UHD New Releases, Reissues and Upgrades

[tenia]

The issue with VS seems wider-ranging than just skin tones, but otherwise yes, it's similar.

[Finch]

Maybe ask Indicator about the Renasci gradings? I can't imagine them not having done their due diligence and they were satisfied that those gradings were either what the director wanted or historically accurate or both.

[tenia]

I actually mailed them a quick question about that some time ago, but never had a response. It might be worth asking again, though.

Now, I don't know whether they might be faithful or not, but after a while, it does end up looking like some kind of lab color signature, which is what bothers me.

[nicolas]

Were the Renasci titles graded by the same colorist? I’ve stumbled across the name Susumu Asano multiple times with Indicator and his grades happen to be similar to how you described them. He’s a freelance colorist who works for multiple companies, including Filmfinity. A recent example is Cutter’s Way for Radiance and these caps show a preference towards magenta in particular.

[Lowry_Sam]

In this comparison, the Radiance is clearly better as the Fun City looks washed out (as well as having less detail).

[thebatman97080]

I don't detect any sort of magenta bias on the Cutter's Way Radiance and this is coming from someone who despises magenta/neutralized masters. It just looks warm and brown to me.


In Chris' review below, he gave it high marks and thought the coloring resembled something achieved photochemically.

https://www.criterionforum.org/review/c ... plus-bd-us

[nicolas]

In this comparison, the Radiance is clearly better as the Fun City looks washed out (as well as having less detail).

It would've been mighty disappointing if Radiance's presentation didn't have a bigger dynamic range or reveal more detail than the Fun City master. After all, Radiance's master was sourced from a 4K negative scan rather than FC's 2K interpositive scan and the inevitable downscale to 1080p HD.

I don't detect any sort of magenta bias on the Cutter's Way Radiance and this is coming from someone who despises magenta/neutralized masters. It just looks warm and brown to me.

Exactly that's the issue. It looks brown (and magenta) across the vast majority of these caps and the Fun City does not. I think the difference is so drastic that I have a hard time believing the sudden shift towards these pinkish browns without solid evidence.

Anyway, to get back to the topic without getting unnecessarily hanged up in what I just named as one example and aspects that weren't up for debate anyway, tenia's point was about grades from labs or colorists that lean towards similar color schemes across different films from different eras etc. (and don't seem to have been based on photochemical sources). In other words, the question is about whether Renasci, Filmfinity (and / or their affiliated colorists) are also practicing what infamous French or Italian labs have done for years with their signature flourishes but only with a bias towards magenta, pink and neutralized grades rather than steely blue or yellow ones as in Eclair or Ritrovata's case.

[nicolas]

Soldier (Arrow) - caps
Innerspace (Arrow) - caps

Sony omitted the LFE channel in their Moneyball 4K just like Groove but the latter got a replacement disc. Let's see if they fix it as well. Several Lionsgate titles have been encoded with lossy Dolby Digital tracks for the OG audio, which is also under review at Lionsgate for Leprechaun in particular.

[nicolas]

The Mechanic (Kino) - caps

[Finch]

The Big Combo (Ignite) caps

[nicolas]

Matador (Radiance) - my thoughts

[senseabove]

The Big Combo (Ignite) caps

NB: these caps are the BD. I spot-checked the UHD and it looked very nice—better than these BD caps led me to expect—so probably worth waiting for those caps if folks are on the fence.

[Lowry_Sam]

I picked up the Arrow not long after its 2017 release. There does seem to be some improvements (finer grain, more shadows), but the Arrow contains more of the frame and has more detail (clarity of typeface in sign in first image) in some instances, I think I'll wait to see if anyone else puts out a UHD before shelling out $50 for a BD-66 upgrade.

[Finch]

The Big Combo (Ignite) caps

NB: these caps are the BD. I spot-checked the UHD and it looked very nice—better than these BD caps led me to expect—so probably worth waiting for those caps if folks are on the fence.

You need to click on each cap again to get the UHD cap and click again to switch back to the BD. Unless I completely misunderstood what you said.

[yoloswegmaster]

The screencaps for the Ignite version are not from the UHD disc. It says that it's from the BD.

[Finch]

I missed that completely. I had assumed it said Ignite UHD. My bad!

[nicolas]

Heads up for anyone wanting to buy Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love in 4K. MUBI produced different discs and encodes with different specs for the three territories they release physical discs in:

The US disc has only English 5.1 and 2.0 sound, the UK disc has Atmos, 5.1 and 2.0 and the German disc has only lossy DTS 5.1 and 2.0. Video bitrates are different too but not that significantly. A similar thing happened with Queer - they also did two encodes but only the UK disc has lossless English audio.

[hearthesilence]

Quick question - is there any way to re-use the exact same encode of the actual feature film when pressing Blu-rays for different territories that have different menus and extras? Or is it inherently impossible - you have to do a completely new encode since it's about the entire contents of the disc, not something that's done in sections or segments?

[nicolas]

Yes, that’s possible and happens when labels share encodes. You can have different audio tracks, menu layouts, bonus etc. while carrying over the exact same feature encode. Recent example: The Straight Story by Studiocanal.

MUBI could’ve produced one disc for all territories just like most multi-territory studio releases these days and called it a day but their authoring house seems to be utterly clueless unless they do the work in-house and don’t know better themselves.

[hearthesilence]

I'm puzzled as to why it's not more common - presumably it would be more labor and thus more costs if you re-encode the entire feature. (tbf this isn't bad if the original encode is lacking.)

[Finch]

Matador (Radiance)

[MichaelB]

Quick question - is there any way to re-use the exact same encode of the actual feature film when pressing Blu-rays for different territories that have different menus and extras? Or is it inherently impossible - you have to do a completely new encode since it's about the entire contents of the disc, not something that's done in sections or segments?

Yes, and I've done it myself plenty of times.

The first time was when I was charged with overseeing US editions of Immoral Tales and The Beast. I couldn't literally clone the UK releases because the supporting short films had been licensed to Olive, so instead I went through all the extras in Arrow's five-disc Walerian Borowczyk box set, flagging up those that Arrow owned outright (the ones produced in-house), picked out ones that were a decent match for the main features, and then instructed David Mackenzie to author two new discs based entirely around the existing encodes of the features and extras—the originals were fine, so there was no point reinventing the wheel.

And indeed right now I'm working on Macabre, which is a joint Indicator/Vinegar Syndrome project, and I believe that although the individual discs will have their own label-specific menus (and possibly subtitles, as the ones that I oversaw for Indicator are in British English), the actual AV encodes will be the exact same files regardless of which label is favoured.

[nicolas]

The Ninth Gate (Lionsgate Limited & Imprint) - caps. Much better contrast and grain exposure but the grade is a bit questionable as it skews heavily towards magenta in some caps and the encode looks low-pass filtered. They also encoded the OG 5.1 as lossy Dolby Digital. Lionsgate and the upcoming Imprint have the same discs.

[nicolas]

Tarkovsky’s Stalker and Solaris will be released in 4K Dolby Vision by German label Filmjuwelen. I’d recommend to ignore these releases as they’re very, very likely going to be (AI) upscales of the current masters. The same label put the films out on Blu-ray less than a year ago. They’ve been doing the same practice with Arlington Road and The Mothman Prophecies and apparently it works.

[rrenault]

Tarkovsky’s Stalker and Solaris will be released in 4K Dolby Vision by German label Filmjuwelen. I’d recommend to ignore these releases as they’re very, very likely going to be (AI) upscales of the current masters. The same label put the films out on Blu-ray less than a year ago. They’ve been doing the same practice with Arlington Road and The Mothman Prophecies and apparently it works.

Even if these Tarkovsky UHD releases in Germany do end up using proper 4K restorations, it'll only be a matter of time before they get one-upped by US/UK, or even French, editions. So one is probably best off waiting for Criterion/Curzon either way.

Side note: A supposedly 4k-sourced blu-ray of Stalker was released in Japan in 2024, but MosFilm posted the 4k stream online less than a year ago. It seems unlikely a Japanese company could licence it for physical release before MosFilm released it themselves.