Video Quality
A Quiet Place's 2160p/Dolby Vision-enhanced presentation can be said to be mildly to modestly better than the 1080p Blu-ray, but better all the same. The Blu-ray delivers a significantly strong and very refined presentation considering textural quality and colors alike. The UHD refines the image and, while there's not a significant boost to either, the improvements are often readily evident. And they are sometimes hard to spot.
The movie looks very good on the 4K format. Like the Blu-ray, it's mildly, but evenly and texturally critically, grainy. Core details are nicely revealed and refined. Skin and clothes offer intimate revelatory qualities while the various environments -- a deserted grocery store, wooded paths, a semi run-down home interior -- are all exceptionally sharp. The Dolby Vision color enhancement offers the standard stable of improvements, including increasingly dense but still very detailed blacks, more brilliant and cleaner whites, and a host of more finely saturated and nuanced shades.
The image is sometimes a step above the Blu-ray and sometimes not all that different. A shot looking down a deserted street at the beginning of the movie, less than a minute in, offers a good example of the UHD's superiority over the Blu-ray. Sharpness is much more obvious on storefronts, the road, and the distant trees. Colors are more intense, with much better whites and a more realistic array of fall foliage in the background. On the other hand, some scenes don't see much of a forward jump. Take a scene featuring Lee and Marcus near a stream in chapter six. There's a very slight increase to color vibrance and a tick better detail, but that's the extent of the difference between the two formats. The same can be said of a shot of a red lightbulb at the 45:51 mark. Whether the condensation on it or the red color, there's just not much of a difference to be seen. The UHD is definitely a little better in both areas -- the condensation is a little more clear, the color is a little more vibrant -- but this not a leaps-and-bounds improvement. A great image, yes, and the UHD is superior and without technical flaw; it's just not an eye-opening revelation over a first-rate Blu-ray, even shot on film but reportedly finished at 2K.
Credit: blu-ray.com
Audio Quality
A Quiet Place is a film of great sonic interest, even if that doesn't always translate into great sonic intensity. But it does, as it needs. The film opens with little footsteps and the trace sound of a crayon scribbling on the floor. Characters communicate in sign language, and the most insignificant, hushed sound can be vital to their survival, or a misstep that could cost them dearly. Silence is necessary through much of the film, and gentle support nuance can become a sonic focal point, which the Atmos track delivers with impressive placement and clarity, even at whisper-quiet levels. The track can get so quiet, at times, that ambient sound in the home theater -- like a running air conditioner -- can get in the way of any given scene's silent intensity. Modest winds blow about, light rustling leaves define the countryside, and floating papers blow around abandoned towns. These can be essential, mood- and environment-shaping sounds, elevated well beyond traditional sound roles in other films, but not amplified. Six minutes in and music does enter the track: it's fluid, light, and well spaced. On the other hand, particularly later on in the movie, music can be heart-pounding and intense, enveloping a large portion of the listening area. It's reproduced with pure fidelity, a deep low end component, and exceptional placement. The same can be said of alien creature effects, which are bold and powerful, with rushing intensity through the surrounds. But it's those environmental details that really come to tell the story. Something like creaking wood floors can portend so much and drive the narrative well beyond sound elements of much greater intensity. Even rushing waters that mask a brief dialogue exchange flow through the stage with so much richness and fluidity that the listener feels instantly transported to the location and alongside the characters. Dialogue delivery, what little there is, plays with good clarity and positioning. Lip sync was a problem at the 58:27 mark. It was more or less remedied with a full stop and resume of the film.
4K Bluray details
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: Upscaled 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
German: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Hungarian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
(less)
Note: Spanish España y Latinoamérica, Portuguese Brasil
Subtitles
English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Korean, Malay, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish (less)
Discs
4K Ultra HD
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD-66, 1 BD-50)
Digital
iTunes
Packaging
Slipcover in original pressing
Playback
4K Blu-ray: Region free
2K Blu-ray: Region free