Oh yeah, it’s incredibly immersive. Got a lot of mileage out of an iPad with a pencil taking screenshots, scribbling out patterns and puzzles and working them out even when I didn’t have the game on. Even after figuring out everything in the manual and getting all the trophies the game still has a ton of mysteries and that rabbit hole goes deep.

This game looks like a lot of fun, but who in marketing approved that disaster of a title? It sounds like a straight to VHS children’s Christian video tape your grandma surprised you with after a visit to the dollar store in 1992.

Man, some of those old movies just look absolutely incredible in their 4K remasters. Lawrence of Arabia is another “holy shit” kind of movie that always looked good but I’ve never seen it look this good.

There’s a lot of newer movies that definitely just are lazy Blu-ray upscale transfers or just have an HDR layer applied with no thought at all (the worst example I’ve seen is The Bourne Identity), but thankfully there’s still an audience and publishers out there that understand that people still buying disc players are doing so because they want the best picture possible at home, so they do put some effort into it.

Another odd example I have is The Witch - the original 4K release had a basic HDR layer slapped onto it that blasted up the brightness and contrast and totally killed the mood (and was blasted by the director who actually told people not to buy it), but a later release had director oversight which had thoughtful HDR applied that preserves the tone. It really shows how important it is to actually adapt movies to the format to really get the intended effect.

2001: A Space Odyssey looks quite a bit different from the theatrical version, but damn if it doesn’t look incredible in 4K HDR on an OLED. Real showcase for those deep blacks and incredibly immersive.

Just being a nerd but LotR’s 4K release is technically a 2K upscale with a lot of DNR applied to smooth out the grain and make the overall package look more “digital.” Some of the VFX are lower resolution because that’s just what they had to work with, but they blend in better now and it totally makes sense why they did it this way for 4K. I still think it looks really great and I think it’s the best way to watch these movies outside of the theater, but I definitely understand why a lot of people don’t like it, given that the DNR actually removes detail and makes faces look pretty soft. Generally I’m opposed to messing with film grain, but LotR is already a hybrid of visual mediums so it makes sense here, but it also is understandable why it was a bit of a controversial release.

The first Blu-ray release definitely looked like washed-out crap, but there was a later version that rectified it, so I still think there’s some merit to that one. I haven’t seen it myself though.

Nerding aside, I agree with all your suggestions - I own all of these in 4K UHD and all look fantastic. And totally agree with surround sound - even a cheap home theater in a box is a massive upgrade to TV speakers and often better than a pricier soundbar.