PT Is it worth getting the PT on 4K Blu-Ray?

My 4K Blu-ray player can force a Dolby Vision signal out for any context. It tricks the TV into activating Dolby Vision mode to display non-Dolby Vision content. The 4K Star Wars discs forced to Dolby Vision look identical to the Dolby Vision presentation on Disney+.

Im fairly sure the Dolby Vision for these movies on Disney+ is not true Dolby Vision. The movies are encoded in a way that your TV will see it as Dolby Vision and switch to that mode but that’s the extent of it. The movies were not mastered for Dolby Vision and don’t look right as Dolby Vision.

 

Anyone else think the prequel footage used in Kenobi liked like it was a different transfer from current 4K versions of the movies? Specifically the opening montage before the first episode recalling the prequels.

 

Yes it did feel a bit different. The word "artificial" came to mind.

 

Yeah, colors popped quite a bit more on my OLED.

 

Well Im a bit embarrassed. After 10 years of owning my plasma tv I just realized I had the digital noise filter turned on to "AUTO" (the default factory setting). TPM and AOTC blu rays look MUCH better with that filter turned off. And the OT looks slightly better with it turned off as well. But with ROTS I need to still keep it turned on because if not it looks too grainy.

 

It wouldn't be worth it to me as I have a DVD player.

 

The remasters were released on DVD too.

 

I would say yes. They each end up with at least a trace more detail than the blu-rays and TPM finally at least some of the original saturation and pop restored to it that it had in the theatrical release (it runs a bit bright with the HDR, but you can lower the max allowed brightness and get it looking just right). It maybe still has a few things a bit understated, but it's far better than all the prior home releases which really muted the look and had it looking so dull compared to the theatrical 35mm presentation and even more compared to the digital theatrical presentation. A couple really beautiful scenes in the film now look just about as great at they had in the theaters, so that is a huge improvement IMO over the prior home releases. Unfortunately they used the way DNR'ed master prepared for the 3D as the source so it still gets waxy in a bunch of scenes compared to the original theatrical look (even compared to the original theatrical digital look, which did NOT get that wax effect). There is that unofficial grindhouse scan of a 35mm print. It has the natural look in terms of no DNR and having grain, the colors are still getting worked on though.

For some odd reason they did not seem to bring the color and pop back to AOTC the way they did with TPM for the UHD version, it does have just a little more detail though perhaps due to the HEVC compression or upscaling method used this time. The old capture of an HDTV recording has less detail but the most color and pop and is closer in look to the theatrical than the official home versions on disc or (bleh) streaming. The HDTV capture also has less DNR. There is an unofficial 35mm scan now started for this (another thing to note is that the original theatrical 35mm had a change during the wedding with Anakin's hand compared to the theatrical digitial and home releases, the theatrical releases also had an edited post Tusken scene and a few dialogue changes and none of that stuff has ever been used for any home or HDTV release).

ROTS I feel like the home versions were probably relatively true to the theatrical. The UHD adds a hair more detail than the old blu-ray and a bit of pop.

 

For the AOTC and ROTS blu rays I found a way to make them look more consistent with the rest of the Lucas Star Wars movies. Using my OPPO blu ray player I decrease the color saturation by 12.5%, decrease the brightness by 12.5%, and increase the contrast by 12.5%. This helps to alleviate that early 2000s digital haze. My OPPO has some of the most skillful calibration I have ever seen, so Im not sure how this would work on a lower end blu ray player. But I would think a higher end UHD player would do at least as well. For TPM and AOTC you do want to make sure any digital noise filter is turned off. Many people arent going to like this but I also jack up the sharpness on my blu ray player for those movies and I put a bit of DNR on ROTS.

 

I wouldn't do that. All the DNR, edge enhancement, motion smoothing, frame interpolation, dynamic brightness, and other nonsense options are disabled on my TV. All that does is distort the picture and the proper way to view a film.

Once a TV is properly calibrated, there's no need to do anything else.

 

So after hearing LG announcing that they will no longer be manufacturing UHD or blu ray players, I got spooked into rushing out to buy a UHD player at Wal Mart. Im still using a 720p Samsung plasma TV because I dont want to buy anything lower quality than an OLED TV, and right now it just isnt in my budget. I have watched TPM and AOTC on 4K disc, and I can say it is definitely an upgrade. And I had the world's greatest blu ray player. The UHD player I got is no where near the best or most expensive. I only paid $160 for it, though it does have dolby vision. The PT on 4K disc is definitely better than any of the PT blu rays, and the fact that Im experiencing this on a 720P Plasma and that Im comparing the best blu ray player to the lesser quality UHD player, and Im STILL seeing a clear upgrade in image quality says a lot. Though it was only Dolby Vision that gave me the best quality image. HDR was causing the movies to look too dark in the night/dark scenes. That might just be because I wasnt using a 4K tv.

 

You shouldn't do that. Unless you have a 4K TV, there's no reason to watch a 4K Blu-ray. The colors and contrast will be all wrong because of HDR. But since you bought the movies in UHD, they do include a remastered 1080p Blu-ray, so that's the best (and proper) way to watch them on your setup. They are properly calibrated SDR versions.

 

I've wanted to get all of the first six films on 4K, but almost every review I've read gives them abysmal video scores. The only exception has been the High-Def Digest website, and here's how the scores broke down...

The Phantom Menace & Attack of the Clones - 3/5
Revenge of the Sith - 3.5/5
A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, & Return of the Jedi - 4/5

 

Honestly, ignore the scores. It reaches a point where people can no longer see the forest for the trees. I doubt we're going to get another 4K release of the movies, so it's only a matter of getting what exists in the best possible quality or crave something that doesn't exist and probably never will.

 

My main point of personal contention is that Disney seemed to have strived for reference-quality video and sound presentations with the sequels, but half-assed the rest. Unless there was some kind of legal prohibition, they should've gone back to the surviving elements, scanned and cleaned them again, and upgraded certain CGI shots like the Battle of Naboo (where the outdoor environment has always looked like a video game). Regarding Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, some say they can't be improved because they were shot on early digital cameras...but to be honest, I call complete BS on that. AI enhancement tech has become so ridiculously powerful in recent years, they could run that footage through a bay of computers and get a result that's probably on par with the sequels, if not better. Besides, even the most top-end commercial 4K TVs are nowhere near the size of a cinema screen, so why the hell is it so hard to come up with a comparable high-quality image?

 

They are not half-assed at all. All six movies look the best they can within their respective limitations.

First of all, wether shot on film or digital, they were all finished at 2K. That's the resolution of the DI/digital master (aka the movie proper). And that includes all the digital Special Edition sequences in the original trilogy. All six movies were properly remastered in 4K back in 2012, under the supervision of the guy who made them. And that's what we have in UHD Blu-ray. Can a new remaster, 12 years later, improve over what we have? Sure. But that's true for any movie. Is it worth it to Disney? No.

Second, 2K is not some sub-par resolution. It was the standard finished resolution for decades. Only relatively recently are movies finished in 4K. And many 4K Blu-rays are sources from 2K masters. Some were even reference quality. That said, it's not comparable to native 4K and it doesn't make sense for people to expect something close to that. The movies are not at fault for that and it's not a valid excuse for criticism.

Third, it's not Disney's job to "upgrade" or change any shot. That's up to George Lucas. It's Disney's job to preserve what they have, and if they want to fund a new remaster, they can. But what many people want (a complete scan and recompositing of all the elements) is costly and it's simply not logical to expect companies to do that, specially in SFX-heavy movies like this with hundreds of elements.

Fourth, AI by itself doesn't add quality to anything.

 

When it comes to the Prequel Trilogy, only ROTS is good on Blu-rays. It's the one that wasn't tampered with. No additional DNR, no new color grading. TPM got worse - they added even more DNR than the 2011 Blu-ray, and the highlights are overblown, so some of the shots lost detail compared to the 2011 Blu-ray. AOTC 2020 Blu-ray is exactly the same as the 2011 Blu-ray, with the exception of different aspect ratio to match other Disney Star Wars releases. AOTC Blu-ray presentation has always been bad. Not only the excessive DNR that made everyone look like wax figures, but also I don't know what Lucas was thinking with that ugly green tint color grading that wasn't present in the theatrical, DVD or HDTV versions of the film. It is especially egregious during the Tatooine segments of the film.
Just take a look (click on the thumbnails to expand the pictures):

And don't forget the nonsensical editing change in the Dooku escapes sequence, which screws up the music and makes the scene flow substantially worse:


When it comes to TPM and AOTC, you should get your hands on the theatrical/HDTV versions for the best experience. Hell, even DVD would be okay. Blu-ray version is most definitely the worst presentation of those films.

 

That's not really true. All movies have been "tampered" with. Tampering with the master is part of the process for any remaster, Star Wars or not. What did not happen was make them worse than what was previously released.

Back in 2009 (and finally released in 2011), TPM got a brand new remaster by Lowry Digital, using for the first time the original digital files. So, unlike previous versions, there's no generational artifacts or loss of quality. That master was revisited when making the 4K master, and the only noticeable change besides the resolution is a new color grading. To recommend the DVD or HDTV versions of TPM is asinine. Wrong colors, edge echancements, cropping, etc... That's not in any way better than the new masters (2K or 4K).

AOTC was also remastered, and while there is a new color grading on the 2011 master, watching it on a well calibrated TV (as one should watch any movie), the teal is not drastic as it's shown in most people phone screens and monitors with their usually cold color temperatures by default, which accentuate the blues (and teals), and we do get a pretty naturalistic grading.

And in regards to DNR, that's a just tool to deal with excessive noise that is a side-effect of the native picture (or in the case of movies shot on film, excessive grain due to the compositing of multiple layers). And unfortunately or not, none of us saw the "untampered" source files to claim that it was used in excess. But then again, most videophiles tend to fall into pixel hunting or worse, no longer able to see the forest for the trees, instead of taking a step back and watch the movie in a proper setup and at the proper distance.

 

"when in doubt blame people's TV's/not fiddling with the settings"

 

So I just got an entry level OLED tv. A lot of them are on sale because I think companies are about to introduce their new models. The issues that many people have raised about the two digitally shot Star Wars movies are all the more reason to get them on 4K disc. Those issues are very much alleviated on AOTC and in the case of ROTS, almost eliminated. The colors are more natural and dont seem too saturated. The cloudy digital haze is not there as much. For those two movies I did have to increase the color saturation more on my 4K OLED, because at first they looked too bland (they had the opposite problem on HD tvs). Geonosis looks more like a brown version of Hoth, which I found kind of interesting.

 

People should fiddle with the settings if they really care about having the proper presentation. Otherwise they have DNR, motion smoothing, wrong color gradings and other settings that come as default on most TVs. Fortunately, new TVs also come with a filmmaker mode (or something akin to it), which when selected turns all of that off.