UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[kniselyb]

What is the consensus on Brokeback Mountain UHD from Kino? I know Kino hasn't been doing all that great work lately

[kniselyb]

Do people think KL’s UHD of Last Year at Marienbad is a safe preorder or should I wait and see whether or not it gets one upped by a Studio Canal release?

I would think so the bluray was great what do others think?

[nicolas]

What is the consensus on Brokeback Mountain UHD from Kino? I know Kino hasn't been doing all that great work lately

Surprisingly little consensus as of today apart from these beautiful screenshots: https://criterionforum.org/forum/viewto ... 56#p817756

[nicolas]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) caps are online: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=20 ... 0&i=0&go=1

[MichaelB]

A total no-brainer (it's not even close!), and a useful cautionary tale against the assumption that the UHD version must always be superior.

[nicolas]

A total no-brainer (it's not even close!), and a useful cautionary tale against the assumption that the UHD version must always be superior.

This is a good comment I read on the other forum: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php? ... tcount=658

What’s just as disappointing is that KL initially touted this release as their biggest and most expensive project to date with a new OCN scan and went silent on the project the longer they dragged out the release date. Thankfully we’ve got a good BD from BFI readily available.

[onedimension]

What could possibly have gone wrong?

[Finch]

It really does take a special talent to get the two best versions of Body Snatchers and botch both of them.

[andyli]

Hasn't been following the situation... and to spare me the trouble of wading through the 30+ pages on that forum's thread, could someone please explain to me, how could Kino have claimed to scan from the OCN when the original materials (including the OCN and a master positive) have been long lost? And how exactly did they produce a 1.85:1 image, when allegedly the only viable source was framed in SuperScope's 2.00:1?

[jheez]

Kino was either given bad information or didn’t do their research when it was first announced. They later backtracked and said their release was scanned from the same 2:1 source as previous transfers. They scanned as much information as they could from that 2:1 source to create the 1.85:1.

[andyli]

Kino was either given bad information or didn’t do their research when it was first announced. They later backtracked and said their release was scanned from the same 2:1 source as previous transfers. They scanned as much information as they could from that 2:1 source to create the 1.85:1.

Thanks for the sum up. That’s all I need to know.

[Fus1on]

What is the consensus on Brokeback Mountain UHD from Kino? I know Kino hasn't been doing all that great work lately

Very surprised to see that no one on this thread has even commented on it aside from the screencaps. I did watch it last week, so I'll give my brief thoughts on it. Long story short, I thought it was absolutely stunning. Without question, it's the best Brokeback Mountain has ever looked, and probably ever will look. Great DV grade, and surprisingly excellent encode for a KL disc. Didn't notice any compression issues and the image looked extremely sharp to me without any obvious edge enhancement or noise reduction. Audio quality was pretty solid to me. I only got a chance to listen to the 5.1 track, and I was perfectly satisfied, but never blown away by it. If it were up to me, personally, I would probably put this in red tier. The PQ alone is vastly superior to the old Universal BD, which is starting to show its age. However, I definitely want to see what more knowledgeable members of this thread have to say about this release before it gets placed anywhere, as I'm fairly new here.

[nicolas]

What is the consensus on Brokeback Mountain UHD from Kino? I know Kino hasn't been doing all that great work lately

Very surprised to see that no one on this thread has even commented on it aside from the screencaps. I did watch it last week, so I'll give my brief thoughts on it. Long story short, I thought it was absolutely stunning. Without question, it's the best Brokeback Mountain has ever looked, and probably ever will look. Great DV grade, and surprisingly excellent encode for a KL disc. Didn't notice any compression issues and the image looked extremely sharp to me without any obvious edge enhancement or noise reduction. Audio quality was pretty solid to me. I only got a chance to listen to the 5.1 track, and I was perfectly satisfied, but never blown away by it. If it were up to me, personally, I would probably put this in red tier. The PQ alone is vastly superior to the old Universal BD, which is starting to show its age. However, I definitely want to see what more knowledgeable members of this thread have to say about this release before it gets placed anywhere, as I'm fairly new here.

I’ve only received mine today in Germany. Yes, this is one of KL’s best 4Ks since the authoring house switch last year. The main reason is that the film is rather “dim” and not graded for excessive highlights. I have a feeling that either Ang Lee or Rodrigo Prieto supervised the new grade as KL’s in-house grades usually run a lot hotter / brighter than that, which gives the encoder trouble. Not in this case though. The encode is mostly excellent but not entirely as the grain in the skies in particular occasionally has a slightly buzzy quality that isn’t far away from macroblocking. What did strike me as odd upon first glance is how fine-grained the film appears on the UHD. Opticals are what they are but the OCN shots are so fine that it’s a bit surreal to see that little visible grain, even in low-light scenes. I’ve done a quick research and Prieto shot with Kodak stocks ranging from 50D (the slowest, most fine-grained stock) to 500T for darker and night scenes. My first thought was that the top layer of the grain may have been taken off but it doesn’t immediately look that way as the film is remarkably sharp and doesn’t exhibit traces that bring DNR to mind. I need to see the entire film though to see how this is in motion and will compare with the old BD.

Colors and the restoration itself look beautiful.

[Fus1on]

What is the consensus on Brokeback Mountain UHD from Kino? I know Kino hasn't been doing all that great work lately

Very surprised to see that no one on this thread has even commented on it aside from the screencaps. I did watch it last week, so I'll give my brief thoughts on it. Long story short, I thought it was absolutely stunning. Without question, it's the best Brokeback Mountain has ever looked, and probably ever will look. Great DV grade, and surprisingly excellent encode for a KL disc. Didn't notice any compression issues and the image looked extremely sharp to me without any obvious edge enhancement or noise reduction. Audio quality was pretty solid to me. I only got a chance to listen to the 5.1 track, and I was perfectly satisfied, but never blown away by it. If it were up to me, personally, I would probably put this in red tier. The PQ alone is vastly superior to the old Universal BD, which is starting to show its age. However, I definitely want to see what more knowledgeable members of this thread have to say about this release before it gets placed anywhere, as I'm fairly new here.

I’ve only received mine today in Germany. Yes, this is one of KL’s best 4Ks since the authoring house switch last year. The main reason is that the film is rather “dim” and not graded for excessive highlights. I have a feeling that either Ang Lee or Rodrigo Prieto supervised the new grade as KL’s in-house grades usually run a lot hotter / brighter than that, which gives the encoder trouble. Not in this case though. The encode is mostly excellent but not entirely as the grain in the skies in particular occasionally has a slightly buzzy quality that isn’t far away from macroblocking. What did strike me as odd upon first glance is how fine-grained the film appears on the UHD. Opticals are what they are but the OCN shots are so fine that it’s a bit surreal to see that little visible grain, even in low-light scenes. I’ve done a quick research and Prieto shot with Kodak stocks ranging from 50D (the slowest, most fine-grained stock) to 500T for darker and night scenes. My first thought was that the top layer of the grain may have been taken off but it doesn’t immediately look that way as the film is remarkably sharp and doesn’t exhibit traces that bring DNR to mind. I need to see the entire film though to see how this is in motion and will compare with the old BD.

Colors and the restoration itself look beautiful.

Glad to see we're mostly in agreement on how good the Brokeback Mountain UHD looks.

I did also notice that about the film grain as well. I was actually really scared at first that it might have been noise reduction from Kino, but the film itself looks so unbelievably sharp and detailed, and lacks the waxy and smooth look that DNR/AI typically has, that it was clear to me as well that it was likely inherent to the source. Very glad to hear that it was most likely a result of the film stocks that were used during production.

[jheez]

I preordered the Kino Invasion of the Body Snatchers, thinking I made a mistake since I already owned the BFI and saw the caps comparison.

Well, I sat down with the BFI tonight and thought it looked quite poor. It’s sharper and (I think) better encoded, but I found the grain super unnatural and super distracting. The grain comes and goes, and clumps/moves along the edges of people/objects moving in the frame. The BFI also has more damage. I don’t have the Olive for comparison.

I ended up switching to the Kino 4k, which with all its problems, I found more pleasing (ugh). It’s horrendously encoded. It looks like an mpeg-2 encode at 10% of the actual bit rate. Really a shame they messed up so badly. I’m not sure how anything like this passes QC.

So, pick your poison, but I very begrudgingly pick the Kino as my favorite.

[nicolas]

I preordered the Kino Invasion of the Body Snatchers, thinking I made a mistake since I already owned the BFI and saw the caps comparison.

Well, I sat down with the BFI tonight and thought it looked quite poor. It’s sharper and (I think) better encoded, but I found the grain super unnatural and super distracting. The grain comes and goes, and clumps/moves along the edges of people/objects moving in the frame. The BFI also has more damage. I don’t have the Olive for comparison.

I ended up switching to the Kino 4k, which with all its problems, I found more pleasing (ugh). It’s horrendously encoded. It looks like an mpeg-2 encode at 10% of the actual bit rate. Really a shame they messed up so badly. I’m not sure how anything like this passes QC.

So, pick your poison, but I very begrudgingly pick the Kino as my favorite.

Geoff D on the other forum has the Italian BD from 2014 and considers that one the best even though it’s not perfect either. Unfortunately the disc is long OOP and the distributor has since reissued it as part of a limited edition on a newly authored BD-50. If that re-encode is any better is anyone’s guess and they might’ve ”upgraded” to what Olive Signature, BFI etc. used.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Invasion ... ray/96729/

[Costa]

Does anyone know what is the next best thing for Rambo Trilogy, after the Italian UHDs?
Those don't have English subtitles and I need them.
How are the German ones?

[nicolas]

Does anyone know what is the next best thing for Rambo Trilogy, after the Italian UHDs?
Those don't have English subtitles and I need them.
How are the German ones?

The Lionsgate UHDs look good to me, as in here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 4&i=12&l=0

[nicolas]

Alexander Payne’s Election is a modest 4K upgrade compared to the Criterion: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... &page=4#68
The poster claimed that it doesn’t look too good in HDR10 but for Paramount these screenshots look really good already.
Areas like the sky in cap 5 (first post) are probably affected the most and look better in DV.

[M-A]

Does anyone know what is the next best thing for Rambo Trilogy, after the Italian UHDs?
Those don't have English subtitles and I need them.
How are the German ones?

The Lionsgate UHDs look good to me, as in here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 4&i=12&l=0

The Lionsgate discs are different encodes than the StudioCanal ones but are equally terrible - just terrible in different spots, like here:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=55 ... &i=18&go=1

Cliff from Lionsgate said they are working on a whole new Rambo set which should be the definitive release when it eventually comes out. I would wait for it.

[nicolas]

Does anyone know what is the next best thing for Rambo Trilogy, after the Italian UHDs?
Those don't have English subtitles and I need them.
How are the German ones?

The Lionsgate UHDs look good to me, as in here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 4&i=12&l=0

The Lionsgate discs are different encodes than the StudioCanal ones but are equally terrible - just terrible in different spots, like here:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=55 ... &i=18&go=1

Cliff from Lionsgate said they are working on a whole new Rambo set which should be the definitive release when it eventually comes out. I would wait for it.

Good God, that’s horrendous. I picked 5 random caps and they all looked good

Hopefully that new Rambo set is still on track as it’s been a while since we last heard about it.

[Finch]

Election 4K added to the Good to Great in Dolby Vision column impressions and caps

[Forrest Taft]

The Lionsgate UHDs look good to me, as in here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 4&i=12&l=0

The Lionsgate discs are different encodes than the StudioCanal ones but are equally terrible - just terrible in different spots, like here:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=55 ... &i=18&go=1

Cliff from Lionsgate said they are working on a whole new Rambo set which should be the definitive release when it eventually comes out. I would wait for it.

Good God, that’s horrendous. I picked 5 random caps and they all looked good

Hopefully that new Rambo set is still on track as it’s been a while since we last heard about it.

If you want English subtitles, that would be another reason to avoid the Liongsate-releases. They do have English subs, but they are the most bizarre subs I know of, constantly rewriting the dialogue. "They drew first blood, not me" becomes "They shot first!", etc.

[dwk]

Sounds like instead of doing a proper English SDH track, someone took a set of subtitles in another language, like French, and translated those into English. Which might be what StudioCanal did with Ran, create French subtitles for the Japanese dialogue and translated those French subtitles into English. Instead of doing a proper Japanese-to-English translation.

[MichaelB]

When I subtitled Buffalo Bill and the Indians for Indicator, the official StudioCanal transcript significantly simplified the dialogue, presumably with translation in mind.

So I could easily have just reproduced that, especially given the challenges of transcribing that glorious frontier vernacular by ear - but I doubt that anyone would have thanked me for taking the easy option, and in any case my colleagues would have flagged it up in QC. The hardest part, unexpectedly, was that German opera aria sung towards the end - it's a pretty famous aria, but it's usually performed in the original Italian, and I was just about to solicit the services of a native German speaker (we were after a transcription rather than a translation) when Google Books furnished me with a 19th-century German translation that turned out to match what was being sung syllable for syllable.

But most subtitlers don't go to those lengths - and, in fairness, they're usually not expected to.