UHD New Releases, Reissues and Upgrades

[cdnchris]

Criterion's 4K looks fantastic, as do the other two films in the set (Baby Boy ended up really surprising me). I only owned the Sony Blu-ray, not the 4K, so couldn't compare, but figured they'd have to look similar. That's wild how much weaker the Sony looks.

Same for Life of Brian. I remembered the Blu-ray didn't look great (better than Criterion's DVD), but wow, it's freaking terrible on revisit. Looking at the thread on the other forum, I'm seeing people argue that one looks better because of sharpening and noise reduction, which is just an insane take.

[andyli]

Criterion's 4K looks fantastic, as do the other two films in the set (Baby Boy ended up really surprising me). I only owned the Sony Blu-ray, not the 4K, so couldn't compare, but figured they'd have to look similar. That's wild how much weaker the Sony looks.

Same for Life of Brian. I remembered the Blu-ray didn't look great (better than Criterion's DVD), but wow, it's freaking terrible on revisit. Looking at the thread on the other forum, I'm seeing people argue that one looks better because of sharpening and noise reduction, which is just an insane take.

The Sony 4K looks weaker in comparison.

[nicolas]

You can’t make this up any more. Geoff D mentioned that Kino’s Dead Again 4K is also most likely in a wrong color space as the BD has considerably richer colors.

[tenia]

And some people still wonder why people like me try to avoid Kino's UHD like the plague : because nobody should have to gamble their money on something that has a 50/50 chance to have basic issues like this.

[Maltic]

Pardon me if this has come up before, but could Finch's overview of disappointing and worse than disappointing releases be moved to page #1 in this thread? I often have trouble finding it, and IMO it's nice to be able to use the search function with everything in the same page.

At the moment, those lists are in post #107 (page 5) in this thread.

[Finch]

I don't know how to move posts but sometime last year I did put a link to the Disappointing UHDs in the original post. That should help you find it quickly until another mod moves the post.

[Finch]

John Singleton's Hood Trilogy (Criterion) added to OP

[Maltic]

Yes, thanks, I just noticed the link!

[tenia]

I also see this in the Disappointing category : 1984 (France) - DNR, the German Capelight is best.

It's not just DNR, but a combination of DNR and EE applied through AI-led tools. Not your usual DNR, but something even more bothering in-motion.

[nicolas]

The Phantom (Kino) - guess what’s wrong with it…

[tenia]

At this point, it's a modus operandi.

[Fus1on]

A Kino release with bad encoding and color timing??

Let me tell you, I'm flabbergasted that such a thing could happen...

[therewillbeblus]

Some KL 4K releases are good, i.e. Diva, Danger: Diabolik, but it feels like most of the focus is on the crumby ones (and the recent well-reviewed ones don't even get added to the OP)

[nicolas]

They don’t get added to the OP because of lacking input from trustworthy sources. A problem is also that it feels like pixel peepers aren’t too keen on supporting them any more - not just myself but also people like Geoff D who used to provide reviews and analysis in the past. There’s been a debate going on about Kino’s issues in the BR KL thread for almost two weeks now, which is unprecedented as that thread has always been a fairytale oasis for their most loyal fans who successfully managed to shield Kino and their Insider but the KLI’s latest multi-faceted attack on those who call them out for their errors unleashed something. It’s behavior like this that makes me not want to promote any of their releases at all even more than avoiding them for their disc mastering errors as they don’t have any respect for their customers.

[therewillbeblus]

Interesting, wasn't aware of the lack of input, makes sense

[Finch]

Yeah, I kept checking for reliable sources on the Diva 4K and didn't see anyone confirming what the encode was like. Even several weeks past the release it was all tumbleweeds. But that's the risk Kino were taking with their quantity over quality approach that eventually people would get burned so often that the occasional decent disc is going to go unnoticed. I'm honestly relieved that major titles are going to other labels instead and even the good discs almost invariably get bettered, like Danger Diabolik. The only thing Kino have got going for them is customers fear that a rare/underseen film isn't going to get released elsewhere and theirs is the only chance to own it.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah, as someone not biased against the company, I'd ideally like to have confirmation when there's comparable releases. I'm happy to support MoC's Danger Diabolik, but if it's going to look and have most features similar to KL's - on sale for over half the price - I'd like to consider that as well. But I appreciate the situation if the discs aren't being reviewed by reputable people and no one here has an interest in doing so either

[Finch]

It doesn't help your conundrum that the reputable reviewers tastes are heavily leaning towards the mainstream and catalogue titles than indie art house like Diva.

Even with some genre titles it can take a while. I still haven't seen any caps for Salem's Lot anywhere and it's been out for almost a month. Or are there?

[andyli]

The titles with issue(s) seem to be those "first of the world" releases they prepared. Studio Canal stuff like Diva and Port of Shadows should be relatively safe, no? That said, I've got Diva from the current sale and will post my impression once I see it.

The thing I plan to do going forward with Kino 4K: go for their Blu-ray edition (same restoration, all extras included) if in doubt. Should no other labels issue a superior 4K edition during the course of Kino's license period I could always go grab the 4K at sale price before they went OOP.

[Finch]

That's very sensible. I feel more comfortable buying a Blu-ray from them than their UHDs though to be fair, their Melvilles are good (mainly because their encoder seems not to struggle with SDR only titles), and Studio Canal's own record with French films is mixed. Luckily, Port of Shadows turned out great. I don't know if Kino did their own encode but the French import is English friendly, down to the extras.

[nicolas]

The only Port of Shadows caps I’m aware of are from the BR site review. The BD looks fine to me but even in the downscaled 4K caps, you can clearly see the encoding shortcomings which the SC luckily doesn’t have.

[Finch]

The Grapes of Death & The Living Dead Girl (Indicator)

EDIT: also added Dead Kids and The Survivor

[nicolas]

Quigley Down Under (Capelight) - caps

DeepStar Six (Plaion) - my impressions. Plaion fixed Kino’s errors. Excellent release but it’s only for the blue tier as there’s not as much fine detail in the master as we’ve come to expect from high quality 4K transfers. Either Kino / Studiocanal didn’t use the negative or the scan wasn’t the best.

[tenia]

The Grapes of Death & The Living Dead Girl (Indicator)
EDIT: also added Dead Kids and The Survivor

On these 4, it is interesting to see that the 2 Rollins are from Silver Salt, while the 2 Aussies are from Renasci, and that it shows from a color-grading POV. I've grown to not be convinced by Renasci's gradings, which I think are structurally pushing skin tones way too pink and saturated, in a way that is constant from project to project. They've done quite some Australian titles now, and every one I've seen of this Aussie / Renasci combination left me perplexed by the gradings, including Dead Kids and The Survivor. Same goes for the Jean Rollin titles they've handled, unlike the Rollin titles handled by other labs (Silver Salt, Film Finity and Final Frame Post).

[yoloswegmaster]

I've grown to not be convinced by Renasci's gradings, which I think are structurally pushing skin tones way too pink and saturated, in a way that is constant from project to project.

Isn't this the problem that VS have with the restorations that they do and how they seem to push towards reds?