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A Few Words About A few words about...™ Close Encounters of the Third Kind -- in 4k UHD Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Robert Harris

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This is an extremely simple few words to impart.

Within the home video reproduction universe, film grain, smoke...

basically anything tiny that obscures the image, must be eradicated.

Take a 1080i transfer, soften it to remove every bit of grain, then sharpen, and out comes a decent looking DVD. In 480i, you'll never see the ringing.

Problem was, that early on in the HD and BD era, these old transfers were reused, and all of a sudden, what might have passed muster for a DVD, was no longer getting rave reviews.

Blu-ray was able to replicate film grain to a reasonable extent, and newer transfers, and then image data harvests were able to create some superb BDs.

But true grain, fog, dust storms, and flying sand, were still the enemy.

Columbia's new 4k UHD/HDR of CE3K is the perfect case in point, for multiple reasons.

You're going to need a copy to try this experiment, so please get one, and I'll wait.

Got it? Disc in hand?

Alright.

First place the BD disc in your 4k player. It will be automatically up-rezzed.

What you'll see is that the main title, which has horizontal lines through the letters, is reasonably intact, but with a some bleeding, and conjoined lines.

Get into the first sequence, and you're in a sandstorm.

Not only that, but the stock had real grain.

So what you have are multiple enemies of Blu-ray, together again for the first time.

Grain and fast moving sand, spell problems. Even with good data throughput, the BD can't keep up.

Let's extract that Blu-ray now, place it back in the case, and load the 4k disc.

And this is where our little experiment gets really simple.

First thing you'll note, is that the horizontal lines in the main title are all crisp, clean and clear, with zero confluence of lines.

Enter the desert sequence, and unlike the Blu-ray, the 4k has absolute control, with sand differentiated from film grain.

Colors are cleaner. Blacks are better. Images are far more highly resolved across the board.

Probably the best test of a Blu-ray vs. 4k from the same base master available.

CE3K in 4k is a magnificently produced disc.

Audio is still 5.1, but it's terrific and huge.

Three versions on a single disc.

$21 at Amazon.

I'll be receiving a list of those who do not purchase.


Image - 5

Audio - 5 (DTS-HD MA 5.1)

4k - 5

Pass / Fail - Pass

Very Highly Recommended

RAH
 

Lord Dalek

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Joel Henderson
Vilmos Zsigmond's photography has never really been "home video friendly" (flash exposure and all that) so I'm honestly interested in seeing how this turned out.
 

Michel_Hafner

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Well, a BD compressed at >= 35 Mbit/s for image should not fall apart with grain and sandstorms when the encoder is top and the parameters proper. If necessary MILD high frequency reduction can be applied before compression. The result at 1080p should satisfy. With UHD we an go easily to 35 and it counts more than 1.0. become maybe 50 or 60 on BD, but we have 4 times the pixels, so we are back at 35 or maybe less. But we have 10 bit now so we are even less, or maybe more since 10 bits are easier to compress as I have heard. But probably not with "random noise like" input, I guess. And we can go even much higher on UHD. So no doubt we can go far beyond a BD and reduce compromises to the level no longer visible at 24 fps. A lot of guessing for sure. I think a perfectly acceptable BD is possible, just lacking resolution compared to the UHD. Professional compressionists input very welcome. Anybody feel competent to clarify?
What I see with the bit rate meter of the Panasonic UHD player is that the bit rate is often below or far below the BD max. 10-20 Mbit/s is not uncommon. Peaks can go much higher, though.
 

PMF

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This is an extremely simple few words to impart.[...]
I'll be receiving a list of those who do not purchase.
This will be a case of the cart before the horse; as I am not yet set up for UHD.
Nonetheless, my advance purchase of this title will solely be to avoid the wrath of RAH;
as this is a list to which I shall never be seen.:)
On a final note, shouldn't we now be referring to this celebrated release as CE4K?:cool:
 
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PMF

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Philip
On a final note, shouldn't we now be referring to this celebrated release as CE4K?:cool:
it should be CE3K 4k but I like your thinking ;) !
With the right amount of discs, they could market it as the CE3K 4K 5pacK.

But all joking aside, this review has inspired.
Such great news, as to which the older titles has now met the newer technology; and with resounding success.
It's also Sony/Columbia, remember.
And where CR3K leads, so there shall "Lawrence" go; but with one certain "Bridge" in-between.:cheers:
 
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B-ROLL

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With the right amount of discs, they could market it as the CE3K 4K 5pacK.

But all joking aside, this review has inspired.
Such great news, as to which the older titles has now met the newer technology; and with resounding success.
It's also Sony/Columbia, remember.
And where CR3K leads, so there shall "Lawrence" go; but with one certain "Bridge" in-between.:cheers:
And maybe a female child of Ryan ;)
 
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Angelo Colombus

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Just purchased my first 4k tv a month ago and just received this yesterday since I only have the movie on dvd. Soon I will buy a 4k player and play this as my first 4k movie so I am very excited indeed.
 

Michael Osadciw

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Watched it last night before I read this. Flying sand and grain was my tester. I can say that it was quite good and distinct as Robert says. All three versions of this film? I'm happy!
 

Bob_S.

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If I get this 4k set, do I need to keep the BD Ultimate set for any features that didn't port over?
 

DP 70

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Derek
Can someone please confirm if the new 6 min trailer is the same as the 70mm version that was shown before Star Wars.
And is the trailer in 2.35.1 as the 35mm prints were.

I also had this trailer in Super 8mm Cinevision which look good at the time.

thanks.
 

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