Giles

it just seems odd - that since Fox jumped on the gun and decided to bump the discs to the 9th of Feb, and then back to their original date - that any audio spec details haven't emerged or been confirmed - why are they keeping it such a secret?

DVD Polizei

Probably because the marketing department is way ahead of the actual implementation department.

E Unit

Has anyone posted pictures of the specs listed on the discs? I'd love to see.

Sgtsnake

No pics of the boxes of specs yet. There is an unboxing of the player on YouTube

Adam Tyner

No progress on my FoxConnect order. D'oh!

bruceames

I have the player today (from Best Buy), but no movement either on my Fox Connect order. I'll probably have to go to Best Buy when they open on Sunday to pick up a couple of movies to tide me over.

I wonder WTF happened with Amazon on this whole UHD BD thing. It wasn't this way at all with the HD formats back in 2006. They were among the first.

But even though Best Buy was first, that doesn't mean there sales people are any more informed. The guy in the Magnolia department was totally clueless and worse was spewing misinformation about Sony coming out first with players and discs. I just told him he is sadly misinformed and left. Was hoping he at least had an idea when discs might be coming in, but he didn't know anything about either discs or players.

Sgtsnake

I checked BB near me and the guy was clueless. Said they weren't selling until "sometime in March"

Giles

just 'Scorch Trials' - the first movie is still set for March 1st [correction: Feb. 28th new street according to Best Buy.com] - the real kick to the nuts to those who plan on installing Atmos, Fox dropped the ball hard, with NOT including said immersive mix for 'Scorch Trials' (as well as 'Fantastic 4') after stating that immersive mixes would be exclusive to UHD editions - way to go Fox... (no one has yet to confirm if 'The Martian' or 'The Kingsman' include Atmos either)

seems to be a Best Buy thing - hire clueless folks touting (or in the case failing) to know anything about anything regarding 4K players, UHD discs releases etc., the Tyson's dude I just looked at cluelessly (...really?)

Sgtsnake

That's wrong. People on AVS are posting pics of The Martian, maze runner and Fantastic four. I guess they are irritated as Martian doesn't have Dolby Atmos.


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http://www.avsforum.com/forum/index....21802?page=235

Giles

the fact of the matter is that Fox casually mentioned that 'immersive audio tracks' would be exclusive to the UHD releases - they were just spitting in the wind, they honestly don't care for these discs to be that of high quality that Warners or Lionsgate are touting (and releasing as such) top image and Atmos/DTS-X.

here's the back cover of 'The Martian'

E Unit

Shit. Well there it is. Kind of like a blu ray getting released with a standard 5.1 track. So any official press release from Fox as to why this was done?

Also, any word on the UV codes, if they'll be in 4k on services like Vudu?

Giles

they honestly deserve the shitstorm about to descend on them for this. Fox are hypocrites - but hey most of the studio's home theater departments enact this is some way or the other.

E Unit

Again, it makes it hard to convince myself to upgrade to the 4k format if all they're offering is the same stuff we already have on blu. I have a great Atmos setup already, but that's as far as I'll go if this is going to be commonplace. I'm sure most others will hopefully be in Atmos/DTS-X, and for the very few like me, it does make a difference.

Giles

to rain on your parade further trespoochies - the back covers of the other Fox titles: Kingsman, Scorch Trials, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Fantastic 4 and Hitman have been posted and ALL do NOT have Atmos (just standard DTS HD MA 7.1) ... ugh, how I hate thee Fox... you're killing me here ... promises, promises ...

E Unit

I'm out. That was half the reason any I was anticipating jumping into 4k. Fuck them all, I'll just watch whatever is available on Netflix, Vudu, Amazon, or wherever.

Well, I guess I'll wait first to see what the other studios release and just go from there. But yeah, Fox can burn for all I care.

Giles

I posted a somewhat nasty comment on Fox Home Entertainment's twitter page regarding this ... my main beef is 'The Kingsman' since 1) the Atmos mix beats the 7.1 to the ground 2) the bluray sound currently is nothing to write home about, they messed up the sound levels and if they had included the Atmos mix they might have corrected that flaw in the process ... oh well... they really cheaped out in the audio department

DthRdrX

I can't say I'm surprised. Every single Fox title has rerelease written all over them.

I will say this. Since I do not have any 4K discs yet I hooked the machine up to my 2012 LG 1080p set and ran some streaming 4K off Youtube. Wow, what a difference! IMO the true benefit and jump in PQ of this new format is going to be more efficient compression plus the expanded color gamut. This is why I believe that a film sourced from a 2K DI will still show major improvement in sharpness and color. I don't believe the resolution is an issue unless you sit with your eyes next to the screen or are projecting a HUGE image. I have not seen HDR for myself yet though so I won;t comment on it.

PhantomStranger

I have a hunch Fox was likely twisted into releasing these UHDs in the first place. They've never really blazed any trails pushing new formats until the platform has matured.

Adam Tyner

They weren't.

The UHD Alliance is chaired by the CTO of Fox. They're going all in on UHD and HDR, though obviously neither are exclusively limited to Ultra HD Blu-ray. They were the first studio to announce support for UHD BD...or at least the first to announce specific titles. I have no idea what's going on with the audio, and leaving off Atmos is basically indefensible, but there's no indication that this is the result of Fox being forced to do something they didn't want to do.

bruceames

Watched Kingsmen UHD last night and was very impressed with the PQ. The Blu-ray looks soft by comparison. You could clearly see that it was lacking "information". I even impulsively moved up closer (5' away from 65") to get some more appreciation of the extra resolution and bit rate. I was savoring it all in just like I did when I first bought my HD DVD player.

Even though Kingsmen on IMDb on lists a 2K DI, it's clear that Fox went back to the source elements, which is 2.8K. So although I wasn't watching full 4K res, it was more than 2K, and it was very noticeable (but then, that would depending on you screen size and viewing distance. I was watching fairly close). My TV is non-HDR, btw. I imagine I would have appreciated it even more with HDR. Everyone has been saying it's all HDR, that resolution won't be that big a deal, law of diminishing returns, etc. But they are wrong. This format is the real deal. It's a major upgrade and I'm never going to buy a regular BD again, if the UHD BD version is available, or I suspect it may become available in the next few years (like pretty much all movies that have 4k masters or are candidates for them).

Sucks about the lack of Atmos, but I have a 10 year old system anyway. I'll probably upgrade that when I upgrade my TV to one with HDR in a year or two.

mattysemo247

Yeah, I don't mind waiting a couple years for everything to shake out. I expect a lot of the initial titles will be re-released with better audio, extra features, etc. like the early blu ray releases. For now I'll have to settle for my 135 inch screen and 1080p 3D projector

bruceames

Not too interested in audio right now, and I don't have that kind of patience. Besides for me it'd be pointless buying the same BD separately when the UHD version is available (and the BD included). Unless there was a huge difference in price. Even then it's like getting a puppy dog. You can't let go once you're hooked on it. The Blu-ray of Kingsmen looked almost blurry by comparison, as if it were a DVD (well, from 5' away on a 65" TV, the flaws will be exposed).

Funny though getting a title and the Blu-ray included is the ugly stepchild, like the DVD was/is. At least it's good for the extras, since they aren't included on the UHD (at least, not the first wave by Fox). I wonder if anyone will ever start complaining about including the Blu-ray with the UHD, for the same reasons they complained about the DVD?)

Josh Z

That's not how it works. Although the Arri Alexa camera has a 2.8k sensor, not all 2.8k of those pixels wind up in the movie. Only a 2k extraction does. The sensor is oversized in order to give the director leeway to slide the 2k portion of the image up, down, left or right in post-production to adjust the framing shot-by-shot.

I don't have a UHD display and have not viewed this UHD disc. I will take your word for it that you saw a difference between the UHD disc and the regular Blu-ray. But whatever may have caused such a difference, that isn't it.

bruceames

Fox said they went back to the source for The Martian, and it was implied that they did the same for the other movies as well. I would be shocked if I wasn't watching anything above 2k resolution. I've seen plenty of 4K and I know how it mades skylines and crowds of people (etc) looks so much more detailed, and there were a few such shots in the movie where I felt the resolution had to have been higher than 2K.

The only other thing to cause a difference would be bit rate I guess, but I can't see that being the only factor (but I'm not an expert so I could be wrong).

If it is just bit rate, then the difference between the BD and a true 4K movie like Sicario will be astounding (from my viewing distance at least).

Adam Tyner

More on this, from Fox's James Finn: