Finch wrote: Wed Oct 08, 2025 10:16 pm
The Diva news is exactly why I didn't feel comfortable preordering Dead of Night. The inconsistency is so frustrating. Unless it's announced upfront that the title is encoded by Fidelity or VDMS, I'm pretty much done taking chances on preorders from most labels. Too often it's either the restoration stinks or it's the encode. Makes the asking price of $40-60 for a lot of releases all the more aggravating.
The problem is that SC seemingly hand over encoding duties to companies aligned with the labs that perform the restorations, otherwise I can’t come up with a logical reply to why their English / UK titles are generally outstanding and French ones terrible. Based on that, I think (hope) that Dead of Night and their Hammer films turn out good.
Another thing is lack of alternatives. I’m not taking any chances with Kino any more for obvious reasons and ultimately SC will probably end up being the lesser evil. In Diva’s case, Amazon UK has it up for 15 pounds, which I couldn’t pass up.
Finch wrote: Wed Oct 08, 2025 10:16 pm
Unless it's announced upfront that the title is encoded by Fidelity or VDMS
That's who did BFI's Nosferatu and Aguirre 4Ks, respectively
I did say it was annoying that either the restoration is flawed or the encode is, and thought it was clear that I'd only consider preordering now if it's encoded by Fidelity or VDMS and the underlying master is good. I think the labels I could say are consistently meeting both criteria are Indicator, Arrow and Deaf Crocodile.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Disney) - caps. The 2.0 track is the original mono but only in lossy DD. Here’s a detailed analysis by a longtime fan of the film.
nic, you had Diva as a solid upgrade despite the bad encode. Is the restoration that good that it still warrants that recommendation? I'd be surprised if we didn't put other discs with comparable flaws in the disappointing column.
Finch wrote: Thu Oct 09, 2025 1:48 pm
nic, you had Diva as a solid upgrade despite the bad encode. Is the restoration that good that it still warrants that recommendation? I'd be surprised if we didn't put other discs with comparable flaws in the disappointing column.
Thanks for the alert, Finch. I forgot that the Kino BD with the older master isn’t so bad. Just checked it again and it’s actually quite good. I had in mind that it looked awful for some reason. Yes, the new restoration is stunning and the HDR is exquisite but in all honesty it’s not as major an upgrade after all when the encode is factored in.
Another tier between solid and disappointing would be appropriate as there are plenty worse encodes but as we’ve got excellent Arrow 4Ks in solid solely because of strong previous BDs, then Diva has to go to disappointing as it’s
simply not on the same level as those.
nicolas wrote: Thu Oct 09, 2025 5:16 pm
As we’ve got excellent Arrow 4Ks in solid solely because of strong previous BDs, then Diva has to go to disappointing as it’s
simply not on the same level as those.
Yeah, the Arrow 4Ks in particular made me think it doesn't feel fair to have Diva in the same tier.
I’m not sure why Studio Canal are so negligent with the physical releases of their francophone films, although their Discreet Charm UHD had a solid encode despite some color grading question marks. Even some of their non-FiM English-language releases like The Piano and The Driver turned out fine. I suppose Ran is also in the “good encode with questionable color grading” category. Army of Shadows is also a good encode of an imperfect master.
The inclusion of Le Mepris in the solid tier is probably somewhat controversial but still, frankly, tolerable if one’s previous experience of the film is either the old Criterion DVD or the circa 2010 SC blu-ray.
What boggles my mind is surely there’s enough demand among collectors in the Anglosphere for titles like Diva, Discreet Charm, Le Mepris, etc. that calling up FiM is financially justified. There’s no excuse really if Carlotta have had French-language films encoded by FiM.
Arrow's The Return of the Living Dead A/V is excellent, very filmic looking.
Umbrella's Cypher is a significant upgrade over the past Blu-ray editions.
TRON Legacy (Disney) - Unfortunately, while the encoding is mostly fine, there are some pretty bad compression issues, especially in brighter areas of the image. In the other thread, users have done comparisons between the UHD and the streaming version, and actually found that the streaming release has less macroblocking in these specific sections. Overall video quality is mostly solid, with not much of a detail increase from previous BDs. HDR looks great. The Atmos track this film comes with is also good, but it's not a huge upgrade compared to the 5.1 mix from past releases.
Eagle's Once Upon a Time in America 4K is finally coming out on December 10:
Bonus features:
-Extended version on 4K, BD and DVD
-Theatrical version on 4K
-The documentary "Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America" on BD
-Poster
-4 collector's cards
-Booklet
There’s also going to be a 4-disc standard edition without the tat.
Silverado (Sony) - fantastic restoration, sound options and a good encode. This one was definitely not encoded by the facility that does their MOD releases.
Early word on Shout’s Nosferatu 4K is promising. It’s indeed a different master and grain is present. Only phone pictures so far but caps should be up relatively soon.
nicolas wrote: Thu Oct 16, 2025 5:02 pmThe Place Beyond the Pines (Shout) - caps
Early word on Shout’s Nosferatu 4K is promising. It’s indeed a different master and grain is present. Only phone pictures so far but caps should be up relatively soon.
As a side bar, should Nosferatu's BFI 4K be placed in the "UHD worse than blu-ray" column? I'm wagering Shout's disc will be a blue column disc compared to BFI's standard blu-ray. If the Shout disc turns out strong I'll put it on my "To buy at some point" list. This tail end of the year has been packed with releases, and I can't get them all on day one. Welp...
I watched the first 10 minutes of BFI's Nosferatu. The opening sequence actually looks stunning but after that it was definitely worse than the Blu-ray, assuming you find plastic AI faces unwatchable like I do
Got Ms .45 today from Arrow. Absolutely stunning master and disc. I missed that the film was restored by Resillion, who almost exclusively work for Criterion! Really glad that Arrow also saw that they’re doing outstanding restoration work that’s on par with Silver Salt, if not sometimes even more accurate to how the films originally looked. Colors are superb. They’re and rich without being aggressive or video-like in their brightness, the HDR grade is more complimentary as well.
Grain is ridiculously fine, detailed and untampered-with. The encode is largely excellent but doesn’t manage to resolve every last particle as perfectly as the normal areas but I’d count on this being a byproduct of the fine grain and lacking dithering for the encoder to work with than a sloppy encode where everything is mushy. Grain rolls off quite evenly into the highlights and that’s essentially it. No aggressive chroma noise either, so I feel that Engine House gave this one their full attention.
This is one of the year’s highlights. Hope y’all enjoy!
Random question regarding Jacob's Ladder. Aside from the packaging/cover art, which one is better in terms of AV quality? Blu-ray.com lists the Lionsgate release as having DV, while the SC version is listed as just HDR10. I've also heard about some issues regarding the 2.0 mix from SC's release. I'm kind of conflicted on which one I should get.
I'm also hearing some very positive first impressions on Second Sight's release of The Florida Project. I don't have my copy of it yet, but I would almost certainly bet on it being a reference tier release.
Random question regarding Jacob's Ladder. Aside from the packaging/cover art, which one is better in terms of AV quality? Blu-ray.com lists the Lionsgate release as having DV, while the SC version is listed as just HDR10. I've also heard about some issues regarding the 2.0 mix from SC's release. I'm kind of conflicted on which one I should get.
Blu-ray.com is not a reliable source. Studiocanal's disc definitely has Dolby Vision. The complaints regarding the stereo mix clipping in blu-ray.com forums were for the Lionsgate's release, not Canal's I watched it last night and had no complaints, Lionsgate might potentially have a better encode that is noticable with A-B comparions, but nothing stuck out to me just watching it. The clear reason to choose Lionsgate over Studiocanal is the special features, Canal's disc only has one new documentary, whereas Lionsgate ported over (all?) the archival extras.
Fus1on wrote: Sat Oct 18, 2025 4:32 amRandom question regarding Jacob's Ladder. Aside from the packaging/cover art, which one is better in terms of AV quality? Blu-ray.com lists the Lionsgate release as having DV, while the SC version is listed as just HDR10. I've also heard about some issues regarding the 2.0 mix from SC's release. I'm kind of conflicted on which one I should get.
I’d also go for the Lionsgate for the reasons eerik mentioned. Kyle15 said that it’s got better encoding than the SC.
nicolas wrote: Fri Oct 17, 2025 4:13 pm
Got Ms .45 today from Arrow. Absolutely stunning master and disc. I missed that the film was restored by Resillion, who almost exclusively work for Criterion! Really glad that Arrow also saw that they’re doing outstanding restoration work that’s on par with Silver Salt, if not sometimes even more accurate to how the films originally looked. Colors are superb. They’re and rich without being aggressive or video-like in their brightness, the HDR grade is more complimentary as well.
Grain is ridiculously fine, detailed and untampered-with. The encode is largely excellent but doesn’t manage to resolve every last particle as perfectly as the normal areas but I’d count on this being a byproduct of the fine grain and lacking dithering for the encoder to work with than a sloppy encode where everything is mushy. Grain rolls off quite evenly into the highlights and that’s essentially it. No aggressive chroma noise either, so I feel that Engine House gave this one their full attention.
This is one of the year’s highlights. Hope y’all enjoy!
Can we presume Rarewaves will have this back in stock on release day the way they do a lot of preorders that « sell out »?
I can’t imagine this title would be anywhere near as popular as the Dollars Trilogy in which case I can actually imagine the entire LE inventory being allocated before release day.
