Criterion and UHD

[ryannichols7]

The other upside I see from Kino putting some Criterion BD titles out in 4k first is that, provided they don't fuck up the encode or other aspects of video and audio (never mind that Criterion's own 4k QC has been a bit of a howler too), it frees Criterion up to do something else in 4k (The Leopard would be most welcome, for example) instead of something as unfunny as Some Like It Hot.

I totally agree. I found the first 11 selections by Criterion to be very interesting and not what many expected. The only one that seemed like a sure fire choice was The Red Shoes. I totally expect 1 or 2 more of the Powell and Pressburger films to get a UHD upgrade. The rest were somewhat pleasant surprises. For All Mankind is a brilliant choice. I see more of those kind of UHD releases by them, like Blast of Silence in UHD would be out of left field. We do know that it's getting an upgrade. So, who knows! Le cercle rouge is a good indication some more of the Studio Canals coming back will be UHDs. My prediction is Contempt will be next. The Melville and Godard OOPs seem to have priority in returning to the Collection.

The two that really interests me are Citizen Kane and Double Indemnity. It's clear that the major studios will take a very limited approach to their classic Hollywood libraries. Warners only seems to be interested in their technicolor films for UHD releases. It will not surprise me that a UHD Casablanca will be released by Criterion. Universal will only give their Hitchcocks and Monsters the UHD treatment. It seems everything else is available. Could Winchester '73 get a UHD release? A good choice for a western to get the UHD treatment. Fox/Disney will be interesting to see what happens with them. Criterion does have a good relationship with Disney. I could see Criterion wanting to acquire something like Laura or The Grapes of Wrath, or an upgrade of My Darling Clementine, which would be another top choice for a western. Criterion seems to be interested in the iconic films from that era which is more accessible to them now.

And then Bergman, Kurosawa and Fellini should eventually enter the UHD column.

personally, while I would love to see Winchester 73 (and do think Criterion will release it, hopefully as a 4K title too), why not go big or go home? WB should license The Searchers, which was curiously one of their first BD titles but they haven't put out on 4K. would love to see Criterion go all out with the extras and get Joseph McBride and Tag Gallagher involved, among others. WB not putting out Casablanca or even Gone With the Wind by now seems kinda suspect to me, those are big. King Kong is basically a given. wonder what we see licensed from them next - in terms of existing releases getting upgrades, you'd have to imagine Barry Lyndon is at the very front of the pile.

the studio you didn't mention that I find particularly interesting is Sony, who has done a lot of bigger titles themselves, and haven't licensed a single UHD out to a boutique yet. I wonder if that'll change or they'll continue to do them in house.

Bergman (Seventh Seal) and Fellini (take your pick) will likely happen sooner rather than later, but I'm curious what happens with Kurosawa since Toho hasn't put out any of his titles on 4K in Japan yet, and usually their rule is to release the titles themselves first. what could happen is we see Dreams (Warner, most likely), Kagemusha (Fox), or of course the new spine number for Dersu Uzala be the first Kurosawa 4K. Kadokawa has done some 4K restorations (including Yasuzo Masumura's Irezumi for Arrow), so maybe they'd do Rashomon too, which would make logical sense for the first 4K Kurosawa. what's crazy is how the other Kurosawa's Cure will quite possibly be Criterion's first Japanese UHD title..

[dwk]

Sony has licensed a title for UHD, Arrow's upcoming Frankenstein.

[ryannichols7]

Sony has licensed a title for UHD, Arrow's upcoming Frankenstein.

totally missed that, hilarious way to get into the game. all bets are off then!

so with Sony it's basically whatever titles they do a 4K scan of. since they've put out a good number themselves already I wonder what would be most likely...The Last Picture Show maybe?

[FrauBlucher]

The other upside I see from Kino putting some Criterion BD titles out in 4k first is that, provided they don't fuck up the encode or other aspects of video and audio (never mind that Criterion's own 4k QC has been a bit of a howler too), it frees Criterion up to do something else in 4k (The Leopard would be most welcome, for example) instead of something as unfunny as Some Like It Hot.

I totally agree. I found the first 11 selections by Criterion to be very interesting and not what many expected. The only one that seemed like a sure fire choice was The Red Shoes. I totally expect 1 or 2 more of the Powell and Pressburger films to get a UHD upgrade. The rest were somewhat pleasant surprises. For All Mankind is a brilliant choice. I see more of those kind of UHD releases by them, like Blast of Silence in UHD would be out of left field. We do know that it's getting an upgrade. So, who knows! Le cercle rouge is a good indication some more of the Studio Canals coming back will be UHDs. My prediction is Contempt will be next. The Melville and Godard OOPs seem to have priority in returning to the Collection.

The two that really interests me are Citizen Kane and Double Indemnity. It's clear that the major studios will take a very limited approach to their classic Hollywood libraries. Warners only seems to be interested in their technicolor films for UHD releases. It will not surprise me that a UHD Casablanca will be released by Criterion. Universal will only give their Hitchcocks and Monsters the UHD treatment. It seems everything else is available. Could Winchester '73 get a UHD release? A good choice for a western to get the UHD treatment. Fox/Disney will be interesting to see what happens with them. Criterion does have a good relationship with Disney. I could see Criterion wanting to acquire something like Laura or The Grapes of Wrath, or an upgrade of My Darling Clementine, which would be another top choice for a western. Criterion seems to be interested in the iconic films from that era which is more accessible to them now.

And then Bergman, Kurosawa and Fellini should eventually enter the UHD column.

personally, while I would love to see Winchester 73 (and do think Criterion will release it, hopefully as a 4K title too), why not go big or go home? WB should license The Searchers, which was curiously one of their first BD titles but they haven't put out on 4K. would love to see Criterion go all out with the extras and get Joseph McBride and Tag Gallagher involved, among others. WB not putting out Casablanca or even Gone With the Wind by now seems kinda suspect to me, those are big. King Kong is basically a given. wonder what we see licensed from them next - in terms of existing releases getting upgrades, you'd have to imagine Barry Lyndon is at the very front of the pile.

I mentioned Winchester '73 more for it being a Universal title and we know it's coming. I still think WB will do The Searchers themselves. Anything color seems to be more of their priority for UHD at this point. George Feltenstein and Alan K Rode were on TheExtras podcast not very long ago talking about Micheal Curtiz. Feltenstein didn't mention Casablanca even though it's the 80 anniversary for the film. If WB was working on a UHD, I believe he would have mentioned it. Gone With the Wind is a who knows with it's current and unfortunate stigma. I definitely agree about Barry Lyndon

the studio you didn't mention that I find particularly interesting is Sony, who has done a lot of bigger titles themselves, and haven't licensed a single UHD out to a boutique yet. I wonder if that'll change or they'll continue to do them in house.

I didn't mention Sony because they have a big relationship with them. I would imagine Sony (Grover Crisp) gives Criterion first dibs on everything.

Bergman (Seventh Seal) and Fellini (take your pick) will likely happen sooner rather than later, but I'm curious what happens with Kurosawa since Toho hasn't put out any of his titles on 4K in Japan yet, and usually their rule is to release the titles themselves first. what could happen is we see Dreams (Warner, most likely), Kagemusha (Fox), or of course the new spine number for Dersu Uzala be the first Kurosawa 4K. Kadokawa has done some 4K restorations (including Yasuzo Masumura's Irezumi for Arrow), so maybe they'd do Rashomon too, which would make logical sense for the first 4K Kurosawa. what's crazy is how the other Kurosawa's Cure will quite possibly be Criterion's first Japanese UHD title..

How about the Bergman being Fanny and Alexander or is the length a problem? Was it restored for the boxset? For Fellini, probably not La Dolce Vita because of Paramount. Either 8 1/2 or Juliet of the Spirits seem like the likely candidates. I didn't know that about Toho. That's too bad.

On Lee Klines podcast he mentioned how good the scans for Blast of Silence are. The film has a lot of great exteriors of NYC. I think it would show well on UHD.

[dwk]

I believe the open scenes of Fanny and Alexander were the only ones redone for the disc in the boxset.

Apart from titles that seem to be staples of the collection (things like Brazil, Wes Anderson's films, etc.), I'm not sure that Criterion is going to be re-releasing very many of their previously released studio titles on UHD. Instead, newly licensed titles will be more likely to be UHDs than older titles.

Frustrating thing about Toho, to take the Godzilla titles as an example, they have done 4K restorations of a bunch of them and they currently will not allow them to be released by on disc by licensees before they are released in Japan but they have no plans to release them on disc in Japan.

[andyli]

Frustrating thing about Toho, to take the Godzilla titles as an example, they have done 4K restorations of a bunch of them and they currently will not allow them to be released by on disc by licensees before they are released in Japan but they have no plans to release them on disc in Japan.

Not just Godzilla titles. The 4K-restored Seven Samurai has been locked in Toho-hell for years without a release in sight.

[rrenault]

Has Godard's Contempt received a 4K restoration? I'm not sure. I was suspecting that one would be blu-ray-only if it were to return to the Collection. However, I'm sure The Leopard, Tree of Life, and Barry Lyndon would all be strong candidates for a UHD upgrade rights permitting in the case of the former two. However, I have a funny feeling we may have to wait a bit longer than expected to get the mid-century Janus staples on UHD, aside from ones that have already been released in Europe like Breathless, The Seventh Seal, and The 400 Blows. Whispers have suggested a UHD Doinel boxset is coming at some point this year.

[Ribs]

Raging Bull is presented without Dolby Vision and The Virgin Suicides without HDR.

[therewillbeblus]

Does that affect the presentation of The Virgin Suicides, for TVs that aren't great for 4K and that rely on players with HDR to elevate the content to markedly noticeable levels? This was easily the most exciting UHD upgrade yet!

[senseabove]

Fingers crossed that's an oversight. VS is the only without an "In the 4k UHD edition" bullet point, which is common to every single other UHD release, and is where those releases mention HDR/DV/etc.

[swo17]

Is it coincidence or by design that the two months when Criterion has leaned most heavily into UHD have been B&N sales months?

[Ribs]

Only in the same sense that November and July are always Criterion’s months they schedule their biggest releases.

[ryannichols7]

so Paramount is now licensing out 4K and Sony is to Criterion as well. this is big enough news on it's own

[bluesforyou]

If Criterion releases a Silence UHD, I will pass away.

[EddieLarkin]

Does that affect the presentation of The Virgin Suicides, for TVs that aren't great for 4K and that rely on players with HDR to elevate the content to markedly noticeable levels? This was easily the most exciting UHD upgrade yet!

No, The Virgin Suicides will be presented in 4K SDR. Meaning all TVs will treat it like a standard Blu-ray, except it'll be 2160p instead of 1080p. So it won't pose any problems for anyone presentation wise. It's an odd choice for an upgrade though, the same 4K master has already been available on the Blu-ray, and without HDR, it's not bringing much to the table. That said, because it's Criterion the compression should be vastly improved on the UHD vs their Blu-ray.

Raging Bull is presented without Dolby Vision.

Very odd indeed, the only reason you wouldn't strictly need Dolby Vision for a UHD is if the HDR grade is a restrained low nit one, but many of their UHDs have already been so, and they've all carried DV until now.

[therewillbeblus]

Does that affect the presentation of The Virgin Suicides, for TVs that aren't great for 4K and that rely on players with HDR to elevate the content to markedly noticeable levels? This was easily the most exciting UHD upgrade yet!

No, The Virgin Suicides will be presented in 4K SDR. Meaning all TVs will treat it like a standard Blu-ray, except it'll be 2160p instead of 1080p. So it won't pose any problems for anyone presentation wise. It's an odd choice for an upgrade though, the same 4K master has already been available on the Blu-ray, and without HDR, it's not bringing much to the table. That said, because it's Criterion the compression should be vastly improved on the UHD vs their Blu-ray.

So what’s the advantage of shortchanging the HDR? If they’re already pressing the UHD does it cost that much more to make it look that much better?

[EddieLarkin]

Well it's obvious the 4K master was never graded in HDR back in 2018 (because they'd be releasing it that way now if it was), and I suspect Coppola isn't interested in going back and redoing it to add HDR. If she feels SDR serves the film well enough and allows a true representation of her original intentions, then you could say there's no need anyway.

What I find odd is that given the above the film being chosen to be upgraded at all. It's one thing to release a UHD in SDR, but you'd at least expect it would be a new and updated transfer or a new spine number entirely. In this case it's neither.

[Finch]

While I am aware that Kino's The Great Escape was still a reasonable upgrade (especially with Pixellogic's shoddy encoding on Criterion's BD), it's disappointing to see that there may be some titles in SDR only from Criterion.

Their decision to include the BD with the UHD is no less baffling.

[swo17]

Well the UHD will only include the film, while the BD contains the extras

[mfunk9786]

Speaking of baffling

[vsski]

Maybe it’s a test on Criterion’s part to see if a UHD even without HDR sells the same numbers and Virgin Suicides might be a good one, as I’m assuming it’s a popular title.

In terms of extras only on the BD I thought this is consistent with their other releases where the UHD has only commentaries but no extras (and other labels are doing this as well). I assumed this was to provide maximum space for the UHD encoding, or am I misunderstanding this?

[Aspect]

I believe so. As mentioned, many studios do the same thing with their UHD releases, as well as Vinegar Syndrome. I actually hate it when distributors like Arrow, Synapse and Paramount don’t include an accompanying blu ray.

[tenia]

In terms of extras only on the BD I thought this is consistent with their other releases where the UHD has only commentaries but no extras (and other labels are doing this as well). I assumed this was to provide maximum space for the UHD encoding, or am I misunderstanding this?

Part of it probably has to do with maximising the movie's allocated space on the UHD but also in part to save the trouble having to author 1080p (or even lower rez) SDR extras on a UHD. Because otherwise, there's more than 15 unused Gb on their Last Waltz' BD-100 that could have fitted the extras (which weight less than 10Gb on the BD).

[dwk]

I posted this in the thread for the film, but figure it also should go here.

Someone on the Blu-ray forum asked about HDR on The Virgin Suicides UHD and Criterion responded

Thank you for writing and for your interest in our upcoming 4K UHD release of VIRGIN SUICIDES!

This release is HDR10, not Dolby Vision.

For added reference I wanted to note that this 4K maintains the wide color P3 gamut but does not contain true HDR highlights. This is at the filmmakers' request, since the muted highlights are a stylistic choice that they did now want to alter. As always, we worked closely with the creators of the film to preserve their vision for this release.

[Finch]

Thanks for sharing! So, technically, this is not a full HDR grade as the highlights aren't being touched by design? I wonder if Coppola and Lachman saw some of Sony's early UHD titles which received what Geoff called "the light cannon treatment" and which would absolutely be wrong for this film.

I checked the specs for Raging Bull and Devil in a Blue Dress for comparison and they don't highlight the HDR pass (or any Dolby Vision) for those films either. Strange decision on Criterion's part since HDR and Dolby Vision are a (if not the) key benefit of UHD.