UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[rrenault]

This may be controversial, but I think the first Godfather film should be downgraded from reference to solid. It just doesn't look 'quite' as amazing as I expected it would, as opposed to Get Carter and Pulp Fiction which are truly 'WOW'. Part II and Coda can stay in the reference column.

[cdnchris]

Hi Chris, are we talking about a "poor in HDR, good in DV" situation like many Studio Canal discs? If that's the case, I'm happy to move Munchausen.

I haven't seen the SC discs referenced so I'm not sure on the gap between in quality between their DV and HDR presentations but I do think the DV Munchausen looks excellent. Without DV I'd say it's noticeably noisier but not the clusterfuck that I feel is being implied. I need to still go back and do direct comparisons between the UHD and Criterion BD but I recall the BD on its own looking pretty good. And no matter the case, whether the new BD or the UHD with or without Dolby Vision, they all blow the old Sony disc away.

[M-A]

I think The Driver and The Princess Bride could both be moved from solid to reference. Based on the screencaps I also think Baron Munchausen being disappointing is a bit harsh

[Finch]

I'll move Munchausen to the Good in DV column.

[Finch]

Dragons Forever (88 Films) has an encode by David M which means it's at least a solid upgrade from the BD. I haven't seen posts confirming yet if it qualifies as a reference disc even against 88's own BD.

Also waiting for feedback on Groundhog Day's Dolby Vision presentation and the original audio track (we all know from the first UHD that the HDR10 presentation was quite lovely) but a BR poster has already confirmed that the enclosed BD is the old disc.

[Finch]

They remastered the audio on Dragons Forever. EDIT: also moved up The Driver and The Princess Bride.

Scream Factory's "new" steelbook release of They Live is unfortunately just a repackaging of the flawed old release.

[Finch]

samlop is not impressed with Paramount's Double Jeopardy UHD.

[rrenault]

Finch: Any word on Studio Canal's Night of the Living Dead 4K released in France and Germany?

[EddieLarkin]

Same master as the Criterion, no HDR, definite poorer encoding than the Criterion.

Criterion is the one to get.

[tenia]

Is the encode that worse than the Criterion (which also only is SDR) ? From the caps I saw, they looked actually quite equivalent.

[Finch]

rrenault, I posted about the SC NOTLD two pages or so back. I seem to recall a few users on the other forum watching the SC in motion and finding it wanting in comparison to the CC. Even figuring in the slightly underwhelming encode for Virgin Suicides and the HDR10 layer on Munchausen, Criterion's authoring house is more consistent (for now) than whoever it is that SC are hiring if David M is too busy.

[Finch]

Jon Mulvaney reportedly told a Blu-Ray.com user that Seventh Seal will be SDR rec 709 only. Given that the BFI has David M's encoding on top of HDR and DV, it's almost a foregone conclusion that BFI's release will get an entry in the Superior Import column.

[hearthesilence]

Jon Mulvaney reportedly told a Blu-Ray.com user that Seventh Seal will be SDR rec 709 only. Given that the BFI has David M's encoding on top of HDR and DV, it's almost a foregone conclusion that BFI's release will get an entry in the Superior Import column.

Man, they could've just licensed the same exact region-free UHD master and issued that in the States...

[EddieLarkin]

Jon Mulvaney reportedly told a Blu-Ray.com user that Seventh Seal will be SDR rec 709 only. Given that the BFI has David M's encoding on top of HDR and DV, it's almost a foregone conclusion that BFI's release will get an entry in the Superior Import column.

Utterly baffling decision when of course the packaged in Blu-ray will be SDR 709 too, meaning there will be minimal difference between the two discs (see NotLD). What is the point other than to get the ignorant to buy a popular title again? Here is Geoff D on the HDR of the BFI disc:

HDR treatment is majestic, NOT in a roasting-eyeballs kinda way but as a pitch-perfect balance of light and dark. HDR highlights are more controlled than the SDR version, I don't mean that there's now scads and scads of extra highlight detail because there isn't, but what's there is given greater texture, shaping and depth by the HDR. You get more luminance in the smaller speculars that glint from hair and skin, in the fire as the 'witch' is about to be torched, but if anything it's the SDR that feels like the 'brighter' version because of how the average brightness seems higher acros the frame and that the highlights feel broader, flatter, more directly lit. Again, it's ironic that people got/get into a state of panic about how HDR would wreck older movies and yeah, if everything was given a Light Cannon™ treatment then I'd agree, but subtler grades like that given to Seventh Seal and Frankenstein are of genuine benefit to the imagery.

The treatment of the black levels between the two versions of Seventh Seal are eerily similar to that of Frankenstein https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...8#post19457358 as the SDR presentation crushes down a significant amount of shadow detail that's now visible in the HDR. In the SDR blacks are extremely dense, making darker exteriors/interiors and the shadowy sides of people's heads look like a formless black mass a.k.a. The Arnie Effect. It's fine for what it is, but the way that the HDR raises the blacks yet is still capable of maintaining a greater level of perceptual contrast is just remarkable, you never get the feeling that the blacks are being compromised in the HDR because of how the highlights are more concentrated. The HDR grade doesn't open up the shadows all the way mind you, there's still a point where black falls off into black and may appear to be a little clipped itself (some of those fades look a little odd). But the overall impression is of an image with more texture and nuance at both ends of the visual scale, and it's marvellous.

I wonder if the master available to licence is SDR only and the BFI performed their own HDR grading?

[EddieLarkin]

Is the encode that worse than the Criterion (which also only is SDR) ? From the caps I saw, they looked actually quite equivalent.

Here. Note the wall on the right, fully grainy in the Criterion, completely wiped away in the SC.

[tenia]

That's what I remembered reading then : I've seen so much worse coming from SC, and this looks actually just a tad softer, that I expected something à la John Carpenter, which it doesn't look to be. But yes, it technically looks to be inferior.

I wonder if the master available to licence is SDR only and the BFI performed their own HDR grading?

It actually could be, and while the BFI decided to do a HDR grading of a SDR master, Criterion are choosing to release it as is ?
I keep being told by people from labs that HDR UHDs are coming from SDR restorations graded in HDR way after the fact more often than we might think it is, so maybe that's one of those (and of course, it begs the question how such gradings are done).

[EddieLarkin]

If the BFI grading is revealing more shadow detail than the same master in SDR, it can't simply have been done atop it. They've perhaps had access to pre-graded files and started from there, which would give a genuine HDR result.

[tenia]

But even if accessing a pre-graded file, wouldn't it need to be a HDR one in order not to be capped to SDR anywah ?

[dwk]

One thing about the blu-rays from the 4K master of The Seventh Seal (both Criterion and BFI)is that the transfer seems to have been hit with too much DNR. So some of those improvements that he attributes to the HDR could be down to the lack of DNR on the actual 4K master.

[EddieLarkin]

But even if accessing a pre-graded file, wouldn't it need to be a HDR one in order not to be capped to SDR anywah ?

As far as I know HDR or SDR is determined at the grading stage (since they are specifically functions used to transfer imagery to the final display device, they come last in the restoration chain). Before then, you have raw image. As long as that raw image has been captured at a sufficient enough level, the data is there to exploit in HDR.

[tenia]

Oh, right, I see what you mean, thanks for the additionnal answer. I tended to think that you'd need to scan "in HDR" in order to have the relevant material to yield a HDR master, but I remember now it might not be the case.

[cdnchris]

I wonder if the master available to licence is SDR only and the BFI performed their own HDR grading?

That would have to be it. It would be absolutely insane to have the option and then NOT go with it when DV was what made the upgrade a must. And Geoff's right about it. I recall that shot near the end with Death in the doorway being just a "holy shit" moment during that particular viewing and I have no idea how many times I had seen the film up to that point. At best, Criterion's will just look a little better than the disc in the Bergman set.

[Finch]

Groundhog Day (re-issue) (Sony)

The compression is a bit better and it has the original audio but the first release was very good already in its HDR10 presentation.

[bitsofme]

Long time lurker (with many thanks!)

I have the WB version of Full Metal Jacket and I believe a caveat should be added. I found the center channel is distorted, enough to be a negative distraction throughout the entire film. Use your favorite search engine for something like "full metal jacket center sound problem" will bring up other, similar reports. It was very disappointing when I played it last night. I tried on two separate UHD players & sound systems (different vendors) and it made for a disappointing night.

[Finch]

Added to OP, thanks bitsofme!