Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Stranger Things: Season 1 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Stranger Things Indeed.

If it weren't a matter rightly taken so seriously, this whole situation with Stranger Things might actually be comical. Here's a brief recap, and anyone with the fortitude to do so, the time on their hands, and a sense of humor, can read up in more sprawling detail all the personal stories of buying successes, frustrations, failures, joys, and healthy banter on the forums. OK, here goes. There's this great Netflix show called Stranger Things. It was presented on the streaming service in 4K but released to Blu-ray in 1080p only. And not only was it released to Blu-ray (in a cool special edition at that), it was released on the sly, as in it just sort of showed up at Target one day, where it's a store exclusive, and even all of the Internet's best digital sleuths didn't see it coming until the release date was practically on top of everyone. The show looked (and sounded, with its lossless audio -- that bit's going to be important here in a minute) great, but it was also without any supplemental content. Bummer, but hey, great show with a great Blu-ray presentation and collector's packaging makes up for it, right? Skip ahead a few weeks -- literally just a few -- and people start finding a 4K UHD release on Target shelves. It's a surprise, but it's also a source of frustration. After all, people just shelled out good money for the Blu-ray, and here all of a sudden, with many probably yet to watch their latest BD acquisition, is another option to buy. But that's only half the story. People learn that the UHD has been kind of half-@$$&#. There's no HDR or Dolby Vision color accompanying the 2160p picture and there's not even lossless audio. That's right, the UHD doesn't even retain the original's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless track. It's been replaced with a Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Needless to say, it's been one of the most discussed and dissected releases of the past few years, controversial for a number of reasons: stealth releases, one of the quickest (if not the quickest) double dips in home video history, no extras, and controversial tech specs. So with all that out of the way, the question is whether the UHD can be considered at all a viable alternative to a Blu-ray that offers first-class picture quality and, on paper, superior audio.

UHD left, BD right.

Stranger Things: Season 1 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.

Truth be told, the story behind the release is a bit more interesting than the video presentation, because a comparison between UHD and BD yields no significant differences. Add another to the list of "stranger things" with this release. The absence of HDR colors leaves the show with essentially the same color temperature and presentation as the Blu-ray, with the noted, and very inconsequential, discrepancies probably accounted for by variances in the two different model players used to conduct the A-B comparison on the same monitor, or better encoding, or higher bitrate, or insert-best-guess-here. This is still a natural, enjoyable, well saturated and effortlessly complex palette, presenting bright, brilliant shades as well as it handles intensively dark corners and shadow details, which appear frequently and are critical to the show's visual presentation.

Textural qualities then, of course, should be the winners here. But they're not. The image looks fantastic, but comparing it to the Blu-ray, there's very little, if any at all, perceptible increase in detail. A-B comparing various scenes and stills, including a number of texturally rich shots such as one outside the school at the 13:58 mark of episode one where pavement, the brick façade, and the school's sign, reveal trace improvements in sharpness and crispness, at best, but even conducting a blind test with an assistant (a.k.a. Mrs. Liebman) switching inputs or leaving them alone, it was near impossible to tell with certainty which version was which. This is also making sure any upscaling on the player sending out the Blu-ray signal was turned off (it was). That's also double-checking the proper discs were in the proper players (they were) and even swapping out the BDs that ship with the UHD for the BDs that shipped in the original release, and they're spot-on identical to the point that the player resumed playback on the original disc to where it left off with the ones packed in with the UHD. So, almost no discernible difference here. At all. If one wants to really get into cases, one can find extremely marginal increases in sharpness, such as the cook's watch face when he's sitting across from Eleven at the 26:55 mark in episode one. There's an incredibly slight increase in sharpness on the individual hour ticks. But broad skin and clothing and environment textures? Forget about finding any boost of any significance. Settings triple checked, discs double checked and swapped out where possible and...nothing.

As for the score, well...the score. The dreaded and all-telling summation numerical score. Make no mistake that the UHD looks very good, but it looks no better than the Blu-ray. Add in the absence of HDR and, while not related to the picture quality, the elephant in the room of the stealthy and seemingly cash-grab timetable nature of the release that really offers no added value over the Blu-ray and it's...a 2.5, but a 4.5 in a blind test vacuum and because that's what the Blu-ray received, and there's precious little difference between it and the UHD. So, ignore the score. Seriously, it doesn't matter in this case. It's a lose-lose to award it anything at all in a case where anything from 0 to near 5.0 seems legitimate, but since a number must be selected, smack-dab-in-the-middle 2.5 it is.

Note that chapter stop markers are different between the two releases.

Stranger Things: Season 1 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Here's another space for whittling down a numerical score partly for the disc's lack of even carrying over the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless track from the other release, never mind boost it to Dolby Atmos or DTS:X or, heck, even 7.1 lossless. A quick compare yields, like the video quality, little difference despite a technical "downgrade." If anything the 5.1 track might actually be a mite more intense. The blaring alarms to begin the show inside the compound play with the same fluid, airy, surround intensive saturation. Both offer strong low end support depth, though the lossy 5.1 might be a little more punchy and hard-hitting, believe it or not, though again it's possible that can be attributed to player output variance, encode discrepancies, etc. Dialogue sounds indistinguishable between the two.

Stranger Things: Season 1 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The UHD set still begins with a pair of trailers, but unlike the Blu-ray set, they're actually skippable on the UHD disc out of the box. Thank goodness for small miracles. No other extras are included beyond the physical poster, which is different.

Stranger Things: Season 1 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is one of the most confounding, frustrating, and fascinating releases in some time. A beloved show that earned a top-notch Blu-ray release is quickly and quietly re-released on UHD with 2160p video and no HDR and is (guesstimating) 98% indistinguishable from the Blu-ray. Add in the complete absence of a lossless soundtrack, which was included on the Blu-ray, and no extras beyond a different poster and the border color and artwork (and a few other insignificant alterations) on the box, and one can only be left wondering in what sales meeting, and in what universe, this was greenlit for release. Skip it, but do buy the Blu-ray. The show is fantastic and the BD presentation is top-notch. Cool packaging, too, and to this reviewer's eyes, the BD's black trim box looks better than the UHD's white trim.