A few weeks ago I wrote an article on the latest format war the AV industry has contrived to inflict on consumers. This time the fight is taking place in the high dynamic range arena, with two different premium HDR formats – Dolby Vision and HDR10+ – vying for support from different TV brands and movie studios.
Today has seen an unexpected and, on the surface at least, very positive development in resolving the HDR scrap, though. For tucked away in the disc specification section of 20th Century Fox’s press release for the upcoming 4K Blu-ray release of James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel is the revelation that it will carry the film in both the Dolby Vision and HDR10+ formats. A fact which Fox has confirmed to me isn’t just a press release typo.
This means that no matter whether you have a TV and 4K Blu-ray player combi that supports Dolby Vision or a TV/4K Blu-ray combi that supports HDR10+, you will be able to enjoy Alita: Battle Angel with the extra scene by scene picture information both these so-called dynamic HDR formats provide. Which typically means you will enjoy enhanced contrast, brightness and color performance.
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| Alita Battle Angel |
The decision to deliver Alita on 4K Blu-ray disc in both formats is a huge (and welcome) surprise for two reasons. First, it’s only the second title ever released on 4K Blu-ray that’s carried the film in both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ (the other being Lionsgate’s release of the latest Robin Hood film).
Second, Alita marks the very first 4K Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox that’s carried a Dolby Vision master. Previously 20th Century Fox releases have only supported either the industry standard HDR10 ‘static’ HDR format (which doesn’t provide TVs with scene by scene picture information) and, in the case of a handful of recent titles, HDR10+.
In fact, before the Alita announcement today, Fox had seemed during multiple meetings with members of its technology division to be fairly adamantly opposed to Dolby Vision for 4K Blu-ray. Indeed, it was one of the founder members of the HDR10+ Alliance, alongside Samsung and Panasonic. Yet here we are, only a few titles into the studio living up to its long-held HDR10+ promises, also delivering its debut Dolby Vision release.
At this stage we can only speculate on how Alita’s format neutral approach to dynamic HDR has come about (though I have asked 20th Century Fox for more background, and will provide an update if they have anything to share). The most likely answer is that James Cameron insisted that everyone be able to enjoy the film in a ‘best quality’ dynamic HDR format, regardless of which TV and 4K Blu-ray player brand they owned. And if James Cameron insists on something, my guess would be that it usually happens!
It’s also tempting to wonder if this has something to do with Disney’s recent take over of Fox, marking the start of a new format neutral approach to 4K Blu-ray releases. It’s important to stress in this regard, though, that while Disney did support Dolby Vision on a handful of 4K Blu-ray releases in the first half of 2018, it subsequently mysteriously went back to only offering HDR10 on its 4K disc releases.
While I 100% applaud in principle the decision to offer Alita in both premium HDR formats, I can’t help but worry a little that doing so may put pressure on the available 4K disc space, potentially resulting in increased compression and, therefore a softer and less detailed 4K picture.
Dolby maintains that adding Dolby Vision metadata doesn’t increase the potential size of a 4K Blu-ray data file too much, but more than one industry insider has suggested to me that using Dolby Vision really can cause 4K Blu-ray data ‘crush’ issues – especially if a studio uses a 66GB 4K disc for a film rather than the more expensive 100GB option. And there’s currently no information available on whether Alita will be appearing on a 66GB or 100GB disc.
To be fair, Robin Hood still looked pretty crisp on 4K Blu-ray despite supporting both formats and being only six minutes shorter than Alita. In fact, the Robin Hood 4K Blu-ray transfer regularly hits data rates of more than 90Mbps, pushing close to the 4K Blu-ray format’s maximum capabilities.
Also, given Cameron’s well-earned reputation for caring more than most about the way his films look on home video formats, it’s hard to believe that he would do anything that might compromise Alita’s AV quality.
It will still be a relief when the 4K Blu-ray drops July 23rd, though, if it turns out that Alita not only really does support both premium HDR formats, but does so in the sort of spectacular quality fans have come to expect from Cameron releases.
Needless to say, I’ll be reviewing the 4K disc as soon as I can get my hands on it.
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