They Live 4K Blu-ray Review

https://www.avforums.com/review/They-Live-4K-Blu-ray-Review.15428

The grading given to this new restoration is stunning; at once breathing new life into the image, but still retaining the overall look and feel of the original source. Detail is not a massive leap up, but there are clear indications of improvements: skin texture (pores, wrinkles, hair lines) and clothing weaves show a little improvement, but the main advantage is with the city vistas (underneath Holly’s house, or overlooking the shanty town) which are cleaner and better defined, and with crowd scenes (either of the police raids) where definition is keener.

The WGC and HDR ensure that colours are far richer and stronger than ever before; skin tones positively glow, while the primaries, red and blue, are vibrant and defiant – check out the flares during the police raids, or the blue and red emergency lighting on the cars; how rich and strong it now appears. Daylight is brighter and has greater depth, while sunsets are intense. Blacks are deep and inky adding significant depth to the frame, holding shadow detail when needed and being impenetrable when required; checkout night time in shanty town or the night raid. There was the very occasional blink and you miss it greying during one nightscene, but hardly worth mentioning. The white end of the scale is clear and bright, daytime shows off the best highlights (the sheen on the workman’s tools for example) while there is no hint of clipping.

Digitally, there are no compression issues or artefacts. The original source is perfect, with a decent enough grain structure. The opening credits are a tad green and show the worst of the grain, but once passed there is nothing to worry about. Awesome attention to detail.