UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[Finch]

I'm annoyed that the black and white cut of Fury Road is not getting upscaled to 4k especially when Miller says it's his preferred cut of the film. I thought the films were already being released individually? If not, I can wait. I can only take so much Mel Gibson and I only want Road Warrior out of the original three.

PS.: Amended OP to quote the entire set as a reference title.

[Finch]

Severin's Santa Sangre UHD added as a reference title.

[bad future]

It should be noted that for now it's released only as part of the boxed Mad Max Anthology set which contains the original Mad Max Trilogy and the reboot, Fury Road.

Maybe I've misunderstood, but if you're talking about Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior, that film is indeed being released as a standalone UHD at the same time as the anthology. So is Beyond Thunderdome.

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

It should be noted that for now it's released only as part of the boxed Mad Max Anthology set which contains the original Mad Max Trilogy and the reboot, Fury Road.

Maybe I've misunderstood, but if you're talking about Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior, that film is indeed being released as a standalone UHD at the same time as the anthology. So is Beyond Thunderdome.

You're right! I had only seen news on the anthology boxed set. Nice move from Warner as many buyers already own Mad Max 1 and Fury Road... We'll let Finch decide, but maybe the titles should be added individually.

[Finch]

I'll leave it as the box set even if Fury Road doesn't represent the same upgrade as the original three.

In other news, Geoff D was very impressed with the 4k stream of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? so that's quite likely another reference title coming so long as Disney don't muck up the encode.

[swo17]

Curious why I can't find the Roger Rabbit UHD on Amazon

[Matt]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NY5DXLT

[swo17]

That's just the link to stream or download it though, right? The physical UHD comes out in three weeks. You can pre-order it at Best Buy, Target, and Walmart, but not Amazon as far as I can tell

[Matt]

Sorry, misunderstood the context. It’s probably something to do with Amazon and Disney’s long-standing feud. Amazon often doesn’t list pre-orders of Disney releases to…teach them some kind of lesson?

[swo17]

Ah, that makes sense, thanks

[bad future]

Should be noted that the new Road Warrior UHD has used mixdowns of the new, aggressively "modernized" Dolby Atmos track for the English 5.1 and 2.0. This is unfortunate because the new mix uses a lot of revisionist foley sounds, including apparently adding new sounds where there previously were none, so there's no option to watch the film in English with the original sounds intact. Curiously the the 2.0 track is actually labeled "Original Theatrical English" in the menu, so I assume they did intend to include the original audio and there was a mistake somewhere later in the production chain. According to this post from "the digital bits," Warner is looking into the issue, so hopefully they consider a replacement program or something.

[EddieLarkin]

Thanks for that perspective, I wasn't aware of the possibility that the Kino might end up superior

This was regarding Mad Max, and it does indeed appear the Kino remains the best disc as despite them using the same master the WB is missing the original mono.

Beyond Thunderdome is apparently all good so hopefully they will indeed do a replacement disc for Road Warrior.

[captveg]

Thanks for that perspective, I wasn't aware of the possibility that the Kino might end up superior

This was regarding Mad Max, and it does indeed appear the Kino remains the best disc as despite them using the same master the WB is missing the original mono.

The WB disc of Mad Max (1979) has the original AUS mono. What is doesn't have that the Kino UHD has is DolbyVision (WB disc is only HDR10), the special features on the Kino release, or the US dub. So overall, yes, the Kino is the way to go for the first film, but both the Kino and the WB have the original AUS mono track.

It's Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior (1981) that has the incorrect downmix labeled as the original mono; clearly they intended to include the original mono but whichever vender they use for audio provided the incorrect file.

[EddieLarkin]

Yes sorry, that's been cleared up in the BR.com thread now.

[denti alligator]

Ghostbusters is not on either list? Is there a consensus on this title?

[mfunk9786]

From what I understand, it's pretty much just an upscaling of the 4K master done for the last Blu-ray. It's pretty good, but nothing spectacular, and the film has a naturally grainy look that is largely retained and misunderstood by some to be compression artifacts of some kind (but of course, it isn't)

[Finch]

Since the Mad Max titles are of inconsistent quality as of right now, I've reinserted Kino's Mad Max BD as a reference title and added it also to the "Superior Import/Versions" column, and moved Warner's set to the Solid Upgrade column. Beyond Thunderdome doesn't appear to have any issues so it's joining Kino's BD of the first film in the Reference quality tier. Hopefully Warner will fix the audio on Road Warrior so we can add a second pressing to the top column. Fury Road got an individual entry in the second tier.

[cdnchris]

The WB disc of Mad Max (1979) has the original AUS mono. What is doesn't have that the Kino UHD has is DolbyVision (WB disc is only HDR10), the special features on the Kino release.

I'm sure this is explained elsewhere and I didn't see it, but even though the disc "art' for Mad Max in the Warner set indicates Dolby Vision, it's actually HDR10?

[EddieLarkin]

From what I understand, it's pretty much just an upscaling of the 4K master done for the last Blu-ray. It's pretty good, but nothing spectacular, and the film has a naturally grainy look that is largely retained and misunderstood by some to be compression artifacts of some kind (but of course, it isn't)

It's a native 4K master, so there would be no upscaling being done. Certainly they did not take the 1080p file used for the Blu-ray and upscale it to 2160p, if that's what you mean. They will have used the same 4K master for both, so it's the Blu-ray that's a "downscale". And I would say the master is quite spectacular, as basically everything from Sony is, the only problem with it is Sony's approach to HDR. They push things so bright that on grainy films like this the grain becomes very pervasive (though it's not exactly a bad thing if you have a fetish for grain, like so many of us do). Something like the Panasonic Optimiser helps tame things at least, and they are in fact re-releasing the UHD with Dolby Vision soon, that will do the same.

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

From what I understand, it's pretty much just an upscaling of the 4K master done for the last Blu-ray. It's pretty good, but nothing spectacular, and the film has a naturally grainy look that is largely retained and misunderstood by some to be compression artifacts of some kind (but of course, it isn't)

It's a native 4K master, so there would be no upscaling being done. Certainly they did not take the 1080p file used for the Blu-ray and upscale it to 2160p, if that's what you mean. They will have used the same 4K master for both, so it's the Blu-ray that's a "downscale". And I would say the master is quite spectacular, as basically everything from Sony is, the only problem with it is Sony's approach to HDR. They push things so bright that on grainy films like this the grain becomes very pervasive (though it's not exactly a bad thing if you have a fetish for grain, like so many of us do). Something like the Panasonic Optimiser helps tame things at least, and they are in fact re-releasing the UHD with Dolby Vision soon, that will do the same.

The most extreme example I have experienced is their Close Encounters of the Third Kind UHD. I am a grain fetishist but that release is just over the top, and some of the darker scenes feel boosted / too light. For instance, check out the scenes with Truffaut's cameo. In them the grain almost feels like noise.

[clownmeat]

The most extreme example I have experienced is their Close Encounters of the Third Kind UHD. I am a grain fetishist but that release is just over the top, and some of the darker scenes feel boosted / too light. For instance, check out the scenes with Truffaut's cameo. In them the grain almost feels like noise.

In Close Encounters of the Third Kind's case, if memory serves Vilmos Zsigmond deliberately underexposed and pushed the film stock in processing; I'm not sure if it was because of shooting Kodak 5247 in low-light conditions, or if it was to better match FX photography. Whatever the reason, the grain inherent in Close Encounters is even more pronounced than in other '70s movies, so I don't know if there's an easy way to reduce it without compromising the image.

[captveg]

The WB disc of Mad Max (1979) has the original AUS mono. What is doesn't have that the Kino UHD has is DolbyVision (WB disc is only HDR10), the special features on the Kino release.

I'm sure this is explained elsewhere and I didn't see it, but even though the disc "art' for Mad Max in the Warner set indicates Dolby Vision, it's actually HDR10?

Yes. It's just HDR10.

[Stefan Andersson]

Anatomy of a Murder and Taxi Driver have been upgraded/restored in the 2nd UHD Columbia Classics box.

For Anatomy of a Murder, ten lab/dupe shots in the previous restoration (Criterion master) have been replaced with "a third gen but extremely high quality neg which yielded clean optical shots which now seamlessly meet the rest of the print’s image quality for grain, grayscale and density."

For Taxi Driver Sony used discovered "multi track stems of Herrmann’s score for which they’ve added a five channel Dolby track with the score isolated on the rear channels. /.../ They also preserve the original legacy mono track."

Source: http://filmalert101.blogspot.com/ - Nov. 16, 2021 post.

[Finch]

Road Warrior is getting a replacement disc.

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

Admitting that I don't know the full story -- and maybe this is the wrong thread -- but I find it interesting that for their Kubrick UHD releases Warner opted for the compromised standard 16:9 tv aspect ratio of 1.78:1 for both The Shining and Full Metal Jacket, even though they have certainly never been projected cinematically in this format. As far as I know, Kubrick shot all of his films in 1.33:1 open matte for tv screening (and to prevent cropping) ever since 2001 was cropped on home television screens back in the day. The film were then masked in cinemas to either 1.66:1 in Europe or 1.85:1 in the US, but certainly never 1.78:1. I still have the original Warner dvd's which were released in 1.33:1 when Kubrick was still alive, but that didn't make sense to me, either, since they were never shown in 1.33:1 cinematically. So, I guess that Warner thought that if Kubrick insisted on his films being released in the tv format most widely used back then (fullscreen), then he would also prefer that today, had he still been alive? Anyways, where this stops making sense for me is with the recently released Clockwork Orange UHD. It is in 1.66:1! Why not 1.78:1 like FMJ and TS? Wasn't it projected in 1.85:1 in the US in the 70'ies? And then there's the whole Eyes Wide Shut AR debacle... Will be interesting to see which ratio Warner opt for on the UHD release on that film (maybe next year's Kubrick UHD release?)

The most extreme example I have experienced is their Close Encounters of the Third Kind UHD. I am a grain fetishist but that release is just over the top, and some of the darker scenes feel boosted / too light. For instance, check out the scenes with Truffaut's cameo. In them the grain almost feels like noise.

In Close Encounters of the Third Kind's case, if memory serves Vilmos Zsigmond deliberately underexposed and pushed the film stock in processing; I'm not sure if it was because of shooting Kodak 5247 in low-light conditions, or if it was to better match FX photography. Whatever the reason, the grain inherent in Close Encounters is even more pronounced than in other '70s movies, so I don't know if there's an easy way to reduce it without compromising the image.

Makes sense. Zsigmund often experimented with film stock, especially the Altmans he worked on; McCabe & Mrs. Miller probably being the most famous example. Intriguing and interesting, though, that he also did it /were allowed (by Spielberg, no?) to do it on a big budget film like Close Encounters, and without the studio bosses interfering. Those were the 70'ies, I guess.