Is 4k worth the upgrade???

What are everyone’s thoughts?

CloakedDragon97 said:

It really depends on the movie. A lot of Blu-rays could use it if they had DNR, edge enhancement and incorrect color grading. But for releases from companies like Criterion and Arrow, they don’t need it as much. Also, newer movies tend to not look as good as older ones due to them being shot and finished digitally, usually at not true 4K resolution.

I agree. One with I find distracting is the ‘soap opera effect’. For instance the film Gemini Man. Sure it looks fantastic but it tends to lose the affect given from a film pundit’s point of view.

Gemini Man was shot digitally. There never was any film grain to begin with. It always looked fake. It looks flat because it was shot on the Arri Alexa. Its a not a movie filmed on movie film and released in 4K, its not a good comparison.
It looks clean because that is the style the director was going for. Almost dreamlike. With Will Smith versus his cgi double, De-aged. For me the story worked, i really liked the movie, but zero verisimilitude because of the way it was shot. Also being shot at high frame rate might have killed it like the Hobbit making it look like video.

4K is great but 4K with HDR is mind blowing. My wife and daughter who couldn’t give a shit about this sort of thing… I mean they would watch a show on a phone or laptop for god’s sake🤢
But when I showed them 4K HDR on a good OLED big screen they were very impressed!

It depends how big the screen you have is.

Once you start to hit 65" to 96" 4k will help a lot to maintain detail at larger screen sizes.

HD would still be acceptable but really the larger you go you really neeed to maintain resolution comparable to size of the screen surface.

Generally people don’t have space for such large screens in their homes whilst 4k can still be enjoyable on lower size screens essentially 4k is negligable or won’t provide anything worthwhile probably under 40" screen size.

Based on being a reasonable / normal viewing distance from the screen display.

It depends on the movie and the effort and expense they go through to get a good 4K UHD disc out there. A lot of time despite a major upgrade you still have to contend with revisionism in color timing, no original audio or DNR.

My problem with the format is the menus stink, lack of original audio, and bonus features are usually left off its just the movie.

It also depends on if the Atmos new mixes but I still want original audio.

I upgraded to the 4K format a few months ago, and so far I’ve enjoyed it. My HDTV isn’t super high-end (its a 65-inch Vizio), but it works well enough for me. So far, I’ve bought 4 box sets and 7 individual films, mainly due to my limited budget. I still have over 200 Blu-Rays though, so its not like I’m devoid of anything to watch.

4k is really not that impressive. A BluRay has more then enough detail.
The thing about 4k is HDR which has a much bigger impact on image quality and immersion than 4K resolution ever could.

only if classic movies are in 35mm or 70mm, im looking for great mouse detective and oliver and company the original 35mm theatrical versions (raw eastman lpp filmstrips, and original camera negatives} not seen on home video, as well as the bambi 1988 reissue

More often than not, the answer is YES.

HDR/DV from a 4K disc on an OLED TV makes the home experience close to feeling like being in an IMAX.

Seeing old movies in 4K is a delight too. Makes you feel like we’re living in the best times ever as film enthusiasts.

I think there is a difference, and it can be worth upgrading if you’re super particular about quality, or if you’re a cinephile who wants access to some of the great new restorations that are now being released exclusively in 4k. The amount of benefit will mainly depend on the display you’re watching on, and title in question.

One thing that doesn’t get mentioned much is many of the new 4k restorations of old films aren’t available on standard blu ray. Often the package will say something like “new 4k transfer approved by the director” but the standard blu ray is just a reprint of previous transfer. So, for an increasing number of movies originally shot on film, the most recent (and often best) transfer can only be viewed on a 4k setup.

As others have mentioned, an added benefit of 4ks is HDR, including the wider color gamut. A good TV (most OLEDs) will be able to take advantage of this added color data and give you an image that is brighter and more dynamic. I think this aspect of the experience is probably more noticeable than the resolution for most home setups. But if you have a TV with mediocre HDR performance, you won’t get much benefit and in fact the colors might end up looking worse than they would just watching in SDR. You’ll see a lot of threads on Reddit complaining about 4k masters being too dark or washed out, and usually this is due to people viewing them on TVs that can’t adequately handle the HDR content.

The resolution improvement won’t be very noticeable unless you have a pretty large TV (65") and are sitting relatively close to it. My girlfriend and I watch a lot of stuff on standard blu rays on her 75" 4k TV, and they look fantastic - no real lack of sharpness. I often forget that I’m not watching 4k content. The difference is more noticeable when I watch things on my 120" projector screen - but even then, the difference is more subtle than what you might expect. I wouldn’t say resolution alone is enough of a reason to drop thousands on a new setup.

Like a lot of the other comments it really does depend on what you are watching but would also mention it will also depend on your setup also and do you feel the need to upgrade.
Myself I’m perfectly fine with bluray or dvd and not so long back I purchased a bluray player that upscales to 4k (it doesn’t play 4k discs but upscales the bluray to 4k) either way Terminator has never looked better on my 12" portable b&w😂, all jokes aside my tv is 56" 4K and the picture on dvd is just as good compared to bluray to my tired old eyes.