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tenia wrote: Sat Aug 02, 2025 7:59 am I'm more worried by the discussions about whether this might not be a film reconstruction but an upscaled 2k DI.
And the neutered Atmos track of one of the most renowned home video soundtracks would be a shame too.

Finch wrote: Sun Aug 03, 2025 2:09 am Is the original track still intact?

Finch wrote: Sun Aug 03, 2025 2:47 pm That makes me doubly glad I kept the digibook Blu-Ray (with the bonus DVD). The OG track was one of the most immersive tracks I've ever heard. I'm going to pass on this 4K after all.

ShempTCat wrote: Sun Aug 03, 2025 4:43 pm Is there any word on the quality of Kino's Danger: Diabolik disc?

ShempTCat wrote: Sun Aug 03, 2025 4:43 pm Is there any word on the quality of Kino's Danger: Diabolik disc?

The producers of this new 4K edition have taken it upon themselves to make some minor ‘improvements’ of their own. We noticed three. None are shocking deal-breakers or even big disappointments. We’re not sure any were really necessary.

Fus1on wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 9:29 am Hearts of Darkness (Studio Canal) - Might be one of the biggest surprises of the year for me so far. Having seen these caps, I'm even more happy that I decided to pull the trigger on this (although $60 USD for it is kinda ridiculous). Studio Canal apparently even went to the effort of replacing the footage from Apocalypse Now with material from the new 4K restoration with the correct aspect ratio.

Fus1on wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 9:29 am Hearts of Darkness (Studio Canal) - Might be one of the biggest surprises of the year for me so far. Having seen these caps, I'm even more happy that I decided to pull the trigger on this (although $60 USD for it is kinda ridiculous). Studio Canal apparently even went to the effort of replacing the footage from Apocalypse Now with material from the new 4K restoration with the correct aspect ratio.

rrenault wrote: I'm also wondering if Carlotta are high profile enough that a Polanski release would provoke a scandal, considering what happened when the Cinematheque tried to screen Last Tango in Paris.

tenia wrote: Sat Aug 02, 2025 7:59 am I'm more worried by the discussions about whether this might not be a film reconstruction but an upscaled 2k DI.
And the neutered Atmos track of one of the most renowned home video soundtracks would be a shame too.

tenia wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 2:03 pm

rrenault wrote: I'm also wondering if Carlotta are high profile enough that a Polanski release would provoke a scandal, considering what happened when the Cinematheque tried to screen Last Tango in Paris.

Chinatown's UHD, arguably a release of a much bigger seller, has been released and sold without anyone batting an eye.
Video releases and theatrical ones clearly don't draw the same attention.

nicolas wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 1:39 pm Have you already had a chance to look at the short films and documentaries on the bonus disc?

tenia wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 9:16 pm The shorts are restored, the documentaries mostly aren't.
The Making of Hearts of Darkness is a new 37 min piece, and Art is All Around Us a new 23 min one.
On disc 2, the 4 Eleanor Coppola shorts all look restored to some extent (they look nice, I'm just unsure if they've been restored in 4K), Coda looks early digital HD, Marie Antoinette's, The Rainmaker's, CQ's and The Virgin Suicides making ofs are uspcaled, A Visit to China's Miao Country is very much upscaled, and Circle of Memory also is. There also are Apocalypse Now 1979 theatrical trailer (which was in 1.78 on the 2019 release and is Scope now), and a 2025 trailer for the restoration of Hearts of Darkness.

Fires on the Plain looks wonderful in motion. No issues with the grade and the grayscale in SDR looks fantastic with detailed highlights and shadow detail. Grain is very fine but looks organic and the opticals were left alone. Encoding is excellent although I imagine a BDInfo graph reveals that it ebbs and flows more than usual with NexSpec as they throttled the bitrates quite a bit when it gets darker and the shots become more static. But fear not, everything is in order.

The only thing I noticed that struck me as slightly odd is very subtle hints of something that looks like aliasing around characters when they’re illuminated against a darker background. If it’s aliasing or another phenomenon, I can’t tell as it’s that subtle but I do see some faint, usually vertical lines that do look a bit pixel-y if you look very closely. I have to emphasize that this is very minor and most viewers won’t notice a thing as you’d almost have to see it through a magnifying glass. I just thought I’d share this, particularly for professorwho and our Japanese / Asian cinema experts who have more info by any chance. Sadly, Criterion don’t list scanners any more but the booklet states Kadokawa did the restoration (mastering would probably be the better term) from the original negative and Cineric did the image restoration.

I’ll try to spot this in the above caps, otherwise I’ll do a few of my own.