UHD New Releases, Reissues and Upgrades

[tenia]

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is reference.

Isn't it a cut version, though ?

[nicolas]

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is reference.

Isn't it a cut version, though ?

No, that was fake news. The 4K’s got the 94-minute international version.

[tenia]

Oh, perfect then !

[Finch]

North by Northwest (WB) screenshots

colors look especially good in the elevator shot

[nicolas]

Huge upgrade and thankfully they didn’t bit-starve the film onto a BD-66 just because it’s VistaVision and finer grain. Initially that seemingly was the plan as early reports on the other forum mentioned that and their specs showed the original mono only in lossy.

[nicolas]

Sugarland Express: Small upgrade with subtle gains in detail, highlights are more detailed and less blown out, but some shots exhibit signs of DNR but thankfully it’s no Duel and I also don’t see AI use. A real shame that Spielberg, who shoots on film, thought that this is a good idea. Caps.

Seven Samurai (Criterion) is a red category UHD with fantastic improvements over the Toho! They brought back grain and detail the JP encode filtered away.

[therewillbeblus]

Sugarland Express: Small upgrade with subtle gains in detail, highlights are more detailed and less blown out, but some shots exhibit signs of DNR but thankfully it’s no Duel and I also don’t see AI use. A real shame that Spielberg, who shoots on film, thought that this is a good idea. Caps.

How did you feel about the new audio mix Spielberg reportedly did? I watched this disc last night and thought it looked and sounded great, but I've always seen the film on DVD so the upgrade felt more substantial

[nicolas]

Sugarland Express: Small upgrade with subtle gains in detail, highlights are more detailed and less blown out, but some shots exhibit signs of DNR but thankfully it’s no Duel and I also don’t see AI use. A real shame that Spielberg, who shoots on film, thought that this is a good idea. Caps.

How did you feel about the new audio mix Spielberg reportedly did? I watched this disc last night and thought it looked and sounded great, but I've always seen the film on DVD so the upgrade felt more substantial

I don’t have the disc yet. Right now I’m only relaying the posts with caps from the other forum to get a good overview sooner and more representative of the final product than my descriptions. I’m actually quite grateful for this as making caps the way I do takes a lot of time. I’ll have a look at the disc once I get it (should be next week) but can’t compare to any other format other than the included BD as I’ve never seen / owned the film before.

[Matt]

North by Northwest (WB) screenshots

Finally! A version that doesn't look like I'm watching it through sunglasses.

[jt839]

North by Northwest (WB) screenshots

colors look especially good in the elevator shot

Nice to see Cary Grant's hair is no longer blue.

[ryannichols7]

North by Northwest (WB) screenshots

colors look especially good in the elevator shot

this is one of the best upgrades I've seen, if only because the Bluray was particularly bad. cannot wait

glad Seven Samurai from Criterion is a big upgrade, means the BFI edition should be equal/even better. hopefully those start shipping out soon

[Jameson281]

The Terminator 4K screenshots. No miracles here. AI upscale of the previous 2K master,

It's not an A.I. upscale from 2K. Total B.S. internet rumor.

[tenia]

It's not an A.I. (1) upscale from 2K (2). Total B.S. internet rumor.

This comparison shows it exactly is that.

It shows it's not a new master. You can see it has the exact same framing, geometry (and in some places the exact same speck of dirt) etc than the previous BD.
The master used for this BD, according to the restoration's supervisor's Linkedin page, was finished in 2K. So it's a 2K upscale. That's point 2.
Both of these explain the phrasing of the tech blurb around this 4K master : "40th Anniversary restoration from a 4K film scan of the 35mm negative". There is no mention of the scan being new. There's actually not even a mention of the finish resolution. It's not saying "new scan and new 4k remaster / restoration". Nothing new is claimed. Because no new underlying work has been performed.

Now, this comparison in particular, but other show this as well, that a pass of a combination of EE and DNR, but not the kind that was applied, say, to Patton or The Truman Show, but exactly in line with what has been used on Aliens, Abyss, Titanic and True Lies... which is consistent with this part of the tech blurb : "Post House: Park Road Post".
And that's point 1.

[Jameson281]

It's not an A.I. (1) upscale from 2K (2). Total B.S. internet rumor.

This comparison shows it exactly is that.

It shows it's not a new master. You can see it has the exact same framing, geometry (and in some places the exact same speck of dirt) etc than the previous BD.
The master used for this BD, according to the restoration's supervisor's Linkedin page, was finished in 2K. So it's a 2K upscale. That's point 2.
Both of these explain the phrasing of the tech blurb around this 4K master : "40th Anniversary restoration from a 4K film scan of the 35mm negative". There is no mention of the scan being new. There's actually not even a mention of the finish resolution. It's not saying "new scan and new 4k remaster / restoration". Nothing new is claimed. Because no new underlying work has been performed.

Now, this comparison in particular, but other show this as well, that a pass of a combination of EE and DNR, but not the kind that was applied, say, to Patton or The Truman Show, but exactly in line with what has been used on Aliens, Abyss, Titanic and True Lies... which is consistent with this part of the tech blurb : "Post House: Park Road Post".
And that's point 1.

They were given the original 4K files to work with. So they took the 4K files, downrezzed them to 2K, then uprezzed them again? And somehow got good quality HDR along the way?

Since the underlying 4K scan is the same, and they were referencing the last Cameron-approved master, is it any wonder that the new master would closely match the last one, down to "the exact same spec of dirt"?

[tenia]

They were given the original 4K files to work with. So they took the 4K files, downrezzed them to 2K, then uprezzed them again?

No, they were given the original 2k finalized files and upscaled those.
4k scan --> 2k master
2k master --> 4k upscale

Since the underlying 4K scan is the same, and they were referencing the last Cameron-approved master, is it any wonder that the new master would closely match the last one, down to "the exact same spec of dirt"?

Using the same scan can still yield a different geometry, different framing, more differences in grading, and yes, different clean-up. Having the same geometry, the same framing, the same general grading and the exact same speck of dirt happens when you use the same master, not when you go back upstream.

This is going back to the original scan, and re-doing independently everything else afterwards. Cleaning up is different, framing is different, grading is different (and it allowed to go back to before DNR was applied).

This is redoing the scan, and then “re-using” things afterwards, in particular the director-approved color grading. You’ll notice that the framing is slightly different, the color grading actually is too and that previously removed bits of dirt are back on the new remaster (this is a UHD-vs-BD comparison, but I’ve compared both BDs, ie without any SDR downconversion interferences, and gradings are indeed different). So different scan of the same element, but referencing the latest director-approved master. And yet, grading do differ, even if slightly only.

This is what happens when releases share the same master.
This is sharing the same restored master, but with willingly different gradings.
And this is sharing the same master, but one release presents it filtered and the other one doesn't.

In which category does The Terminator’s UHD seem to fall ?

Even if we imagine making the nuance between going back to the cleaned scan and not the more upstream raw scan, framing and grading would differ even if slightly.

This isn't rocket science, you know, but simply A --> B deduction, and there are enough examples to show how simple it can be kept while still providing the correct answers.

And somehow got good quality HDR along the way?

Considering how HDR was used on past Cameron remasters like Aliens, but also that it's a known fact that some HDR gradings have obtained from SDR files, both from SDR files that still are provided in ways allowing for properly extracting a HDR grade of it, and from SDR files where HDR will add nothing because the info are clipped and the HDR will mostly be a sticker on the box (eg Aliens), what would be “good quality HDR” ?

[EddieLarkin]

Yup, it is absolutely the case that Aliens, Titanic and now The Terminator use the exact same source master between the BD and UHD. Only Titanic was a 4K master. All 3 have been "improved" by Park Road Post.

These methods fall far short of what treatment the vast majority of catalogue titles get when they receive new transfers/remasters for UHD.

[tenia]

Actually, Titanic's previous restoration was a 2K finish. The unclear thing is whether a new 4K DI has been produced, which the tech blurb said was done, but considering how close the UHD looks compared to the previous BD, it's more likely that it simply is an upscale of the previous 2K master. And it'd make more sense : why would a 4K master need to go through pretty much the same process than upscaled 2k masters ? Well : because this one too actually is from a 2k master...

True Lies also was a 2K master that got upscaled.
That only leaves Abyss, but all the clues pieced together point to a 10 years old 2K master.
But since unlike Aliens, Titanic and Terminator, they didn't get a previous BD release, it's more complicated to easily do direct A/B comparisons, even if they ended up being done some point.

[onedimension]

(OT aside, Am I the only one who thinks James Cameron is an idiot generally? Ambitious, very entertaining at his best, and otherwise as sophisticated as a twelve year old boy?)

[Jameson281]

No, they were given the original 2k finalized files and upscaled those.

I work at MGM. Although I was not directly involved with the TERMINATOR project, I know, for an absolute fact, that they were provided with the 4K scan, both the raw scan and 4K color corrected/cleaned up files--the latter of which would explain why the two transfers look so similar.

[EddieLarkin]

The Terminator wasn't restored in 4K, the color corrected/cleaned up end result was 2K, according to the restoration supervisor at Reliance himself. They certainly provided those files, as all the result of this new master is upscaled from it.

They may very well have delivered the raw 4K scan, but Park Road Post have clearly not used it to create a new 4K restoration. You only have to look at the caps, which are not similar or even very similar, they are identical outside of the AI fudgery. This was exactly what happened with Aliens, so comes as no surprise.

[ryannichols7]

nothing about Scarface yet and I'm certainly no expert, but to me this seemed like one of the better examples I've seen so far of the source materials quite limiting the 4K presentation. I haven't compared the Bluray yet but to my eyes, this was the title I've watched in 4K most so far that made me think I was just watching the standard Bluray. the image was very soft the whole time and lacked that film grain feel I'm used to with 4K. I'd be curious to read some folks who are more on the ball with this kind of thing - Criterion and Universal certainly did the best they could with it, but this was maybe the biggest example for me so far of something coming out in 4K that possibly didn't need to...

[Finch]

The Scarface screenshots are here. I'm sticking with my Imprint Blu-Ray.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Can anyone confirm how Kino’s release of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is or at least how it compares to the MoC please?

[hearthesilence]

nothing about Scarface yet and I'm certainly no expert, but to me this seemed like one of the better examples I've seen so far of the source materials quite limiting the 4K presentation. I haven't compared the Bluray yet but to my eyes, this was the title I've watched in 4K most so far that made me think I was just watching the standard Bluray. the image was very soft the whole time and lacked that film grain feel I'm used to with 4K. I'd be curious to read some folks who are more on the ball with this kind of thing - Criterion and Universal certainly did the best they could with it, but this was maybe the biggest example for me so far of something coming out in 4K that possibly didn't need to...

I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but in all honesty, I wasn't expecting a huge benefit from a UHD presentation over a standard Blu-ray. As the notes mentioned:

"This new 4K restoration was created from a 35mm duplicate negative. The original monaural soundtrack was remastered from a 35mm nitrate composite fine-grain provided by the Cinematheque quebeqoise."

And per this November 2017 issue of Post:

"The original negative no longer exists, so we scoured the globe for elements that might be in better shape than our copy," says Peter Schade, vice president of content management at NBCUniversal's Global Media Operations. "We ended up using a duplicate negative from the British Film Institute. Our dupe negative had some damage and jump cuts from where frames had been fixed, but the British dupe negative didn't have as much repair work: it was smoother all the way through." The audio restoration was done from a nitrate fine grain from La Cinematheque Quebecoise in Montreal.

In other words, the generational loss inherent in a duplicate negative (which I'm guessing was not a product of any digital scanning) meant a good bit of information from the original image capture would've been lost, from dynamic range to the actual detail. So basically not a whole lot of "extra" information to be revealed in a UHD, aside from a better presentation of the physical texture of the film elements used (film grain, etc.)

EDIT: Finch's post backs up my last sentence:

The Scarface screenshots are here. I'm sticking with my Imprint Blu-Ray.

Make sure to select full UHD resolution and you'll see exactly what I mean. The information left over from the original image capture (i.e. when they turned on the camera and burned the original camera negative) is virtually identical, but the physical texture of the scanned element looks noticeably better on the UHD, and personally I do appreciate that, I think it's pretty gorgeous to have film grain look that way. But I'm sure it's not important for a lot of people.

[tenia]

Slow.pics can be tricky when comparing BDs to UHDs; you need to select Canvas: by image size, and Fit into canvas. This'll give you this.

You only have to look at the caps, which are not similar or even very similar, they are identical outside of the AI fudgery. This was exactly what happened with Aliens, so comes as no surprise.

Precisely. Again, there are enough different types of case around to compare this one with and deduce which type it belongs to.

I already recently went through all these gymnastics from people that kept telling me about this great brand new 4K OCN-sourced restoration of To Catch A Thief that's actually nowhere to be seen 90% of the duration of the UHD, and even this one slightly reframes the shots taken from the previous IP-based restoration ! Still not from a new restoration though.

So if Park Road Post managed to do something this precise, down to the exact same grading, the exact same framing, the exact same geometry that you'd swear it's exactly the same 2K master now filtered while they actually have gone back to the 4K scan and redo a whole new 4K master from that (which, if it's that barely visible, might be something problematic in itself), something that pretty much no other project managed to reproduce as accurately, I suppose they should go and teach this to MPI, Colorworks and al.