Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
I think this is a different issue at play here, in part because currently, you could give to different labs the same movie to grade with the same reference print and the same referent person and they would still yield very different gradings. If Ritrovata or Eclair or MPI or Silver Salt or whatever is the lab now employing the people from Colorworks Burbank were to do Le cercle rouge with the exact same print used by Hiventy, you'd get 4 very different results, all different from what Hiventy has done.
As I often wrote, I saw Deep Red's new 4K restoration in theater and it definitely looks first and foremost like a Ritrovata job rather than a silly Tovoli's supervision. At the time, many thought this was some kind of Tovoli's follies, but it turned out it's not : Ritrovata only knows what he saw and what he supervised vs what was the lab's final file and it turns out, it most likely looked closer to what Arrow managed to obtain after further color-correction than the DCP I saw. There's also the story about The Color of Pomegranates : if you match a reference print AND THEN apply a LUT that modifies your grading, then, it doesn't match the print anymore !
Same goes for Eclair : I've just watched Thérèse (which is another tell-tale Eclair job) and it says the restoration was supervised by Alain Cavalier and Bruno Patin (Eclair's main colorist), but I can't help but wonder if Cavalier approved the grading of the final file because as it stands, it now looks like L'enfance nue (Pialat/Beausoleil) or Rien ne va plus (Chabrol/Serra) or Lacombe Lucien (Malle/Delli Colli) or Une histoire simple (Sautet/Boffety) etc etc.
I'm also wary of Svet caps, because in his review, the 2nd set of caps look way less worrying than the 1st one, and this 1st set is actually downconverted from UHD DV BT2020 to HD SDR Rec709, while the 2nd set is taken straight from the BD, so I'm currently wondering how much of the worries from his caps are coming from the caps themselves.
As I often wrote, I saw Deep Red's new 4K restoration in theater and it definitely looks first and foremost like a Ritrovata job rather than a silly Tovoli's supervision. At the time, many thought this was some kind of Tovoli's follies, but it turned out it's not : Ritrovata only knows what he saw and what he supervised vs what was the lab's final file and it turns out, it most likely looked closer to what Arrow managed to obtain after further color-correction than the DCP I saw. There's also the story about The Color of Pomegranates : if you match a reference print AND THEN apply a LUT that modifies your grading, then, it doesn't match the print anymore !
Same goes for Eclair : I've just watched Thérèse (which is another tell-tale Eclair job) and it says the restoration was supervised by Alain Cavalier and Bruno Patin (Eclair's main colorist), but I can't help but wonder if Cavalier approved the grading of the final file because as it stands, it now looks like L'enfance nue (Pialat/Beausoleil) or Rien ne va plus (Chabrol/Serra) or Lacombe Lucien (Malle/Delli Colli) or Une histoire simple (Sautet/Boffety) etc etc.
I'm also wary of Svet caps, because in his review, the 2nd set of caps look way less worrying than the 1st one, and this 1st set is actually downconverted from UHD DV BT2020 to HD SDR Rec709, while the 2nd set is taken straight from the BD, so I'm currently wondering how much of the worries from his caps are coming from the caps themselves.
- hearthesilence
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
- Location: NYC
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Sad truth. When the whole idea of film preservation and restoration really took off, it seemed like a logical move to get the director or DP to oversee the process, and it made sense as a marketing tool that would always delight the average film buff. (When I first started renting or buying Criterion discs, the immediate reaction to a director-approved or supervised release was to believe unquestionably that it was the definitive presentation.) At this point, I think everyone's learned the hard way how easily it can go wrong. Star Wars is probably exhibit A thanks to its massive popularity - I'm sure Lucas's changes have done more than any other to make people understand how restorations can go wrong.whaleallright wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 12:44 pmSometimes I feel that consulting DPs and directors etc. decades after they made a film is a bad idea more often than not, and that it's best to rely instead on reference prints, historical records, etc. But I understand the deference they are afforded--borne of respect but also the desire to keep them in a label's good graces (who wants a situation, like the one Kino experienced with David Lynch, where a famous director is badmouthing your release of his/her film?).
It's not always blatant revisionism either - most filmmakers don't revisit their older work, not unless they have a small legacy and their caretaking is all they have left. For any filmmaker that's still active, many of them don't look back and quite a few probably forget all the specifics as they move on to other jobs that take their attention. Add to that years, decades of time, and you can see why it may be problematic to bring them in for input.
You can see this happen even when reissues go right. Criterion's defunct blog talked about Days of Heaven and getting Terrence Malick to look at the grading. His immediate response was that the regular DVD seemed fine and asked if they considered using that as their guide. Criterion explained why they don't do that, so Malick agreed, and of course what they end up doing looks pretty different from the Paramount DVD because Malick informs them that the movie was never meant to look too "beautiful," they were very careful about avoiding that in the original post-production process. (His editor Billy Weber confirmed this over and over again as that concept was very much on his mind the entire time they made the film.) So it all worked out, but honestly, how closely did Malick look at the Paramount DVD? I get the impression he just wasn't the type of filmmaker who spent much time revisiting their work, but fortunately when Criterion made their pitch, he got it and understood that it was important to help them get the presentation right.
- L.A.
- Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
- Location: Helsinki, Finland
- Drucker
- Your Future our Drucker
- Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Is this just a re-release?
- Tuppence
- Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2014 7:52 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
The comparisons up at Caps-a-holic of the new UHD do strike me as pretty yellow-biased overall. But maybe the actual viewing experience is different.
- EddieLarkin
- Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Whites defintely appear more yellow in the UHD caps vs the new resto BD caps from Svet, so it is almost certainly a result of the HDR>SDR conversion that has to take place to show the UHD caps. I'm sure the whites will appear far less yellow on playback in the HDR realm.
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
There has been a new 4k resto of a movie, so it might be more than just a repacking re-release.Drucker wrote:Is this just a re-release?
I wouldn't be so sure of it. Blu-ray.com's members' feedback mentions encode issues à la Total Recall.david hare wrote:I can only imagine the superiority of the UHD encode.
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- Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:12 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Has there been? The 2012 restoration was advertised as being 4Ktenia wrote:There has been a new 4k resto of a movie, so it might be more than just a repacking re-release.Drucker wrote:Is this just a re-release?
- EddieLarkin
- Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
You can see in the caps-a-holic grabs that the encoding on Le Cercle Rouge ain't great.
Practically all of StudioCanal's UHDs suffer from compression problems, but it is limited to the HDR10 layers. The Dolby Vision encodes on the same discs are mostly free of the compression blockiness, Total Recall included. So I wouldn't be surprised to find Le Cercle Rouge is indeed encoded well, assuming one is viewing in DV.
This isn't anything to do with Dolby Vision itself, but rather an encoding flaw that seems to be unique to StudioCanal, whenever they use DV on disc (which is pretty much always). The DV version comes out ok, the HDR10 version comes out terrible.
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Yes, there are part of the aspects of the new Total Recall that definitely are inherited, and I think that overall, the new restoration is otherwise great, but the encode of the UHD looks quite appalling in any case.
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- Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:58 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
I watched the UHD of Le cercle rouge tonight, and I thought it looked very yellow. Afterwards I popped in the BD and based on the first scene in the train the colours look much better: clean whites and no yellow bias as mentioned earlier by david hare.
The UHD encode is also very poor, with several instances of noticeable macroblocking in darker scenes.
The UHD encode is also very poor, with several instances of noticeable macroblocking in darker scenes.
- hearthesilence
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
- Location: NYC
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
When they master UHD discs, whether it's with or without HDR or DV, ideally shouldn't every playback method have at least a similar look and tonality within the given technical framework (or constrictions)?
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
It should but in this case, whoever is encoding Canal's UHDs who isn't David M is crapping the HDR layer and the DV layer is coming to the rescue, so any common sense is basically gone down the drain.
But given to any competent authoring house, sure enough, the HDR layer would be properly encoded in the 1st place and people not equipped with Dolby Vision screens wouldn't have such a gap in blockiness.
But given to any competent authoring house, sure enough, the HDR layer would be properly encoded in the 1st place and people not equipped with Dolby Vision screens wouldn't have such a gap in blockiness.
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- Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:58 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Unfortunately my player or TV, can't remember which, doesn't support DV.david hare wrote: ↑Tue Dec 15, 2020 3:25 pmOnly question here is did you watch the UHD with DV or does your player and monitor only enable HDR?
- EddieLarkin
- Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Whilst the DV layer on StudioCanal discs will fix a lot of the bad compression seen in HDR10, there shouldn't be any colour difference between the two, so if the film is yellow in HDR10 it's going to be the same in DV.
But, all three modes on a TV (SDR, HDR10, DV) will have their own colour temperature and white balance settings, so just because a UHD has a change in colour vs the same 4K sourced BD, or between HDR10 and DV, doesn't mean that difference actually exists. It could all be down to not having the 3 viewing modes lined up properly (i.e., calibrated).
But, all three modes on a TV (SDR, HDR10, DV) will have their own colour temperature and white balance settings, so just because a UHD has a change in colour vs the same 4K sourced BD, or between HDR10 and DV, doesn't mean that difference actually exists. It could all be down to not having the 3 viewing modes lined up properly (i.e., calibrated).
- Drucker
- Your Future our Drucker
- Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Ladykillers looks fantastic. Honestly when I started reading this forum a disc released by SC was bound to have errors and be terrible. Encode issues aside their restorations seem great nowadays, so hats off.
- mhofmann
- Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2015 7:01 pm
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
AFAIK that is a David M encode, while some of the other mentioned releases are not.Drucker wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 10:56 amLadykillers looks fantastic. Honestly when I started reading this forum a disc released by SC was bound to have errors and be terrible. Encode issues aside their restorations seem great nowadays, so hats off.
- MichaelB
- Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
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Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Yes, I'm not aware of any David M encodes with any issues (aside from a single fade-out flub in The Elephant Man that's down to the restorers and is easy enough to tune out).
This list probably isn't complete, but I believe he was responsible for Angel Heart, Don't Look Now, The Elephant Man, Flash Gordon and The Ladykillers.
This list probably isn't complete, but I believe he was responsible for Angel Heart, Don't Look Now, The Elephant Man, Flash Gordon and The Ladykillers.
- EddieLarkin
- Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and The Fifth Element too (the latter being much better than the Sony equivalent).
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
He indeed has encoded all those above, while he hasn't encoded the 4 John Carpenter movies, the 3 Rambo movies, Total Recall, Le cercle rouge, Les trois jours du Condor, Serpico or Cliffhanger, all with their share of issues.
- Drucker
- Your Future our Drucker
- Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
Understood, but I'd also point out that They Live, Deer Hunter, and according to David Hare, Le Cercle Rouge also look great on blu-ray.
- therewillbeblus
- Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
I watched my SC copy of Le Cercle Rouge last weekend and can confirm it looks great, though the color debates between this and Criterion are fair and probably doomed to be unresolved
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
In the present cases, the UHDs are concerned, not the BDs (though I've read that amongst those 4 Carpenter, They Live has the best encode).
- L.A.
- Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
- Location: Helsinki, Finland
Re: Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum
The Masque of the Red Death Jan. 25th.
Also some information about the restoration at The Digital Fix.
Also some information about the restoration at The Digital Fix.
- L.A.
- Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
- Location: Helsinki, Finland