AVS › AVS Forum › Blu-ray & HD DVD › HDTV Software Media Discussion › Muddying the waters: "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray discs...
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Muddying the waters: "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray discs...

post #1 of 30
1/7/13 at 7:32pm
Thread Starter 
...yep, it's a Sony thing. Straight from CES:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/sony-4k-distribution-service/
Quote:
To compliment the electronics industry's launch of 4K Ultra HD Televisions, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) is proud to leverage its growing 4K asset library to present "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray™ titles. While maintaining the studio's commitment to the highest possible quality Blu-ray releases, the "Mastered in 4K" offering takes these efforts even further.

"Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray releases will feature titles-such as The Amazing Spider-Man™, Total Recall, The Karate Kid, Battle: Los Angeles and The Other Guys-sourced from pristine 4K masters and presented at high-bitrate 1080p resolution, with expanded color showcasing more of the wide range of rich color contained in the original source. When upscaled via the Sony 4K Ultra HD TVs, these discs serve as an ideal way for consumers to experience near-4K picture quality. SPHE also plans to utilize available high quality 4K masters for select upcoming new release Blu-ray titles. "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray Discs can be played on all existing Blu-ray Disc players.

I think this is where we go "Wait, weren't you guys supposed to be using the best possible masters for this all along?"

Albeit perhaps a couple of seconds after "Who picked those?"
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #2 of 30
1/7/13 at 8:15pm
Aren't a lot of titles these days mastered at 4K anyway?
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 30
1/7/13 at 8:38pm
Oh boy. :/
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 30
1/7/13 at 9:26pm
LOL, so Sony is (shades of 1999) pushing "superbit" blu-rays that look great when upscaled to 4k displays. Nice way to double dip without actually going 4k!
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 30
1/7/13 at 9:36pm
This is just a temporary stop-gap (i.e. marketing gimmick) for people who buy 4K TVs while Sony gets their true 4K delivery system ready for this summer.

Part of their “true 4K content” demo included LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, which borders on taunting…
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 30
1/7/13 at 11:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jedi2016 View Post

Aren't a lot of titles these days mastered at 4K anyway?
2K is still standard (The Hobbit, Avengers), mostly due to VFX costs.

And about that "Mastered in 4K", hight-bitrate 1080p? Pathetic. Are we in the first days of Blu-ray existence or what?
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 30
1/8/13 at 1:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Vertigo View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jedi2016 View Post

Aren't a lot of titles these days mastered at 4K anyway?
2K is still standard (The Hobbit, Avengers), mostly due to VFX costs.
And about that "Mastered in 4K", hight-bitrate 1080p? Pathetic. Are we in the first days of Blu-ray existence or what?

2K masters will benefit from real 4K delivery compared to 1080p Blu Rays. But 1080p Blu Rays from 4K at high bit rates are very little progress. We basically have that already with many
discs.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 30
1/8/13 at 3:57am
This is a good thing, the day they stop crap 2k or 1080p masters the better.
Plus some transparency on what masters were used on the package is good also.
Its not like laserdiscs mastered in HD killed anyone.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 30
1/8/13 at 8:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dvdmike007 View Post

This is a good thing, the day they stop crap 2k or 1080p masters the better.
Plus some transparency on what masters were used on the package is good also.
Its not like laserdiscs mastered in HD killed anyone.

True. Absolutely true but.... they (and every other studio) should have been doing this since day 1.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 30
1/8/13 at 9:11am
Quote:
with expanded color showcasing more of the wide range of rich color contained in the original source.

So is it going to be higher than 4:2:0?
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 30
1/8/13 at 9:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stumlad View Post

So is it going to be higher than 4:2:0?

Would be nice but it sounds more like marketing jargon to me.
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 30
1/8/13 at 10:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Simonian View Post

True. Absolutely true but.... they (and every other studio) should have been doing this since day 1.

How so? 4K equipment and infrastructure were not available when Blu-ray cranked up.
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 30
1/8/13 at 10:34am
Folks should remember this is just marketing. The CE industry is down again this year in sales. Everyone is pulling out the stops in order to up their numbers.

The good part is the BDA has started looking into extending the BD specs. Hopefully the H.265? (HEVC, MPEG-5) or what ever it will be called, will be finished soon and it will accommodate 10 bit, 4:2:2, 4:4:4 video.
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 30
1/8/13 at 10:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland View Post

How so? 4K equipment and infrastructure were not available when Blu-ray cranked up.

I think the point is that they should always be using the best (ie. highest spatial resolution) transfer available, whatever the scanning rate.
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 30
1/8/13 at 10:50am
Coming to next year's CES: 8K-mastered 1080p Blu-rays! Oh, the progress we are making! tongue.gif

Talk about a marketing gimmick. Sheesh.
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 30
1/8/13 at 10:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland View Post

How so? 4K equipment and infrastructure were not available when Blu-ray cranked up.

Quote:
Originally Posted by spectator View Post

I think the point is that they should always be using the best (ie. highest spatial resolution) transfer available, whatever the scanning rate.

This.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mbrennem View Post

Coming to next year's CES: 8K-mastered 1080p Blu-rays! Oh, the progress we are making! tongue.gif
Talk about a marketing gimmick. Sheesh.

I'd like this, personally. 4k is pretty nice but 8k is .....omfg, awesome! I wish we'd just skip past 4k and go straight to 8k. biggrin.gif
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 30
1/8/13 at 12:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mbrennem View Post

Coming to next year's CES: 8K-mastered 1080p Blu-rays! Oh, the progress we are making! tongue.gif
Talk about a marketing gimmick. Sheesh.

Correct me of I'm wrong, but I think we already have that. I'm pretty sure the cover to the bluray for SAMSARA claims it's 8k mastered.
Reply
Reply
post #18 of 30
1/8/13 at 2:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by reanimator View Post

Correct me of I'm wrong, but I think we already have that. I'm pretty sure the cover to the bluray for SAMSARA claims it's 8k mastered.

I thought the master was 4k?
Reply
Reply
post #19 of 30
1/8/13 at 3:22pm
This sounds a lot like those Superbit from 10 years ago. If they are to release Gattaca from a 4K scanned master and DTS-HD Master Audio, bring it it! I'Im buying.
Reply
Reply
post #20 of 30
1/8/13 at 3:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pokekevin View Post

I thought the master was 4k?

The original 70mm film was scanned at 8k and mastered in 4k and that master was used for the BD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EddieVanHalen View Post

This sounds a lot like those Superbit from 10 years ago. If they are to release Gattaca from a 4K scanned master and DTS-HD Master Audio, bring it it! I'Im buying.

Sweet! Another copy of the 5th Element for me then. That will bring the total to about five. tongue.gif
Reply
Reply
post #21 of 30
1/8/13 at 3:30pm
REgardless, Samsara is still visually stunning. All BDs should look like it!
Reply
Reply
post #22 of 30
1/8/13 at 5:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pokekevin View Post

I thought the master was 4k?

I'm not sure of the tech specs, I was alluding to how the disc is being advertised to consumers.

I just checked, and the cover of the SAMSARA bluray is headlined "8K UltraDigital HD"
Reply
Reply
post #23 of 30
1/8/13 at 6:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by reanimator View Post

I'm not sure of the tech specs, I was alluding to how the disc is being advertised to consumers.
I just checked, and the cover of the SAMSARA bluray is headlined "8K UltraDigital HD"

Just watched both Samsara and TimeScapes. Gotta say both are outrageously stunning but the footage from TimeScapes (Red Epic 5k) seemed to have more detail. Definitely felt like TimeScapes won on PQ. What do you guys think?

Screen from timescapes

Edited by pokekevin - 1/8/13 at 6:52pm
Reply
Reply
post #24 of 30
1/9/13 at 6:25am
Most Blu-ray catalog titles are using old, 1080p transfers which have that "digital" look. Universal and Paramount being the worst. I would love to see more get re-done with fresh 4K scans...makes such a huge difference. Just look at the 4K scanned titles we have today - most look very, very good.
Reply
Reply
post #25 of 30
1/10/13 at 7:33am
It says they'll use an extended color gamut though... That's really nice but it requires an additional calibration setting in your setup.
Reply
Reply
post #26 of 30
1/10/13 at 1:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drexler View Post

It says they'll use an extended color gamut though... That's really nice but it requires an additional calibration setting in your setup.
They say "with expanded color". Though is that just marketing talk? Maybe they're just going to boost the colours though they say "showcasing more of the wide range of rich color contained in the original source". I don't think they can give more than the normal 8 bit range (actually more like 16-235) without it not being within specs/not working existing players. So I think it's mostly marketing talk, but that using a better quality source will give a clearer picture, but the colour ranges will really be about the same.
Reply
Reply
post #27 of 30
1/10/13 at 5:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidHir View Post

Most Blu-ray catalog titles are using old, 1080p transfers which have that "digital" look. Universal and Paramount being the worst. I would love to see more get re-done with fresh 4K scans...makes such a huge difference. Just look at the 4K scanned titles we have today - most look very, very good.

I think hell will freeze over before Universal will do 4K scans. Just like 1080p made dvd master artifacts stand out, 4K will make any over processed 4K masters obvious... I am looking at you Lowery...
Reply
Reply
post #28 of 30
1/19/13 at 7:12pm
It is hard to tell from the press release if there is anything new with "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray discs or if they are just ordinary Blu-ray discs. It states that the discs have "expanded color" and that could mean one of the two things. Sony is either going overboard with their description or they are going to use some kind of backward compatible color space such as xvYCC.
Reply
Reply
post #29 of 30
1/22/13 at 9:07am
The 'Mastered in 4K' product line is band-aid solution to the fact there is no native content to sell for these sets. Think of them as Superbit 2.0. The real question should be why weren' t the titles mastered with their best possible efforts the first time? Superbit was a failure. I doubt these will be do any better in the market as I would guess Sony is going to try and charge an unrealistic premium.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Paul 
It is hard to tell from the press release if there is anything new with "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray discs or if they are just ordinary Blu-ray discs. It states that the discs have "expanded color" and that could mean one of the two things. Sony is either going overboard with their description or they are going to use some kind of backward compatible color space such as xvYCC.

In order to carry a BD logo they have to conform to the standard. Sony might do some tweaking to the colors but in the end the information is in the same colorspace for it to be decoded properly.
Reply
Reply
post #30 of 30
1/29/13 at 5:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toknowshita View Post

In order to carry a BD logo they have to conform to the standard. Sony might do some tweaking to the colors but in the end the information is in the same colorspace for it to be decoded properly.
A backward compatible color space can be used by putting data into the area that is below and above the data range normally used with a video signal. That is how xvYCC works and here is a link to a Sony website that describes it. Sony hasn't released any more information about "Mastered in 4K" so at the moment it is just a theory.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: HDTV Software Media Discussion

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Blu-ray & HD DVD › HDTV Software Media Discussion › Muddying the waters: "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray discs...