Westeros

Amazon is now listing the Game of Thrones season 1 4K, Ultra HD, HDR Blu-ray set.  It was announced earlier this month.

See our post at the time for more details, including commentary on the resolution the show was shot at across different seasons to have a better understanding of the source they’ll be working with. Of course, a 4K release will mean one big advantage: a higher bitrate, which will mean a lot more detail perserved even in the case when they’re upscaling from 1080p.

Culturefly has unveiled their second subscription box in their Game of Thrones series, as well as its theme: the North and the Lands Beyond the Wall.

You can glimpse hints of what exclusive items the box will contain at ”>their page, which seem to include the inevitable Stark-branded item, as well as what we’re guessing are artworks depicting giants and wights, and what may be a sculpted weirwood.

A couple of months ago we had the pleasure of unboxing their first entry in the series, which you can see below:

Over at the new “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin has announced the completion of Fire and Blood.

One of the details that we learned not long ago—but couldn’t share—is that the book was going to be illustrated throughout by a single artist, Doug Wheatley, who had contributed some of the art of The World of Ice and Fire.

As fans will notice, this book is big—listed as 640 pages on Amazon! George goes into some detail on what will be contained, largely expanded material that had been initially written for our book, but a great deal is brand new in the form of material concerning Jaehaerys I the Conciliator. Having read it through, we can say there’s a deal of very interesting details revealed therein. (And, yes, we’ve helped George sort out a few inconsistencies that had appeared in “The Sons of the Dragon”, “The Princess and the Queen”, and so on!)

The book is due to launch in the U.S. and U.K. on November 20th, and will likely see simultaneous release in some other regions.

A press release from HBO announces that for the first time ever, Game of Thrones will get the 4k treatment. Available from June 5th, the first season of Game of Thrones will be available to be purchased as 4K Ultra HD Bluray or 4K digital download. Bonus features all sound like the same from the original season 1 DVD release.

We’ll have the full text below, but it’s worth noting that the first season was recorded to HDCAM-SR tapes in high bitrate 1080p. The next two seasons were also shot at 1080p, and only the fourth and following seasons were shot at the 2880p resolution. So far as we know, VFX for at least the first four seasons were all done at 1080P as well, and it’s unclear if that has ever changed.

Long and short of it, this and any future 4K Ultra HD Blurays are going to be upscaled to 4K rather than be native resolution, although they should gain substantially from the higher bitrates the media allows.

Here’s the press release below: