Today’s thought of the month is have the movie studios got it correct with the pricing structure here in the uk (and around the world) around their physical disc formats.
Looking around today you can see an influx of dvd everywhere. Hundreds of them, then in smaller amounts blu-rays and a few if you can see them, 4k ultra hd Blu-ray.
For a new release dvd in the uk you can pay £7 - £10
For the Blu-ray the price goes up to £15
For the 3D Blu-ray it’s £18 - £20
And for the 4k ultra hd Blu-ray is £25 (packaged with a blu-ray)
This doesn’t take into account steelbooks or premium packages just the standard amaray plastic cased version.
So what do you get for your money.
DVD - 8.5Gb
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MPEG-2 encoded 9.8Mb/s video
5.1 Dolby digital 0.384Mb/s lossy compressed audio
8bit colour Rec.709 16.7 million colours
720x576 PAL or 720x480 NTSC resolution - 0.4 / 0.35 million pixels
Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) - about 300 nits
Blu-Ray - 50Gb
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AVC MPEG-4 encoded 40Mb/s video
7.1 Dolby Atmos upto 18.64Mb/s lossless compressed audio
8bit colour Rec.709 16.7 million colours
1920x1080 resolution - 2.1 million pixels
Standard Dynamic Range (SDR) - about 300 nits
4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray - 100Gb
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HEVC 265 encoded 100Mb/s video
7.1 Dolby Atmos upto 18.64Mb/s lossless compressed audio
10bit colour Rec.2020 (DCI P3) > 1 billion colours
4096x2160 resolution - 8.8 million pixels
High Dynamic Range (HDR) - mastered at 1000,4000 or 10000 nits.
HDR10 static metadata - Picture brightness curve is set at the start and does not change throughout the movie.
HDR10+ / Dolby Vision dynamic metadata - Picture brightness curve optimised on a scene by scene basis.
4K streaming (Netflix / iTunes/ vudu)
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HEVC 265 encoded 15-20 Mb/s video
5.1 Dolby Digital from 0.192Mb/s - 0.640Mb/s lossy compressed audio
Dolby Atmos from 0.448Mb/s - 0.768Mb/s lossy compressed audio
10bit colour Rec.2020 (DCI P3) > 1 billion colours
4096x2160 resolution - 8.8 million pixels
High Dynamic Range (HDR) - mastered at 1000,4000 or 10000 nits.
HDR10 static metadata - Picture brightness curve is set at the start and does not change throughout the movie.
HDR10+ / Dolby Vision dynamic metadata - Picture brightness curve optimised on a scene by scene basis.
Other info
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A VHS master is 333x480 - 0.16 million pixels
A 2k master or 2k digital intermediate is 2048x1080 - 2.2 million pixels
A 4k master or 4k digital intermediate is 4096x2160 - 8.8 million pixels
A 8k master or 8k digital intermediate is 7680x4320 - 33.2 million pixels
35mm film can be scanned at ISO100-200 - 20 million pixels
70mm film can be scanned at ISO100-200 - 40 million pixels
But as more light is let in ISO6400 35mm film would drop to 10 million pixels
Many have asked how can old films be converted to 4k, well they’re shot on 35mm film and that has a lot more resolution than a 2k DI and vhs tape masters. Myself personally I love the look of a good 35mm Film movie. A well preserved film can give amazing depth to the image and blow away a lot of today’s digitally shot movies.
Lossless audio presents all of the information to you that was in the original uncompressed files.
Lossy audio compression formats delete data that your ears can’t perceive in order to make files easier to transfer over the internet.
During processing, lossless compression rips audio files so that they reduce in size, but no quality is lost. The alternative is LPCM where no compression is used at all.
To hear the differences between lossy and lossless audio depends on your equipment and your experience. When watching a film with an atmos track on streaming and then the 4k blu ray I can hear and feel the missing punch. Remember when the file is compressed, something has to give. Just like dvd. You’re hearing a Dolby digital 5.1 track compared to a full blown Dolby atmos track.
At this moment in time I feel that with the arrival of 4K we are extremely lucky. We are seeing companies releasing their films and many giving us a brand new remaster from the original negatives. We are getting original colour timing back. No more blue or teal tints. And we are getting films showing original grain (which is good as grain contains the look of the movie) which without loses the data and can give us a waxy look wiping out all texture detail just like predator with its ultimate hunter edition. That technique is called DNR. Digital Noise Reduction. Aka grain remover. And other past horrors were EE. Edge enhancement where lines would appear around objects. Universal we’re guilty of this on their earlier blu-rays. Thankfully now we have great looking 4k discs of backdraft, the Incredible Hulk and Hulk movies and from Fox, Predator. And the matrix from Warner bros has never looked better and the original batman films, Batman 89 and Batman Returns are absolutely stunning.
I don’t have Uk market share figures but the USA market figures show that DVD generally takes 60% of the market share every week with Blu 35% and 4k uhd 5%.
So to ask the original question. Have the movie studios got the price right ?
It’s over to you.....
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