Criterion and UHD

News on Criterion and Janus Films.
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rrenault
Joined: Wed Nov 17, 2010 3:49 pm

Re: Criterion and UHD

#776 Post by rrenault » Sun Dec 04, 2022 10:46 am

Hmm. I don’t think Persona and the Tarkovsky films have 4K restorations yet, and PlayTime would be pending Canal doing their own 4K first I imagine. As for 8 1/2, it’s hard to say, because it still seems to be less popular than Seven Samurai. I think they’d only do a UHD of that one if it was guaranteed to be a reference disc. This probably explains why they’re still sitting on Breathless and The 400 Blows where 4K is concerned. I think pre-1970 black and white films outside the IMDb top 250 will always be a slippery slope on North American UHD unless they’re directed by Hitchcock or Kubrick. Otherwise. I more or less agree with you.

That said, Beau Travail doesn’t strike me as the sort of film the Blu-Ray.com crowd would casually blind buy.

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M-A
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#777 Post by M-A » Sun Dec 04, 2022 2:17 pm

I don't think the SFI is itching to redo their Bergman restorations any time soon, so only The Seventh Seal and Autumn Sonata will actually have 4K restorations.

Mosfilm never does 4K restorations, so Tarkovsky is unlikely. I believe The Passion According to Andrei was recently restored in 4K, but the elements are definitely not good enough to justify releasing it on 4K, especially as the theatrical cut still has that very old restoration.

The Sacrifice and Nostalghia both have 4K restorations and so are the nost likely for a 4K release, particularly Nostalghia as Kino has not released the restoration yet, so they likely will do a remastered disc like they did for The Sacrifice, but possibly in 4K this time.

flyonthewall2983
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#778 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Dec 15, 2022 5:35 pm

I think if they ever do a big Lynch boxset, INLAND EMPIRE will get its own 4K disc

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tenia
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#779 Post by tenia » Fri Dec 16, 2022 2:42 am

I doubt anybody with a sane mind would bother putting the money to do a UHD of Inland Empire considering what the result would be and what the reviews and possible consumers' feedbacks would likely be.

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eerik
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#780 Post by eerik » Mon Dec 26, 2022 5:30 am

M-A wrote:
Sun Dec 04, 2022 2:17 pm
Mosfilm never does 4K restorations, so Tarkovsky is unlikely.
They do, actually. They even have Tarkovski's Steamroller and Violin up on their Youtube channel in 4K.

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yoloswegmaster
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:57 pm

Re: Criterion and UHD

#781 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:29 am

Toho is releasing Stray Dog and Ikiru on 4K UHD in March (with no HDR grade). Hopefully this means that they will allow Criterion to finally release the Kurosawa titles in 4K stateside.

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ryannichols7
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#782 Post by ryannichols7 » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:17 am

Stray Dog would be an opportune choice for the first DVD straight to UHD upgrade. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the new master looks like for that..one of my favorite Kurosawa titles. Ikiru is having it's moment in the spotlight currently so I wouldn't be shocked to see Criterion prioritize it, of the two

no English subs on these UHDs according to the Amazon listings, and of course no extras. I even spotted a few Japanese tweeters saying they'd wait for the Criterion!

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tenia
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#783 Post by tenia » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:29 am

I'm curious to see how it looks, as I seem to recall Stray Dog is among the Kurosawas whose OCNs are lost (or the best elements remain badly damaged).

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yoloswegmaster
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:57 pm

Re: Criterion and UHD

#784 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:02 am

I wouldn't be surprised if the negatives for most of his films have been destroyed or lost, as I know that's the case for Seven Samurai and Ikiru. Dreams was restored from the OCN and luckily the original nitrate negatives for I Live in Fear were found recently.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#785 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:59 pm

When did Japan stop using nitrate film? Wondering if that can pinpoint the last year where you could reasonably expect every film shot in Japan to have lost its OCN due to the safety initiative.

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yoloswegmaster
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:57 pm

Re: Criterion and UHD

#786 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Feb 08, 2023 12:24 pm

yoloswegmaster wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:29 am
Toho is releasing Stray Dog and Ikiru on 4K UHD in March (with no HDR grade). Hopefully this means that they will allow Criterion to finally release the Kurosawa titles in 4K stateside.
Toho is also going to be releasing Yojimbo and Sanjuro in April. Once again there is no HDR grade, no English subs, and no extras (besides a trailer and stills gallery).

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#787 Post by FrauBlucher » Thu Feb 09, 2023 5:18 pm

The Great Beauty would be a great choice for a UHD upgrade if they can rescan it to 4k. It's currently has a 2k scan

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#788 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Thu Feb 09, 2023 10:11 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:59 pm
When did Japan stop using nitrate film? Wondering if that can pinpoint the last year where you could reasonably expect every film shot in Japan to have lost its OCN due to the safety initiative.
Fuji discontinued nitrate negative film in 1958, four years after positive film. My understanding is that Fujicolor (a reversal process introduced in 1951) never used nitrate film. I'm not sure about Konicolor, a much more obscure system that seems to have only been used by Nikkatsu on a handful of movies, but several of those (including the earliest, 1955's The Green Music Box) have restorations from the original negatives, so I assume it also used safety film.

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pzadvance
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#789 Post by pzadvance » Fri Feb 10, 2023 6:36 am

yoloswegmaster wrote:
yoloswegmaster wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 7:29 am
Toho is releasing Stray Dog and Ikiru on 4K UHD in March (with no HDR grade). Hopefully this means that they will allow Criterion to finally release the Kurosawa titles in 4K stateside.
Toho is also going to be releasing Yojimbo and Sanjuro in April. Once again there is no HDR grade, no English subs, and no extras (besides a trailer and stills gallery).
Pardon my ignorance, but could Criterion grade these scans in HDR if they were to release them?

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yoloswegmaster
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:57 pm

Re: Criterion and UHD

#790 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Feb 15, 2023 10:10 pm

It's been 18 months since Criterion have started releasing UHDs and they've had strong showing on the format with 36 films getting a 4K disc, with an average of 2 UHD releases a month. They've already caught up and surpassed the amount of 4K releases in comparison to most of the other boutique labels who started releasing 4K titles before them, with only Arrow (38), Kino Lorber (61), and Shout Factory (84) releasing more titles than them in total.

Despite being happy with most of the 4K releases, I personally (and quite selfishly) hope that they slow down the output of 4K titles anytime soon since it's clear releasing that many titles on a very pricey and expensive format has caused the number of newly produced extras to go down.

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Finch
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#791 Post by Finch » Wed Feb 15, 2023 10:53 pm

Maybe Eddie or someone else more knowledgeable than me could go into the benefits of having SDR only UHDs because my (quite possibly flawed) understanding is that those only yield an increase in resolution but little to nothing else whereas HDR and Dolby Vision are a different story altogether. Criterion have released a few SDR-only 4ks and if all we're getting is a resolution bump with those, then I'd rather they only release titles with HDR and/or DV added if that meant also finally getting titles on BD that they've been sitting on for ages.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#792 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Feb 16, 2023 1:23 am

With insiders like MichaelB et al’s predictions that physical media has a rapidly closing window where manufacturing and distribution costs will still stand to yield a profit against the demand, I find this strategy of simultaneously releasing blu-UHD upgrades, DVD-blu upgrades, and new releases to be a bit stressful in slowing down the pace as we approach a potential yet unknown date of format death. I’m glad Flowers of St Francis got a new restoration recently, but will a film like that ever get released on disc, when UHD is the fad and those upgrades are being prioritized, in addition to new missions to propel other subsets of demographic voices into the market, plus Netflix/Amazon/Neon deals, etc etc? Will we ever get films like My Sex Life… under these conditions? I’ve banged this drum before, and honestly I’m happy to be saving money right now, but sometimes when restorations are completed and available and companies sit on the rights without a bright format future, it gets a bit frustrating. Maybe enough people are dying to upgrade their Branded to Kill and Fisher King blus and that’ll give the company a few more years to produce HD copies of classics still trapped in DVD land but I’m not holding my breath

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EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Criterion and UHD

#793 Post by EddieLarkin » Thu Feb 16, 2023 7:06 am

Finch wrote:
Wed Feb 15, 2023 10:53 pm
Maybe Eddie or someone else more knowledgeable than me could go into the benefits of having SDR only UHDs because my (quite possibly flawed) understanding is that those only yield an increase in resolution but little to nothing else whereas HDR and Dolby Vision are a different story altogether. Criterion have released a few SDR-only 4ks and if all we're getting is a resolution bump with those, then I'd rather they only release titles with HDR and/or DV added if that meant also finally getting titles on BD that they've been sitting on for ages.
I think a 4K SDR release can be a very poor use of a label's resources, but that's really only the case if it's the same 4K master that's already been released on Blu-ray (see Night of the Living Dead, In the Mood for Love, The Seventh Seal). I don't see it as much of a problem if it's a brand new 4K SDR master that is so far unavailable on localised home video (see Wings of Desire and Branded to Kill).

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Finch
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#794 Post by Finch » Thu Feb 16, 2023 9:28 am

Thanks Eddie!

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tenia
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#795 Post by tenia » Thu Feb 16, 2023 10:17 am

EddieLarkin wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 7:06 am
I think a 4K SDR release can be a very poor use of a label's resources, but that's really only the case if it's the same 4K master that's already been released on Blu-ray (see Night of the Living Dead, In the Mood for Love, The Seventh Seal). I don't see it as much of a problem if it's a brand new 4K SDR master that is so far unavailable on localised home video (see Wings of Desire and Branded to Kill).
I wonder actually, considering they're still releasing BD-only stuff from 4K masters, if it's not so much a poor use of a label's resources when it's deemed having enough sales potentials to warrant it, ie : would Criterion pass on a possible HDR UHD because the title is deemed not be big enough, while a SDR UHD of Night of the Living Dead probably was seen as a no-brainer because it has such sales potential.

While most of Criterion 2022's upgrades included UHD, they did upgrade only on BD Le corbeau and The Tales of Hoffmann, and Masculin féminin before that in 2021, all three based on 4K restorations. So there is a channel for Criterion to output 4K masters this way, including when upgrading titles, and I can't imagine the company not thinking the use of their resources also from a sales perspective.

(I also wonder how big is the part of the UHD-buyers who don't really care that much - Le Chat qui fume aren't selling faster their UHDs when they're HDR)

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dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: Criterion and UHD

#796 Post by dwk » Thu Feb 16, 2023 1:09 pm

tenia wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 10:17 am
I wonder actually, considering they're still releasing BD-only stuff from 4K masters, if it's not so much a poor use of a label's resources when it's deemed having enough sales potentials to warrant it, ie : would Criterion pass on a possible HDR UHD because the title is deemed not be big enough, while a SDR UHD of Night of the Living Dead probably was seen as a no-brainer because it has such sales potential.
I think sometimes disc collectors tend to forget that it is a business, they have to make money. Sales potentials are probably the second biggest factor on what gets a UHD release, and something like an SDR UHD of NIght of the Living Dead is going to sale a lot more copies than something like Petite maman (to pick a title I saw a few people on twitter asking why no UHD.) So Night's UHD was a real no-brainer, especially in a shrinking market, even though the upgrade was pretty minimal.

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ryannichols7
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#797 Post by ryannichols7 » Fri Feb 17, 2023 3:52 pm

EddieLarkin wrote:
Thu Feb 16, 2023 7:06 am
I don't see it as much of a problem if it's a brand new 4K SDR master that is so far unavailable on localised home video (see Wings of Desire and Branded to Kill).
this is where I'm at. the existing BDs of those two titles really show their age and could stand a release of the new restorations available, even if they are SDR (and both are deliberately so - Wenders approved the Wings of Desire one and Japanese companies don't seem to be into HDR just yet). so I'm in favor of getting them, as opposed to Night of the Living Dead where it's the same master as the BD and fairly negligible.

many titles like Pale Flower and Sansho the Bailiff have received newer restorations than what Criterion released, and I have no problem purchasing them again (those two are big enough titles for me personally), but I know others would disagree. it's hard since there's clearly a fine balance they're trying to walk between DVD -> BD upgrades and BD -> UHD upgrades. there are very, very few titles that I think would go DVD -> UHD - Costa Gavras' Z being the most likely example. but I know any BD upgrade from a 4K restoration would get a lot of people wondering why not release it on 4K and so on and so forth. I'm interested to see what happens with I Know Where I'm Going!, a title very likely for an upgrade sometime soon with a widely seen restoration. Tales of Hoffmann got a BD only release, but that was also a title coming back into print. I'm very interested to see how they'll continue approaching these upgrades.

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Ribs
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#798 Post by Ribs » Fri Apr 14, 2023 11:49 am

The Boetticher set being condensed to three discs makes me think similar ingenuity will bring production costs down for titles we think could be down the line like the Antoine Doinel films (certainly Antoine and Colette I expected to share a disc with 400 Blows, at the least). I had been wondering if Criterion would do what Arrow has been doing and do a set with the "big" title in 4K (the first one) and the rest on BD but now I'm thinking they'll be trying to make it work all in 4K. Certainly on paper I don't think doing two 90-95m movies on one BD-100 would produce a bad result and would probably make the cost of making the discs for the set substantially lower.

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tenia
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#799 Post by tenia » Fri Apr 14, 2023 12:07 pm

Provided there isn't the wish to split the titles later and thus having them on separate discs right in the boxset already, absolutely everyone should optimize their encodes in order to use every bit of disc space available and save space by not giving too much space on extras that don't require it. Like : every label should have been doing it for the past 20 years, from DVD to BD to now UHD. Considering how much those can cost to produce and what the market can be, it's irresponsible not to avoid avoidable costs.

We just had a French boxset of 3 Med Hondo films, each having its own BD-50, except the most filled disc still is 45% empty. It's non-sense : at this point, the label could have : think it better and used 3 BD-25 instead; properly used the space of the BD-50s it paid for; or saved discs by putting all this on 2 BD-50. Instead, out of these 3 possibilities, it chose a 4th one that make the least financial and technical sense.

Here, except if Criterion wanted to use tons of BD-66, it makes sense to bundle the movies this way onto 3 discs only. It'll allow the AVB to hover around 75 Mbps for each movie, which should be plenty enough (well, if the encoder knows his stuff).

onedimension
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Re: Criterion and UHD

#800 Post by onedimension » Fri Apr 14, 2023 12:23 pm

IIRC the Ranown westerns are short, like 70 minutes each - prob makes the condensing onto three discs more feasible

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