Kino

[swo17]

Well, I didn't even know Mirror was in play, but I see now where they're saying to expect it in 2012. \:D/ (Actual dancing contingent on it holding up to the standard of most of their other Blu-ray releases.)

[Murdoch]

I knew Come and See was scheduled but not Mirror, fantastic news, I can't think of any film that demands a blu release more.

[andyli]

The source is their own words on their Facebook page.

All tetatively:
Strike blu-ray in July.
Dersu Uzala, Come and See, Mirror in 2012.
No blu-ray rights for Stalker.

[kekid]

What about Sacrifice in Blu?

[mteller]

What about Sacrifice in Blu?

From The Digital Bits:

Kino Lorber has set Salt of the Sea for DVD release on 6/7, followed by Korkoro on DVD only on 6/14. They also have The Romantic Englishwoman and Priest of Love on Blu-ray and DVD on 6/21, followed by The Sacrifice: Remastered Edition on both formats on 6/28.

[onedimension]

Any news, whispers, screams about Kino's Murnau titles coming out on blu? I'm actually (I never thought this day might come) anticipating them.

[SpiderBaby]

[andyli]

Looks like a potential blu-ray release? Nice.

Now if only they can put out Lee Chang-Dong's Poetry on blu.

[kekid]

From The Digital Bits:

Kino Lorber has set Salt of the Sea for DVD release on 6/7, followed by Korkoro on DVD only on 6/14. They also have The Romantic Englishwoman and Priest of Love on Blu-ray and DVD on 6/21, followed by The Sacrifice: Remastered Edition on both formats on 6/28.

Thank you for the information.

[zombeaner]

I don't know that it has been mentioned but Kino is touring The City of Life and Death, which is awesome because that film needed an American distributor.

[richast2]

From The Digital Bits:

Kino Lorber has set Salt of the Sea for DVD release on 6/7, followed by Korkoro on DVD only on 6/14. They also have The Romantic Englishwoman and Priest of Love on Blu-ray and DVD on 6/21, followed by The Sacrifice: Remastered Edition on both formats on 6/28.

Amazon says:

This new remastered edition of Tarkovsky's final film features a new, much improved transfer of the film in anamorphic widescreen and the first time on Blu-ray! Special features include the feature length documentary 'Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky', a behind the scenes look at one of the most influential directors of our time, photo gallery, trailers and more! (NOTE: This two disc set features the movie on Blu-ray and the second disc with the special features is a DVD)

[swo17]

This new remastered edition of Tarkovsky's final film features a new, much improved transfer of the film in anamorphic widescreen and the first time on Blu-ray!

It's probably worth revisiting this blog entry about the work that's gone into this upcoming version of The Sacrifice. Among other things, the color scheme is supposed to be quite different from what we're familiar with:

I suspect there will be some who accuse me of tampering with Tarkovsky's film. Most likely, these will be people who never saw it in a theatre -- only on video. I just want the record to show that, on the contrary, I am restoring the film to its original look by removing a lot of the conventionlized color that it has always had on video -- and show that every effort has been made to verify the proper appearance of each scene of the film.

[manicsounds]

I don't have a purely scientific answer for this, but Battleship Potemkin is 18fps and their Blu is progressive. This means that they have some way of tricking the format.

I watched the BD of Kino's Battleship Potemkin, and it seems they did this: The 18 frames per second were transfered to 24 frames per second. every 3rd frame is repeated as the 4th, so of the 24 frames on the BD, 6 are repeated.

That is also why the BD is a few minutes longer than the DVD, which was interlaced from the 18fps source.

Also, just thought about this, but how is everyone pronouncing KINO?
Kee-No? Ky-No? I always thought it was Kee-No but then again, never heard anyone say it.

[Finch]

Kino is the German word for cinema so I imagine it's pronounced Kee-no.

[Jonathan S]

I watched the BD of Kino's Battleship Potemkin, and it seems they did this: The 18 frames per second were transfered to 24 frames per second. every 3rd frame is repeated as the 4th, so of the 24 frames on the BD, 6 are repeated.

Doesn't that make it look very jerky, as in the step-printing method used decades ago? Or do players have a way of smoothing it out?

[eerik]

I watched Potemkin Blu-ray about a month ago and thought it looked fantastic. Framerate did not distract me at all. Can't wait to see how Strike is going to look on Blu-ray. Hopefully Kino will also include original Russian intertitles like they did with Potemkin.

By the way, Kino recently uploaded trailer for Nanjing, Nanjing aka City of Life and Death.

[peerpee]

I don't have a purely scientific answer for this, but Battleship Potemkin is 18fps and their Blu is progressive. This means that they have some way of tricking the format.

I watched the BD of Kino's Battleship Potemkin, and it seems they did this: The 18 frames per second were transfered to 24 frames per second. every 3rd frame is repeated as the 4th, so of the 24 frames on the BD, 6 are repeated.

That is also why the BD is a few minutes longer than the DVD, which was interlaced from the 18fps source.

Also, just thought about this, but how is everyone pronouncing KINO?
Kee-No? Ky-No? I always thought it was Kee-No but then again, never heard anyone say it.

Kino's BD of POTEMKIN is not as you describe.

If it were done properly, as you describe (3 unique / repeat / 3 unique / repeat) then it would be the same running time as 18fps 35mm. It does not use this method, I've analysed it, and the pattern replicates that of a 25p HD master (which was created by the Germans for the Transit PAL DVD release). To get to 24p (for 1080p) they simply slowed down the 25p master to 24p (like Criterion's ANTICHRIST or BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ). So what you end up with is one extra unnecessary repeat frame every second, and an unnecessarily longer running time. From the top of my head, the Transit PAL DVD is 83 minutes and the Kino BD is 87 minutes.

The result is visually not too bad, but if they'd gone the extra mile, it would have been worth it. Stripping away all the repeat frames from the 25p master and then extrapolating your own 3/repeat/3/repeat pattern to go from 18 to 24 would have resulted in slightly better motion and a proper running time of 83 minutes (or whatever the 18fps 35mm and PAL DVD runs at, I think it's 83 minutes).

(btw. Pretty much everyone says "Kee-no" as in "the German for cinema")

[manicsounds]

Awesome that Kino is releasing "City Of Life And Death" (although I wouldn't have said that years ago during interlaced DVD days), one of the best war films I've ever seen. I'll gladly upgrade my HK DVD if the Blu-ray has some significant extras on it.

Obviously, this film is still not available in Japan (still hasn't been screened) which is a terrible shame, as there are still 'people' in Japan who say that Nanking is something that never happened... huh...

[Stefan Andersson]

Very interesting to read about the color changes on Kino´s Sacrifice. I would have expected Kino to license the Swedish DVD materials, highly thought of when released. Maybe new DVD/Blu technology makes a new transfer necessary/desirable. Comments?

[Roger Ryan]

Very interesting to read about the color changes on Kino´s Sacrifice. I would have expected Kino to license the Swedish DVD materials, highly thought of when released. Maybe new DVD/Blu technology makes a new transfer necessary/desirable. Comments?

Absolutely - there's no way you could get a decent HD image relying on the old master used for the DVD, which was pretty weak. If Kino intended to sell any discs, they would have to do a new transfer which is what they've done. As noted elsewhere, the elements required a lot of cleaning up which is one of the reasons the proposed Blu-ray release was delayed until now. Going back and examining an original film print to determine Tarkovsky's and Nykvist's preferred color timing demonstrates real care. I hope the end product is a worthy one...and that the same attention is applied to the forthcoming MIRROR Blu-ray.

[doc mccoy]

Does anyone know whether The Scent of Green Papaya blu will be region free?

[MichaelB]

(btw. Pretty much everyone says "Kee-no" as in "the German for cinema")

And Russian, Polish, Czech and I daresay most (all?) other Slavic languages as well.

And in all these cases, it's 100% definitely pronounced 'Kee-no'.

[eerik]

And also Estonian, which is not related to German or Russian languages.

But we were part of Russian Empire and ruled by Baltic Germans when cinematography was invented and popularised.

[djvaso]

(btw. Pretty much everyone says "Kee-no" as in "the German for cinema")

And Russian, Polish, Czech and I daresay most (all?) other Slavic languages as well.

Serbians mainly use word 'bioskop' (bioscope) for cinema.

[manicsounds]

DVDTalk gives Scent Of The Green Papaya a review, 5 stars for picture quality.