BBC The Green Planet: Quality vs Content
Where should I begin. I bought a 4K Blu-Ray player last Autumn. I did not plan to use it for movies: this was the cheapest way of buying a player for all of my various discs. For a couple of months I really only listened to my CD/DVD-Audio/SACD collection on it.
While listening to TIDAL, I realized that there is a new David Attenborough series out there (the soundtrack was recommended to me by TIDAL). I found some short excerpts on the BBC Earth YouTube channel. In the series, David Attenborough explains the life of plants and also plays with plants just like a little kid. The series is available on 4K Blu-Ray discs. Fantastic, I found something to test the 4K capabilities of my Blu-Ray player.
I ordered the discs from the German Amazon, but they were shipped from Great Britain. In theory there was a simplified customs process, so I did not have to do any paperwork or pay any extra. In practice the Hungarian post office billed me a nice sum as handling fee, even if they did not have to do anything.
The box had four discs inside. The first two are 4K Blu-Ray, the other two are regular Blu-Ray. My initial reaction was that I only need the first two, and I can give away the other two to someone with a regular player. I was wrong.
Obviously, I watched the 4K version of the series. Breath-taking pictures. I have never seen this quality of video recordings previously. Streaming services all have a lot lower bit rate. However, something was missing. You could hear Attenborough talking, but the playful old man, who made the series a lot more of a personal experience, was nowhere to be seen. Checking the box I found that the 4K discs have half an hour less content than the regular discs.
So, all the discs stay with me, I will not give them away. Of course, after watching the 4K version, the FullHD version seems to be a cheap imitation, but the content and mood are a lot better.
Some of the missing content is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5A4nPQbUF8AzMgnRRINtVzk1I2ptf6h8
