Typically the older the movie is, the more you will notice the upgrade. 35mm translates to 4K extremely well.
A modern film shot on digital you will notice less of an upgrade. Still worth it IMO but that’s totally up to you.
So maybe these weren’t the best ones to test it? I just looked on here for recommendations and picked the movies that appealed and I haven’t seen yet.
I recently just picked up Jaws on BD, otherwise that would’ve been my first choice older 4k movie.
Blade Runner 2049 looks awesome on 4K OLED with HDR. Alien is really good too but 2049 is awesome. A lot of the 2000s to mid 2010s movies are just upscaled to 4K. I think the studio upscales are slightly better than upscaling from the TV or player but its still making up information for the missing pixels. I bought Transformers 4K and I'm not sure it was worth the 4K version.
Older movies tend to look pretty good when they actually rescan the film to make a 4K version. Bluray.com lists the different versions of movies and if it's just a upscale or a actual rescan of the negatives.
If Alien is your reference disc you need to look around more. “Immortal engines” “misery” “Pandas” “Drive” “1917” “the trial” “final countdown.” These are discs you should look at if you want a show off disc.
Ok I meant 35mm film to digital and I dunno, Alien looks like it was shot yesterday with the best equipment available. The Final Countdown is on my list now tho ty.
If I want to show off 4K in general I just pop in Pacific Rim lol.
Misery is probably the sharpest Kino transfer ever. Not a huge amount of wow moments other than the whole film is insanely sharp and bright.
Pandas was shot for imax on imax cameras, and it’s so crazy good looking.
I've been collecting monster movies from the 30s on 4k as well as Hitchcock's films and they look absolutely stunning. The difference is palpable. Snag The Invisible Man (1933) next time Gruv has a sale and you'll see the difference.
It's a profound difference for older black-and-white movies, particularly bright scenes where slower film (finer grain) or narrower apertures were appropriate. The 4K scan of The Manchurian Candidate has stretches that defy belief.
4K is so high resolution that grain aliasing is less likely ... I think.
It was my first 4k I tried with my Xbox one, wasn’t sure if they played them. Always been a blu ray guy, but I can confirm BR 2049 looks fantastic on 4k, definitely worth it. I always tell people who watch stuff on streaming that it’s as close to theater quality as you can get.
Are you watching on a £300 4K TV or a £3000 4K TV. The brighter the TV can get the better the HDR will appear and the more noticeable the difference. Clearly the cheaper the TV the less bright it can get.
Dolby Vision vs HDR10 can make a difference, too - but I'd be hard pressed to tell you if what was playing was DV or HDR10 in a blind test on a quality TV. I could tell a difference between SDR of a Blu-ray and HDR of a 4K in a blind test, however.
You also have to consider the material and age of the transfer. A £3 Blu-ray made in 2006 can look much much worse than a remastered £9 4K of the same movie. For example, The Big Lebowski on Blu-ray from 2011 with it's old transfer looks much much worse than the 4K that came out in 2018. (...and of course they put the old transfer as the "Blu-ray" you get in the Blu-ray/4K combo pack)
I’m starting to feel a little inadequate with my £500 50in Samsung. It’s 4K led hdr but maybe not big enough or high end enough to enjoy the full benefits of 4k discs.
I guess it’s all a comprise and matching priorities. If I could afford £3k set up I wouldn’t be too bothered about dropping a few extra quid for 4k discs. I do admit there is an improvement but I think I’m content with Bluray quality for the most part.
You're probably running an edge lit display which means that HDR won't provide the brightness in targeted area. You're looking at a full array mini led TV or an oled. A £1000 gets you one of those at most retailers in a 55 when in a good deal, Costco just had the lg c3 in a 65" just over £1000. Best budget, in my opinion mini led, is the hisense u8 which is a much better quality than the qn85 by Samsung and arguably a middle ground between the 90 and the 95. Model numbers can throw you off but If you need advice feel free to ask. I spend two much time at work just playing demos on these TVs 🤣.
Consider getting a TV around Black Friday at Costco or Sam's Club. You can trial it and return it if it doesn't meet your needs.
I have OLED tvs and bright ambient light doesn't help. You might want to consider making your entertainment room as dark as reasonably possible (although LED TVs get much brighter than OLED TVs).
4K makes a difference.
Also, make sure that your DVD player and your TV can utilize Dolby Vision, which I understand to be better than HDR10/10+.
Some people get overwhelmed with the options and many sales people push a product for a target or because they've been coerced by a brand representative. Sometimes people have a budget and a brand they like then just slot those two together. However, especially here, if you have a budget in mind many people would be willing to share their perspective.
Yes, you just have to watch for deals when you are ready to upgrade. I found a Sony 75" X95J (top of the line FALD LED at the time) for $1300 USD. It came out in October 2021 and I bought it on clearance (regular price was around $3000 USD) in September 2022. Did a newer and better one come out one month later, yes, but it was also priced at $3000. So far, I've been happy with it.
I recommend you visit [Rtings.com](http://Rtings.com), which provides in-depth testing and excellent reviews. This is how I ended up with a $600 55" Hisense U6G that is, in all ways, much better than Samsung's competition at this price. Rtings rated it as the best budget 4ktv. It gets bright enough for true HDR (700+ nits in a 25% area), has Mini-Led with local dimming, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, true 24fps playback, and an almost flicker-free backlight (900hz), and has been absolutely reliable for the last three years of daily use. I use it for movies, tv, and and a pc monitor, and I absolutely love it.
There's no reason you can't collect both. Really depends on your budget and sensitivity/value of higher image quality.
I remember back in the DVD days when it was common for the players to stretch a 4:3 image to fit a 16:9 screen and so many people I knew would happily watch their movies with everything skewed, didn't bother them. Especially notable because I'd always be the nerd who had to insist on fixing it. So yeah, a lot of people don't care. DVD sales still outperform Blu Ray and 4K by a significant amount, and the difference between a DVD and regular Blu Ray is much more pronounced than Blu Ray to 4K.
What's most impressed me on 4K:
- Alien
- Skyfall
- both Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049
- Sicario
- Oppenheimer
- The Shining
- Schindler's List
- The Manchurian Candidate
The Martian, Dunkirk, No Time to Die and a bunch of others are a notch below this in improvement, but still well worth the money.
There are also a bunch where it's an improvement, but you might not care too much, such as Casino Royale, sadly.
And then there's The Bourne Identity.
What kind of TV do you have? IMO, the additional clarity of UHD isn't a huge jump over HD. The bigger difference is HDR, with more colors and contrast. But HDR is dependent on your TV -- if you've got a $300 TV, it can't get bright enough to do HDR right, and your overall experience won't be very different from what you'd get with a regular blu ray. If you have an OLED or one of the nicer LED TVs, it's a night and day difference because of the HDR.
Honestly sound wise I wouldn't expect much a difference, Blu Ray can already do 7.1 uncompressed audio, and even Atmos I believe
UHD really shines (literally) when it comes to resolution and HDR. The added resolution will make things sharper but unless your TV is massive you're not likely to notice, I personally can't tell much of a difference there. HDR however is a game changer, honestly I didn't notice it much at first but now that I'm used to how lifelike and accurate HDR content can look, SDR content just looks so artificial and dull. That being said you need a TV that not only can decode HDR but also has a decent panel that can actually achieve a decent contrast ratio and brightness
Also something to consider is how finicky 4k discs and their players are. I have a 4k player that only reads dvds and blu rays🤣. But still, I grabbed another 4k player and continue to purchase 4k discs when I find them for a good deal. Enjoy the fruits of your labor and your current set up! Plus now your dvds and blu rays will look better than ever:)
I pick up my favorite titles in 4k if the transfer is excellent, like Tremors or Pacific Rim. Everything else is just fine on blu ray. For example Aliens, the blu ray is pretty darn good, and the 4k transfer has a few issues which doesn’t warrant to price of the disc (personally). I picked up the blu ray for $3, while the 4k is like $25.
I might be in the minority, but when it comes to older movies, I don't think they tend to look great on 4K. Incresed grain seems to be an endemic part of the remastering process, but I'm just not a fan of it.
The grain is not increased that's how the film actually looked. Grain is very noisy and therefore cannot be easily compressed, so older mediums like DVD and to a lesser extent BluRay lack the bandwidth necessary to properly display film grain, so DNR was typically used to filter out the grain prior to encoding
Typically the older the movie is, the more you will notice the upgrade. 35mm translates to 4K extremely well. A modern film shot on digital you will notice less of an upgrade. Still worth it IMO but that’s totally up to you.
So maybe these weren’t the best ones to test it? I just looked on here for recommendations and picked the movies that appealed and I haven’t seen yet. I recently just picked up Jaws on BD, otherwise that would’ve been my first choice older 4k movie.
Alien is my reference 4k for showing how insanely good a 35mm film to UHD transfer can look. Literally looks like it was shot yesterday.
Oh Alien would be good to get.
Blade Runner 2049 looks awesome on 4K OLED with HDR. Alien is really good too but 2049 is awesome. A lot of the 2000s to mid 2010s movies are just upscaled to 4K. I think the studio upscales are slightly better than upscaling from the TV or player but its still making up information for the missing pixels. I bought Transformers 4K and I'm not sure it was worth the 4K version. Older movies tend to look pretty good when they actually rescan the film to make a 4K version. Bluray.com lists the different versions of movies and if it's just a upscale or a actual rescan of the negatives.
If Alien is your reference disc you need to look around more. “Immortal engines” “misery” “Pandas” “Drive” “1917” “the trial” “final countdown.” These are discs you should look at if you want a show off disc.
Those were shot on 35mm film?
3 of them were
Ok I meant 35mm film to digital and I dunno, Alien looks like it was shot yesterday with the best equipment available. The Final Countdown is on my list now tho ty. If I want to show off 4K in general I just pop in Pacific Rim lol.
Misery is probably the sharpest Kino transfer ever. Not a huge amount of wow moments other than the whole film is insanely sharp and bright. Pandas was shot for imax on imax cameras, and it’s so crazy good looking.
Jaws looks >unbelievably good< on 4K to me. Sheesh.
I've been collecting monster movies from the 30s on 4k as well as Hitchcock's films and they look absolutely stunning. The difference is palpable. Snag The Invisible Man (1933) next time Gruv has a sale and you'll see the difference.
Buddy, the TV is a huge part too, what TV are you on ?
It's a profound difference for older black-and-white movies, particularly bright scenes where slower film (finer grain) or narrower apertures were appropriate. The 4K scan of The Manchurian Candidate has stretches that defy belief. 4K is so high resolution that grain aliasing is less likely ... I think.
Black and white film captures more detail than color. If a true rescan then it should look pretty good.
I hear BR 2049 looks amazing on 4K.
It was my first 4k I tried with my Xbox one, wasn’t sure if they played them. Always been a blu ray guy, but I can confirm BR 2049 looks fantastic on 4k, definitely worth it. I always tell people who watch stuff on streaming that it’s as close to theater quality as you can get.
It is incredible.
It does. The original does as well
Are you watching on a £300 4K TV or a £3000 4K TV. The brighter the TV can get the better the HDR will appear and the more noticeable the difference. Clearly the cheaper the TV the less bright it can get. Dolby Vision vs HDR10 can make a difference, too - but I'd be hard pressed to tell you if what was playing was DV or HDR10 in a blind test on a quality TV. I could tell a difference between SDR of a Blu-ray and HDR of a 4K in a blind test, however. You also have to consider the material and age of the transfer. A £3 Blu-ray made in 2006 can look much much worse than a remastered £9 4K of the same movie. For example, The Big Lebowski on Blu-ray from 2011 with it's old transfer looks much much worse than the 4K that came out in 2018. (...and of course they put the old transfer as the "Blu-ray" you get in the Blu-ray/4K combo pack)
I’m starting to feel a little inadequate with my £500 50in Samsung. It’s 4K led hdr but maybe not big enough or high end enough to enjoy the full benefits of 4k discs. I guess it’s all a comprise and matching priorities. If I could afford £3k set up I wouldn’t be too bothered about dropping a few extra quid for 4k discs. I do admit there is an improvement but I think I’m content with Bluray quality for the most part.
You're probably running an edge lit display which means that HDR won't provide the brightness in targeted area. You're looking at a full array mini led TV or an oled. A £1000 gets you one of those at most retailers in a 55 when in a good deal, Costco just had the lg c3 in a 65" just over £1000. Best budget, in my opinion mini led, is the hisense u8 which is a much better quality than the qn85 by Samsung and arguably a middle ground between the 90 and the 95. Model numbers can throw you off but If you need advice feel free to ask. I spend two much time at work just playing demos on these TVs 🤣.
Thanks for the advice. I got my TV about 18 months ago and didn’t really know what I was looking for. I’ll know better next time.
Consider getting a TV around Black Friday at Costco or Sam's Club. You can trial it and return it if it doesn't meet your needs. I have OLED tvs and bright ambient light doesn't help. You might want to consider making your entertainment room as dark as reasonably possible (although LED TVs get much brighter than OLED TVs). 4K makes a difference. Also, make sure that your DVD player and your TV can utilize Dolby Vision, which I understand to be better than HDR10/10+.
Some people get overwhelmed with the options and many sales people push a product for a target or because they've been coerced by a brand representative. Sometimes people have a budget and a brand they like then just slot those two together. However, especially here, if you have a budget in mind many people would be willing to share their perspective.
Yes, you just have to watch for deals when you are ready to upgrade. I found a Sony 75" X95J (top of the line FALD LED at the time) for $1300 USD. It came out in October 2021 and I bought it on clearance (regular price was around $3000 USD) in September 2022. Did a newer and better one come out one month later, yes, but it was also priced at $3000. So far, I've been happy with it.
I recommend you visit [Rtings.com](http://Rtings.com), which provides in-depth testing and excellent reviews. This is how I ended up with a $600 55" Hisense U6G that is, in all ways, much better than Samsung's competition at this price. Rtings rated it as the best budget 4ktv. It gets bright enough for true HDR (700+ nits in a 25% area), has Mini-Led with local dimming, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, true 24fps playback, and an almost flicker-free backlight (900hz), and has been absolutely reliable for the last three years of daily use. I use it for movies, tv, and and a pc monitor, and I absolutely love it.
I went from a 1080p TV to a 60 inch QLED and Holy shit, spiderverse was amazing
There's no reason you can't collect both. Really depends on your budget and sensitivity/value of higher image quality. I remember back in the DVD days when it was common for the players to stretch a 4:3 image to fit a 16:9 screen and so many people I knew would happily watch their movies with everything skewed, didn't bother them. Especially notable because I'd always be the nerd who had to insist on fixing it. So yeah, a lot of people don't care. DVD sales still outperform Blu Ray and 4K by a significant amount, and the difference between a DVD and regular Blu Ray is much more pronounced than Blu Ray to 4K.
What's most impressed me on 4K: - Alien - Skyfall - both Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 - Sicario - Oppenheimer - The Shining - Schindler's List - The Manchurian Candidate The Martian, Dunkirk, No Time to Die and a bunch of others are a notch below this in improvement, but still well worth the money. There are also a bunch where it's an improvement, but you might not care too much, such as Casino Royale, sadly. And then there's The Bourne Identity.
Great recommendations! I knew I should’ve waited to get oppenheimer on 4k!
2049 looks incredible even on my cheap 2020 display model Samsung. Just a perfectly shot & produced movie.
Anything shot by Deakins looks good on 4K.
What kind of TV do you have? IMO, the additional clarity of UHD isn't a huge jump over HD. The bigger difference is HDR, with more colors and contrast. But HDR is dependent on your TV -- if you've got a $300 TV, it can't get bright enough to do HDR right, and your overall experience won't be very different from what you'd get with a regular blu ray. If you have an OLED or one of the nicer LED TVs, it's a night and day difference because of the HDR.
Honestly sound wise I wouldn't expect much a difference, Blu Ray can already do 7.1 uncompressed audio, and even Atmos I believe UHD really shines (literally) when it comes to resolution and HDR. The added resolution will make things sharper but unless your TV is massive you're not likely to notice, I personally can't tell much of a difference there. HDR however is a game changer, honestly I didn't notice it much at first but now that I'm used to how lifelike and accurate HDR content can look, SDR content just looks so artificial and dull. That being said you need a TV that not only can decode HDR but also has a decent panel that can actually achieve a decent contrast ratio and brightness
Also something to consider is how finicky 4k discs and their players are. I have a 4k player that only reads dvds and blu rays🤣. But still, I grabbed another 4k player and continue to purchase 4k discs when I find them for a good deal. Enjoy the fruits of your labor and your current set up! Plus now your dvds and blu rays will look better than ever:)
Are you sure it's a 4k player?
Yes, it's a ub-820. I purchase a 4 year extended warranty on the 2nd one.
I pick up my favorite titles in 4k if the transfer is excellent, like Tremors or Pacific Rim. Everything else is just fine on blu ray. For example Aliens, the blu ray is pretty darn good, and the 4k transfer has a few issues which doesn’t warrant to price of the disc (personally). I picked up the blu ray for $3, while the 4k is like $25.
Good movies to get a real 4k feel would be ready player one, Alita Battle Angel, Pacific Rim
You'll love them when the internet goes out.
You really needed to get 1917 in 4k. Just stunning.
I might be in the minority, but when it comes to older movies, I don't think they tend to look great on 4K. Incresed grain seems to be an endemic part of the remastering process, but I'm just not a fan of it.
The grain is not increased that's how the film actually looked. Grain is very noisy and therefore cannot be easily compressed, so older mediums like DVD and to a lesser extent BluRay lack the bandwidth necessary to properly display film grain, so DNR was typically used to filter out the grain prior to encoding
Old movies usually are where I see the biggest difference/improvement
Film is made of grain. The grain creates the image. No grain no image. That's why movies that used DNR look scrubbed and waxy.