UHD here we come,
UHD blu-ray a 10 day wrap up...
so the first 10 days of uhd blu-ray.... what are my thoughts ... how has it all gone ... ?
ok firstly the sammy player didnt turn out to be the unmitigated utter disaster unleashed on the unsuspecting public .... that I thought it would be 
found the sammy fine. does the job, ended up selling my cambridge I ran since can realistically only accomodate one player.
with the sammy, that we had delayed release here I think has helped. the player itself had a firmware release and same with my display. that there was a lot of overseas experience with the player already and also in combination with my jvc projector I think helped...as with the display maker taking some trouble to also have an update including specific settings for the format has helped.
the main problems really I had was more hdmi related than anything.
the fact I run a projector and need a 10m run and very quickly worked out my original cable would be no good - fortunately there was a direct replacement from kordz that they were sure would work ....and did.
2ndly some gymnastics with hdcp blocking signal with my dual display setup as long as my pio kuro was connected (no matter I wasnt even using at the same time). trying a couple of trick devices in a the hd fury and a thing called a blu-stream I found didnt help in this regard. came down to my marantz and de selecting dual displays and running independent displays instead. phew was a close call. no way I wanted to be having to unplug and plug back in my kuro everytime I wanted to watch a uhd blu-ray.
so in the last week been enjoying a few uhd blu-rays have checked out life of pi, san andreas, the martian. sicario, mad max, wild, salt and 5ht wave and the revenant. a bit of a cross section of movies and pretty pleased overall. been a bit time pushed so really only been watching using the standard suggested settings. and that too hasnt been the disaster some purveyors of doom suggested it would be. with varying mastering between titles blah blah blah, HDR and wider colour gamut being a gimmick etc.
no overall have been quite impressed. it hasnt been and out of box type thing certainly not. but once having setup as suggested done the necessary updates etc I am very much enjoying. been quite a few interesting aspects.
firstly I would take some big grains of salt with some websites like real or fake 4k dont know what they are talking about... e.g. san andreas is a good example
http://realorfake4k.com/my-product/san-andreas/
they say nearly 4k
am sorry but no...I dont think it offers that much more in resolution over the blu-ray version.
the review below is lot closer to the mark, where they suggest it really looks like they upscaled the 2k version for uhd
http://ultrahd.highdefdigest.com/30666/sanandreasultrahdbluray.html
so something to be careful about...theres a lot of bum info out there ! does san andeas still benefit to going to uhd blu-ray ... yes two aspect HDR and wide color gamut I do think helps. the iridescent red of the rescue helicopter. safety orange and just vibrancy of quite ordinary colours in the movie just look so much more real. I strongly believe this si a combination of both HDR and wcg at play.
some other curious things though e.g. there is a bit of grain in the uhd version...which is odd...given it is a digitally shot movie ? turns out grain was added to the movie in mastering to give more of a film look and this is just more obvious in the uhd release and perhaps stirred up with codec used. you'll notice a similar thing with mad max...why is there so much grain in some shots e.g. the blue sky !
talking about mad max here is another coming although off a 2k source...but here quite splendid in its richness of colors and costumes and you have details literally leaping off the screen ! here is an example go god it looks just so splendid the pure rich red of the fire breathing guitarist the rich ocre of rust covered machines the shine and gleam of metal. it really hits you in the face ! any draw backs ? yes a touch of that grain again like san andeas....not sure if again this is an up sampling effect or grain coming off the 2k source but its evident in places.
been a few other movies have very much enjoyed. the martian will be another... looks really quite spendid in opening scenes on mars...almost 3D like ... so real. similar life of pi....the way scenes are rendered it makes the blu-ray version look washed out in colours and almost flat looking in comparison !
a little more subtle but again to be appreciated I found sicario and the revenant. this is only impressions from watching snippets of these movies not really in their entirety.
looking forward to watching dead pool on uhd when its out in the next week or so...
early days .... and probably need to get around to some of my own tweaking of settings to improve upon further but enjoying what have experienced so far...
looking forward to getting the sammy region modded as well so it is region free for dvd and blu-ray
anyone else been exploring uhd blu-ray ... how are you finding it 