7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Emboldened by the return of Lord Voldemort, the Death Eaters are wreaking havoc in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that new dangers may lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. He needs Harry to help him uncover a vital key to unlocking Voldemort's defenses critical information known only to Hogwarts' former Potions Professor, Horace Slughorn. With that in mind, Dumbledore manipulates his old colleague into returning to his previous post with promises of more money, a bigger office and the chance to teach the famous Harry Potter.
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim BroadbentAdventure | 100% |
Fantasy | 78% |
Family | 62% |
Epic | 59% |
Mystery | 33% |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS:X
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
German: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Mandarin: Dolby Digital 5.1
Cantonese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Dutch: Dolby Digital 5.1
Korean: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Catalan: Dolby Digital 5.1
Czech: Dolby Digital 5.1
Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Flemish: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
English DD=narrative descriptive; Spanish=Latin & Castillian
English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Polish, Swedish
Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)
UV digital copy
4K Ultra HD
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 5.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
To accompany the Blu-ray and 4K releases of the latest chapter in J.K. Rowling's wizarding
world, Fantastic Beasts
and
Where to Find Them, Warner Brothers has begun remastering all
eight Harry Potter films
for
UHD, adding yet another version to the series' plethora of existing
editions. Harry's odyssey is being issued in two parts, with the last four installments appearing
first. The reverse order is dictated by technical considerations, as the earliest chapters in the
franchise were not completed on digital intermediates, which means that the negatives have to be
rescanned and regraded for 4K and HDR.
All four of the films in this first group—The Order of the Phoenix, The Half-Blood Prince and
The Deathly Hallows: Part
1 and Part
2—were shot on film with post-production on digital
intermediates at 2K. Accordingly, all of them arrive on UHD as up-conversions, with visual
benefits principally derived from HDR encoding (as well as some subtle, and not so subtle,
tweaking of the palette). As a sweetener, Warner has remixed all four soundtracks from the
original PCM, Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA 5.1 to the object-based DTS:X, providing an
audio upgrade for those who have the appropriate hardware. Included with each UHD disc are
two standard Blu-rays comprising the so-called "Ultimate Editions" of the Potter films that
Warner began releasing in 2009. A digital copy completes each package.
(Note: Screenshots included with this review are 1080p captures from the standard Blu-ray disc.
Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date. The Video score has been retained from prior reviews.)
According to the best available information, Warner's 2160p, HEVC/H.265-encoded UHD
presentation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been sourced from a 2K digital
intermediate, which limits the prospect that the format's superior resolution will reveal additional
detail. Still, the HDR encoding provides subtle but noticeable improvements over the standard
Blu-ray, courtesy of enhanced contrast, black levels and highlights. As with The Order of the
Phoenix, the effect is most noticeable in large, crowded expanses, e.g., the Room of Requirement
where Draco is repairing a Vanishing Cabinet hidden amongst stacks of other objects, the
crowded Christmas dinner table at the Weasleys with Harry and others joining the whole family,
or the huge field of reeds into which Harry runs (and others follow) when the Weasley home is
attacked by Bellatrix Lestrange and her posse.
The palette of The Half-Blood Prince on UHD continues the trend toward darkening and
desaturation by director David Yates that can been seen in all four of his Potter films, even
though they are the work of three different cinematographers—Slawomir Idziak for The Order of
the Phoenix, Bruno Delbonnel for this film and Eduardo Serra for The Deathly Hallows: Part 1
and Part 2. Here,
as in The Order of the Phoenex, the UHD's creators seem to have taken Yates's
preference for darkness even further, and the effect is most pronounced in the lengthy scene in a
seaside cave where Harry and Dumbledore look for a Horcrux at the bottom of a poisonous
fountain. On Blu-ray, the scene was already drained of color to a point that approached black-and-white photography, but on UHD the last vestiges of
color have been removed, including the
slight reddish tint of Harry's jacket. With the deeper blacks, added contrast and enhanced
highlights of HDR, the scene is now strikingly stark in its focused intensity, like something from
a classic horror film—which is appropriate, since the scene concludes with a horde of zombie-like Inferi swarming to the attack. The remainder of
Half-Blood Prince appears to have been
regraded with a similar eye to adding darkness and reducing color, though nowhere as obviously
noticeable as the cave sequence. As in Order of the Phoenix, the brightest colors are reserved for
magic, including the mystically-induced flames that Bellatrix and her gang ignite to encircle, and
then destroy, the Weasley home.
[System calibrated using a Klein K10-A Colorimeter with a custom profile created with a
Colorimetry Research CR250 Spectraradiometer, powered by SpectraCal CalMAN 2016 5.7,
using the Samsung Reference 2016 UHD HDR Blu-ray test disc authored by Florian Friedrich
from AV Top in Munich, Germany. Calibration performed by Kevin Miller of ISFTV.]
Previous releases of The Half-Blood Prince contained a 5.1 soundtrack (in either Dolby TrueHD
or DTS-HD MA), but the UHD
arrives with a DTS:X soundtrack that, on audio systems not yet
equipped to decode that format, should play as DTS-HD MA 7.1. The previous mix was a first-rate soundtrack, as noted by Kenneth Brown's review: "Blazing flame serpents, a
cursed young
girl, a battle of wands, a crowded marketplace, Dumbledore's teleportation, a rush of recalled
memories, a horde of undead guardians, an enraged master wizard, a harrowing field chase and
many other absolutely electric magic-infused scenes take full advantage of the LFE channel and
rear speakers." The DTS:X encoding refines these effects and expands the listening space even
further. The Dementor attack that opens the films is even more active and enveloping, and the
destruction of the Millennium Bridge carries even more sonic impact. The Christmas attack on
the Weasley residence is even more forceful, with an expanded sense of the attackers' flight and
a larger auditory sense of the reedy field into which Harry pursues Bellatrix. Dumbledore's
reassembly of the Muggle residence where he and Harry first find Horace Slughorne (Jim
Broadbent) sounds like it's happening all around you, as glass tinkles into coherent shapes and
pottery and bric-a-brac clatter back into their rightful place. Similar enhancements are audible
throughout, but none of them comes at the expense of dialogue intelligibility or the reproduction
of Nicholas Hooper's score.
It should be noted that "object-based" sound formats are designed to be adaptive, and DTS:X in
particular touts its ability to adjust to a wide variety of speaker configurations. Still, the degree to
which the new mix produces audible benefits in the home theater will no doubt vary depending
on individual sound systems and speaker arrays. For reference, I listened to The Half-Blood
Prince on a 7.1.2 speaker configuration, consisting of front left, right and center, and two each of
side, rear and "height" speakers, plus subwoofer.
The UHD disc contains no extras. The included pair of standard Blu-ray discs contains the same extras listed in the prior review of the "Ultimate Edition". The Special Features and Extras score from that review has been retained.
Warner's release of Harry Potter on UHD is a welcome addition to the format, even with the
limits on resolution that are inherent in the source. But the most interesting potential lies ahead,
as parts 1 and 2 of the series, The Sorcerer's
Stone and The Chamber of
Secrets, undergo new 4K
scans that should yield even greater benefits, compared to their Blu-ray counterparts. In the
meantime, the UHD presentations of the series' back end is a worthwhile and recommended
upgrade, especially for anyone who doesn't already own the "Ultimate Editions".
2009
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Bonus Mask
2009
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Ultimate Edition
2009
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w/ Extended on the BD
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2005
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