4K Ultra HD – US Edition – Warner Bros. - 64 min - 09 November 2021
Video format
• Intermediate Master: 2K
• Standard HDR: HDR10
• Ratio: 1.78
Soundtrack
• English DTS-HD MA 5.1
• French (Parisian) Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
• English
• French
It is brought to the attention of our dear readers as well as the viewing equipment specified and used by each tester of the MaG team, the rendering may differ from one installation to another, whether or not it is calibrated, as well as personal preferences and expectations may influence the rating. Moreover, the images in the article are not representative of the edition tested.
WORK – Batman
Young Bruce Wayne's hard first steps as a Batman. Fighting underworld and corruption, he has no allies. But a young idealist policeman has just arrived in Gotham City: James Gordon.
Sympathic adaptation of the masterpiece of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, Batman: Year One narrate the beginnings of the bat man and James Gordon not without a more adult approach to the myth that prevents any access to violence. And if the graphic, very successful, evokes the pages of the comics, the narration, too defatted, lacks terribly development.
IMAGE – Welcome to the city of sin!
If the upgrade is not ultra-significant, this UHD HDR10 transfer has yet more than one asset under its cape!. The most important is the considerable improvement in the compression that gets rid (95%) of the endemic colour banding of Blu-ray. But on the definition side, apart from rare finer details, the improvement is barely perceptible.
Voluntaryly very dark and with a modest colorimetric palette, the images are better contrasted (low-light scenes are now plunged into darkness) and the shades richer as soon as the primary ones come out of their hole (the « Red Quarter », flames during SWAT intervention, the meal of Carmine Falcone). Nevertheless, with a few bright signs, the lights are rarely brighter.
SON – The call from the bald–mouse
Powerful and well distributed, the VO encoded in DTS-HD MA 5.1 plunges us into the bowels of Gotham City thanks to a beautiful solicitation of the rear scene (monorail, police sirens, rain, street atmospheres, attack of the bats). For the rest, the scope is of exit (explosions) and dialogues are not lacking in clarity.
Less precise, more compression is required, the VF still remains sufficiently spatialised and well doubled. In both cases, the LFE channel is somewhat limited.
CONCLUSION – Inhaling Fear
In the learning phase, the Gotham Bat can count on the present 4K Ultra HD (more robust than its HD counterpart) to help him in his new watchful role!
Artistic note
7
Video quality
7.5
Audio quality
8
0
[...] As part of the Caped Crusader's legacy, this roundly conducted black film, an integral part of Batman, the animated series is an original story that explores, not without a touch of romanticism, the past of his dark and tortured hero in an unforgettable Baroque Gotham City. The lore is respected, the dynamic staging, the haletant action scenes, the charismatic devil antagonist (the ultra-violent counterpart of the Dark Knight) and the particularly strong dramatic stakes. In short, the standard meter in the field of Batman animated. [...]