iTunes new Dark Knight/DK Rises master

[deleted user]

x264 is where it's at right now and for some time to come.  


Actually Tom, I'd say it is the truth that sells the most, that is being peddled like a golden egg-crapping goose.

In those cases where people are informed enough to distinguish between truth and lie, yes.

[The Aluminum Falcon]

Anyone know how The Dark Knight's audio on UHD compares to the Cinema DTS preservation? I know some of Nolan's titles claim to be the original theatrical mix, but I'm not sure if The Dark Knight's among them?

As a side bar, with all the previous talk around the forum about the color timing of Interstellar and Dunkirk, does anyone remember how Inception looked color-wise in theaters/have any 35mm cels?

[deleted user]

I have Dark Knight now from iTunes. Definitely different colors as well. 

I am not sure it can be abstracted to a general formula (haven't even tried tbh), but here's an example that seems a bit in the direction of PDB's project if I recall correctly:

Blu Ray:
   

iTunes master:
   

Definitely something tealy/orangey going on, more green channel activity than the Blu Ray.

Not the same frame, but doesn't really matter.

[Beber]

Well, The Dark Knight DCP I saw in 2015 certainly was very much teal and so much better looking than the Blu-ray. Now I'm jealous. I want that.

[deleted user]

When I have them all, I'll be syncing them to the lossless audio and putting them on Blutopia. But the quality is nothing to write home about. Best option will probably be to regrade the UHD to this, if a good way can be found. spoRv's method might work, but he only uses AviSynth in 8-bit mode, so the result would not be as good as it could be. Might need some new approach.

[zoidberg]

Wouldn't downconverting HDR>SDR give you the same colours as the iTunes?

[deleted user]

Hmm. With a bit of luck it might. When I have a new hard drive, I shall try that. Do a simple 3D LUT using DrDre's tool over a few scenes and see if it can match something up that fits to every scene. If it's some simple blanket downconversion, this should work in theory. But there's always the odd chance they did some manual adjustments scene by scene. I can't imagine why they would go through that pain for something that will only be released on iTunes, but maybe they planned a Blu Ray release originally or so.

[Beber]

Wouldn't downconverting HDR>SDR give you the same colours as the iTunes?

Is that conversion possible? Does anybody here have these knowledge and skills?

[deleted user]

Wouldn't downconverting HDR>SDR give you the same colours as the iTunes?

Is that conversion possible? Does anybody here have these knowledge and skills?

It's theoretically pretty simple. The HDR image is still just an image consisting of RGB/YUV values. You just need to choose a way to map them onto other values that will look good in SDR. Simplest imaginable way is to use the Levels/Curves to simply stretch the flat HDR image out into an SDR image with acceptable contrast. The trick here is to do it in such a way that the result is identical color-wise to the SDR master. A 3D LUT should do if they didn't do any tone-mapping.

I've already prepared a regrade for the Mummy 1999 movie to the BD colors (hint: the HDR is much sharper, new transfer, no DNR). But in that case I was satisfied with getting something that roughly approaches the BD; anything else would have required something like spoRv's method because it also got a new grading which varies from shot to shot.

[Beber]

Then I bet one of our wizards here will end up doing something like that, for sure. It's the Dark Knight trilogy, for Christ sake!