UHD New Releases, Reissues and Upgrades

[Drucker]

I saw an original 1977 print of Sorcerer last year at The Vista. The print was definitely faded red a bit, but I will say that in the final drive that Scheider makes alone, the heavy, heavy dark blue tint was almost certainly present. In this cap for example, I believe there were portions of the sequence with the heavy blue filter.

[Finch]

Crime Story (88 Films) caps

Species 88 Films tied with Scream Factory

[Finch]

I've added Umbrella's 4K of Wake in Fright to the OP. Someone on the other forum mentioned that the audio is in the correct pitch while the MoC BD was not.

Second Sight's 4K of The Nice Guys appears to have a delay on the Atmos track. I don't think Second Sight have officially addressed this yet. The original 5.1 is fine.

[Finch]

Geoff approves of the From Russia With Love 4K.

[Finch]

Criterion's Barry Lyndon 4K encode is struggling with the highlights as seen in this shot (though to be fair, in the context of the screencap's HDR-SDR conversion; it might look better on our TV screens, especially in Dolby Vision?). Overall though, when you look at the other caps, it is still better than the Blu-Ray. Tentatively a solid upgrade. (Still wish they hadn't done a digipak)

[andyli]

Interesting... The framing difference does indicate the 4K is a newer (or at least updated) restoration, as advertised at Cannes.

[tenia]

The marginal sliver of lateral difference ?
Nah, that's an encoding difference. It's the same framing overall, the same geometry, you can spot check everywhere else in every cap and won't find any telling difference. Eg https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=56 ... &i=14&go=1

[nicolas]

Hey everyone,

sorry for not keeping up with posting about new releases. I had a lot going on in the past weeks and couldn't take enough time to do it properly.
Finch, are we going back to the old way of posting? I think that takes up less time and effort to collect anything. Are you okay with focusing on the most important release aspects going forward?
I'll be going through the other forum's release calendar for June and collect what I can find:

Red category:
- Monkey Shines (Shout) (old master's magenta grading was dialed back, 2.0 mix is said to be superior to the other mixes and is likely the original one)
- Swordfish (Arrow) (caps, stunning upgrade)
- Lord of Illusions (Shout) (caps, very impressive upgrade, VFX shots look a bit better as well thanks to the new scan and HDR, magenta touch in the old master is no longer there)
- The Way of the Gun (Lionsgate Limited) (tentatively in red category as there's not enough voices re. PQ but the old BD apparently had DNR'd shots and Lionsgate commissioned a new OCN scan, the new Atmos mix is said to be excellent)
- Dark City (Arrow) (caps, no words needed)
- Sorcerer (Criterion) (this is one my favorites and I honestly adore the new master + theatrical audio. On my system, everything looks terrific and not excessively tealed because of how restrained the HDR/DV is, which gives the colors a beautifully subdued, textured quality that's quite a departure from Friedkin's 2013 remaster. I don't think I've seen this mentioned before but Criterion's BD is actually much closer to the Friedkin master in color saturation and brightness. I therefore assume that they built the warm, "teal-y" filmic nature that's inherent in the 4k master around the print they screened and tuned the colors according to how Friedkin wanted them. The balance looks good to me but the HDR elevates it on another level. Both discs are very nicely encoded. I acknowledge that opinions vary when it comes to this title, so feel free to discuss or leave it in the blue tier.)
- Bring It On (Shout) (I have it, outstanding new master in restoration and grading, excellent encode, strong sound)
- High Society (Warner Archive) (VistaVision remaster, FiM encode, new Atmos based on the original tracks and the mono is said to be excellent, I have it and agree)
- The Gentle Gunman (Indicator) (I have it, excellent 4K master and encode, except for opticals grain is very fine, grading is beautifully silvery and luminous, nice HDR re-grade by Fidelity in Motion)
- The Big Heat (Criterion) (new mono mix from the original elements, audio sync issue fixed)
- Primary Colors (Shout) (positive thoughts)

Blue category:
- Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Shout) (caps-a-holic, even more caps, audio comparison, great PQ upgrade but the audio was filtered)
- Mishima (Criterion) (I do agree with the positive review but as it's the same master only better with better encoding, I'm not sure if the red category is deserved. Would appreciate others' opinions on this.)
- Connery 007 collection (MGM)
- Air America (Lionsgate) (probably the same encode as the European disc similar to Cutthroat Island but with different audio, "The two brief scenes where Gene (Gibson) speaks the native language and negotiates some arms deals with the locals do NOT have the subtitles that were there on every other release")
- Jurassic Park Trilogy 4K Stelbook (Universal) (same 4K masters as the previous 2018 edition but now with Dolby Vision and new Atmos mixes that replace the DTS:X tracks, JP 1 has dialed-back DNR, JPIII has a glitch in the encode when played back in HDR10)
- Sabrina (Kino) (I have it, it's fine release with no glaring encode issues, the new master is also fine but graded to look quite dim in HDR/DV, which I'm unsure of whether that's really respectful to the source
- Lethal Weapon (WB) (agree with the blue category rating, the new master looks good and is definitely watchable because the grain management isn't heavy throughout, BR reviewer Randy Miller noted that the Atmos mix is not faithful to the original elements but a 2.0 is available, caps)
- St. Elmo's Fire (Sony) (this looks like a very nice upgrade and is maybe even more but people are debating the addition of a Kieślowski-like yellow color filter they put over a segment in the film at around 16 minutes, on the other hand, this cap of the Blu-ray looks terrible and clearly not right either, so I'm leaning on Sony having reinstated the filter)
- Palindromes (Radiance) (I have it, it's a solid upgrade and the increase in resolution works well with the 16mm source in making it appear a bit more film-like than the BD, which is obviously very good as well)
-Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (Criterion) (I have it, it's a new master from an interpositive, generally a nice "upgrade" from the included BD but not as much as I'd hoped, the master itself looks good)
- The Ship That Died of Shame (Indicator) (essentially the same characteristics as The Gentle Gunman but as the film is generally softer even in OCN-sections, it's not as drastic an upgrade)
- Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut (Shout) (2K DI upscale that squeezes everything out of the source, review)

Disappointing:
- DeepStar Six (Kino) (solid new master but with picture and audio errors)
- Prophecy (Kino) (terrible encoding, "chock-full of all the usual frozen grain, mushy grain, trailing grain, missing grain,...")
- Road Trip (Kino) (poor new master with digital anomalies like smearing, flattening etc.)
- The Peacemaker (Kino) (mediocre new master, the use of the OCN as Kino claimed is doubted and there are two brightness and color fluctuations that appear erroneous)

Fus1on's contemporaries:

Red category:
- Warfare (A24) (excellent Atmos mix)
- Sinners (WB) (dto.)

Blue category:
- A Working Man (MGM) (review, PQ and audio are fine but unremarkable
- Novocaine (Paramount) (fine PQ, strong audio)
- Jurassic World Trilogy Steelbook (Universal) (only Jurassic world is a new disc that now has Dolby Vision and Atmos vs. HDR 10 and DTS:X and looks slightly better than the first release

[nicolas]

Interesting... The framing difference does indicate the 4K is a newer (or at least updated) restoration, as advertised at Cannes.

Criterion indeed performed another new 4K scan from the negative on the same kind of same scanner they used for the 2018 master. This new master was shown at Cannes. It seems to be their policy to entirely re-do masters if they want to change something.

[Finch]

Yeah, I'd just mark anything as tentative until it's been out for a month and no one has caught anything problematic within those first four weeks, and then I can leave a note that the title has been added to the OP. Unless it's established early on by sources like Geoff that the disc is excellent in which case I'm good to move to the OP right away.

Had already added some of the titles from nic's post, so new to the OP are:

Monkey Shines (Shout)
Lord of Illusions (Shout)
Bring It On (Shout)
The Gentle Gunman (Indicator)
The Big Heat (Criterion)

Holding off on Primary Colors and The Way of the Gun for now, ditto Connery Bonds and Alexander Revisited.

Jurassic Park Trilogy 2025 Steelbook (Universal)
Sabrina (Kino)
St. Elmo's Fire (Sony)
Palindromes (Radiance)
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (Criterion)
The Ship That Died of Shame (Indicator)

[ChunkyLover]

Criterion indeed performed another new 4K scan from the negative on the same kind of same scanner they used for the 2018 master. This new master was shown at Cannes. It seems to be their policy to entirely re-do masters if they want to change something.

That doesn't look like a new scan at all (which is fine because it's not like the BD was scanned with a potato).

[ChunkyLover]

- The Big Heat (Criterion) (new mono mix from the original elements, audio sync issue fixed)

Did Criterion's leaflet actually state that they did a new mixdown? For the "audio sync issue" I thought that was mostly limited to Indicator's Blu Ray specifically (I don't recall this being an issue on the Twilight Time discs)?

[nicolas]

- The Big Heat (Criterion) (new mono mix from the original elements, audio sync issue fixed)

Did Criterion's leaflet actually state that they did a new mixdown? For the "audio sync issue" I thought that was mostly limited to Indicator's Blu Ray specifically (I don't recall this being an issue on the Twilight Time discs)?

I don’t have the 4K myself yet but DVDBeaver stated this in his review, so he probably got it from the leaflet

Criterion indeed performed another new 4K scan from the negative on the same kind of same scanner they used for the 2018 master. This new master was shown at Cannes. It seems to be their policy to entirely re-do masters if they want to change something.

That doesn't look like a new scan at all (which is fine because it's not like the BD was scanned with a potato).

I stand corrected, there’s no mentioning of a new negative scan in the release notes but with Criterion making all this effort to create a new master, it wouldn’t surprise me if they actually did do a new scan quietly.

[ChunkyLover]

I don’t have the 4K myself yet but DVDBeaver stated this in his review, so he probably got it from the leaflet

I looked at the DVDBeaver review. The review doesn't directly quote anything from the leaflet. I would take the "restored from the original elements" verbiage with a grain of salt until somebody can do an actual comparison. I distrust DVDBeaver's audio portions more than their video portion in their reviews.

I stand corrected, there’s no mentioning of a new negative scan in the release notes but with Criterion making all this effort to create a new master, it wouldn’t surprise me if they actually did do a new scan quietly.

Unless something like the raw files are gone or was scanned with an unreliable scanner (ex: Spirit 4K), there's no reason why Criterion/Warner would need to preform a new scan again.

[nicolas]

I don’t have the 4K myself yet but DVDBeaver stated this in his review, so he probably got it from the leaflet

I looked at the DVDBeaver review. The review doesn't directly quote anything from the leaflet. I would take the "restored from the original elements" verbiage with a grain of salt until somebody can do an actual comparison. I distrust DVDBeaver's audio portions more than their video portion in their reviews.

I stand corrected, there’s no mentioning of a new negative scan in the release notes but with Criterion making all this effort to create a new master, it wouldn’t surprise me if they actually did do a new scan quietly.

Unless something like the raw files are gone or was scanned with an unreliable scanner (ex: Spirit 4K), there's no reason why Criterion/Warner would need to preform a new scan again.

Re. Barry Lyndon: Criterion’s decision making doesn’t have to make sense to you. This company beats to their own drum in so many different regards that concerns physical media releases and has done so for years. It’s now almost four years of them releasing 4K discs and by now we’ve learnt that they’re generally* unwilling to do even simple cosmetic upgrades to perfectly adequate 4K masters unless they re-do them from the ground up, which could entail brand new film element scans if that is part of their internal policy. Obviously they don’t need to, but, as I said, I would never rule out or be surprised if they did.

(*An exception was made for The Red Shoes).

Re. The Big Heat. I purposefully wrote probably in my reply to you and speculated that Tooze’s uninterpretative wording probably was from the leaflet but he could have obviously also referred to Park Circus’ official notes they have had on their website since August 2024:

The film was restored in 4K from the 35mm original picture negative and a 35mm fine grain master positive. 4K scanning of both elements was completed at Cineric, In., in New York, on their 4K wet gate scanner. Cineric was also responsible for the digital image restoration, including digitally recreating missing frames in the negative. At Motion Picture Imaging in Burbank, Sr. Colourist completed the conforming, grading and DCP creation. The audio was restored from the 35mm original sound masters at Deluxe Audio Services in Hollywood.

[therewillbeblus]

For anyone on the fence, Sorcerer looks phenomenal. I know there's endless rhetoric on the color grading of this film, but I loved the way it looked - greenish blue in the right spots, and somewhat de-saturated when appropriate. The explosions and fire in particular are fantastic

[Finch]

The Big Heat 4K is one of the finest presentations I've seen all year. Gobsmacked at how good it looked. Could have been filmed yesterday if you didn't know any different. I hope Criterion upgrade In A Lonely Place, another Columbia title, sooner than later (unless Sony decide to do it themselves as they did with Lady of Shanghai).

[nicolas]

The Big Heat 4K is one of the finest presentations I've seen all year. Gobsmacked at how good it looked. Could have been filmed yesterday if you didn't know any different. I hope Criterion upgrade In A Lonely Place, another Columbia title, sooner than later (unless Sony decide to do it themselves as they did with Lady of Shanghai).

That’s great to hear! Now I’m really looking forward to it. My copy should arrive on Monday or Tuesday together with Barry Lyndon.

I feel the same about In a Lonely Place. Wonderful film. I just did some research and found out that Sony already performed a new 4K restoration of the film for the film’s 75th anniversary this year! I hope they’ve also restored the audio as the Criterion BD was especially disappointing. Here is what Blah-ray had to say: https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/search/la ... %281950%29

[Fus1on]

Here are some more contemporary UHD releases:

Freaky Tales (Lionsgate) - Easily one of Lionsgate's best looking and sounding discs of the year, so far. Nearly spotless encoding to my eyes. Packaging is kinda iffy, with it being a massive VHS shell that's hilariously oversized, and the discs are stacked in a single holder (despite the overabundance of space for an additional holder). Still an incredible UHD release otherwise, but it might be worth holding out for a standard release.

Presence (Decal) - I only watched the first 10 minutes of this, but the video and audio quality were pretty fantastic from what I've seen. Unfortunately, there no extras on this release (unless you count a trailer for Ozgood Perkin's The Monkey as an extra), and it's only just a 4K disc of the feature. Although it is nice that it allows for a full BD-66 to be used for an 80 minute film.

Better Man (US Paramount) - Not a super huge upgrade compared to its Blu-ray counterpart, but since the film was only released in 4K (in the US at least), I feel comfortable labeling it as a reference disc. Very good video quality, but the Atmos track, in particular, is absolutely stellar. Apparently, the UK release is significantly worse than the US Paramount Presents version, with the UK release being encoded on a BD-66 and having 0 extras, while the US release is encoded on a BD-100 and has a featurette and a BTS doc. Can't really comment on the UK release since I don't have it, but I would be very surprised if it's any good, given Paramount's track record.

Correction: The Better Man UHD release in the UK was done by Entertainment in Video, not Paramount. Ignore my comment at the end of that review.

[dwk]

Speaking of Sony and audio, maybe Michael can answer this (if he sees it), I know that they don't let labels create new video masters, but do they let labels do work on the audio side (source alternate mixes, etc.) or do they have to use the audio provided by Sony?

[Fus1on]

Fallout: Season 1 (WB) - I'm currently debating between labeling this as a reference tier or solid tier release (currently leaning slightly in the former direction). This release looks mostly great, but it does have some subtle (and at least one particularly severe instance of) compression artifacts, especially in brighter/darker areas. Most of these, I only really noticed in Episode 1, and after that, I would say it looks consistently great. It also has a fairly subtle DV grade that looks very nice, and an incredible Atmos track. Honestly, I liked this release quite a lot, but I'm not sure if I should consider it reference or solid. I guess if Finch considers a disc like Paper Moon to be reference even with its flaws, I can probably get away with putting Fallout in reference tier as well.

[nicolas]

Criterion's UHD of Paper Moon is great overall, with mostly incredible encoding and very good grain management. It's also a massive upgrade in comparison to the 2015 MoC BD. However, Criterion's UHD has much higher white levels compared to the MoC BD causing there to be clipped highlights during many of the film's brightest shots which completely annihilates some textural details in the image (this can be seen in Caps 3 & 12). I would still probably consider it a Reference Tier disc just based on how much it improves upon the MoC BD, but it's far from perfect.

Fallout: Season 1 (WB) - I'm currently debating between labeling this as a reference tier or solid tier release (currently leaning slightly in the former direction). This release looks mostly great, but it does have some subtle (and at least one particularly severe instance of) compression artifacts, especially in brighter/darker areas. Most of these, I only really noticed in Episode 1, and after that, I would say it looks consistently great. It also has a fairly subtle DV grade that looks very nice, and an incredible Atmos track. Honestly, I liked this release quite a lot, but I'm not sure if I should consider it reference or solid. I guess if Finch considers a disc like Paper Moon to be reference even with its flaws, I can probably get away with putting Fallout in reference tier as well.

To be fair, you made the suggestion re. Paper Moon and the red category

The contemporary list is yours and since I don’t have the Fallout 4K, it’s your call. For perspective, when I suggest a contemporary release for a particular tier, I’m stricter than with catalogue upgrades as virtually any modern film has a solid master to work with and the studios’ standards are higher to deliver good encodes. Even Paramount managed to deliver a great encode for something like Babylon, so if I notice (severe) compression issues in a new release like you described, I don’t think I’d recommend it for the reference tier as that disc clearly isn’t as accomplished as something like Oppenheimer.

[mfunk9786]

Fallout: Season 1 (WB) - I'm currently debating between labeling this as a reference tier or solid tier release (currently leaning slightly in the former direction).

Happy to hear this, as I found streaming this series difficult due to absurdly bad compression artifacts especially in dark scenes. Glad the disc mostly resolves that.

[Fus1on]

To be fair, you made the suggestion re. Paper Moon and the red category

The contemporary list is yours and since I don’t have the Fallout 4K, it’s your call. For perspective, when I suggest a contemporary release for a particular tier, I’m stricter than with catalogue upgrades as virtually any modern film has a solid master to work with and the studios’ standards are higher to deliver good encodes. Even Paramount managed to deliver a great encode for something like Babylon, so if I notice (severe) compression issues in a new release like you described, I don’t think I’d recommend it for the reference tier as that disc clearly isn’t as accomplished as something like Oppenheimer.

Shoot, my bad! I obviously forgot that I said that about Paper Moon several months back. I think my initial conclusion of it was based on how much of an upgrade it was compared to MoC's release (which I still think is very true), meanwhile Fallout doesn't have an old 2K/HD master to compare it to as it's a new show. In any case, if I were to judge both discs on their own, I actually think the UHD for Fallout looks consistently better than that of Paper Moon. Episode 1 was the only episode of the show where I noticed any actual problems, and most of them were fairly minor anyways. Otherwise, I thought the rest looked/sounded just as great as anything else you'll find in the reference tier. At the very least, it's a massive upgrade compared to the streaming version. For now, I think I'll put it in the reference tier with a caveat about it having some compression issues. If anyone else in this thread watches it and thinks it should be moved to the solid tier, I probably will.

[nicolas]

Shoot, my bad! I obviously forgot that I said that about Paper Moon several months back. I think my initial conclusion of it was based on how much of an upgrade it was compared to MoC's release (which I still think is very true), meanwhile Fallout doesn't have an old 2K/HD master to compare it to as it's a new show. In any case, if I were to judge both discs on their own, I actually think the UHD for Fallout looks consistently better than that of Paper Moon. Episode 1 was the only episode of the show where I noticed any actual problems, and most of them were fairly minor anyways. Otherwise, I thought the rest looked/sounded just as great as anything else you'll find in the reference tier. At the very least, it's a massive upgrade compared to the streaming version. For now, I think I'll put it in the reference tier with a caveat about it having some compression issues. If anyone else in this thread watches it and thinks it should be moved to the solid tier, I probably will.

All is well. Enjoy your UHD!