UHD and HDR in General

[domino harvey]

The majority of the people who buy any of these releases have no idea what Fidelity in Motion is. You all greatly overestimate the reach of your/our collective bubbles

[tenia]

I've seen dedicated discussion boards having members being very happy with godawful UHDs like American Graffiti, praising SD upscales on BD like Barabbas, and not realising the electronic alterations done on some masters to yield the final results, so of course they're absolutely blind when it comes to compression.

They can't see blocky encodes and chroma issues even when shown to them and put in their face, just like they can't see EE and DNR, and would praise HDR and BT2020 as done on Aliens (ie none, because it's actually upsampled from a SDR 2k master, so it yields 0 additionnal content in dark areas or highlights).

It's always good that some people have this knowledge, so at people interested by such deeper discussions can find guidance somewhere, but if even members of specialised boards (some of them professionnals) don't know this, the general audience absolutely doesn't either.

(Which is in part why some manufacturers are still selling $300 HDMI cables : because people don't know crap and have too much disposable income)

[vsski]

While I believe many of the points made here are valid, I for one firmly believe that we are moving to a state of the market where collecting any kinds of discs will become much more of a collectors market and much more expensive similar to the old laserdisc days. I remember buying some of the Criterion Laserdiscs 30 years ago for $150 a piece, which was not something the average consumer would ever entertain.
Many discs now have editions of 3,000 or less even for somewhat popular titles and still don’t sell out on day 1, so I think this speaks to the fact that the number of people still buying is steadily shrinking.
Naturally if I’m a boutique label trying to recoup my costs going down the limited edition model, adding steel books, postcards, pins or other gadgets to greatly inflate the price makes sense. By definition this appeals more to a collector’s mindset, which I believe now happens to be a significant segment of the market.
And as Tenia states many people in this segment want what they perceive as the newest and best, which is 4K regardless of whether it technically makes sense or whether they actually can see any improvements (or flaws for that matter unless they are blatantly obvious to the uninformed eye).

If Criterion would publish Naruse, Tanaka, Bunuel or whoever director you would like to include here that caters more to the cinephiles, people on this forum would be elated, bit how many are there still. And if it’s not in 4K you immediately loose a significant part of the now remaining buyers of discs and I don’t know if this still will be financially viable for all the reason already mentioned.

But publish a Z grade horror film in 4K regardless of the source materials and add lots of gadgets and charge $70 and make it a small limited edition and you have a sure winner.

[tenia]

There’s a Robert Christidès interview that I love, in which he talks about Ophüls and its supposed perfectionism about authenticity in his movies. The interviewer asks him about some very small accessories : “But, the viewers won’t see that on the screen !” and he answers “I think viewers see that without realizing it, that there is this quality and that if there wasn’t, that, he would see and say that the quality isn’t there”.

I think tech skills on home video releases can be summed up along this line : settling for a lower tech bar that what was achievable is just this. And yeah, maybe only a portion of the viewers will perceive the issues, but the issues will be there, and that’s just that. Properly encoding something, for instance, doesn’t hurt. I don’t even think it’s particularly more expensive. Those who can’t spot blocky encode won’t have issues with competent ones. It’s only for the best. So, if it can be done, why not doing it ? It’s not as if problematic releases are sold at a discount. Crap encodes from Kino or Criterion or whoever else isn’t cheaper because of that. It doesn’t work this way.

And I do think that this is the kind of things that reveal how a label operates in this regard. To me, home video releases is my main access to new restorations that sadly haven’t been shown theatrically near me, and the labels’ job on these releases is at least to allow me the best access, the most transparent access (technically-wise) to those to me. If he can’t even do that, then what ? What happens is that interested consumers are stuck with it. We have a label in France who handles some great movies, but whoever encodes their BDs can’t encode crap. It’s a nightmare, combining poor video encodes, lossy soundtracks and sometimes window-boxing. It means that they’re the ones having the rights, that’s the video releases we’ll be stuck with at least until the rights lapse, and even then, it’s likely we won’t get another release until some time because one can assume whoever was interested with a video release of those movies will be covered by this and so the market will be saturated for these titles.
It’s very frustrating, just like being stuck for 15 years with a crappy restoration, and again, it doesn’t come with a specific discount for that. They’ve released some titles in waves : the ones technically fine were at the same price that those which weren’t.

But then again : I've seen last week a movie in theater through the worst DCP I ever saw, so poorly encoded it turned a brand new 4K from a 16mm OCN to what seemed to be a 25 yo HD master, and I don't think many people realized that.
But it wouldn't have hurt to do things right.

[vsski]

Don’t disagree with anything you are saying Tenia and I for one am grateful for people like you on this forum who point out any flaws in releases, but as you yourself state many people on other forums don’t see this and/or don’t care.
This of course shouldn’t be an excuse for labels to do shoddy jobs and forums like this should complain and point it out. Fortunately there are labels like Radiance, Indicator and Arrow that so far are trying to get it right in most cases.

Unfortunately the movies often requested here that appeal more to a cinephile market aren’t available or affordable to Arrow and Indicator, and Criterion, who has many of these licenses has been slow to publish them and quality wise been hit and miss - although it seems they are improving from what I read here.

My biggest issue with Criterion is that it holds all these licenses and doesn’t do anything with them other than streaming. If only they would allow some of the boutiques like the aforementioned ones to publish discs in best possible editions (even if only a Blu Ray) I’d be celebrating, but sadly this doesn’t appear to be happening any time soon.

[tenia]

I think it's just important that a complete assessment of a release's value is important. Everyone won't be always interested in everything it says, but it's there to pick and choose from it. Nobody gains from being incomplexe, even less so inaccurate. At best, it'll feel like an omission, at worst like something that you could and should have caught but didn't.

What I came to terms with is that movie being such a popular widespread hobby doesn't mean people are cinephiles, and the same reasoning goes with tech-related assessments. And it's fine and all, but people interested in it should always remember these things fly by the absolute majority of people. If even people working in the industry can't spot DNR on Criterion's BD of Madame de, what can we expect of people who have no clue what DNR is in the first place ? But maybe those people are equipped better than I am nevertheless. It's just how things go, and all we can go is provide accurate and factual feedbacks everywhere that might require it, because it serves nobody not providing accurate assessments. Nobody wants to read a good review, pay for the product, and actually realise maybe it's not that good.

But there's a lot of education to be done, in part because there are those who don't know, just really don't, but there are also those who kinda know but believe that remasters like Cameron's ones are enhanced by what has been done, and that Cinema Paradiso's Arrow UHD is unwatchable on OLED screens because there's noise everywhere because the encode is rubbish because of the lab who performed the restoration (and yes, this is pretty much a verbatim of a conversation I recently had). Explaining to unknowing people how things work is one thing. Battling with people who have the wrong idea about how something looks how it does and how it should look instead, despite all the knowledge and facts and first-hand reports you can provide is another, and a much harder and more tedious (and wearing down) one.

[nicolas]

Amen to tenia’s fantastic posts.

[bugsy_pal]

But there's a lot of education to be done, in part because there are those who don't know, just really don't, but there are also those who kinda know but believe that remasters like Cameron's ones are enhanced by what has been done, and that Cinema Paradiso's Arrow UHD is unwatchable on OLED screens because there's noise everywhere because the encode is rubbish because of the lab who performed the restoration (and yes, this is pretty much a verbatim of a conversation I recently had). Explaining to unknowing people how things work is one thing. Battling with people who have the wrong idea about how something looks how it does and how it should look instead, despite all the knowledge and facts and first-hand reports you can provide is another, and a much harder and more tedious (and wearing down) one.

Bugger! I bought the Cinema Paradiso UHD ages ago, and have yet to watch it - I had know idea it was flawed. Hopefully I can futz with my OLED TV's settings to make it viewable.

[tenia]

It's not flawed. At all.
The issue stemmed from the person I was talking with, who can't take grainy movies because he believes he doesn't look good, mixes up grain and video noise and macroblocking, and thinks the encode is done by the restoration lab.
He basically doesn't know what he's talking about, but still believes he can provide useful tech feedback.

[MichaelB]

See also the guy who gave Arrow's (then) state-of-the-art White of the Eye just 3/10 for picture quality because he didn't like the ultra-grainy, high-contrast flashback scenes.

Never mind that they were not only presented exactly as intended (and I can be certain of this because I caught a 35mm screening on its original release) but there were at least two mentions in the extras of how Donald Cammell wanted the entire visual texture of those parts to look different.

What was really galling about that was the combination of ignorance and laziness - even if he sincerely thought that it was a restoration flaw on Arrow's part, the extras would have put him right, had he bothered to watch them.

[tenia]

And Cinema Paradiso isn't even as a stylised movie as White of the Eye. It is grainy, sure, but the UHD just is what you'd expect from a recent and competent 4K restoration from a 80s 35mm OCN, which made this example such a weird one to pick if wanting to praise what Cameron did on True Lies and Aliens and Abyss (which was what the conversation started from). And the more I explained to him "no, that's not that", the more he was mixing things up because it was solely a matter of him not liking the visual result. There was no technical factual flaw to point out, but since he kept not realising that wasn't it, he kept either making or mixing things up. Which is, in some ways, fine when it's written in an interrogating tone, "maybe it's compression ?", but starts not being it at all when written as some kind of factual assessments "it's rubbish because the lab can't encode it properly" (which is thrice wrong : it's not rubbish, it's not an encoding issue, the encode was done by a dedicated authoring third-party and not the lab).

And people like these are much harder to discuss with, because they're not passively unknowledgeable (because, let's face it, most people don't care about the recipe, they want like when it tastes good), but actively spreading misleading information.

[rrenault]

Well I think Tenia’s arguments tie into what I was saying partly. So I’m not sure why I was getting attacked, although I admit I tend to express myself in writing in a deliberately provocative rather than equivocal manner which may rub some people the wrong way and doesn’t always go down well in this forum.

Anyhow, Criterion releasing Mother and the Whore on UHD is a perfect case in point. Do we really need a $50 MSRP edition of an underlying master that barely offers perceivable uptick over 2K when seen in a cinema? But many of the people Tenia is talking about will still eat it up. I’m not saying stuff like Paris, Texas and Peeping Tom shouldn’t be released on UHD. Although I feel my arguments sometimes get interpreted that way.

[tenia]

We do share a good chunk of our points of view, but I suppose the original discussion was about the technical receptivity of the audience, whether it's the general one or specific labels' one, about what arguably is less obvious tech aspects, versus of a UHD upgrade even if a solid BD already exists.
Eventialisation is a thing, which is why we still see movies getting released on BD despite ancient obsolete HD masters : because if they were just released on DVD, it wouldn't be as visible of a release.

Mother and the Whore is an important re-release, considering the movie's invisibility for so long. By releasing it on UHD, Criterion will be perceived, no matter what, as going even further than other labels just releasing it on BD. I understand what you mean about choosing the right support corresponding to what can offer the master, and ideally, I wish everything was properly correlated this way, but sometimes/often, factors like this also come into play.

[rrenault]

Release visibility is a fair point, although I suppose much of this stems from the inconsistent quality of Criterion’s encodes. The UK boutiques, with the exception of Curzon, have a good enough standing in the A/V community to confer value on their 1080p releases as physical objects, and collectors can trust they’ve chosen to stick to Blu-ray on this or that title in good faith (I.e. nobody’s giving BFI or Radiance shit for forgoing UHD on a given title). Criterion obviously doesn’t have that status.

This is just to say a hypothetical 1080p edition of Mother and the Whore from Radiance would have more cultural cachet than one from Criterion.

It’ll be interesting to see if Criterion release Antonioni’s Il Grido on UHD or if they go the Tanaka/Mes Petites Amoureuses route with that title.

[tenia]

Criterion obviously doesn’t have that status.

The fact that they just now are managing to get better encodes for their UHDs, a format that's already 8 years old, and that they still aren't getting optimal encodes for their BDs, a format that's 18 years old, though they did get a first improvement pass some years ago, which took them 4 years to get happening meaning that a good 50 movies were impacted in the meantime, also means that they don't really need this status.
Moreover, let's face it : we're often stuck with whatever is released and whoever does so. I've bought plenty of Criterion discs that aren't what I'd like them to be, tech-wise, because these movies aren't getting released anywhere else, and I really wanted those movies. And that's, first and foremost, Criterion's status. And it's also most certainly most labels' status. Being very good at tech is, for most customers, nice to have, an added bonus, but not what is going to make the appeal.

But I also think that Criterion are known for upgrading titles : they did it from DVD to BD, now from BD to UHD. It's part of what they do, while we know part of what BFI or Radiance do is not upgrading (well, a bit from DVD to BD, but not from BD to UHD, and not as structurally as what Criterion are doing).

[rrenault]

True, although Wages of Fear is a title BFI had already done on Blu-ray, but maybe that’s the only one among their 4K titles.

[MichaelB]

And Seven Samurai.

But Indicator has yet to upgrade an existing title to UHD, and I'm not aware of any plans in that direction, or even if it's an option in many cases. Tellingly, Sony has put out things like Christine and Body Double on UHD themselves.

[rrenault]

And Seven Samurai.

But Indicator has yet to upgrade an existing title to UHD, and I'm not aware of any plans in that direction, or even if it's an option in many cases. Tellingly, Sony has put out things like Christine and Body Double on UHD themselves.

While we’re at it, how does Sony’s Christine UHD compare to the OOP Carlotta edition? That said, I’m not sure I’d buy it. It’s a good film but a bit too depressing to have ample replay value.

But I feel like you can only rewatch a Carpenter film so often since they’re often such downers.

But it’s a testament to Carpenter’s skills as a filmmaker that, in the case of Christine, he can take a premise that reaches “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” or “It Conquered the World” levels of silliness and turn it into a disturbing horror film that fills you with nothing but dread by the end.

[mfunk9786]

Guys - if you're talking about Fidelity in Motion or any number of other highly technical things re: this format, please do so in this thread meant for these discussions

[dwk]

Panic Room 4k confirmed to Bill Hunt by industry sources for last week of March. Didn't think much of it at the time of release, maybe it'll play better now (though I definitely prefer it to Dragon Tattoo).

Three years later, Sony is finally releasing this in a Steelbook on February 18th, 2025

SYNOPSIS
Trapped in their New York brownstone's panic room, a hidden chamber built as a sanctuary in the event of break-ins, newly divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter, Sarah (Kristen Stewart), play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with three intruders—Burnham (Forest Whitaker), Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) and Junior (Jared Leto)—during a brutal home invasion. But the room itself is the focal point because what the intruders really want is inside it.

DISC DETAILS & BONUS MATERIALS
4K ULTRA HD DISC
Feature presented in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision, supervised by Director David Fincher
English Dolby Atmos + English 5.1
FEATURE + SPECIAL FEATURE BLU-RAY™ DISCS
Feature presented in high definition, sourced from the 4K master
English 5.1
Special Features:
Commentary by David Fincher
Commentary by Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker and Dwight Yoakam
Commentary by writer David Koepp and special guest
PRE-PRODUCTION
6 featurettes on the prep phase, from pre-visualization through testing
Interactive previsualization — Compare the pre-visualization, storyboards, dailies and final film in a multi-angle, multi-audio feature with optional commentary
PRODUCTION
Shooting Panic Room – An hour-long documentary on the principal photography phase
Makeup effects featurette with Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr.
Sequence breakdowns – An interactive look at the creation of four separate scenes in the film
POST-PRODUCTION
21 documentaries and featurettes on the visual effects
On Sound Design with Ren Klyce
Digital Intermediate and other featurettes dealing with the post-production phase
A multi-angle look at the scoring session conducted by Howard Shore
Special Features Produced by David Prior

CAST AND CREW
Directed by: David Fincher
Produced by: Ceán Chaffin, Gavin Polone, Judy Hofflund, David Koepp
Written by: David Koepp
Cast: Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, Jared Leto, Kristen Stewart
SPECS
Run Time: Approx. 112 minutes
Rating: R: for violence and language

4K UHD Feature Picture: 2160p Ultra High Definition, 2.39:1
4K UHD Feature Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible) | English 5.1 DTS-HD MA

[yoloswegmaster]

Sony is also giving The Social Network a standalone (steelbook only) release in February

[flyonthewall2983]

I have made a weird pact with myself to only buying steelbooks from Sony or Paramount. I have bought a bunch of discs over the last four years (gonna make a project of it here at some point to review all my stuff, for perhaps big life reasons) and particularly the Lawrence of Arabia steelbook is probably as prized as my King Crimson boxsets at this point. 4K has really opened me up to watching older movies, the reward in seeing how bright and present even the distant past can be.

That said all these Fincher releases (perhaps more likely his recent films with Netflix are next, but I still think Gone Girl is a possibility) are encouraging to me that Criterion would put one out of his best movies, The Game. I wonder if putting a steelbook out for Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is at all of interest to Sony, the special edition made for that one is brilliant.

[dwk]

Re-Animator is getting a UHD from Ignite Films on Aprul 3rd. Available in three flavors:
$130 limited edition (Dr. Hill Collector's Bobblehead, Collector's art cards, 150 page hardcover book, random chance for an autographed poster.)
$80 Collector's edition (150 page hardcover book)
$50 standard edition(just the discs)

Ultimate Limited Edition Box Set: $129.95
* 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo
* New and previous release extras
* 150-page hardcover book featuring new interviews with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, writer Dennis Paoli, and composer Richard Band. Essays by Scout Tafoya, Kate Rife, Will Sloan, Alex Kittle, and Ben Sachs. Preface by Brian Yuzna.
* Dr. Hill Collector's Bobblehead - A must have for fans! With limited quantities available, this exclusive individually hand painted collectible won't be restocked once it's gone.
* Collector's art cards
Ultimate Limited Edition Box Set Prize Bonus
Some lucky fans will discover green "re-agent" in their order! If you're one of them, you'll receive an exclusive signed poster by Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Brian Yuzna, plus a special Re-Animator gift pack from our friends at Middle of Beyond.

Deluxe Edition Box Set: $79.95
* 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo
* New and previous release extras
* 150-page hardcover book featuring new interviews with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, writer Dennis Paoli, and composer Richard Band. Essays by Scout Tafoya, Kate Rife, Will Sloan, Alex Kittle, and Ben Sachs. Preface by Brian Yuzna.
* Collector's art cards

4K UHD Standard Edition: $49.95
* 4K UHD
* Slipcover
* New and previous release extras

Blu-ray Standard Edition: $39.95
* Blu-ray
* Slipcover
* New and previous release extras

New Bonus Features
Re-Animator at 40: A Conversation with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Brian Yuzna
Piece By Piece: Cutting Re-Animator – A New Interview with Editor Lee Percy
The Horror of It All: The Legacy and Impact of Re-Animator
I Give Her Life: A Look Back at Re-Animator: The Musical
Re-Animating a Horror Classic: The 4K Restoration of Re-Animator
The Organic Theater Company of Chicago: A 1977 documentary featuring Stuart Gordon
New 40th anniversary 4K UHD trailer

Previous Release Bonus Features
Integral Version (105 mins)
Isolated Score
Commentary with Stuart Gordon and actors Graham Skipper and Jesse Merlin of Re-Animator: The Musical
Commentary with Stuart Gordon
Commentary with producer Brian Yuzna, actors Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Bruce Abbott, and Robert Sampson
Re-Animator: Resurrectus - Feature-length documentary on the making of the film featuring extensive interviews with cast and crew
Interviews with director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna, writer Dennis Paoli, composer Richard Band and former Fangoria editor Tony Timpone
Music discussion with composer Richard Band
The Catastrophe of Success: Stuart Gordon and The Organic Theater -
Director Stuart Gordon discusses his early theater roots and his continued commitment to the stage
Theater of Blood - Re-Animator: The Musical lyricist Mark Nutter on adapting the cult classic for musical theater
Extended scenes
Deleted scene
Trailer & TV Spots
Still Gallery
Barbara Crampton In Conversation: The Re-Animator star sits down with journalist Alan Jones for this career-spanning 2015 interview
A Guide to Lovecraft Cinema: Chris Lackey, host of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, provides a comprehensive look at the many cinematic incarnations of Lovecraft's work
Doug Bradley's Spinechillers: Herbert West, Re-Animator actor Jeffrey Combs reads H.P. Lovecraft's original classic story

[colinr0380]

Panic Room 4k confirmed to Bill Hunt by industry sources for last week of March. Didn't think much of it at the time of release, maybe it'll play better now (though I definitely prefer it to Dragon Tattoo).

Three years later, Sony is finally releasing this in a Steelbook on February 18th, 2025

Commentary by writer David Koepp and special guest

The 'special guest' incidentally is William Goldman, who makes for a good interviewer and prompts Koepp extremely well about why he chose to write things the way that he did. Goldman also has some thoughts about the then current mega-flop Gigli, in a mini-rant that he decides to cut short during the end credits!

[Stefan Andersson]

Panic Room 4K screencaps:
https://slow.pics/tmdb/movie/4547