What happened to Mastered In 4K blu rays?

[ontheline]

i have bought some of the previous mastered in 4k blu ray releases for when i get a 4K TV but what has happened to them, has that idea been scrapped?

 

[bigboss]

That was just a gimmick to sell 1st generation 4K TVs. They were still 1080p blu rays.

 

[bigboss]

All blu ray titles should have been produced in this way in the first place. Not doing so and then re-releasing them as "Mastered in 4K" is quite cheeky of the manufacturers.

 

[FunkyMonkey]

When Blu Rays were first show cases I am sure the process from analogue to digital involved 4k masters.

This reminds me of Superbit DVDs where one company highlighted their high bit rate of digital encoding when other companies just took that as a given.

In other words, MARKETING!

 

[Frank Harvey]

Cynicism never sleeps...

Not all films have been recorded in 4K, so the film is digitallyconverted to 4K and remastered. What is then ported to the Bluray is a master taken from that 4K master. You generally get a better picture from something that has more detail and has been cleaned up.

 

[Frank Harvey]

There are some settings on Sony's projectors for the Mastered In 4K Blurays to obtain the best from them. They weren't really a gimmick, as their picture quality was generally better than normal Blurays - particularly clean and crisp looking.

As for new releases, maybe 4K is pressing on quicker than Sony expected.

 

[duaplex]

I have some 4k mastered discs with me here. In around 3 weeks time I will be able to tell you if they look better on a Sony 4k projector. I can understand why people are skeptical, when you view them on a standard 1080p TV there is no difference in quality whatsoever. However, David is not the first person to mention this and I don't doubt him.

Now the interesting thing is - Are we looking at better picture because of the 4k mastering or is the upscaing to 4k taking effect? Perhaps both?

Only way to find out is by doing an A/B test, with a standard disc and 4k mastered disc. I have a few in both formats and will report back

 

[Glacialpath]

i have bought some of the previous mastered in 4k blu ray releases for when i get a 4K TV but what has happened to them, has that idea been scrapped?

As Big Boss stated these BD discs are still just 1920x1080 but have been taken from a 4K scaned master. All the James Bond films had a 4K scan of them. Most of the older BDs are from 2K masters though.

I expect any film made now or being put to blu-ray now will be done from a 4K master unles the company releasing the title on BD can't afford a 4K master.

Don't get mixed up with titles that have been mastered in 4k for native 4k playback for the US and other countries that are outputting some native 4K content. These are not BDs. Even it the do create a 100GB Blu-Ray disc I don't think it will have the required speed capabilities to play back such a large file.

They may still manage a 4K title in a disc format in the future but unlikely.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Even playback on 1080p projectors look stunning. Elysium looked amazing, as did the Total Recall remake.

 

[bigboss]

Even playback on 1080p projectors look stunning. Elysium looked amazing, as did the Total Recall remake.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Marketing as something special for 4K TVs is a gimmick. Blu ray discs should have been mastered from superior resolution already in the first place.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Even playback on 1080p projectors look stunning. Elysium looked amazing, as did the Total Recall remake.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Marketing as something special for 4K TVs is a gimmick. Blu ray discs should have been mastered from superior resolution already in the first place.

As already mentioned, they're also produced with 4K upscaling in mind.

 

[FunkyMonkey]

As I said previously, my belief is that the vast majority of films have always been mastered in 4k. If that is not true, then I have misunderstood the blu Ray mastering process.

 

[Glacialpath]

As I said previously, my belief is that the vast majority of films have always been mastered in 4k. If that is not true, then I have misunderstood the blu Ray mastering process.

My understanding from my time in BD and DVD production is most BDs are from 2K sources but now they are coming from 4K. Don't forget we've gone from 720x576 to 1920x1080 on disc resolution. The fact that when they make DVD now they use the 1920x1080 file which makes DVDs look much better than they used to so I figure they felt they could do the same for BD by using the 3840x2160 file for some BDs.

 

[themovierooms]

Most if not all of these films actually come from an 6/8K master either from a scanned 35mm print on older films or a digital master. Sony has also worked with Sony Pictures film to optimise the algorithms involved with down-converting masters so that they can be aligned with the upscaling processes of the X-Reality Pro processors in Sony’s 4K TVs & PJ's. This is why you have to enable the Mastered In 4K option on either the 4K Sony TV's or projectors menu system. There is some truth to the fact that there is a bit of marketing involved as they technicaly should be described as "Mastered in 6/8K" but that would be even more confusing for most.

 

[FunkyMonkey]

Thanks, Daniel.