UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[nicolas]

Are there specs released for Chinatown's UHD set yet, other than the inclusion of the sequel? I offloaded my blu, but now I'm getting nervous that they won't port over the Fincher commentary..

The commentary is thankfully included. Here are the full specs: https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=34273

[therewillbeblus]

Phew, thanks nicolas!

[nicolas]

Phew, thanks nicolas!

I really hope that the encode isn’t a full-on disaster á la Once Upon a Time in the West. Thankfully we have Eagle coming to the rescue for the latter but Chinatown is Paramount-only. I’ve also offloaded my BD and hopefully don’t regret it.

[therewillbeblus]

I really hope that the encode isn’t a full-on disaster á la Once Upon a Time in the West.

Interesting, as always my eyes are flawed because I thought this looked outstanding. It was definitely de-grained and all, but the striking presentation finally made me fall in love with a film I had just liked over decades of revisits

[nicolas]

I really hope that the encode isn’t a full-on disaster á la Once Upon a Time in the West.

Interesting, as always my eyes are flawed because I thought this looked outstanding. It was definitely de-grained and all, but the striking presentation finally made me fall in love with a film I had just liked over decades of revisits

I’m glad you liked the film more (it’s in my all-time top 5) in 4K but the issues are apparently glaring. I’m deliberately saying this as I didn’t buy the Paramount 4K but what I saw from caps and BDInfo definitely show what’s wrong. Paramount compressed the entire, nearly 3-hour film on a BD-66. Compression is heavy as a result and when paired with the noise reduction, it really destroys the organic texture of the film. The average bitrate of the HDR10 base layer is barely above a standard BD and DV only adding just a little more. This is a good post: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php? ... count=1561

The film was shot on 2-perf Techniscope film which is half the height of standard 4-perf 35mm, let alone 8-perf 35mm for VistaVision. This only adds to grain and filmic texture, therefore the grainless look is double wrong. If you have the KL 4Ks of the other Leone westerns or films like Deep Red on the Arrow UHD you’ll see how Techniscope looks ideally. Paramount just didn’t give a damn at all.

I’m putting all my hope into the Eagle, which very likely gives us a better encode at the very least and if we’re lucky lossless original mono audio. The elephant in the room is the DNR and whether Eagle got access to the raw scan or just the restored Paramount master. Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits confirmed that the Kaleidoscope high-end version of the Paramount master is around 80 GB for the film and it looks better than the more compressed UHD, however traces of processing are still there.

[Finch]

The Long Good Friday (Arrow) (compared to their BD)

Geoff's review

[DeprongMori]

The Long Good Friday (Arrow) (compared to their BD)

Geoff's review

For anyone who is interested in reading Geoff’s long-ago deleted Blu-ray review of The Long Good Friday, which he references in his UHD review, it’s archived here. (link fixed)

[MichaelB]

For anyone who is interested in reading Geoff’s long-ago deleted Blu-ray review of The Long Good Friday, which he references in his UHD review, it’s archived here.

Did you actually click on that link? Because it doesn't work for me, and I've long been under the impression that the Wayback Machine hasn't been able to archive The Digital Fix's database-fuelled reviews, although the old DVD Times ones from the time when it was HTML-only are still lurking there.

[Finch]

It doesn't work for me either.

[Orlac]

It's a great shame those reviews are hard to find. I was trying to find Mike Sutton's one for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid the other day.

[Finch]

Narc (Arrow) (Chris's review)

[nicolas]

Icon's The Dreamers release is mediocre to disappointing due to a framing error that includes the soundtrack area of the negative and a predominantly dull, greenish Ritrovata grade with elevated black levels. BD and UHD encoding is very strong, likely by David M. / FiM. Image detail is vastly superior compared to the old master.

BD cap comparisons for the framing: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... 491&page=5
BD caps for the grade with comparisons: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... 491&page=4

[MichaelB]

It's a great shame those reviews are hard to find. I was trying to find Mike Sutton's one for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid the other day.

A fair number of Mike's reviews will still be accessible, as he went back to 1999. I don't know when the site switched to a database-driven model, but I'm pretty sure it was after 2002, when I stopped writing for it regularly, so at least three years' worth should still be traceable. You have to put in a fair amount of detective work, mind, unless you know the specific URL.

[DeprongMori]

For anyone who is interested in reading Geoff’s long-ago deleted Blu-ray review of The Long Good Friday, which he references in his UHD review, it’s archived here.

Did you actually click on that link? Because it doesn't work for me, and I've long been under the impression that the Wayback Machine hasn't been able to archive The Digital Fix's database-fuelled reviews, although the old DVD Times ones from the time when it was HTML-only are still lurking there.

Link has been fixed in my post. I had an erroneous html tag in the text — apologies! Corrected link

[MichaelB]

Ah, now that's *very* interesting! I wonder what else is retrievable?

[DeprongMori]

Ah, now that's *very* interesting! I wonder what else is retrievable?

(At the risk of diverting this thread further…)
Unfortunately, not the Mike Sutton post on Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Both of the archived pages for it were redirects to other pages which were not archived. I ran through some of links to his other Peckinpah reviews from his archived bio on the site and they all seem to have similar issues.

[nicolas]

Farewell My Concubine in 4K by Carlotta is reference and added to the Not English Friendly Import post.
Dolby Vision (MEL) is on the disc and encoding is by LSP. French subtitles can be turned off via remote. The master has a yellow touch in exteriors but it isn't a blanket tint. Blacks are deep, reds lush and saturated and whites are also present. The film looks magnificent and the encode is superb. Sound (16-bit) is sharp, detailed and immersive.

HDR caps:

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

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Spoiler

[nicolas]

I’ve received the SC UK 4K of Kind Hearts & Coronets and it’s a wonderful upgrade. Thankfully they included the 4K-restored BD from 2019 (?) in the set for comparison. The BD itself is good but affected by a bit too much black crush and slightly too blown-out highlights. Encoding-wise it was and is a top-tier disc. The UHD (BD-100) is a spectacular upgrade which surprised me greatly. It’s deserving of the red category as the crushing is much less problematic in the wider HDR10 gamut and the highlights are perfect. General image detail is also stronger than the BD with a now brilliant rendering of the film’s silvery nitrate touch from the negative in HDR. For that experience alone I think it’s worth the upgrade. I’d be surprised if anyone but FiM encoded both discs.

[nicolas]

German-language review with detailed caps for Capelight's 1984 UHD: https://blu-ray-rezensionen.net/1984-4k-uhd/
To my eyes this looks like a solid upgrade compared to the Criterion BD.
English audio is available for the Muldowney and Eurythmics scores as well as English subtitles.

[therewillbeblus]

How's the Capelight When Harry Met Sally... 4K?

[nicolas]

How's the Capelight When Harry Met Sally... 4K?

This is what I wrote on the other forum when it came out last year:

“I got my hands on the When Harry Met Sally 4K Mediabook. This will go to a family member but I’ve been able to check the disc. It’s a BD-100 with Dolby Vision. Caveat: English audio is only 5.1 with 2.0 reserved for German. English subs (regular) are available.

As with other films (The Misfits, Bloodsport), Capelight has problems properly encoding the highlights and I have a feeling they (again) used a light low-pass filter to ease the encoding. I’m no authority on the film (only know it from the very old BD) but I’m sure the grain structure on the master is a little more “dense” than on this UHD. Others may describe the look of the film as “soft” and I agree, although in combination with the original cinematography it feels right. I’ve watched Reiner’s The Princess Bride two weeks ago and it had a nice amount of grain even on the likely filtered Criterion UHD.
This film had a different cinematographer (Barry Sonnenfeld) though.

All in all, it’s a solid presentation and surely an improvement on earlier 4K-mastered BDs (I don’t have any) but I have a feeling that once Shout release theirs, we’ll get something better. In case of Sonnenfeld approving or supervising the transfer, it may take a while but the end result could be phenomenal as with Men in Black (DV) or The Addams Family. Fingers crossed we won’t have to wait much longer.”

I still feel that another US or UK label has something in the works for this classic. Maybe even Criterion grabbed the 4K rights - the film is right up their alley but I’m not ruling out Shout or even Arrow in the UK. After the first edition mediabook, a cheaper standard edition was also released: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/When-Har ... ay/349716/

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks nicolas! I'll hold off for now

[onedimension]

Any word on the Eureka/MOC U.S. release of The Valiant Ones?

[hearthesilence]

I’m putting all my hope into the Eagle, which very likely gives us a better encode at the very least and if we’re lucky lossless original mono audio. The elephant in the room is the DNR and whether Eagle got access to the raw scan or just the restored Paramount master. Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits confirmed that the Kaleidoscope high-end version of the Paramount master is around 80 GB for the film and it looks better than the more compressed UHD, however traces of processing are still there.

I'm hearing the DNR is baked into the master as well. Even if Eagles does a better encode, I'm not sure it's going to look too good. (The DCP based on the same restoration was shown at MoMA earlier this year - I didn't go, but maybe someone who did can report what they saw?) Regardless, I'll probably pass on this and hold on to the Blu-ray. There's room for improvement and some shots were probably tough to do, but overall the Blu-ray isn't a bad looking presentation.

[nicolas]

I’m putting all my hope into the Eagle, which very likely gives us a better encode at the very least and if we’re lucky lossless original mono audio. The elephant in the room is the DNR and whether Eagle got access to the raw scan or just the restored Paramount master. Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits confirmed that the Kaleidoscope high-end version of the Paramount master is around 80 GB for the film and it looks better than the more compressed UHD, however traces of processing are still there.

I'm hearing the DNR is baked into the master as well. Even if Eagles does a better encode, I'm not sure it's going to look too good. (The DCP based on the same restoration was shown at MoMA earlier this year - I didn't go, but maybe someone who did can report what they saw?) Regardless, I'll probably pass on this and hold on to the Blu-ray. There's room for improvement and some shots were probably tough to do, but overall the Blu-ray isn't a bad looking presentation.

This is disheartening to hear but thanks for confirming. I still have the old BD of the film in the KL Sergio Leone collection and agree that it’s a solid BD. Even if Eagle receive the DNR’d master, they’d still make it look better than Paramount. Maybe it’ll even be a small upgrade. I’ll definitely grab the Eagle UHD as the film is in my all-time top five. Leone remains cursed on home video sadly.