UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[denti alligator]

Santa Sangre, anyone?

[Finch]

^ Poor compression, unfortunately.

[Finch]

Paths of Glory (Kino)

[senseabove]

To Kill a Mockingbird 4k UHD with HDR forthcoming from Universal.

[Finch]

Since I haven't seen any complaints about Shout's encoding of Child's Play, I'm adding it now. Holding off on 2 and 3 as there appear to be audio issues and I don't know if Shout are going to fix those...?

Re audio issues: they are fixing an audio pop (or several) on their Dog Soldiers UHD, the release of which has been delayed (owners of the Second Sight UHD confirmed it does not have those errors).

Early reactions to their Cat People 1982 UHD suggest the underlying source is a huge improvement on the Blu-ray but the encoding is a mess. How is it that Shout are so unreliable with the compression? Feels like they're using different authoring houses for different titles (if it's not a direct port of a competently encoded UK release)...

[dwk]

Shout Factory, consistent in their inconsistency.

[rrenault]

I didn't have time to watch the whole film, but the UHD of Rules of the Game looks pretty good to me. Whether or not the darkness in some scenes was intended by Renoir himself is a matter of debate though. All in all, I'd say it's an admirable presentation of the film, considering the OCN no longer exists.

[Finch]

david hare told me on Facebook he watched La Regle du Jeu from ESC all the way through once and thought given the condition of the source it was a very good presentation with no DNR and compression issues. He was pleasantly surprised because he'd gotten the same label's release of Drôle de Drame (Marcel Carne) which they botched with noise reduction and a pretty bad encode.

If you buy this and begin to watch, do not expect to see anything as remotely beautiful as a Warner Archive 4K scan and restoration of a Black and White 1939 movie.

Warner will have made a scan of an original nitrate neg, and access to a multitude of other elements - interpositive, fine grains etc - which enable, simply perfection.

Neither the original neg, nor any first generation element of Renoir’s 1939 La Règle du Jeu has survived. The most recent restoration which is presented here had to be scrounged from much later elements and we are left with a less than perfect composite.

Putting on this new 4K UHD delivers a series of shocks. Never before has the exact quality of the surviving elements been so nakedly on display. What you are seeing, thanks to the optimum resolution and quality of the UHD format is as close to 35mm projection as possible. It is in effect the same. Then you begin to notice how much “darker” is the image, after the last Blurays. And that’s where this new disc really takes off. Sharpness is variable, as it must be and always was given the appalling condition of the elements. But composition and depth are here in spades. HDR has been applied with great skill to extract every last grain of grayscale, shadow detail and degrees of light as they can exist in the 35mm format.

Whether you think this exercise is worth it or not is a quandary. I vote yes, but others may not. Criterion/Janus is one of the stakeholders in this 4K release and when/if they choose to release this in 4K is yet to be seen. The French disc from ESC label only carries a short extra, with none of the plenitude of supplements on the older Criterion (and BFI) blus.

He did a video of a minute from the film and the English subtitles looked good. Someone else commented they were either very similar or identical to the Criterion Blu-Ray. So, I think, solely based on the PQ and subs, the French UHD is a reference title but this could be surpassed by Criterion or a UK label porting it over and adding their own features.

[ianthemovie]

Questions re: the Scream Factory edition of Halloween that came out last year: Are the compression and sound issues present on the Blu-rays, or do they just affect the 4K version? Also, what about the "original color timing" version that is apparently on the second Blu-ray--are there issues present with that?

(To put it another way, is Scream Factory's the best available Blu-ray edition of Halloween, setting aside the problems with the 4K?)

EDIT: I see someone just addressed this in the Scream Factory thread.

[Finch]

Severin's UHD of Out of the Blue is disappointing (noise reduction applied to the soundtrack, encode and grain management inferior to the BFI BD).

[Calvin]

Early reactions to their Cat People 1982 UHD suggest the underlying source is a huge improvement on the Blu-ray but the encoding is a mess.

Shouldn't being a huge improvement on the Blu-Ray be enough to lift it out of the disappointing category? It would be nice if someone more competent in another territory took a crack at it but it's sadly with even worse labels in the UK and France

--

What I would say about Out of the Blue is that I've own both the Severin UHD and the BFI Blu-Ray and, while it might not be worth double dipping at the $30 price tag, I did find it to be a noticable if subtle improvement and I'd align myself with the Blu-Ray.com review for once. If you're looking to buy the film for the first time, I'd recommend the Severin. The exclusive extras on that release are also more relevant and worthwhile than the BFI's exclusive offerings.

[Calvin]

Looking at what I have that's not on the list - I'd say that the Anime Limited releases of Millennium Actress and Future Boy Conan are solid. Discotek's release of Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro is disappointing (and the release is given a thorough dissection by ProfessorWho here).

[M-A]

Any Updates on getting the following listed?
The Night Porter (Wicked-Vision Media) (German Import) - I think should be solid
The Killers (1964) (Koch Media) (German Import) - I think should be reference
Flesh for Frankenstein (Vinegar Syndrome) - I think should be solid
Blood for Dracula (Severin) - I think should be solid or reference
Pan's Labyrinth (Warner) - I think should be avoid

[Finch]

Shouldn't being a huge improvement on the Blu-Ray be enough to lift it out of the disappointing category? It would be nice if someone more competent in another territory took a crack at it but it's sadly with even worse labels in the UK and France

I was contemplating that but decided against it. I'm going to add a disclaimer that you can consider it a solid upgrade if you're not overly sensitive to the encoding issues. Ditto Out of the Blue.

[Finch]

Looking at what I have that's not on the list - I'd say that the Anime Limited releases of Millennium Actress and Future Boy Conan are solid. Discotek's release of Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro is disappointing (and the release is given a thorough dissection by ProfessorWho here).

Added all three, thanks.

[therewillbeblus]

Discotek's release of Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro is disappointing (and the release is given a thorough dissection by ProfessorWho here).

I read about the DNR etc issues in advance of buying it- but a) I’ve never been able to tell, and so never been repulsed by these flaws when it comes to animated films, and b) it didn’t seem like there was a better disc out there. So I bought the UHD because it was a few dollars cheaper than the blu and watched it last night and it wasn’t bad looking or anything. Not saying it should go on a Buy This list, but I’m definitely happy with my purchase under the conditions that this is the best it probably looks and may ever look. I wonder if that can be a category/note for some of these that are listed as “disappointments”: that they have issues but are still the best the film has ever looked, so that way people can choose to buy them or to buy a lower format instead if the UHD is specifically botched

[Finch]

Any Updates on getting the following listed?
The Night Porter (Wicked-Vision Media) (German Import) - I think should be solid
The Killers (1964) (Koch Media) (German Import) - I think should be reference
Flesh for Frankenstein (Vinegar Syndrome) - I think should be solid
Blood for Dracula (Severin) - I think should be solid or reference
Pan's Labyrinth (Warner) - I think should be avoid

I read the forum discussion of Night Porter 4k on the other forum: one poster thought it was a very good SDR only presentation; another thought the grain management was problematic and some DNR had been applied. If anyone can find more takes on the disc, please let me know.

The Killers 1964: I'm not even finding forum discussions let alone English language reviews.

Flesh for Frankenstein (VS) added though the recommendation only applies to the replacement disc which has the UHD logo on the disc in a yellow background (white on the faulty OG disc)

Blood for Dracula (Severin)

I don't get the sense that Warner's UHD of Pan's Labyrinth is as universally loathed as Studio Canal's T2 disc is. It's my understanding that the 4k of PL has DNR applied (while the Criterion BD has compression issues) but not more egregiously so than other discs (Jurassic Park etc). I feel like, sticking it in the Disappointing section might be more appropriate?

[M-A]

I read the forum discussion of Night Porter 4k on the other forum: one poster thought it was a very good SDR only presentation; another thought the grain management was problematic and some DNR had been applied. If anyone can find more takes on the disc, please let me know.

The Killers 1964: I'm not even finding forum discussions let alone English language reviews.

Flesh for Frankenstein (VS) added though the recommendation only applies to the replacement disc which has the UHD logo on the disc in a yellow background (white on the faulty OG disc)

Blood for Dracula (Severin)

I don't get the sense that Warner's UHD of Pan's Labyrinth is as universally loathed as Studio Canal's T2 disc is. It's my understanding that the 4k of PL has DNR applied (while the Criterion BD has compression issues) but not more egregiously so than other discs (Jurassic Park etc). I feel like, sticking it in the Disappointing section might be more appropriate?

I thought Night Porter 4K should be solid because it doesn't have the incorrect colour grading, awful macroblocking, and sharpening found on the criterion disc. It does look soft, which is why it isn't reference but I don't think it is DNR. I think it may have been a problem with the scanning process during the restoration, similar to what is seen in the 4K restoration of red desert, but maybe it is DNR :-k

Here is a forum discussion for The Killers 4K.

I thought the discs in the disappointing section were still meant to be better than the blu-rays, and I thought that the Pan's Labyrinth 4K is worse than the criterion blu, which itself is worse than the optimum blu. It is after all just a DNRed 2K upscale.

[Finch]

The Killers (1964) (German import) added (thanks MA).

[Finch]

The Shout Factory/GKIDS UHD/BD dual release of Belle (2021) appears to be identical to the UK disc so if you haven't imported yet, no reason to do so now. Amended OP to show both as reference discs.

[Finch]

Drive (1997) (88 Films)

caps

[Finch]

Shout's dual format release of Platoon goes into the pile of disappointing discs. The enclosed BD is the disc with heavy DNR they released in a steelbook, and the UHD is reportedly from the same source (note 9/23/22: the DNR is down to MGM who baked it into the source provided to Shout but, really, Shout could/should have rejected it).

On the other hand, early word on their The Fog UHD is promising. Holding off for further reactions though. EDIT: Ditto The Funhouse.

[therewillbeblus]

EDIT: Ditto The Funhouse.

Great news, any sources for positive early word that you can share here?

[onedimension]

Shout's dual format release of Platoon goes into the pile of disappointing discs. The enclosed BD is the disc with heavy DNR they released in a steelbook, and the UHD is reportedly from the same source.

On the other hand, early word on their The Fog UHD is promising. Holding off for further reactions though. EDIT: Ditto The Funhouse.

The Shout Factory 'Fog' is advertised as the same Studio Canal restoration from the Euro disc last year.. would be a great surprise if it's better

[andyli]

Shout's dual format release of Platoon goes into the pile of disappointing discs. The enclosed BD is the disc with heavy DNR they released in a steelbook, and the UHD is reportedly from the same source.

On the other hand, early word on their The Fog UHD is promising. Holding off for further reactions though. EDIT: Ditto The Funhouse.

The Shout Factory 'Fog' is advertised as the same Studio Canal restoration from the Euro disc last year.. would be a great surprise if it's better

I'm pretty sure they're talking about the audio pitch problem. That's one part the StudioCanal disc can be improved upon.