UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[FrauBlucher]

Casablanca...beaver... technically he doesn't say too much but does say an absolute must own. The caps to my eyes look terrific.

[Finch]

Casablanca

The Running Man (Lionsgate) (German Capelight release has more bonus features and is the version to get at the time of writing)

It would appear as more people are getting to watch their discs that Sony put little effort into the Dolby Vision on Starship Troopers so this may not be as straightforward a recommendation as their other steelbooks with DV. Geoff is almost certainly going to review it so watch this space.

Early word on Warner's A Christmas Story is pretty good.

capsule of The Amityville Horror (Vinegar Syndrome)

[Finch]

Saturday Night Fever is another flawed Paramount UHD. Chroma denoising, dodgy encode but it does look better than the Blu-Rays, including the remastered. It also gets points deducted for the atrocious cover art. No one has sampled the Dolby Vision yet so this may help with some of the issues found on the HDR10 layer.

First review of Arrow's Wolf of Wall St is out and it's the same transfer as the Paramount with the black crush. It's encoded by Fidelity in Motion and the new extras are supposed to be very good. Sticking this in the superior import column.

[Finch]

Geoff has reviewed the Saturday Night Fever UHD and it's a hard pass if your player is only HDR10 capable. On the other hand, the Dolby Vision is mostly competent.

[Finch]

A Christmas Story (WB)

Superior to the Blu-Rays and in the correct 1.85:1 ratio

[FrauBlucher]

Casablanca

One more...this one has a little more detail on how and what was done ... bluray.com

[DeprongMori]

“Prince of Darkness (Eagle Pictures) (Italian import)” shows up in both the “Reference” and “Appreciable/Solid” lists. Is one of them supposed to be the import and one the US? Which is which?

[M-A]

It was moved from solid to reference, so I guess it just wasn't deleted from solid

[DeprongMori]

For anyone who has the Italian Eagle 4K of Prince of Darkness, I can’t find any reviews of the release wrt supplements. How do the supplements compare to the SC and SF, and are they English-friendly?

[Finch]

Duplicate for the Italian import of Prince of Darkness removed from Solid category. Thank you for spotting that!

Bottom of page 7 has more feedback on the Escape from Alcatraz UHD, starting with Evolvist. While it doesn't quite sound like the disaster Tooze made it out to be (and why I'll continue ignoring his reviews), it's still a disappointing disc.

[Finch]

Just a heads up for those who might have hoped that this would get an updated BD, too: the BD included with the UHD of Pulp Fiction is the old 2020 re-issue by Paramount as per Belgian and Dutch users who got their copies early. The UHD appears to be a triple-layer disc; no one has chimed in on the PQ and audio yet.

[Finch]

Our own Chris reviews the Wall-E UHD.

Worth getting if you care about the extras and/or if your player is Dolby Vision capable. If you own the Disney edition and only care about the film and you can't play the DV layer, then stick with the old release.

[Finch]

Pulp Fiction is a winner.

Meanwhile, word is that Paramount cocked up Planes, Trains and Automobiles, too.

The French UHD of Memories of Murder is not English-friendly.

[Finch]

Geoff on the Starship Troopers re-issue

[Rupert Pupkin]

Geoff on the Starship Troopers re-issue

I was wondering if the blu-ray has been upgraded from the 4K transfer ? or is this the same blu-ray since years ?

[Finch]

I don't think anyone confirmed either way (yet).

[tenia]

I haven't seen anything going towards a new BD, so my guess is it's still the old one.

[Finch]

The Planes Trains and Automobiles UHD is not the disaster Robert Harris declared it to be, similar to Tooze's overreaction to the Escape from Alcatraz UHD (the difference being the Alcatraz BDs weren't as bad as the PTA one, IIRC). I'll still wait for further reactions but based on what I'm seeing currently, I'd be inclined to rate the UHD a solid upgrade if only because the Blu-Ray was terrible, and the UHD does have the much desired deleted scenes (in VHS quality).

[Finch]

Some oldies:

Shaun of the Dead is mostly solid: detail and grain are very good, but the blacks are crushed (more so than on the Blu-Ray).

Hot Fuzz is disappointing (DNR has been applied and the color is off too, blacks are crushed).

The World's End: crushed blacks though not as much as on the other two; colours and detail are very good.

All three are upscales from the 2k Digital Interpositives.

[DeprongMori]

Thanks for that. I had been wondering how Edgar Wright’s The Cornetto Trilogy fared in its 4K UHD release.

[Yakushima]

The crushed blacks on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz have really bothered me. I think I actually prefer the Blu-rays for these two. The World's End's UHD is definitely best of the three.

[Orlac]

The sound on Hot Fuzz is ear-bleadingly loud at times. I felt nauseous after watching it last night.

[Finch]

Yeah, someone else mentioned the sound was cranked up to twelve. I must say Hot Fuzz is the only film so far where the editing really, really gets on my nerves. The film is copying Michael Bay too well in some regards.

[Finch]

National Lampoon Christmas Vacation (WB) caps

[Finch]

Blue Hawaii and Wayne's World appear to have been handled better by Paramount. The latter has had Stairway reinstated as heard back in theaters although Paramount then went into the opposite direction with another song, Dream Weaver, and used the original version as opposed to the version that was re-recorded for the film at the last minute. Waiting for more detailed reviews on both titles as well as the Columbia Classics Vol 3 and the Sony Pictures Classics set (which I'm hoping they'll break up into individual releases later on).

I'm sticking Planes, Trains and Automobiles in the Disappointing tier. I can't in good conscience label it as a solid upgrade if the UHD is an average product (people whose judgment I trust are giving the image a 3 out of 5) even if it is an upgrade over the lousy Blu-Ray.