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The last Blu-ray you watched.


liebherr954

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King Arthur Legend of the Sword

 

Probably not a lot of grey area with Guy Richie's take on this one. It actually bombed at the box office & most are either gonna love it or hate it. Fortunately I enjoy Guy Richie's distinct point of view. His early films "******",  "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" (both written & directed by him) are personal favorites of mine. Nice cast, fun dialog & a fresh fantasy-adventure approach to the  traditional  story that's been told a 1000 times. Charlie Hunnam carried the film well  & I enjoyed it for a fun 2 hour escape.

 

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1 hour ago, Nismo said:

 

 

The only other thing I can think of is how recently have you updated your hdmi cable? I recall when I switched to 3D... my picture was terrible. My 8 year old hdmi cable was not capable to handle the signal. I switched to a high speed, higher bandwidth cable & issue solved: PQ was great. Pretty sure that you have a (minimum) 60Hz, 18Gbps cable in place. Just throwing that out there in case.

 

I'll update my review when my new display arrives.

 

Updated cables to the newest hdmi version at the same time I purchased my display and AVR, to ensure I could take advantage of all the latest video features. So about 7-8 months ago.

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@Thaddeous: Cool. Figured you & Schu had that covered, just throwing it out as an option (troubleshoot) for the less experienced. I have 60Hz 18Gbps hdmi in place ($7 from Monoprice)... & just noticed that new 48Gbps cables are becoming available. Even though 18Gbps is certified & standard for 4K UHD... some have been reporting issues with 18Gbps cables connecting/getting a signal with Apple TV 4K (UHD) and some other devises, etc. Upgrading to 48 Gbps cables solved their issues.

 

So... in a couple months I get to drop $$$$ on a new HDR display & get more grain. (lol ) Great, always something.

 

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I did some more reading in the subject and it appears to be a wide spread issue for most all people where a 35mm print has been converted to 4k hdr/dolby vision... mainly with dolby vision currently. There has been some success with down converting the signal to sdr... I tried it and it does help but it softens the image. One other thing I tried is going to playback feature on my Oppo and forcing the playback to "strip metadata"... it helps a little (not that much) and it again softens the image.

 

It issue is definitely a software/firmware issue and should be eventually resolved. It's not a monitor, player or cable issue( if you have current compliant cables).

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1 hour ago, Schu said:
We'll see how bad this new release suffers from grain...

 

I have the new 3 movie box set & no doubt the 1st installment has experienced a real mixed bag of releases over the years. Everything from excessive grain to the complete opposite with excessive DNR versions. Granted with a non HDR display... I was pleasantly surprised the 1st installment. Grain yes, but (at least with my display) nothing that was excessive or distracting. Somewhat dark & soft at times, but that has always been the case. Overall this version is the best PQ I can ever recall seeing & was better than I was expecting, often colorful & detailed. Anyone with HDR might have a different experience. Biggest disappointment for me was lack of upgraded audio of any kind. No Atmos. No DTS: X. Just the old 5.1 track from previous releases. 

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The Predator was phenomenal... like watching a brand new movie I had never seen before. I've kind of moved on from these type films (action based) to be honest, but I wanted to see this movie in 4k uhd for myself... I was not disappointed .

There are scenes that are slightly soft and that can't hang with modern film making, but over all it's a great time capsule that has NEVER looked better... probably better than it did when it was released in theaters.

 

One giant step forward was sound design and implementation... this is a 5.1 presentation and it is awesome... specially when the predator purrs and it comes from behind you. Wonderful stuff.

 

And yes... grain was ever present and annoying, but not nearly as much as in the matrix.

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Good to learn the HDR display doesn't adversely effect (exaggerate) the grain in terms of PQ. I agree... it's the best version of Predator available. Audio highlights include the teams "first all out jungle assault" (the whir of the Gatling Gun was impressive) and the "rebel camp" attack a few chapters earlier.

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I wanted to post a follow up to my Ready Player One review.

 

This weekend I noticed some on-line chatter about disc freezing-stutter (all reports seem to indicate it froze-jumped at the same segment). Theory's discussed include everything from the usual suspects of dirt, debris, 4K production of some discs having a cloudy layer or film that needs to be cleaned (both unlikely since all report the same chapter & sequence); internal storage used for disc data on some players being too small; media/authoring issues with BD-100 disc having problems during the third layer switch IIRC. 

 

Or to me (at least initially) the obvious player/firmware update issues, but then I've seen posts reporting the issue with my exact player(s). I've watched "Ready Player One" about 5-or-6 times now both on the Oppo 203 & the LG UP870... and neither player had an issue. I also watched with both Atmos & DTS tracks & had no issue. Strange that there is no universal player or cause troubleshooting the glitch. Makes me wonder is there was an issue (defect) with a specific production run or pressing? If you pick up this disc, don't sit on it (past an exchange-return date). Check it out right away so you don't miss an exchange window.  

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6 hours ago, rebuy said:

A GREAT, FUN MOVIE

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I agree.  Professor Harold Hill is a charming, lovable sociopath, which is my favorite kind.   The narcissistic type, not so much.

 

The instrumental music and singing was very well recorded, as we would expect in a multichannel magnetic soundtrack of 1962.   Toward the middle, though, the dialog lost its (auditory) crispness.  Fortunately it got good again toward the end.

 

Meredith Wilson knew whereof he wrote, because he played in John Philip Sousa's band (1921–1923).  During one of the televised celebrations of Disneyland's expansion (1959?) hundreds of members of many bands and orchestras from the Los Angeles area, high school players included, marched around the plaza and down Main Street, led by Meredith Wilson.  The billing claimed that there were 776  trombones, but it was difficult to count them on TV. 

 

Wilson arranged and wrote some of the music in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.  Chaplin wrote the song "Smile" (but not the lyrics -- it was an instrumental in the movie) and perhaps more.

 

Wilson's other musical made into a good film was The Unsinkable Molly Brown with the late Debbie Reynolds.  It, too, was recorded in multichannel magnetic, and, like The Music Man, deserves to be played loudly.

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The vast majority of my movie purchases are blind buys. I don't read reviews, don't watch trailers, don't go to the theater & even prefer to "not" know/learn of the full cast prior to watching, because its always fun to have a particular actor appear that I didn't know was in the film. Basically Spoiler Alert extreme is the best approach for me. 

 

A few years back, I picked up I ORIGINS. It was a film I knew nothing about, there were no big name actors, no car chases or explosions, wasn't a super hero CGI-fest & certainly not a box office success by any means... but somehow it caught my attention. Wow, rather unique point of view & made you think. It was/is a nice diversion from the norm & found myself genuinely curious to see where this story was going. Interesting, unconventional, profound premise & one to remember. Plus, it introduced me Astrid Berges Frisbey, who was totally captivating & I look forward to her future projects. If you haven't seen "I Origins" yet, just watch it blind & let it unfold.

 

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On 10/3/2018 at 11:43 AM, Nismo said:

Probably not a lot of grey area with Guy Richie's take on this one. It actually bombed at the box office & most are either gonna love it or hate it. Fortunately I enjoy Guy Richie's distinct point of view.

No opinion on this one, everyone fell asleep 30 min. into the movie.

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