating using a variety of on-disc tools and I have a pair for THX filter glasses for color. I also do the riser math on the T.V. for wall placement against the sitting space, but my current T.V. isn't wall-mounted yet.

If you ever want to calibrate yourself but don't want to drop the coin on software, then on the fly I would recommend the best secret calibration tools I've discovered in my home theater travels as well - Sony' Superbit edtion of Spider-Man has some terrific calibrations on the extra menus - particularly the sharpness lines. And The Terminator 2 Skynet edition secretly has a THX Optimizer included on the disc. But you'll have to do more independent work for your reds and oranges if you are running 4k because blu-ray can't handle that color space.

[rav4ge]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Uhh well I have a few setups in different rooms for various things ...

Wow, those are wicked setups! High-end and meticulously designed, it seems. Thanks for indulging my curiosity

How are you liking the Sony A80K and OLED? I'm all aboard the OLED hype train myself. Feels like the largest next-gen image quality upgrade since 1080p.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by rav4ge

Wow, those are wicked setups! High-end and meticulously designed, it seems. Thanks for indulging my curiosity

How are you liking the Sony A80K and OLED? I'm all aboard the OLED hype train myself. Feels like the largest next-gen image quality upgrade since 1080p.

For sure! Home theater is fun!

OLED is absolutely what makes Ultra HD worthwhile because of the local dimming capabilities..... That and the Dolby Vision. HDR-10 is really solid when properly ran, but Dolby Vision is above and beyond with local OLED dimming. It's like watching a stage play with special effects.

[AquaParade]

I ordered the Dune (2022) 4K so I can finally experience it on physical media as opposed to streaming. Looking forward to watching that this week. Really feels like HBO Max and my internet connection couldn’t do the movie justice.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

I ordered the Dune (2022) 4K so I can finally experience it on physical media as opposed to streaming. Looking forward to watching that this week. Really feels like HBO Max and my internet connection couldn’t do the movie justice.

I love that movie. I was just watching that last night actually. The foley and musical cues in that movie, omg. I can't wait for Dune 2..... Every Dennis Villanueva flick is amazing. Blade Runner 2049 is easily one of the greatest movies of all time.

I'm trying to get my buddy to watch Dune but he gets easily biased if he doesn't want to like something. Right now he grips tightly onto that "Dune is nothing more than the awful 1980's movie". When he gets like that there's no changing his mind.

Years ago I was telling him about Marvel Ultimate Alliance and he bugged up that he can't play a game with RPG elements. He literally flailed his hands on a cutting motion as he said "no RPG elements NO R-P-G elements". He's a bit like George Costanza but he looks like f'n Kramer. It's hysterical.

Back when he liked Star Wars he obsessed over it and hated Star Trek. "Why would you like Star Trek? The ships all move slowly". OMG. Now his words: "he finally rid Star Wars from his life" but he loves Trek now and insists that he always did since childhood. Keep in mind I've known this guy for like 25 years or longer now. facepalms

So unfortunately I'll have to love Dune without him I guess.

[AquaParade]

I’ve found that pushing anything I like on anyone else is basically like spraying it with repellent. People hate to be suggested stuff. It becomes homework and it’s no longer theirs to discover.

It’s a bummer.

But yeah Dennis is my favorite director of the moment. I’m really looking forward to the other Dune films but am already eager to see him do other projects as well. Prisoners and Arrival are some of my favorites.

[Storm Eagle]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

I’ve found that pushing anything I like on anyone else is basically like spraying it with repellent. People hate to be suggested stuff. It becomes homework and it’s no longer theirs to discover.

It’s a bummer.

But yeah Dennis is my favorite director of the moment. I’m really looking forward to the other Dune films but am already eager to see him do other projects as well. Prisoners and Arrival are some of my favorites.

It's not a problem for me to be suggested things if it's done in a manner that isn't condescending. I tend to get put off when people suggest I try something and say it's "better", or if I can sense that they're clearly trying to put me down in some way.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Storm Eagle

It's not a problem for me to be suggested things if it's done in a manner that isn't condescending. I tend to get put off when people suggest I try something and say it's "better", or if I can sense that they're clearly trying to put me down in some way.

Exactly correct. I've known this guy for 25 years or so and we both love Blade Runner amidst a zillion other things that make us friends. It's not out of the question that I'd try to get him to watch Dune.

Exactly, well said.

[rav4ge]

I also picked up King Kong (2005) on 4K Blu-ray for a decent price. It would seem I'm inadvertently on some kind of Peter Jackson kick