UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[EddieLarkin]

Presumably that's just the 5.1? Opt for the more historically authentic mono instead, and problem solved, I recall no such issues when I listened to it.

[Finch]

Geoff on Paranorman

[Finch]

Death Wish (Kino)

EDIT 2/6/23: See Geoff's review in post below

Regarding the US UHD of Crimes of the Future: a BR member confirmed that it has Dolby Vision. Someone else again thought the HDR10 presentation was very good and did not notice any compression issues (they had no DV setup). I haven't seen any feedback comparing it to Decal's BD yet. It's likely to be superseded by Second Sight's forthcoming release though.

[Finch]

Invaders from Mars (Ignite/Arrow) great review from Bill Chambers for the film and the UHD

Bill points out that the optical dissolves look rough but the rest of the presentation is splendid.

Geoff's take on Death Wish

He doesn't think this is from the original camera negative but a generation or two removed and it has not been restored. He does say though within those limitations it is a good disc and a lot better than the enclosed BD.

[rrenault]

Well it seems like the Three Colors Trilogy won't be going in the reference column if the early word of mouth is anything to go by.

[yoloswegmaster]

Based on what, Svet's reviews? Strange that anyone around here would actually take his reviews seriously in this day and age.

[JSC]

Reviews aside, if the screenshots are anything like I've been seeing there and elsewhere, I think
I'll hold onto the 2011 blu-ray. White in particular looks off.

[tenia]

The issues here are kind of the same as always :
- people are mixing up systemic and problematic issues with a particular case
- Svet in particular is using this as part of his crusade, in part because it's fueling a "US vs the rest of the world" rhetoric
- an older vastly debatable grading ends up being perceived as a proper reference
- in the end, a possibly debatable but also potentially very acceptable result ends up dismissed because of the larger overall issues regarding some labs' systemic ways of working, ie "if it's not you, then it's your brother".

This is not Eclair nor Ritrovata's job, guys.

[CSM126]

I never trust Svet because it’s usually pretty obvious he’s critiquing the way the film was shot, not the way it was transferred. If he thinks he could have done a better job behind the lens he gives the disc demerits. At least that’s how it reads to me whenever I try to parse his gobbledygook ESL-through-a-google-translate writing.

[Ribs]

Also, the previous transfers are extremely lousy by modern standards. It was fairly universally agreed the French releases looked great and the new restorations looked great when screened theatrically last year, he’s obviously just totally inept and there’s a reason we have basically stopped discussing him outside of the siloed off forum here. Just useless, I personally don’t see why Criterion or any label should continue to send him titles when he is probably the most widely seen/consulted review that anyone will see and he regulary makes such total botched calls like this that will surely dissuade tons of people who for some reason take him as an expert.

There will probably be substantially more discussion about Veronique when that comes along, which has a much harsher grade more akin to Dekalog V/Short Film About Killing. I have been assured this is correct as well - though I think it’s a really, really pronounced difference from the earlier release in the way that these are more kind of slight adjustments.

[Finch]

Didn't the DoP say somewhere that the new transfers more accurately represent what he and Kieslowski intended the films to look like? And was it a Hiventy press release that the quote appeared in, or a news piece?

[MichaelB]

Presumably "the DoP" is Sławomir Idziak, as Edward Kłosiński and Piotr Sobociński (who shot White and Red) are both dead.

[rrenault]

In either case, I'll probably wait and see how Curzon's 4K release turns out before buying these. Out of convenience, it'll be between the Curzon and the Potemkine for me, but my gut tells me the Curzon Kieslowski 4Ks should be safe preorders.

[Finch]

I completely forgot that the films had different cinematographers, and I didn't realise the latter two had passed on.

Aren't all new releases of the trilogy sourced from the same restorations, so if you don't like the colors in the new transfers you're not going to be truly happy with any of them (and it comes down to the best encode and whose extras and packaging you like best, where, right now, in regards to artwork and extras, the Criterion comes out on top for me, and by the time I decide whether to upgrade from their BDs or not, i.e. their late 2023 direct sale, we'll hopefully have some consensus on how faithful to the original theatrical presentations these restorations are).

[dwk]

Yeah, they are the same masters across all the releases (has Ariticial Eye/Curzon ever done their own transfers?)

How many competing 4K releases that use different masters are there? I assume nearly all are just different encodes based on the same master.

[tenia]

There has indeed only been 1 new set of 4K restorations, which explains why Potemkine and Criterion use the same set, and that it's expected Curzon/AE will also do. It's indeed not often movies end up with competing restorations, especially 4K ones sourced from OCN !

This means that differences will be down to encodes (or, possibly, HDR gradings).

Presumably "the DoP" is Sławomir Idziak

That's indeed the case. In their ITW on DVD Classik, Hiventy spoke of working with him for Blue and Véronique, which fits the movies he worked on.

[dwk]

I actually just thought of a couple of cases of competing UHDs from different restorations, the main one being Suspiria. (The other ones that came to mind were situations where the German's rushed a UHD out using an inferior 4K master - Texas Chain Saw Massacre and An American Werewolf in London.)

[M Sanderson]

Invaders from Mars (Ignite/Arrow) great review from Bill Chambers for the film and the UHD

Bill points out that the optical dissolves look rough but the rest of the presentation is splendid.

Geoff's take on Death Wish

He doesn't think this is from the original camera negative but a generation or two removed and it has not been restored. He does say though within those limitations it is a good disc and a lot better than the enclosed BD.

wondering if it's worth upgrading Death Wish, given that the previous blu ray was apparently taken from a better source with less crush and more convincing colour grading.

think, and also Escape from Alcatraz, I'm considering of getting the cheap older blu ray releases and simply watching on a smaller TV.

[tenia]

I actually just thought of a couple of cases of competing UHDs from different restorations, the main one being Suspiria. (The other ones that came to mind were situations where the German's rushed a UHD out using an inferior 4K master - Texas Chain Saw Massacre and An American Werewolf in London.)

AFAIK, TCM is not even a new master, it's reusing the only existing 4K restoration (which can for instance be found in BD in the UK with Second Sight, albeit with corrections applied as there were multiple editing mistakes).
So even this one doesn't have competing restorations.

IIRC, Suspiria also doesn't have completely different restorations, but only different gradings of the same base scan.

[rrenault]

Was Cult Films' UHD of Suspiria any good?

[rrenault]

The Potemkine UHDs of the Three Colors Trilogy seem to have the same issues as StudioCanal's Breathless UHD with the bitrate inexplicably plummeting at random points in the film.

Look here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=52 ... &i=14&go=1

This applies specifically to stills 1 and 9. The others look fine to me.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel gaffes like this should justify replacement discs. I mean, come on...This should clearly qualify as a "my bad" situation a la only including SDH English subs on Curzon's Wings of Desire UHD.

[EddieLarkin]

It is horrificly bad, but most people don't notice because they sit too far away, watching on relatively small screens, and that probably goes for the people who produce and QC the discs. Few watch in "cinema" conditions, which is understandable for the average punter, but should be a requirement for those working on the disc. Even then though, some people are so ignorant as to how the image should look that they see everything as "grain", instead of being able to tell when they're actually looking at rampant compression noise.

[tenia]

I think most people don't notice this because they don't indeed realise what is happening and can't notice it. Even on some dedicated, I remember having trouble explaining (even with the proper screencaps) this or that encode was showing blockiness. So it feels to me rather like a lack of tech knowledge than something else.
But then of course, the watching conditions can hide the issue on top of that.

In any case, yes, the encodes are rubbish.

[dwk]

AFAIK, TCM is not even a new master, it's reusing the only existing 4K restoration (which can for instance be found in BD in the UK with Second Sight, albeit with corrections applied as there were multiple editing mistakes).
So even this one doesn't have competing restorations.

IIRC, Suspiria also doesn't have completely different restorations, but only different gradings of the same base scan.

TCM isn't a new master? Jesus, even setting aside the poor encode on the UHD, there is almost no improvement over the BD.

I know Suspiria had the same base scan, but I thought all the post scan work was different

Was Cult Films' UHD of Suspiria any good?

Synapse is the preferred version, as it was the only one approved by Luciano Tovoli. (Though, I'd warn that Synapse's special features are really worthless. I'm not sure of the quality of the extras on Cult Film's release.)

[tenia]

I know Suspiria had the same base scan, but I thought all the post scan work was different

You might be right on this, and it's me having the differences in workflows wrong.