House Of The Dragons UHD

[nkelly0]

Is the new season of game of thrones "house of the dragons going to be shown in UHD? Ive seen reports that other countries are. Hopefully someone knows. Thanks

[nigea99]

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@nkelly0 wrote:

Is the new season of game of thrones "house of the dragons going to be shown in UHD? Ive seen reports that other countries are. Hopefully someone knows. Thanks

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Based on past / current experience of HBO content, I would say that it is very highly unlikely it will be in UHD on SKY

My guess is that it will probably only be in UHD on HBO Max streaming service in the US & eventually on UHD discs elsewhere 

[TimmyBGood]

@nkelly0 

The Sky Atlantic exclusive deal with HBO apparently didn't cover UHD, and given that HBO now deeply regret ever making such an arrangement in the first place (because it's effectively blocking the launch of HBO Max in the UK, Germany and Italy until 2025) I suspect they are unlikely to want to make it more generous.

[fizzdisco]

Interestingly, HBO Max has announced that all seasons of Game Of Thrones will be available to stream in the USA in 4K with Dolby Vision & Atmos in the near future, alongside House Of The Dragon. 

https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/game-of-thrones-4k-ultra-hd-hbo-max-streaming-1235325006/ 

This is the first time they've done this so it'll be interesting to see if they keep it for themselves or if Sky can negotiate a deal for the UHD version (and do a bad HLG conversion too no doubt.)

[TimmyBGood]

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@fizzdisco wrote:

This is the first time they've done this so it'll be interesting to see if they keep it for themselves or if Sky can negotiate a deal for the UHD version (and do a bad HLG conversion too no doubt.)

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Unless Sky/Comcast and HBO have patched up the damage done by the remarks made by the now-ex WarnerMedia CEO  regarding his considerable displeasure at inheriting the 2019 five-year 'exclusive' deal to carry HBO content only on Atlantic, I think that's unlikely.

On the other hand, given the the recent corporate shenanigans surrounding the creation of Warner Bros Discovery (including the killing of the CNN+ app a month after its US launch) I guess strange things are possible.

[trevforum]

House of the Dragon has been filmed to a 4K DI probably using Slog v2, whereas Game of Thrones was filmed with various cameras and resolutions throughout it's seasons as camera technology advanced and was produced to a 2K DI(Digital Intermediate).  I guess it remains to be seen if Sky are allowed convert for HLG.   

[TimmyBGood]

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@trevforum wrote:

whereas Game of Thrones was filmed with various cameras and resolutions throughout it's seasons as camera technology advanced

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It’s easy to forget now, but Game of Thrones was the first hour-long HBO drama to be captured entirely digitally. The first three seasons were shot in 10-bit 4:4:4 at 1920x1080 resolution using then prototype ARRI Alexa cameras (save for a bit of footage in the first episode that was actually shot on 35 mm film, left over from HBO’s original failed pilot). For Season One the captured image was recorded on HDCAM SR videotape using a tape-based workflow, with color correction done on set. For Seasons Two and Three, the production went tapeless, recording that same image data via Codex and datapacks. Though this source material was upsampled to 4K (at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio), it’s shocking how good it looks. HDCAM SR has an HQ recording mode that provides an 880 Mbps video data rate with low compression, so the detail visible in the Ultra HD image is improved a bit; it’s rock solid, tighter-looking, and much less noisy than the previous Blu-ray presentation. A few shots appear a little optically soft, but in general the overall detail is very good—not native 4K good, but still impressive as hell all things considered. Also, because the image was captured in 10-bit, and Ultra HD presents that bit depth fully, gone are the banding artifacts that were visible in the BD image (you notice this almost immediately after the opening credits in the first episode, as the banner-men from Winterfell capture the deserter from the Night’s Watch—when they ride over the hill, the banding visible in the sky in that scene is now gone).

By the time Season Four arrived, Arri was well established and fully-digital workflows were far more common. So the production switched to shooting in 3.2K Pro-Res and ARRIRAW format for the remainder of the series, using Arri Alexa Mini, XT, and SXT Plus cameras with Cooke S4 and Angenieux Optimo Lenses (note that some location photography was also done with Red Epic-M Dragon cameras in 6K Redcode RAW). It appears that the series’ VFX were produced in consistently in 2K resolution. The final seasons of the series were finished in 4K to begin with, while the earlier seasons were upsampled to create new 4K DIs. For this Ultra HD release, the resulting image has also graded for high dynamic range (both HDR10 and Dolby Vision are included). There’s no doubt whatsoever that every single episode of this series looks better in 4K than it did on Blu-ray, and the later seasons are significantly improved.

https://thedigitalbits.com/item/game-of-thrones-complete-series-4k-uhd 

[fizzdisco]

Very interesting @TimmyBGood - l love that kind of detail. Shame though, that I have no interest whatsoever in Game of Thrones, which I found incredibly dull regardless of the resolution it was shot in. Swords and dragons just do nothing for me. Harry Potter did the same.  

[TimmyBGood]

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@fizzdisco wrote:

l love that kind of detail.

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I enjoy it to: for example it always amuses me that 'Star Wars' from 1977 is capable of generating a 'better' image than 'Attack of the Clones' twenty-five years later in 2002 because GL insisted on going digital and so limited capture to 1080p rather than the scan resolutions extractable from the 35mm which this thing produced ; )

[fizzdisco]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@fizzdisco wrote:

l love that kind of detail.

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I enjoy it to: for example it always amuses me that 'Star Wars' from 1977 is capable of generating a 'better' image than 'Attack of the Clones' twenty-five years later in 2002 because GL insisted on going digital and so limited capture to 1080p rather than the scan resolutions extractable from the 35mm which this thing produced ; )

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Have you seen the 4K77 scan of A New Hope? It shows just how good a 35mm print can look and IMHO is much better than the more recent official 4K HDR releases of the 'special' editions.   

[TimmyBGood]

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@fizzdisco wrote:

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It shows just how good a 35mm print can look

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There's a nice anecdote from the 8K release of 'Lawrence of Arabia' where the people involved though they were looking at artifacts introduced by digitisation, and then realised it was where the 65mm celluloid had dried and cracked in the desert heat of North Africa in 1961-62: they described this as a 'fingerprint' of the actual filming process made visible fifty-five years later.

[lettice]

Have had it confirmed from Sky that House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones will be made available in UHD and HDR on Sky.
They mentioned they would not confirm at this time of the actual dates it will drop for download.

So, as often is the case, expect it may not be available on the first House of Dragons episode broadcast day.

[Plektrum]

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@lettice wrote:

Have had it confirmed from Sky that House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones will be made available in UHD and HDR on Sky.
They mentioned they would not confirm at this time of the actual dates it will drop for download.

So, as often is the case, expect it may not be available on the first House of Dragons episode broadcast day.

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This is excellent news - once Foxtel announced they would be showing it in 4K over in Australia It seemed rather logical other distribution partners like Sky would also get a 4K version so hopefully this is the just the start of seeing more new HBO stuff in UHD going forward! 

[trevforum]

From all the trailers I've seen the use of dark interiors and using natural light is unlikely to provide the "brightness" improvement some people will be expecting.  I doubt interior scenes will go above 200 nits.

[nigea99]

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@trevforum wrote:

From all the trailers I've seen the use of dark interiors and using natural light is unlikely to provide the "brightness" improvement some people will be expecting.  I doubt interior scenes will go above 200 nits.

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I don't know about other  HDR formats but I found the UHD discs of GoT S8  (notoriously dark) in Dolby Vision to bring out detail in the dark shadows that HD version could not provide