I notice that playback from 4k disc has noticeably better picture (color contrast) quality and sound (dynamic and presence) quality than streaming the same content from Apple TV 4k
One of the most obvious one is the Top Gun Maverick 4k disc vs its 4k streaming content .
It is less obvious in my living room with LG 4k class 80 series TV and bookshelf speakers.
It is very obvious is my HT setup with Sony XW5000 laser projector and B&W 800D3 speakers
It makes me want to collect a few more good movies in 4k disc because the same content streaming in 4k has less quality ...
Does anyone observe the same difference between 4k disc playback vs 4k streaming quality ?
I've noticed significant differences at times, especially in the audio.
On the other hand, the audio on some 4K disks is forked up:
"Sadly, in spite of how incredibly amazing this object-based mix is, there is one area where it sorely drops the ball when compared to its DTS-HD Master Audio counterpart. And that is the bass . . . because it's all about that bass. To be fair, the low-end on this 3D track is plenty powerful at providing the visuals with some wall-rattling, couch-shaking oomph, particularly during the beach siege and the attack at the Louvre. However, the bigger disappointment comes at the opening sequence when the pulsating radio frequency, which made the Blu-ray a reference disc for the DIY bassheads because it drops down to 10Hz at loud decibels (
bass chart), was suddenly missing on this UHD edition. Much like they did with
War of the Worlds, a high-pass filter has been applied to the mix, maddeningly cutting off the low-end at 30Hz (
bass chart) for the entirety of the movie."
And of course the video on many 4K disks is just upscaled 1080p content (not native 4K), it may not have HDR, etc. I'll concede that I have not noticed much difference between HDR10 and HDR10+ on my TVs.
Overall I strongly prefer 4K disks over streaming, but I always look at the audio and video quality of a 4K disk before buying it.
