Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

Vinegar Syndrome, Deaf Crocodile, Imprint, Cinema Guild, and more.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1776 Post by tenia » Wed Dec 02, 2020 1:16 pm

I think this is a different issue at play here, in part because currently, you could give to different labs the same movie to grade with the same reference print and the same referent person and they would still yield very different gradings. If Ritrovata or Eclair or MPI or Silver Salt or whatever is the lab now employing the people from Colorworks Burbank were to do Le cercle rouge with the exact same print used by Hiventy, you'd get 4 very different results, all different from what Hiventy has done.

As I often wrote, I saw Deep Red's new 4K restoration in theater and it definitely looks first and foremost like a Ritrovata job rather than a silly Tovoli's supervision. At the time, many thought this was some kind of Tovoli's follies, but it turned out it's not : Ritrovata only knows what he saw and what he supervised vs what was the lab's final file and it turns out, it most likely looked closer to what Arrow managed to obtain after further color-correction than the DCP I saw. There's also the story about The Color of Pomegranates : if you match a reference print AND THEN apply a LUT that modifies your grading, then, it doesn't match the print anymore !
Same goes for Eclair : I've just watched Thérèse (which is another tell-tale Eclair job) and it says the restoration was supervised by Alain Cavalier and Bruno Patin (Eclair's main colorist), but I can't help but wonder if Cavalier approved the grading of the final file because as it stands, it now looks like L'enfance nue (Pialat/Beausoleil) or Rien ne va plus (Chabrol/Serra) or Lacombe Lucien (Malle/Delli Colli) or Une histoire simple (Sautet/Boffety) etc etc.

I'm also wary of Svet caps, because in his review, the 2nd set of caps look way less worrying than the 1st one, and this 1st set is actually downconverted from UHD DV BT2020 to HD SDR Rec709, while the 2nd set is taken straight from the BD, so I'm currently wondering how much of the worries from his caps are coming from the caps themselves.

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1777 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Dec 02, 2020 2:35 pm

whaleallright wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 12:44 pm
Sometimes I feel that consulting DPs and directors etc. decades after they made a film is a bad idea more often than not, and that it's best to rely instead on reference prints, historical records, etc. But I understand the deference they are afforded--borne of respect but also the desire to keep them in a label's good graces (who wants a situation, like the one Kino experienced with David Lynch, where a famous director is badmouthing your release of his/her film?).
Sad truth. When the whole idea of film preservation and restoration really took off, it seemed like a logical move to get the director or DP to oversee the process, and it made sense as a marketing tool that would always delight the average film buff. (When I first started renting or buying Criterion discs, the immediate reaction to a director-approved or supervised release was to believe unquestionably that it was the definitive presentation.) At this point, I think everyone's learned the hard way how easily it can go wrong. Star Wars is probably exhibit A thanks to its massive popularity - I'm sure Lucas's changes have done more than any other to make people understand how restorations can go wrong.

It's not always blatant revisionism either - most filmmakers don't revisit their older work, not unless they have a small legacy and their caretaking is all they have left. For any filmmaker that's still active, many of them don't look back and quite a few probably forget all the specifics as they move on to other jobs that take their attention. Add to that years, decades of time, and you can see why it may be problematic to bring them in for input.

You can see this happen even when reissues go right. Criterion's defunct blog talked about Days of Heaven and getting Terrence Malick to look at the grading. His immediate response was that the regular DVD seemed fine and asked if they considered using that as their guide. Criterion explained why they don't do that, so Malick agreed, and of course what they end up doing looks pretty different from the Paramount DVD because Malick informs them that the movie was never meant to look too "beautiful," they were very careful about avoiding that in the original post-production process. (His editor Billy Weber confirmed this over and over again as that concept was very much on his mind the entire time they made the film.) So it all worked out, but honestly, how closely did Malick look at the Paramount DVD? I get the impression he just wasn't the type of filmmaker who spent much time revisiting their work, but fortunately when Criterion made their pitch, he got it and understood that it was important to help them get the presentation right.

User avatar
L.A.
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1778 Post by L.A. » Fri Dec 11, 2020 1:12 pm


User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1779 Post by Drucker » Fri Dec 11, 2020 1:14 pm

Is this just a re-release?

User avatar
Tuppence
Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2014 7:52 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1780 Post by Tuppence » Sun Dec 13, 2020 3:47 pm

The comparisons up at Caps-a-holic of the new UHD do strike me as pretty yellow-biased overall. But maybe the actual viewing experience is different.

User avatar
EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1781 Post by EddieLarkin » Sun Dec 13, 2020 4:23 pm

Whites defintely appear more yellow in the UHD caps vs the new resto BD caps from Svet, so it is almost certainly a result of the HDR>SDR conversion that has to take place to show the UHD caps. I'm sure the whites will appear far less yellow on playback in the HDR realm.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1782 Post by tenia » Sun Dec 13, 2020 5:43 pm

Drucker wrote:Is this just a re-release?
There has been a new 4k resto of a movie, so it might be more than just a repacking re-release.
david hare wrote:I can only imagine the superiority of the UHD encode.
I wouldn't be so sure of it. Blu-ray.com's members' feedback mentions encode issues à la Total Recall.

Calvin
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:12 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1783 Post by Calvin » Sun Dec 13, 2020 6:20 pm


tenia wrote:
Drucker wrote:Is this just a re-release?
There has been a new 4k resto of a movie, so it might be more than just a repacking re-release.
Has there been? The 2012 restoration was advertised as being 4K

User avatar
EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1784 Post by EddieLarkin » Sun Dec 13, 2020 8:22 pm

tenia wrote:
Sun Dec 13, 2020 5:43 pm
david hare wrote:I can only imagine the superiority of the UHD encode.
I wouldn't be so sure of it. Blu-ray.com's members' feedback mentions encode issues à la Total Recall.
You can see in the caps-a-holic grabs that the encoding on Le Cercle Rouge ain't great.

Practically all of StudioCanal's UHDs suffer from compression problems, but it is limited to the HDR10 layers. The Dolby Vision encodes on the same discs are mostly free of the compression blockiness, Total Recall included. So I wouldn't be surprised to find Le Cercle Rouge is indeed encoded well, assuming one is viewing in DV.

This isn't anything to do with Dolby Vision itself, but rather an encoding flaw that seems to be unique to StudioCanal, whenever they use DV on disc (which is pretty much always). The DV version comes out ok, the HDR10 version comes out terrible.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1785 Post by tenia » Mon Dec 14, 2020 4:02 pm

Yes, there are part of the aspects of the new Total Recall that definitely are inherited, and I think that overall, the new restoration is otherwise great, but the encode of the UHD looks quite appalling in any case.

GoodOldNeon
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:58 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1786 Post by GoodOldNeon » Mon Dec 14, 2020 5:36 pm

I watched the UHD of Le cercle rouge tonight, and I thought it looked very yellow. Afterwards I popped in the BD and based on the first scene in the train the colours look much better: clean whites and no yellow bias as mentioned earlier by david hare.

The UHD encode is also very poor, with several instances of noticeable macroblocking in darker scenes.

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1787 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Dec 15, 2020 4:55 pm

When they master UHD discs, whether it's with or without HDR or DV, ideally shouldn't every playback method have at least a similar look and tonality within the given technical framework (or constrictions)?

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1788 Post by tenia » Tue Dec 15, 2020 4:58 pm

It should but in this case, whoever is encoding Canal's UHDs who isn't David M is crapping the HDR layer and the DV layer is coming to the rescue, so any common sense is basically gone down the drain.
But given to any competent authoring house, sure enough, the HDR layer would be properly encoded in the 1st place and people not equipped with Dolby Vision screens wouldn't have such a gap in blockiness.

GoodOldNeon
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:58 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1789 Post by GoodOldNeon » Tue Dec 15, 2020 5:25 pm

david hare wrote:
Tue Dec 15, 2020 3:25 pm
Only question here is did you watch the UHD with DV or does your player and monitor only enable HDR?
Unfortunately my player or TV, can't remember which, doesn't support DV.

User avatar
EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1790 Post by EddieLarkin » Tue Dec 15, 2020 6:51 pm

Whilst the DV layer on StudioCanal discs will fix a lot of the bad compression seen in HDR10, there shouldn't be any colour difference between the two, so if the film is yellow in HDR10 it's going to be the same in DV.

But, all three modes on a TV (SDR, HDR10, DV) will have their own colour temperature and white balance settings, so just because a UHD has a change in colour vs the same 4K sourced BD, or between HDR10 and DV, doesn't mean that difference actually exists. It could all be down to not having the 3 viewing modes lined up properly (i.e., calibrated).

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1791 Post by Drucker » Tue Dec 22, 2020 10:56 am

Ladykillers looks fantastic. Honestly when I started reading this forum a disc released by SC was bound to have errors and be terrible. Encode issues aside their restorations seem great nowadays, so hats off.

User avatar
mhofmann
Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2015 7:01 pm

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1792 Post by mhofmann » Tue Dec 22, 2020 11:01 am

Drucker wrote:
Tue Dec 22, 2020 10:56 am
Ladykillers looks fantastic. Honestly when I started reading this forum a disc released by SC was bound to have errors and be terrible. Encode issues aside their restorations seem great nowadays, so hats off.
AFAIK that is a David M encode, while some of the other mentioned releases are not.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1793 Post by MichaelB » Tue Dec 22, 2020 11:45 am

Yes, I'm not aware of any David M encodes with any issues (aside from a single fade-out flub in The Elephant Man that's down to the restorers and is easy enough to tune out).

This list probably isn't complete, but I believe he was responsible for Angel Heart, Don't Look Now, The Elephant Man, Flash Gordon and The Ladykillers.

User avatar
EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1794 Post by EddieLarkin » Tue Dec 22, 2020 12:49 pm

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and The Fifth Element too (the latter being much better than the Sony equivalent).

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1795 Post by tenia » Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:55 pm

He indeed has encoded all those above, while he hasn't encoded the 4 John Carpenter movies, the 3 Rambo movies, Total Recall, Le cercle rouge, Les trois jours du Condor, Serpico or Cliffhanger, all with their share of issues.

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1796 Post by Drucker » Tue Dec 22, 2020 2:13 pm

Understood, but I'd also point out that They Live, Deer Hunter, and according to David Hare, Le Cercle Rouge also look great on blu-ray.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1797 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:02 pm

I watched my SC copy of Le Cercle Rouge last weekend and can confirm it looks great, though the color debates between this and Criterion are fair and probably doomed to be unresolved

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1798 Post by tenia » Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:44 pm

In the present cases, the UHDs are concerned, not the BDs (though I've read that amongst those 4 Carpenter, They Live has the best encode).

User avatar
L.A.
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1799 Post by L.A. » Mon Jan 04, 2021 4:13 pm

The Masque of the Red Death Jan. 25th.

Also some information about the restoration at The Digital Fix.

User avatar
L.A.
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

#1800 Post by L.A. » Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:36 am

L.A. wrote:
Mon Jan 04, 2021 4:13 pm
The Masque of the Red Death Jan. 25th.
Mondo Digital.

Post Reply