HDR Movie Updates After UHD Release?

[LoveCinema]

Question for the long-time owners: Does K often add HDR versions to previously released UHD only movies?

I looked through two years of the Movie Updates thread and haven't seen any. Are those kinds of updates not tracked there?
(Lots of adding UHD to HDR releases, but not the reverse.)

It appears to be an increasing trend for K to release movies in UHD when available in HDR elsewhere. This includes new releases (Saltburn, American Fiction, etc.) as well a catalog re-releases (Ferris Bueller, Color Purple, Exorcist, Face/Off, Footloose, etc.). In the New 4K Arrivals section alone you’ll find 17 recent examples.

I had assumed K goes back and adds the HDR as resources allowed. However, with some high-profile titles from prior years still sitting in UHD only (Lawrence of Arabia, Taxi Driver, Mad Max, etc.), I'm wondering if that assumption is faulty.

A fresh concerning use case is Labyrinth. It was UHD, never got updated to HDR, and now it’s gone due to contracts. Hopefully it’ll return at some point with a fresh HDR encode, but it had a splashy re-release at the beginning of Feb on other digital stores and we're still waiting. If it never returns, or returns only in HD (common with Shout), K owners lost their chance for the best quality release.

 

[forzalombardi]

Question for the long-time owners: Does K often add HDR versions to previously released UHD only movies?

I looked through two years of the Movie Updates thread and haven't seen any. Are those kinds of updates not tracked there?
(Lots of adding UHD to HDR releases, but not the reverse.)

It appears to be an increasing trend for K to release movies in UHD when available in HDR elsewhere. This includes new releases (Saltburn, American Fiction, etc.) as well a catalog re-releases (Ferris Bueller, Color Purple, Exorcist, Face/Off, Footloose, etc.). In the New 4K Arrivals section alone you’ll find 17 recent examples.

I had assumed K goes back and adds the HDR as resources allowed. However, with some high-profile titles from prior years still sitting in UHD only (Lawrence of Arabia, Taxi Driver, Mad Max, etc.), I'm wondering if that assumption is faulty.

A fresh concerning use case is Labyrinth. It was UHD, never got updated to HDR, and now it’s gone due to contracts. Hopefully it’ll return at some point with a fresh HDR encode, but it had a splashy re-release at the beginning of Feb on other digital stores and we're still waiting. If it never returns, or returns only in HD (common with Shout), K owners lost their chance for the best quality release.

I believe guess who is coming to dinner was UHD only at release, but has been upgraded to HDR.

 

[LoveCinema]

I believe guess who is coming to dinner was UHD only at release, but has been upgraded to HDR.

Thank you! This isn't just a perfect example of what I was looking for, but a very recent one as well.

This looks exactly like what I had hoped: K got it out then followed up shortly with updates, "completing" the package. This definitely alleviates much of my concern, now we just have to figure out why so many are stuck at UHD. (Maybe they didn't sell well enough to justify continued cost/effort? But, what of people that were waiting for HDR? Would LOVE some transparency from K here.)

For those that care, this movie appeared as a New Release twice, once at UHD and once at HDR. It only showed a Movie Update when Atmos was added to the UHD. So:

• A discrete update to a specific version (add Atmos to UHD) will show up in Movie Updates.
• Adding UHD after HDR is already available will show up in Movie Updates.
• Adding HDR after UHD is already available simply shows up as a New Release.

My education in the ways of the K Store and K Forum continues...

 

[thrillcat]

For those that care, this movie appeared as a New Release twice, once at UHD and once at HDR. It only showed a Movie Update when Atmos was added to the UHD. So:

• A discrete update to a specific version (add Atmos to UHD) will show up in Movie Updates.
• Adding UHD after HDR is already available will show up in Movie Updates.
• Adding HDR after UHD is already available simply shows up as a New Release.

My education in the ways of the K Store and K Forum continues...

I would not count on this being consistent, it will depend upon your system and components included. I think it may be more accurate to think of it in these terms:

• Movie Updates applies to any title you have currently downloaded to your system, indicating there is an updated version available.
• I do not believe you receive a "Movie Update" notification if you own a title but it is not currently downloaded to your server.
• New Releases seems to be a manually configured promotional category, which is different than the "Recently Added" sort function.

I could be wrong but this is how I've noticed things.

 

[LoveCinema]

I would not count on this being consistent, it will depend upon your system and components included. I think it may be more accurate to think of it in these terms:

• Movie Updates applies to any title you have currently downloaded to your system, indicating there is an updated version available.
• I do not believe you receive a "Movie Update" notification if you own a title but it is not currently downloaded to your server.
• New Releases seems to be a manually configured promotional category, which is different than the "Recently Added" sort function.

I could be wrong but this is how I've noticed things.

Thanks for this.

My prior reply wasn't clear as the bullets were my observations of how the forum threads were functioning, not the features of the K or K Store. I've updated the language for clarity.

Given your input I looked back at the store. When all movies are sorted by Date Added to Store, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner appears chronologically with the early March release of the HDR version rather than the early February release date of the UHD version (it moved).

Whether on the forum or in the store, if you want to know if HDR has been added to a UHD, keep an eye on new releases...

-Dan