UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[tenia]

Poor compression is most often blockiness. Fine grain will crumble into either large blocks of poorly resolved pixels or turn into chunks chunkier than they should be.

Poor restoration will be pretty much everything else, mostly being excess of digital filtering, like smoothing out the picture with grain managing (DNR) and/or sharpening it through edge enhancement.

[Finch]

dickieduvet on BR says The Burning 4k is region free. No one's tested Upgrade yet.

[rrenault]

Fear and Loathing also drops some extras.

If you already own the Ingmar Bergman's Cinema set that has the extras, is there any reason to favor the Criterion 4K of Seventh Seal over the BFI?

The encoding is a little bit better on the BFI, but it is definitely one of Criterion's better efforts. The audio on Criterion's disc also has a bit more filtering and sounds a bit worse, but the subtitle track on BFI's release is noticeable worse than Criterion's, unfortunately.

Assuming one either subcribes to the Criterion Channel or already has an older Criterion Blu-ray release of The Seventh Seal, the only discernable advantage of the CC 4K would be the subtitles I imagine. And considering the QC issues at the Mexican pressing plant Criterion uses, the superior subs aren’t enough of a reason to get me to double dip.

[rrenault]

Early feedback on The Truman Show suggests that Paramount fixed the geometry issues from the Blu-Ray and that the UHD overall looks appreciably better but, but, but the encoding is, yet again, bad in HDR10 and better if not wonderful in Dolby Vision (akin to Deep Impact and Saturday Night Fever).

That said, if Chinatown turns out the same, I'll still upgrade because the BD is ancient. On the other hand, I'm not selling my Criterion BD of Rosemary's Baby prematurely.

Sony's Cliffhanger re-issue is not a reference disc by all accounts, and some BR members prefer the Italian Eagle disc or even the Studio Canal while others swear by the Sony. With this film, it seems like a pick your poison scenario. Reactions to their Insidious disc are also mixed so far.

There are no street dates for 4K releases of Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby, are there?

[danbez]

Early feedback on The Truman Show suggests that Paramount fixed the geometry issues from the Blu-Ray and that the UHD overall looks appreciably better but, but, but the encoding is, yet again, bad in HDR10 and better if not wonderful in Dolby Vision (akin to Deep Impact and Saturday Night Fever).

That said, if Chinatown turns out the same, I'll still upgrade because the BD is ancient. On the other hand, I'm not selling my Criterion BD of Rosemary's Baby prematurely.

Sony's Cliffhanger re-issue is not a reference disc by all accounts, and some BR members prefer the Italian Eagle disc or even the Studio Canal while others swear by the Sony. With this film, it seems like a pick your poison scenario. Reactions to their Insidious disc are also mixed so far.

When you say that the encoding is bad on HDR10 - do you mean there is macroblocking like a few other titles? Or chroma issues? Or brightness? Thanks!

[kekid]

A question from a non-technical person:
If we find a flaw in the picture quality, how can we tell if that is due to poor restoration or bad encoding?
In other words, what are the signs of poor restoration, and what are the signs of bad encoding?
Thank you.

I would say that a poor restoration would leave significant film damage, such as large scratches, tram lines and color fluctuations intact as well as bad color grading, all of which can’t be fixed by the encode. But that’s to be taken into relation because there are some films, particularly older ones and those which haven’t got first-generation film elements any more, which are too damaged to be “properly” restored. I’d say that today, bad restorations when dealing directly with the scanned film are rarely happening any more but bad color grading is the main point which makes many new masters disappointing.

On the other hand, if an encode is bad, you see that the (normally) organically resolving layer of grain shows traces of blocking in parts of the image, which makes the restoration look like you’re seeing a digital projection and not “film”. This is technically untrue because it’s obviously all a digital presentation on disc but a good encode hides that fact by having it appear that you look at a film print.
Other factors could be that the very top layer of grain (high-frequency detail) is subtly taken off by the encoder using mild noise reduction in order to make encoding easier but at the expense of an ever-so-subtle (or more) decrease in overall detail. You can observe this with many Criterion UHDs when comparing with international alternatives of the same film.

Another scenario, though less likely, is that a 4K restoration (better term 4K digital master) has been pre-encoded before handing it over to an authoring house which normally does the disc encoding. This then could result in the above culprits like various sorts of blocking being baked into the master which no authoring house could then reverse for the final disc encode as they can only work with what they’re given and not go back to the raw files.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask if you have other questions.

Thank you, nicolas and Tenia, for your explanations. nicolas, did you intend to say that Criterion UHD's suffer more often from "mild noise reduction" than international alternatives? (or is it the other way around?) If this is systemic, and pointed out to them, why don't they fix it?

[tenia]

Criterion are an extreme case of having very deeply rooted habits.
They have been using the same encoding house for decades now (Pixelogic, formerly known as Radius60) and this house has been doing their BD encodes and now their UHD. Despite repeated attempts to get them to either switch to a more skilled encoding house for their BDs, they kept going through them and from 2012 (roughly, with Koyaanisqatsi) to somewhere around 2016, anything with very fine grain (pretty much all 4K restorations from 35mm OCN) ended up having rubbish encodes with more or less obvious problematic compression (the worst offender probably being My Own Private Idaho). They sort of improved their encodes but still struggle, and most of their BD encodes of 4K restorations from 35mm OCN show recognizable grain turned into bigger kind-a LEGO-shapes.
I myself talked to freaking Peter Becker AND Fumiko Takagi about this in 2019. As anyone can see, nothing has changed (Takagi told me that actually, Arrow's encodes like Thief's one was looking better because it was sharpened, which is isn't ](*,) ).

Now, Pixelogic thus also are doing their UHD encodes, and they're better at that, but they're still not 100% flawless either, and it seems that they routinely slightly soften the grain, probably so that it's easier to encode.

Why Criterion isn't fixing it ? Because they don't care enough about this (or, to say it differently, don't think it's a big enough issue) as to at least challenge their encoding house so that they FINALLY amp up their game or, like several other labels have done, at least give to more skilled encoding houses their most delicate-to-encode titles. So they're sticking with Pixelogic instead.

The worst is that Criterion are 12 minutes away (in subway) from Fidelity in Motion, so it's not like it'd be difficult to organise at least a meeting and a couple of test releases.

[M-A]

Despite repeated attempts to get them to either switch to a more skilled encoding house for their BDs, they kept going through them and from 2012 (roughly, with Koyaanisqatsi) to somewhere around 2016, anything with very fine grain (pretty much all 4K restorations from 35mm OCN) ended up having rubbish encodes with more or less obvious problematic compression (the worst offender probably being My Own Private Idaho).

Earlier than 2012, I think. The Killing, for example, is August 2011

[tenia]

The Killing isn't particularly good indeed, but being a 2K restoration, it's not dropping the ball like, say, Dressed to Kill or Mulholland Dr. But I see what you mean.

[hearthesilence]

Just noticed that caps-a-holic has Kagemusha caps for the Japanese Toho UHD. (The only other set they have is the U.S. Criterion BD.) To be honest, they look disappointing to me. You can see how the scan is a better capture for the long shots - the distant characters clearly have more visual integrity - but the detail looks degrained when you have a medium shot or close-up. Even blank spaces look like they have some remnant of texture that's been smoothed out. The color's all washed out too - when nicholas brought up incorrect color space, was he referring to this? (i.e. the disc actually looks better)

[nicolas]

Just noticed that caps-a-holic has Kagemusha caps for the Japanese Toho UHD. (The only other set they have is the U.S. Criterion BD.) To be honest, they look disappointing to me. You can see how the scan is a better capture for the long shots - the distant characters clearly have more visual integrity - but the detail looks degrained when you have a medium shot or close-up. Even blank spaces look like they have some remnant of texture that's been smoothed out. The color's all washed out too - when nicholas brought up incorrect color space, was he referring to this? (i.e. the disc actually looks better)

Linking you to my two posts I made on BR.com and here when I got the disc:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php? ... stcount=27

Caps: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php? ... stcount=28

Note that this was my first time making caps, as indicated by the description. I had a few problems in the beginning but once another user suggested me the IINA player, I was able to make proper ones. These are still caps from my MacBook display but reflect the colors I see on my TV, which are honestly gorgeous. (Earlier caps by another user had color space conversion issues which made them appear equally muted like those on Caps). This is not the case with the real disc.

The degraining is a problem in optical shots, such as the one in the beginning, but not so much in OCN footage.

If you’re on the fence because of this, I’d absolutely say go for the disc because it’s a revelation. Audio is a night-and-day upgrade to the Criterion, too.

[Finch]

Neil Z says Time Bandits has a stronger Dolby Vision encode than HDR10 on CC's UHD.

Upgrade (Scream Factory) looks very solid.

[Finch]

Undefeatable (Vinegar Syndrome) capsule review

Time Bandits (Criterion) (if viewed in Dolby Vision)

The Truman Show is disappointing but still an upgrade over the BD.

[M Sanderson]

So I'm hearing that Shout Factory's Creepshow is looking amazing, doesn't have the audio issues of the previous Blu-ray and isn't region locked - anyone been hearing anything contrary?

Really hoping for confirmation that The Burning has not been region locked as well.

[nicolas]

So I'm hearing that Shout Factory's Creepshow is looking amazing, doesn't have the audio issues of the previous Blu-ray and isn't region locked - anyone been hearing anything contrary?

Really hoping for confirmation that The Burning has not been region locked as well.

I read on BR.com that The Burning is indeed region-free. User Matt89 has already received his copy and recommended it as a big upgrade concerning the colors: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php? ... tcount=242

[senseabove]

Delighted to report, after Severin's beautifully restored but poorly encoded Drowning by Numbers disc, that LCQF's The Draughtsman's Contract appears to be superb. I only did some spot-checking for now, but the encode looks great and I'd say the Dolby Vision makes the UHD a significant upgrade over even the included BD. I don't have the new BFI to compare and don't see any caps of it at the usual places, but since it's the same restoration, I'd assume it's a similar improvement, as Greenaway's shrouds of darkness are one of this strengths, and, unsurprisingly, DV's ability to handle that darkness in scenes like the outdoor evening dinner with the infamous living statue is leaps and bounds greater than HD. Someone on the other forum posted caps of the LCQF BD upscaled vs the UHD at 100 nits, and safe to say it doesn't do the Dolby Vision justice (and they also seem to have introduced some chroma issues in the UHD caps...). And just to confirm, French subs and dub are on by default, but French subs can be turned off and the original English audio is included.

[nicolas]

I’ve received my copy of John Huston’s The Misfits (Capelight Germany and UK) today. First of all, it‘s really quite something to pre-order a German release with delivery to a German address and send & receive it later than an order from the US shipped on the release date of The Misfits.

Anyway, I only paid 15€ for this (Amazon price mistake) and I‘m glad I did because I would have regretted spending 35 (!) euros, the current price, for what is essentially a vanilla disc and the "limited" mediabook.

The 4K disc is a BD-100, yet Capelight definitely made it easy on themselves during the encoding stage. I haven’t watched the entire film but careful spot-checks were enough to see that they took off a small amount of highlight detail in (interior) shots, likely to ease the encoding of the many bright spots in the high-contrast cinematography. The overall film looks just a little less sharp than I feel it is on MGM‘s master, also when compared to other 60s movies. Yes, this is me considering the period‘s lack of high-speed stock and the lenses of today. Essentially you‘ll get a solid HD-quality image in terms of sharpness. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Exteriors often look different, showing a "crisper" image with more detail and more pronounced grain in a way that seems right.
I sadly don’t have an older BD to compare but I‘m certain that the overall gain is still there. Based on caps-a-holic‘s caps, the UHD looks like a solid upgrade.

And keep in mind that this is me speaking from going really close to my 83-inch TV. When standing centimeters away from your system, you‘ll sometimes notice tiny, tiny instances of macroblocking. I’m sensitive to things like that and noticed them, which could be overkill for most people but that‘s what I saw. This would have been more noticeable if the low-pass filtering were completely avoided (Curzon‘s UHDs reveal this) but I‘m sure that this is exactly why the filtering is there. Capelight went the easy way out and tried to hide what I believe is absolutely standard encoding work without taking efforts like Plaion or Fidelity in Motion who fine-tune for the best presentation. Considering the total lack of extras and the BD-100 disc space, it shouldn’t have been a problem at all.

Please don’t get me wrong: For most viewers, this presentation will be perfectly fine and look satisfying. I‘m criticizing the lack of the last 10% "4K gorgeousness" which would have made the thing perfect. (For comparison, I feel the same about Capelight’s Bloodsport, too. I don’t like the occasional shoddy encoding and DNR here and there.) Otherwise, the restoration looks gorgeous. HDR10 (1000 nits max) use is solid.

I hope that the 4K transfer gets to the US, ideally via Kino Lorber who‘d very likely avoid the low-pass filtering. Recommended at 15€, definitely too expensive at 35€.

[Finch]

Thank you senseabove and nicholas.

The Draughtsman's Contract (LCQF) (French import) (removable French subs)

The Misfits (Capelight) (German import)

The Burning (Scream Factory)

[therewillbeblus]

For U.S. residents, is there a cheaper/alternative way to import the French UHD of The Draughtsman's Contract than Amazon.Fr?

[Finch]

Scream confirmed in an email to a BR user that the region locking on Brotherhood of the Wolf and The People Under The Stairs was not intentional but also didn't confirm if the first pressings would be fixed, so my guess is anyone who imported the first pressing is shit out of luck. They might fix it for subsequent pressings.

[Finch]

Kyle15 and jcs93 over at BR are pretty happy with the encode of Criterion's After Hours 4k which given how much of the film takes place at night and in low-lit areas is good to hear.

[therewillbeblus]

Kyle15 and jcs93 over at BR are pretty happy with the encode of Criterion's After Hours 4k which given how much of the film takes place at night and in low-lit areas is good to hear.

I watched my copy the other night and it does indeed look terrific. I changed my settings to bright but not the brightest and it was perfect

[cdnchris]

I've only watched three of the films so far, but the Ranown set looks incredible. I'm not sure what I was expecting, to be honest, but clearly bot this. I have only watched in Dolby Vision, but the detail, lighting, everything is fantastic. Razor sharp, nice colours. The only thing impacting it are source related: Transitions and credits, which are taken from later generation elements and are a bit fuzzier, but that's to be expected. I can't take screen caps yet, and it's possible it may not be as strong in HDR or SDR, but my initial impressions are good.

Haven't watched Blu-rays yet, so cant speak of their encodes, but the 4Ks are knockouts.

[Finch]

Re the above: I'm actually hoping that Indicator upgrade their BD set and so I'm not going to pull the trigger on those for quite a while (not least because I'd prefer a single format release) but it's reassuring me that if I do have to get the Criterion set, that Pixelogic don't appear to have botched the 4k encodes.

[Finch]

Le Mepris UHD vs. BD

Updated OP too which I should have done weeks ago, sorry for the delay.

EDIT: 7/20/23: Redundant post as this was already sitting in the Solid Upgrade tier.