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Image quality vs. discs

TrackZ

TrackZ

Well-known member
I've been doing a lot comparisons lately between my Strato and other devices. One of the things I saw referenced a lot here and AVS and the general company line is that K matches or exceeds disc quality.

One thing I'm noting (using 4K HDR content) between the K and disc is that the K image is lighter. Discs and other sources tend to have a darker tone to them.

I'm curious if anyone has noted this? Or has done some content A/B comparison between K and discs for 4K HDR?

It may be that the disc playback is oversaturated and the K is more accurate. It's more of a character of the image difference than quality of the image, but I'm curious how others folks feel. It's hard to capture pictures of this unfortunately.
 
Hmm. Great question. If you're seeing a difference, it may have to do with the specific disc player you're using. I think in general, being that it's a bit-for-bit transfer from the disc masters, K is supposed to be identical, so it probably boils down to the players video processing and perhaps if you do anything on the receiver end. I tend to just do direct passthrough for video so the receiver's not doing any upscaling, and I haven't been able to tell any difference on 4K content. That said, I do believe that with SD (480p) and HD (1080p) content, the Strato is SUPERB.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, colors do seem to be a bit more vibrant on the Strato versus the discs I've used, but that may also be placebo. I really should do an A/B on specifically 4K content.
 
Unfortunately, I only have an Xbox One X. I sold my Oppo last year after buying the K. I don't doubt that the Xbox might put a darker cast on it's video output. Overly dark output has been something of note with the Xbox since the earlier days of the Xbox One.
 
https://www.cineluxe.com/kaleidescapes-amazing-transfers/

Assuming this article is correct, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, given that they interviewed Luke O’Brien and Mike Kobb from Kaleidescape for it. The files are not bit for bit identical to what is on the disc. Kaleidescape is given much larger files from the studios and then do their own conversion down to a smaller size, that doesn't need to adhere to disc size limitations. This could definitely result in better image quality from a Kaleidescape player, than from a 4K Blu-ray. The audio streams should be identical to their disc counterparts though, as they are lossless files straight from the studio.
 
TrackZ said:
Unfortunately, I only have an Xbox One X. I sold my Oppo last year after buying the K. I don't doubt that the Xbox might put a darker cast on it's video output. Overly dark output has been something of note with the Xbox since the earlier days of the Xbox One.
Click to expand...
Oh, yeah. That's probably what's going on, then. I've heard that the XB1's 4k BD video quality isn't quite up to par with the better players out there. Still a heckuva good value that you can get a game console that also happens to play 4K BD discs, so not a bad buy either way, but still not going to match what you'd get from your Oppo or the Strato. I've heard some software updates have helped the player out but it's still not quite there. My brother has an XB1 and he ended up springing for a better quality standalone disc player and is quite pleased now. At least the XB1 got him purchasing 4K discs to begin with, so I consider that a win. Haha.
 
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