UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

david hare's feedback on the Trial UHD on Facebook:

This is without a doubt the worst UHD 4K transfer I’ve yet had the privilege to pay good money for and then try to watch.
God only knows what Canal did to its 4K master to render such an appalling, compressed mess of gray and white with virtually no registration that comes anywhere near a 35mm print. The first interior scene is so fuzzy, the walls are barely readable as surfaces and any hint of gray quickly merges into an overall black crush. Whites flare, and shot to shot continuity looks like the person timing the master fell asleep.
Total, pure shit. I hope the DCP at least isn’t anything like this. If it is they need to burn it and start again.

in a BTL comment on the BD:

there's definitely grain on the Blu, but it's hard to tell whether it's real or electronic, as it fluctuates and occasionally merges with the black crush and also the blown out whites. So far there doesn't appear to be much in the way of grey scales, but I need to watch the whole thing first before I can be definitive.

Two BR users also complained about the poor compression a while ago.

Ouch! Fingers crossed for a Criterion edition of this then, I guess!

[Drucker]

Jeez, I'll try to catch the DCP at Film Forum and report back.

[Finch]

Well, the question is this: do Studio Canal have worldwide rights for The Trial or are US rights with someone else (Rialto/Jabus)? If they are with SC for the US, would they allow Criterion to do their own encode of the film or would it have to be a straight port of the work SC had already done? Even if Criterion can do their own authoring, the authoring house that does the Blu-Rays for them has a very mixed track record.

[FrauBlucher]

According to Bruce Goldstein who owns Rialto they have the US rights. So, I guess it’s their call if it ends up with Criterion.

[dwk]

Rialto only has theatrical rights to the StudioCanal titles, and I don't think they have any say in the home video side of things.

The Kino Insider has said The Trial is with another label. Which would mean Lionsgate, Criterion, Shout Factory, Film Movement or Severin.

[FrauBlucher]

Rialto definitely licenses to Criterion

[therewillbeblus]

I think it's a safe bet- aren't Janus planning on touring the restoration? I feel like they only do that when they're planning to release it on disc through Criterion later

I sampled the circulating upload of SC's UHD on backchannels and it looked pretty poor to me too. Not that a compressed file like that is a fair indicator of problems on a disc with more bandwidth, but I was pretty disappointed compared to what they usually look like - having said all that, I've only ever seen the film in awful quality, so anything remotely sharp is a major step up

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I think it's a safe bet- aren't Janus planning on touring the restoration? I feel like they only do that when they're planning to release it on disc through Criterion later

I haven't seen anything about Janus touring the restoration. There's no mention of it on their site and googling didn't turn up anything either. OTOH it's currently the main feature on Rialto's website.

Rialto definitely licenses to Criterion

They do, but they haven't sublicensed any Canal titles for a long time. AFAICT all of the Rialto-licensed Canal titles are either OOP or were relicensed directly from Canal (e.g. Le cercle rouge, Army of Shadows, Mouchette). The only possible exception is Made in U.S.A., which is still in print, but while this is a Canal title internationally I'm not sure it is in the U.S., maybe due to the legal issues around the Westlake source material. So if Criterion releases The Trial I imagine it would be from Canal, with Rialto only handling theatrical.

[FrauBlucher]

I think it's a safe bet- aren't Janus planning on touring the restoration? I feel like they only do that when they're planning to release it on disc through Criterion later

I haven't seen anything about Janus touring the restoration. There's no mention of it on their site and googling didn't turn up anything either. OTOH it's currently the main feature on Rialto's website.

Rialto is indeed touring The Trial. My guess is that Rialto has an agreement with SC that no home release until the tour has been completed. Then, most likely Criterion will release the bluray/UHD. Whether that will be licensed from SC or Rialto time will tell. And BTW... Bruce Goldstein is a co-owner of the NY's Film Forum

Rialto definitely licenses to Criterion

They do, but they haven't sublicensed any Canal titles for a long time. AFAICT all of the Rialto-licensed Canal titles are either OOP or were relicensed directly from Canal (e.g. Le cercle rouge, Army of Shadows, Mouchette). The only possible exception is Made in U.S.A., which is still in print, but while this is a Canal title internationally I'm not sure it is in the U.S., maybe due to the legal issues around the Westlake source material. So if Criterion releases The Trial I imagine it would be from Canal, with Rialto only handling theatrical.

Panique and Christ Stopped at Ebola were the two most recent titles that Rialto licensed. Maybe Chris knows of more

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Neither of those were Canal titles, though. The last Rialto-licensed Canal title I can find was Léon Morin, Priest in 2011. My assumption is that at some point Canal stopped licensing all U.S. rights to Rialto and started licensing video rights separately.

[MichaelB]

Panique and Christ Stopped at Ebola were the two most recent titles that Rialto licensed. Maybe Chris knows of more

Now there’s a title.

[FrauBlucher]

Damn your eyes

[Gcsee]

Just watched the 4k Studio Canal release of The Trial. It looks perfectly fine in Dolby Vision on a 65 inch LG OLED. Considering the earlier remarks it seems like somebody’s settings on viewing this disc were skewed or fubar.

It’s hard to say where limitations of the production and filming of the movie and the relative quality of the transfer begins or ends with any movie not shot under perfect conditions: the wildly differing shooting locations make this budget euro production famously uneven from shot to shot which undoubtedly necessitated some compromises in preparing the transfer but 90% of the transfer looks normal in regards to grain management, with a healthy bitrate. The black/white contrast is perfect throughout, all the hideous contrast blooming and digital sharpening from previous transfers now gone.

Compared to any previous digital releases of The Trial this release is a godsend, and if all Welles’ movies will be released like this I’ll be happy to add them to my collection. If the Studiocanal 4k release of The Servant was close to a 10 out of 10, I’d give this an 8 out of 10.

[Finch]

Cannibal Holocaust (88 Films) caps

caveat: Compulsory 15 second-trim of the coatimundi killing, recreated title sequences contain a spelling error ("autheticity")

Ju-On The Grudge (Arrow)

[black&huge]

Just watched the 4k Studio Canal release of The Trial. It looks perfectly fine in Dolby Vision on a 65 inch LG OLED. Considering the earlier remarks it seems like somebody’s settings on viewing this disc were skewed or fubar.

It’s hard to say where limitations of the production and filming of the movie and the relative quality of the transfer begins or ends with any movie not shot under perfect conditions: the wildly differing shooting locations make this budget euro production famously uneven from shot to shot which undoubtedly necessitated some compromises in preparing the transfer but 90% of the transfer looks normal in regards to grain management, with a healthy bitrate. The black/white contrast is perfect throughout, all the hideous contrast blooming and digital sharpening from previous transfers now gone.

Compared to any previous digital releases of The Trial this release is a godsend, and if all Welles’ movies will be released like this I’ll be happy to add them to my collection. If the Studiocanal 4k release of The Servant was close to a 10 out of 10, I’d give this an 8 out of 10.

This is EXTREMELY helpful. Thank you! Is they anymore solid word on SC's The Driver and Casque D'or?

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Apparently Casque D’Or has NO HDR. A shame as the other Studio Canal releases I own do. I’m planning on watching my copy in the next week, but it was an annoying thing to discover after I made the purchase.

[andyli]

AE's Wings of Desire has no HDR either. It seems that the labels are getting more comfortable releasing SDR UHDs since.

[Finch]

The Driver (Studio Canal) caps

[senseabove]

Any news about SC's release of Visconti's Ludwig? It's out in France now, but w/o English subs.

Went digging a bit since this has been out a few weeks. No clue how reliable it is, but here's a brief positive review of the SC Ludwig UHD. The caps there appear to be lifted directly from DVDBeaver, so at the very least they're not relevant.

[tenia]

They're quite reliable (though not 100%) but the new restoration bears the Ritrovata stamp in any case.

Someone at DVD Classik made a comparison with the Arrow disc (to be taken with a grain of salt : I don't know how the caps were taken precisely, and I think it's the SC BD not UHD) : https://slow.pics/c/01lWocTM

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

Any news about SC's release of Visconti's Ludwig? It's out in France now, but w/o English subs.

Went digging a bit since this has been out a few weeks. No clue how reliable it is, but here's a brief positive review of the SC Ludwig UHD. The caps there appear to be lifted directly from DVDBeaver, so at the very least they're not relevant.

Thanks! And thanks, Tenia. Waiting for an English-friendly version, then. But sorry to hear that the restoration is from our friends at Ritrovata... Guess you can't have everything.

[Finch]

Happy new year, all!

belated addition of The Frighteners (Turbine) (German import)

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (Severin) (if compared to the Italian and UK BDs)
Four Flies on Grey Velvet (Severin) (if compared to their own BD)

caps

PS.: A Blu-Ray.com forum member reports that the "mono" track on Kino's The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is also a 5.1 downmix. Caveat added to OP.

[Finch]

The encode on Criterion's Baron Munchhausen UHD is disappointing.

[M-A]

I noticed some of SC's 4Ks are missing:

Cat's Eye: Detail is much improved and encoding is good for their standards (looks to me on a similar level as The Night of the Living Dead), but Hiventy did their usual dirty work. The thread is here

King Kong (1976): same story as Cat's Eye but Ritrovata instead of Hiventy and maybe not quite as badly graded. Thread is here

Red Sonja is also a similar story from Hiventy

Red Heat (studiocanal/lionsgate) is graded well but poorly encoded

The Doors (studiocanal/lionsgate) is good in DV, poor in HDR10

Universal Soldier (studiocanal/lionsgate) is good in DV and in HDR10

The 2 Daleks films (Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. & Dr. Who and the Daleks) are graded well and have great encodes. Threads are here and here. Caveat that the "The End" title card on Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. is missing. Caps are here and here

[mhofmann]

King Kong (1976): same story as Cat's Eye but Ritrovata instead of Hiventy and maybe not quite as badly graded. Thread is here

Note that L'Immagine Ritrovata did not do any grading here, which was done by Paramount. And IMO It looks beautiful.