UHD New Releases, Reissues and Upgrades

[Finch]

Heads-up on Dolby Vision display issues on the Panasonic UB820 for the HK cut of Rumble in the Bronx where it's a black screen (like Arrow 's TCM2 and The Eye UHDs) and heavy flickering on the HK cut of First Strike on one user's Sony X700 so far.

I still haven't seen any acknowledgement from Arrow yet if the 4.0 and 5.1 tracks on the Audition UHD are going to be fixed. The 2.0 track is fine.

[rrenault]

The Pornographers is a great disc. I wanted to post in the release thread as well and post it here once I’m able to open the disc for screenshots. The master is SDR with fine grain, a beautiful grayscale and excellent audio. I’m not sure if this was communicated here but Radiance actually did the restoration. The BD is very good too but I noticed a nice uptick in fine detail when I checked the 4K afterwards. The Tony Rayns interview runs 47 minutes and is a career overview.

As I’m on a limited budget, I’m still waiting to hear what the word is on BFI’s Rocco and His Brothers UHD. If it turns out to be a negligible upgrade over Eureka’s bluray, then I’ll go ahead and pick up The Pornographers!

[nicolas]

Explorers (Vinegar Syndrome) - caps and comparison video

[Finch]

The Flintstones (Shout) caps

[andyli]

Why are the WB UHDs of 2001 and The Shining still in the red column? Aren’t those acknowledged to be flawed, due to color grading issues(the “Nolan restoration”) in the case of the former and audio and AR issues with respect to the latter?

I seem to remember reading somewhere (could be in this very thread) that the 2001 4K is not the same as the "Nolan restoration", which is pretty much about striking a new print and showing in selected cinema.

[tenia]

My memory also is that the 2001 UHD doesn't use Nolan's restoration.

[nicolas]

Nolan and Hoyte van Hoytema were involved in creating “unrestored” prints for cinemas and according to Geoff D he wanted to be involved in overseeing the 4K master for the UHD as well, which WB didn’t initially plan.

As this was still relatively early in the 4K era and soon after he remastered his own films, 2001 shares some of the mastering quirks. At the time, Nolan was bothered by scanner noise that made his images noisier than intended, which led him to use DNR on Batman Begins in particular. It’s been a while since I watched 2001 but there are instances of DNR as well. The color grade is another point of contention as it doesn’t really match what people saw on 35mm prints but Nolan’s “unrestored” prints apparently didn’t either. Here’s WB’s trailer for the Nolan prints:

2001 Unrestored YouTube Trailer.

[nicolas]

It Was Just an Accident (Criterion) Chris' review

The Front (Sony) caps

Marty Supreme (Metropolitan) tenia's review. Added to the international list

Early word on Arrow's Bullet to the Head and What Dreams May Come (Shout) is also positive.

[nitin]

Any word yet on BFI's Rocco and His Brothers? Mine shipped last week but I am overseas atm.

Also, I have Curzon's Breaking the Waves which I understand to be a SDR disc. However my system (Panasonic UB820 and Sony Bravia 9) recognise it as a Dolby Vision disc and play it in DV mode. Everything looks ok colour wise so maybe its just a weird flagging issue but does anyone else get this?

[tenia]

Marty Supreme (Metropolitan) tenia's review. Added to the international list

Wait, wait, wait on this one : the UHD isn't decrypted yet and this review solely is for the BD at the moment, which is why it doesn't have my usual heatmaps and WCG captures. The only thing I can vouch for so far is that I didn't notice any compression issue, but this is when watching the UHD downconverted to SDR (and I can't say yet if it's DV FEL or MEL).

[nicolas]

Any word yet on BFI's Rocco and His Brothers? Mine shipped last week but I am overseas atm.

Also, I have Curzon's Breaking the Waves which I understand to be a SDR disc. However my system (Panasonic UB820 and Sony Bravia 9) recognise it as a Dolby Vision disc and play it in DV mode. Everything looks ok colour wise so maybe its just a weird flagging issue but does anyone else get this?

No info yet re. the Rocco 4K. Curzon's Breaking the Waves is a SDR disc. Check your TV settings for one that forces non-HDR content into DV similar to what's usually available for upmixing audio.

Marty Supreme (Metropolitan) tenia's review. Added to the international list

Wait, wait, wait on this one : the UHD isn't decrypted yet and this review solely is for the BD at the moment, which is why it doesn't have my usual heatmaps and WCG captures. The only thing I can vouch for so far is that I didn't notice any compression issue, but this is when watching the UHD downconverted to SDR (and I can't say yet if it's DV FEL or MEL).

Damn, now that I've for once noticed a 4K review on your site (even though you have a few available already!), I've been too early. Feel free to update once you're ready. Can I add your other 4K reviews to the list?

[tenia]

Yes you can add them, no problem for me.

Marty Supreme is the one case (so far) where I didn't want to push back furthermore the publication, but still want to add the UHD details. I set up the page to accomodate for an update, and will simplify it as a BD-only review if the disc is too long to get decryptable.

[nitin]

Curzon's Breaking the Waves is a SDR disc. Check your TV settings for one that forces non-HDR content into DV similar to what's usually available for upmixing audio.

None of my other SDR discs do this so it should not be a settings issue, all my other SDR discs display in Rec 709 SDR.

It does look fine colour wise and very SDR so maybe its just a weird issue I dont need to be too concerned about

[Finch]

People are starting to get their copies of Rocco and the booklet credits FiM with the encode. Shouldn't be much longer before we get some caps.

[Finch]

Wait, wait, wait on this one : the UHD isn't decrypted yet and this review solely is for the BD at the moment, which is why it doesn't have my usual heatmaps and WCG captures. The only thing I can vouch for so far is that I didn't notice any compression issue, but this is when watching the UHD downconverted to SDR (and I can't say yet if it's DV FEL or MEL).

tenia, could you also let us know if you get to review the French UHD of Oddity, and if it's any good and if the French subs can be turned off?

[tenia]

I won't review this one, sorry.

[nicolas]

tenia, could you also let us know if you get to review the French UHD of Oddity, and if it's any good and if the French subs can be turned off?

Take it with a grain of salt but the other forum’s database lists forced subtitles, which could mean both burnt-in subs and those you can move out of the frame with some players. I quickly went through some of their other 4K releases and they seemingly have regular subtitles. The French BD release is mentioned as having regular subs, so I’d say the 4K is probably the same.

[tenia]

Forced subs could be one thing. Burnt-in, I doubt it, I don't think BHQL have done a single release with burnt-in subs.

[nicolas]

Unfortunately BR.com doesn’t separate between the two, which is totally ridiculous when it’s such an easy distinction but it needs someone actually bothering to check or knowing the difference.

Spoiler

For example, their reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman always mentions forced subtitles even when they are burnt in, such as with many Cohen releases. For his reviews, he also conveniently (or deliberately?) made screenshots from moments without any spoken words, which is quite an achievement in a Jacques Rivette film or Bertrand Tavernier’s My Journey Through French Cinema for example. I’ve checked numerous of his reviews and couldn’t believe my eyes. Some time later, I noticed that he interacted with someone in the forum about the forced vs. burnt-in debate where he clearly revealed that he didn’t know the difference. I’ve then kindly explained and pointed out a few examples among the titles he reviewed he can check for himself when he imports the discs and, well, sees the subtitles burnt into the image in his player software. To my amusement, Kauffman said that the spec on the other forum is labeled “forced” and that’s why reviewers use it for whenever subs aren’t optional (even though it clearly doesn’t stop others over there from bothering to check). At the same time he threatened me with a ban because I “advocated for ripping discs”. I guess the labels whose titles he reviews send him screenshots to use in his review.

[MichaelB]

I haven't encountered genuinely burned-in subtitles as an unremovable part of the video encode for many, many years now.

Or at least not the main feature; I'm a lot more understanding if it happens with extras, given the typically tiny budgets involved (both licensing and production). And sometimes it's unavoidably part of the source, as in those extras licensed from INA in France that invariably have burned-in French subtitles as per the original broadcast, although I seriously doubt that the original unsubtitled footage survives.

[nicolas]

Last year, I've made a list of Cohen Blu-rays with burnt-in subtitles. They were all encoded after they switched their distribution and authoring to Kino Lorber:

- Entre Nous
- Going Places
- Journeys Through French Cinema
- Love on the Ground
- Monsieur Hire
- Secret Defense
- Symphony for a Massacre

Another more recent example of a release with burnt-in subtitles is the French Joanna Hogg Blu-ray collection. Cases like this still seem to appear once in a while and typically from poor authoring providers.

[MichaelB]

Assuming Going Places is what I know as Les Valseuses, the French BD doesn't have burned-in subtitles, but it also doesn't have English subtitles at all.

(Although it does have French SDH ones, so the Oppo subtitle-replacement trick works for me.)

[domino harvey]

It is. I have the original Kino Blu Ray release, I can check later to see if the subs were removable on that one