Speed Racer 4k | Steelbook

Product detailed description

The package includes 2 discs

 4k Ultra HD Blu-ray

• Video in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160)
• HDR (Dolby Vision + HDR-10)
• Aspect ratio 2.39:1
• Original audio in Dolby Atmos
• BD-100 (triple-layer UHDBD)

Special Features

• Speed Racer: Wonderful World of Racing and The Amazing Racer Family

Blu-ray

• Video in Full HD
• Aspect ratio 2.39:1
• Original audio in Dolby Digital 5.1

Special Features

• Speed Racer: Ramping Up!
• Spritle in the Big Leagues - a behind-the-scenes tour with Paulie Litt
• Supercharged! - meet the racers; explore the amazing cars and tracks
• Car-Fu - a behind-the-scenes look at the revolutionary filmmaking process

Do I get native 4K Ultra HD?

While it is impossible to get this audiovisual treat in native 4K—as it was entirely shot on HD digital cameras and finished in a 2K digital intermediate—you can still look forward to a phenomenal spectacle. The transfer frequently crosses the line into reference-quality video and audio, especially when it comes to the high dynamic range (HDR) and object-based spatial audio.

First, let's look at the picture. When preparing the Ultra HD Blu-ray, the studio went straight back to the source. The original digital master was captured in a logarithmic 10-bit color space, which translates to an incredible 14-bit depth in its linear variant. So, even though it was originally mastered for the limited Rec. 709 standard of the DVD/BD era, the source files hid a massive amount of color information, allowing engineers to expand it into the wider DCI-P3 gamut and subsequently remaster it into Rec. 2020.

In other words, despite its digital origins, what is arguably the most aggressively colorful and bright film of all time retained enough image data to truly shine and show off in this new HDR master. For the very first time, we will see Speed Racer with a level of color saturation and contrast reproduction that simply wasn’t possible when the film was released—neither in theaters nor at home. The icing on the cake is that the HDR was graded at a whopping 4,000 nits for the Dolby Vision pass. In plain English: the world has never seen a brighter or more vibrant version of Speed Racer. And since the Ultra HD Blu-ray format squeezes every last drop out of the source elements, it will realistically never look any better than this.

The same level of care applies to the sound. The individual elements of the audio mix were preserved in the studio's post-production archives. During the remastering process, sound engineers were able to revisit these separate tracks and construct a brand-new object-based mix. This Dolby Atmos track completely respects the intent and pan positions of the original mix while expanding it into a full three-dimensional soundstage. Rumor has it the Wachowskis' jaws dropped during the review screenings. You can rest assured that Speed Racer will not only look and sound phenomenal on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, but the remaster itself is also director-approved.

It's a spectacular presentation that might only falter in minor technical quirks that only an expert eye would spot—such as the lower native 2K resolution limitations and occasional noise in live-action composited shots. But that's simply a limitation of the 2008 source technology. Ultimately, we are finally getting the film in the presentation it truly deserves. Let's be honest: due to heavy video compression and the lack of an uncompressed or lossless audio track (leaving it with lossy, DVD-like audio), the original Blu-ray didn't look or sound great. This historical injustice has finally been corrected.