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I actually do have the Synapse UHD, which I bought 'blind', but I'm not actually sure about keeping it, since it's not exactly "my kind of movie", but the image quality of the disc is absolutely stunning.

I've seen many video editions of Suspiria over the years, but the Synapse is the only one that looks like what I remember vividly from two 35mm screenings circa 1983/4.

MichaelB wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 11:24 pm Presumably "the DoP" is Sławomir Idziak, as Edward Kłosiński and Piotr Sobociński (who shot White and Red) are both dead.

To clarify:

Blue was supervised by Sławomir Idziak, the original cinematographer. (I assume Idziak did similar honours for the 4K restoration of The Double Life of Veronique.

Red was supervised by Piotr Sobociński Jr and Michał Sobociński, two excellent cinematographers in their own right. (The Sobocińskis are an exceptionally distinguished family in that regard - grandfather Witold shot many great 1960s/70s classics, including Wojciech Has's The Hourglass Sanatorium).

White doesn't seem to have had similarly qualified input into the grading, but a 35mm archive print was used as a colour reference.

I've only watched Blue so far so can't speak for the other films, but this is being completely blown out of proportion, and honestly this looks WAY better. I came into this expecting some Ritrovata piss-yellow thing and that's not at all what this is in any shape or form. Honestly, it looks like the colours have been corrected if anything.

Looking at it now the colours look really pasty on the Blu-ray, as though they tried to neutralize or balance them out and this leads to a handful of scenes being almost entirely drained of colour. For example, 33-minutes in, when Binoche is in the cafe, it has a far heavier yellow/sepia tint on the 4K for sure, but it really looks like a byproduct of the lighting in the scene. Outside the window you can see people passing in the street and oddly the colours outside end up looking more neutral when compared to the interior, whites looking more like white if just warmer. There's also a moment where the server's arm comes into the scene and his white sleeve is not as "yellow/sepia" as everything else, as though it's being lit differently. The Blu-ray's presentation of this scene shows no sign of any of this nuance. It's completely neutralized and drains just about all of the colour out of it, except for the exterior where there is a slight hint of colour, though not much. Everything in the scene is balanced about the same and it might as well be black-and-white with a sepia tint.

As expected, filters were also used for a lot of exterior shots, which is clear on the 4K, but it's less evident on the Blu-ray more than likely because they tried to neutralize everything on it.

And tenia is right about there being a magenta/pink push. The scene where Binoche attempts to swallow a bunch of pills early on has a slight pink-ish hue to it on the Blu-ray whereas the 4K dumps that. It looks more beige, granted, but range is wider and the scene does look better.

Blues still look fine, too. That interior swimming pool shot looks fantastic.

Whether it's "correct" or not I can't say, but I'm more than positive now the Blu-ray is not right. Whatever the case I very much prefer this presentation. Again, this is nothing at all like the questionable gradings of other restorations where they drain out blues or amp up reds/greens or whatever. There's more nuance in here through the lighting.

Are the Blu-rays packaged with the UHDs the same as the old release or remasters?

With the caveat that I haven't done a full deep-dive comparison yet (and I've only looked at Blue so far), it looks to be the same disc, same encode and everything.

EDIT: looking closer, it is basically the same disc, same time stamps and everything on the files.

Sławomir Idziak is one of the greatest colour stylists of the last half-century (A Short Film About Killing, The Double Life of Veronique, Three Colours: Blue, Gattaca, Black Hawk Down, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and if he personally signed off on the grade for the Blue UHD that's more than good enough for me.

(It's weirdly fascinating watching Black Hawk Down knowing that we're looking through the same eyes that shot three of Kieślowski's most visually distinctive films, and I gather from interviews that Ridley Scott gave Idziak a huge amount of creative freedom - which makes perfect sense: a director as visually literate as Scott isn't going to hire a cinematographer like that and not give him his head.)

Thanks for the feedback on Blue, Chris. Between Idziak's comments and yours, I'm more inclined towards upgrading, assuming the restos for White and Red get a pass from people who are intimately familiar with both films (which I'm not; I never saw them theatrically in the 90s and only ever knew the Criterion BD presentations). I noticed from your Facebook photos that the UHD/BD combo set was quite a bit chunkier than the BD only set, so need more shelf space, too.

In non-Three Colors news, a BR user's positive take with a caveat on the French UHD of Letter from an Unknown Woman

DiabolikDVD tweeted that the German UHD of Bava's Planet of the Vampires is region B locked.

Finch wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 2:16 am In non-Three Colors news, a BR user's positive take with a caveat on the French UHD of Letter from an Unknown Woman

You mean there's stuff happening in physical media land aside from Criterion's Three Colors 4K?

Coming back to Blue (sorry), I had wanted to post a comparison before but wasn't able to take captures of the 4K until now.

The thing that really sucks here is that HDR/Dolby Vision really helps with colours and shadows, so these screen grabs (which I shrunk down to 1080) are still not ideal, but I'm trying to show more why I'm positive the Blu-ray is not right to begin with quickly, and it's this scene in the cafe that leads me to think that (along with other similar moments). Frustratingly, in DV the outside shows more range in colour, but you can still make out the blue in the jacket and the whites are warm but not completely obliterated as they are in the cafe, suggesting the lighting is different.


The Blu-ray is completely washed out and the interior is pretty much a sepia hue. Greens sneak in there, but that's about it. If you took the 4K and desaturated it I'd feel you'd basically get what the Blu-ray presents. The contrast just tells me it was lit in a manner that would yield something along the lines of what the 4K shows.


Also I'm including these to show blues. The top one is the 4K, the bottom is the blu-ray. There's more pink/violet in the Blu-ray.



Again, not saying the 4K is 100% correct, but using the Blu-ray as the base comparison is ridiculous.

(Ha, and I forgot how off the framing was for the Blu-ray. Jesus.)

Thanks for sharing, Chris. As someone who does color correction and post production, that cafe scene on the blu-ray is so unbelievably wrong. The effect the blu-ray goes for wouldn't have been achievable in camera. You can tell it's overly-corrected on the Blu to be more neutral, barely holding on to an inch of its life. The spectrum of colors they tried to pull out obviously aren't present in the negative/print they scanned.

And if there’s one thing that Sławomir Idziak’s cinematography isn’t, it’s neutral!

I received the Three Colors set and took a look at White in UHD. It looks really good to me. Svet Atanasov's review seems far off the mark, and his screen captures look dull compared to what I am seeing on my television. The image looks well-balanced and has nice contrast. The range of whites in the film seem to reflect the specific lighting conditions and use of filters--some are very pure whites and others are more creamy. Nothing looks inappropriate. Evidently the film was graded carefully on a shot-by-shot basis.

The wedding sequence does have more of a creamy appearance, but I'm not sure that is wrong, and anyway I think it's better to look at the big picture rather than dwell on one very brief sequence.

Vinegar Syndrome's From Beyond has correct skintones and a good encode.

Geoff reviews the Dolby Vision upgrade of Groundhog Day.

And a clarifying comment on Kino's Eternal Sunshine UHD.

Comments on the colors of Kino's The Italian Job are all over the place.

The German UHD of Decision To Leave is not English-friendly; the distributor hints this was at the request of the Korean rightsholder.

Dazed and Confused (Criterion)

Chris's review

screengrabs from Arrow's The Last Emperor

No one has negatively commented on Scream's encoding of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead in the three (or four?) weeks the disc has been out and everyone who has watched the film is happy with the presentation.

I asked about this a while back, but never got a reply. Concerning Shout's 4K release of the Halloween films, how does a non-AV-technical person like myself spot bad compression?
Also, I remember before the list was edited to its current form, you wrote that Pan's Labyrinth was heavily DNR'd. I notice that for example Blu-ray.com writes

Still, this new 2160p transfer clearly serves up a more crisp and satisfying presentation overall, thanks as much to its lack of DNR as the format's higher resolution.

And many other sites do not mention anything about DNR being applied. I do not doubt that it is still true, but I find these contradictions – especially with one review claiming «lack of DNR» – a little weird.

And last, how do 3:10 to Yuma, 1917, Braveheart, Dune (2021), Hacksaw Ridge, the Ip Man films (all four), all of the Star Wars films (including Rogue One and Solo), Unforgiven and Warrior (2011) compare to their previous BD counterparts?

Ask MA regarding Pan's Labyrinth: he advocated for it to be downgraded. I'll say that I find most official reviews not trustworthy, especially from Blu-Ray.com. Users like Geoff D and samlop10 come across as a lot more knowledgeable and with more discerning eyes.

I'll try cover as many of your titles as possible in this post as I have to head off to work soon.

3:10 to Yuma: Geoff's review

The enclosed BD is the old Lionsgate disc which is easily bettered by Sony's European BD. Geoff is not entirely clear as to which BD he is comparing the UHD to but it sounds like it's mostly the Lionsgate. I get the impression that most people's top choice for this film is the Sony Blu-Ray.

Couldn't find meaningful comparisons between the UHD and BD for 1917 (and I just spent 20 mins skim-reading posts about the merits of 1917 against other contemporary war movies). Maybe someone else can comment?

Braveheart: seems to be a faithful reproduction of the film but Geoff was not excited by it

I need to get back to the other titles another day unless someone else chimes in first.

Mire wrote: Sun Feb 19, 2023 11:40 amAnd last, how [does]...Unforgiven...compare to [its] previous BD counterparts?

IIRC it's supposed to be a good improvement thanks to HDR.

hearthesilence wrote:

Mire wrote: Sun Feb 19, 2023 11:40 amAnd last, how [does]...Unforgiven...compare to [its] previous BD counterparts?

IIRC it's supposed to be a good improvement thanks to HDR.

I vividly remember some pretty extreme contrast from multiple 35mm screenings (bright exteriors, dimly lit interiors in the same shot) that only the 4K UHD managed to replicate in a way that matched those memories.

Unforgiven (WB) added to OP

Warrior (2011) Geoff's review

Hacksaw Ridge if compared to the US Blu-Ray which everyone says is dreadful but the UK BD is supposedly excellent so set against that one, the UHD is solid.

Geoff capsule review