BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

Discuss releases by Eureka and Masters of Cinema and the films on them.
Message
Author
User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#26 Post by tenia » Sat Aug 15, 2020 4:45 am

Apperson wrote:
Fri Aug 14, 2020 6:07 pm
Seeing as how Arrow did a 4K scan and restoration of The Far Country from the OCN that ended up looking like a feature length dupe there must be reasons these things happen while acknowledging that it was in fact restored.
Having seen both The Far Country and Five Graves, The Far Country still looks "filmic". Extremely dupey, but filmic. Five Graves, again, simply looks like a very old studio master.

Compare it with The Man Who Laughs, also "restored in 4K" by NBC Universal from a fine grain composite copy. There are also The Raven and Black Friday, both billed as recently scanned in 2K. All these are still quite limited, but they still have overall aspect and texture that retain a filmic aspect. They look fresh underneath the limitations.

Now, compare these to this BD presentation of Hail The Conquering Hero, officially sourced from a pre-existing master.

We'll see, I suppose, what Kino manages to get from this one but while exceptions like The Far Country do exist and can prove me wrong, my experience with this kind of visuals is that this might simply be an old master and that's simply it.

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

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#27 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:40 pm

Finally tested my copy and, as someone who doesn’t have as sensitive eyes to noticing differences in image quality between sources, I think it looks and sounds just fine. Now, there are definitely moments where the image could look better and so those who are going to throw this in the bin over some SD upscaling should probably wait. Though overall I think it looks like a solid transfer and my experience of always seeing this movie in the worst possible state has been cured.

The Martin commentary is, as always, very informative and eclectically focused. (And for those who dismissed the notion that Wilder was inspired by the formula of fairy tales to craft his films, Martin refers to Brackett’s diary a lot who specifically talks about Wilder’s stance on this. Not that I needed further validation after the already-written analyses in The Apartment’s Arrow essays, but now the naysayers have Martin to contest with too).

User avatar
Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#28 Post by Finch » Sat Sep 05, 2020 6:08 pm

Beaver comparison with the Kino
Now I'm glad I didn't get the MoC yet BUT super fans of the film may still want to hold on to the MoC for the Martin commentary and booklet. Gary says the McBride commentary on the Kino is good.

User avatar
Apperson
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:47 pm
Location: Oxfordshire, UK

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#29 Post by Apperson » Sat Sep 05, 2020 6:16 pm

There are a lot of shots to choose to compare but this comparison between Eureka
SpoilerShow
Image
and Kino
SpoilerShow
Image
gives a good idea of how Kino's presentation is better in film grain and detail, especially Anne Baxter's cardigan.

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

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#30 Post by tenia » Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:05 am

Outside of looking quite dark now, it also looks a bit thicker than what I would expect from a 4K restoration, but maybe they work from something else than the OCN. This being written, it finally doesn't look like a DVD-era master.

User avatar
reaky
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:53 am
Location: Cambridge, England

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#31 Post by reaky » Sun Sep 06, 2020 12:01 pm

Having been on the point of cancelling my preorder of the MoC, I don’t find it significantly inferior to the Kino. Actually, the Kino is a little dark for my taste.

User avatar
TMDaines
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
Location: Stretford, Manchester

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#32 Post by TMDaines » Sun Sep 06, 2020 6:04 pm

Honestly I'm not sure I'd be able to have guessed which one is supposed to be superior if I didn't already know. I'll probably get the MoC eventually now, but the Kino is at a good price at WOWHD to make price not really a sticking point.

nitin
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:49 am

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#33 Post by nitin » Sun Sep 13, 2020 6:41 am

The MoC has the blatant reel change damage mark in the last shot, there is no way their release is from a 4k restoration despite what Universal told them.

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

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#34 Post by tenia » Sun Sep 13, 2020 10:52 am

Actually, from a pure theoretical PoV, it could :
- be a 4k restoration from an exploitation print with cue markers left untouched by the restoration team.
- be a 4k restoration from an OCN or something close to it with digitally recreated cue markers like what is done in Eastern Europe (I've seen it on Diamonds of the Night but there are others).

nitin
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:49 am

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#35 Post by nitin » Wed Sep 23, 2020 10:41 am

Universal has never done either of those two approaches?

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

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#36 Post by tenia » Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:27 am

Outside of these east-european restorations, I haven't seen restorations digitally recreating cue markers, especially not studio movies (though of course I havent seen them all !).

Also, even if sourced from an exploitation print, restorations tend to digitally clean up cue markers, and doing a 4k scan (even if frequent now for studios movies) would tend to mean it's not a cheap work but also a more recent one than the era from which most older HD masters originate, and cue markers would be considered as issues big enough to be priorities in terms of cleaning.

So the 2nd option is possible, but cue markers would have been cleaned, and 4k scans are more recent that what the look of the older master is suggesting.


Honestly, I think Universal either lied or simply don't know exactly what they have or what they sent. It wouldn't be the first time a studio haven't properly inventoried their digital files, and by all look, this very simply just look like an old HD master, like we see regularly popping up on BD. I don't think there is anymore to it like this, and having seen the French BD, there is nothing visually to suggest otherwise anyway.

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

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#37 Post by tenia » Sat Nov 14, 2020 5:30 am


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

Re: BD 237 Five Graves to Cairo

#38 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Nov 14, 2020 2:40 pm

Like DVDBeaver, this makes a case for the Kino disc. Again, kudos to Kino for picking up their game.

Post Reply