UHD New Releases, Reissues and Upgrades

[Zot!]

Extremely subtle difference in the encoding. I do see it but honestly it feels miniscule. (FWIW I had to zoom in on each image, then open them in a different tab or window to get the complete 4K size. It needed those two steps, just one didn't do it.) The only place where it might stand out for me is the sky above Beaumont's, and I have a feeling they chose to degrain it a bit because it does look especially granular on the Plaion screen cap.

Agreed, this is the slimmest of upgrades, but can't argue otherwise. No way I would repurchase myself, but since I don't own the Criterion, I might go this direction instead when I do. I assume the 5.1 the same on both? I'd prefer the original 2.0, but as I age I can't resist the advantage of upping that center channel.

[TVC 15]

It says Trainspotting in audio link for Criterion 4k is that just a mistitle or is it wrong track? 4/4 Trainspotting one looks like Criterion Blu-ray but filtered and Plaion Blu-ray looks different from both like it was a different movie. If OG 2.0 is better and colours look a little more natural then this beats Criterion easy.

Criterion’s encoder labeled the Blue Velvet 4K as Trainspotting. I didn’t bother changing this when I made the comparison but used the correct identifiers on slow.pics.

I commented on the audio here: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php? ... tcount=110

That is a funny mistake for Criterion. I don't know how Plaion Blu-ray can look so different from Criterion Blu-ray and 4K in comparison 4/4 and not sound very different it looks badly filtered on Criterion ones and not on Plaion. I thought it was audio for another movie it looks that different.

[MichaelB]

It's very unlikely to have been Criterion's mistake; it'll be squarely down to the encoding house that they use.

I've seen it happen occasionally in the past, but since internal filenames aren't supposed to be publicly visible (or indeed customer-accessible), it's no big deal.

[rrenault]

It's very unlikely to have been Criterion's mistake; it'll be squarely down to the encoding house that they use.

I've seen it happen occasionally in the past, but since internal filenames aren't supposed to be publicly visible (or indeed customer-accessible), it's no big deal.

Well the file names will be immediately visible if you open the disc on a computer.

[tenia]

Absolutely, but only very few people will see this, even more so for a UHD, as less and less computers have players, and only a fraction of these are UHD-able.

It's more visible for the general population when, say, the soundtrack is asigned to the wrong language (I've see discs where French SDH subs were asigned as English subs, and others on which the original soundtrack and the French dub were asigned as the same language - either both French, or both the original language).

[bad future]

I'd prefer the original 2.0, but as I age I can't resist the advantage of upping that center channel.

On my receiver, if you're using Dolby Pro Logic or similar to decode a 2.0 track, you can still turn up the center channel because it applies only to the speaker's output and not a channel within the audio stream. Are you sure this isn't possible on your setup? (Not trying to condescend, I assume you're familiar with your own situation, just asking on the off-chance that this not entirely intuitive quirk is holding you back unnecessarily from enjoying original 2.0 tracks. Oh, another weird thing on my receiver is that sometimes all channels are available for adjustment only when the disc is currently playing and even having it paused will make some options go away. I have a Denon AVR, can't remember the model no.)

[Zot!]

I'd prefer the original 2.0, but as I age I can't resist the advantage of upping that center channel.

On my receiver, if you're using Dolby Pro Logic or similar to decode a 2.0 track, you can still turn up the center channel because it applies only to the speaker's output and not a channel within the audio stream. Are you sure this isn't possible on your setup? (Not trying to condescend, I assume you're familiar with your own situation, just asking on the off-chance that this not entirely intuitive quirk is holding you back unnecessarily from enjoying original 2.0 tracks. Oh, another weird thing on my receiver is that sometimes all channels are available for adjustment only when the disc is currently playing and even having it paused will make some options go away. I have a Denon AVR, can't remember the model no.)

Thanks, that is a good feature I have indeed not utilized, I will play with that..Do you find the active decoding pleasing on regular stereo soundtracks or only dolby encoded? Due to sleeping children I have mostly enjoyed my movies with subtitles the last 10 years or so, so I'm only getting back into setting up proper audio now.

[Yakushima]

I only have the Warner/Fox BD and this new Eagle 4K set which includes their old BD. All discs are based on the Ritrovata master that can be seen on caps here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=13397 ... =4&l=0&a=0.

Basically it’s all a yellow-ist affair and leans sepia throughout the film. I haven’t watched the 4K in full yet but HDR tones down the more excessive hues from the SDR grade. I can live with how it looks now but considering it’s Ritrovata accuracy is always doubtful and due to their blanket approaches with tints and gamma levels, nuances are often lost.

The old master (first Warner BD) looks too neutralized and has typical shortcomings of 2000s home video masters. In the end, I imagine a mixture between the two grades would’ve been more appropriate to translate what the DP was after, particularly for the 1968 scenes.

Finally got my hands on the new Eagle's Once Upon a Time in America 4Kult set and watched the 4K UHD version of the director's cut. It looked fabulous on my screen, very filmic. The sound was great too. I hazard to say it brought back memories of my watching this film on a big screen decades ago. Definitely an improvement over the Warner Blu-ray, given that it uses the same restoration and inherits the same issues. This looks like the definitive home video version until a new restoration is attempted. I would put this in the Blue category at the very least.

[nicolas]

I agree, Yakushima, that it’s a blue tier disc. Finch already added it to the list. I did notice grain management that resulted in magnetic, squishy grain movement but since a general appearance of grain is present, the fewest of viewers were bothered. Had Eagle or the rightsholder avoided that, we’d have received something quite stunning. Still a small miracle that we’ve even gotten the Eagle release and one that’s fully English-friendly too.

[Maltic]

It looked quite ritovata'd to me, but I don't have a particularly good eye for these things, nor have I ever seen it screened on film.

It would be fun if Adrian Martin got to do one of his marathon commentaries for it at some point, as he also wrote the BFI Classics edition way back in 1998.

[kekid]

I am confused about various items for preorder on ebay.
How can we tell which is Eagle from the cover?

[MichaelB]

It'll have '4Kult' on it.

[Finch]

Excalibur UHD screenshots

[bad future]

Thanks, that is a good feature I have indeed not utilized, I will play with that..Do you find the active decoding pleasing on regular stereo soundtracks or only dolby encoded? Due to sleeping children I have mostly enjoyed my movies with subtitles the last 10 years or so, so I'm only getting back into setting up proper audio now.

I ended up writing a couple paragraphs in response to this; spoilering it so as not to take up too much space with an off topic digression!

Spoiler

Dolby Pro Logic, or whatever option you might have (I know Dolby has several different iterations with slightly different names, and there's DTS neo:6 which as far as I know is basically the same thing) work in a pretty predictable way that has rarely sounded bad to me on a film. Essentially anything that the left and right channel have in common is sent to the center channel, which includes almost all dialogue, and for mono tracks that are encoded as 2.0 means the left and right speakers aren't used at all, which I find preferable (and *theoretically* more 'historically accurate' though in practice the difference in effect isn't huge.) Anything common to the left and right channels but phase inverted is sent to the surround speakers, which in tracks designed for Dolby Stereo will obviously be used intentionally, and for tracks that are truly just stereo (usually music) it ends up being things with incidental phase inversion happening.. crowd noise, wind fx, cymbals, white noise are the most frequent culprits in my experience, and most of those actually make enough sense in the surround speakers that it never really bothers me if I notice it.

I think once I had a file of an ultra low budget shot-on-video film where they had unknowingly mixed all the dialogue so that it would end up decoded to the surround speakers, and that's the only instance I can think of where it seemed obviously wrong on a film. I do turn it off for music since I know that's almost always meant for a true left/right-only presentation, but feel safe using it for pretty much any film as true 2.0 film soundtracks that aren't mixed in Dolby surround format seem to be extremely rare, and on home video 2.0 will almost as reliably be either that format or 2.0 mono, both of which are translated as intended, so there's little to worry about imo!

[dadaistnun]

Reports popping up elsewhere from early buyers of Severin's A Bay of Blood UHD that the Blu-Ray with the Italian cut keeps freezing at 28 minutes and 37 seconds, and at other intervals past that. This happened on different players. They've already alerted Severin.

Severin statement on Instagram: "It’s come to our attention that an error by our replicator has been identified on Disc 4 (the Blu-ray of the film’s Italian versions). Corrected discs are already being manufactured. Because orders that have already been placed will have the faulty disc, they will automatically receive these replacement discs. Any new orders will not ship until these new corrected units arrive at our warehouse."

[Yakushima]

I am looking at various 4K UHD versions of The Night of the Hunter - from Kino, Capelite, and Plaion. Can anyone recommend one over another? Thanks!

[nicolas]

I am looking at various 4K UHD versions of The Night of the Hunter - from Kino, Capelite, and Plaion. Can anyone recommend one over another? Thanks!

There’s no 4K release from Plaion as Capelight got the rights for Germany but no worries, the Capelight is excellent and better than the Kino.

[Yakushima]

I am looking at various 4K UHD versions of The Night of the Hunter - from Kino, Capelite, and Plaion. Can anyone recommend one over another? Thanks!

There’s no 4K release from Plaion as Capelight got the rights for Germany but no worries, the Capelight is excellent and better than the Kino.

Thank you, Nicolas! I meant this edition:

[nicolas]

Thank you, Nicolas! I meant this edition:

No problem, Yakushima. tenia reviewed the new French Blu-ray, which is sourced from the same 4K master, and noticed grain management. I’d recommend you the Capelight as it’s got the best encode and without tinkering. See cinemaniac’s screenshots here: https://slow.pics/c/EPen0F0z.

[Yakushima]

Thank you, Nicolas! I meant this edition:

No problem, Yakushima. tenia reviewed the new French Blu-ray, which is sourced from the same 4K master, and noticed grain management. I’d recommend you the Capelight as it’s got the best encode and without tinkering. See cinemaniac’s screenshots here: https://slow.pics/c/EPen0F0z.

Nicolas, thank you! Capelight it is then!

[nicolas]

A Beautiful Mind (Universal) - caps. Looks stunning against the horribly neutralized old master. Very glad Deakins supervised the new grade and had Universal restore his color filters.

Early word on Warner’s All the President’s Men and Ben-Hur is positive. The former seems to have been faithfully graded and not neutralized like many of Warner’s in-house remasters. Ben-Hur got a small uptick in detail and the encoding across two discs turned out well.

[Finch]

Fidelity encode confirmed for Excalibur (Arrow)

[woejJLYd]

After the great replies that I received to my first message, I would like to ask another question:

What category would the Seinfeld 4K UHD set fall under upgrade-wise?

After using the search function I have seen that Yakushima posted last March that it is a very considerable one. If possible, I would like to hear more about this topic (I understand that the TV show consists of multiple seasons and that their quality could be variable). I have also seen that for some TV shows only particular seasons are considered red discs (which could also be the case here).

Thank you very much.

[nicolas]

I can’t remember us notably discussing TV series on this thread, so that probably explains the lacking information. I guess you’d need to head over to blu-ray.com for more details on 4K TV shows.

I gave it a search for you and found some feedback from Geoff D, who’s a reliable viewer: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... st22964170

[woejJLYd]

I can’t remember us notably discussing TV series on this thread, so that probably explains the lacking information. I guess you’d need to head over to blu-ray.com for more details on 4K TV shows.

I gave it a search for you and found some feedback from Geoff D, who’s a reliable viewer: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... st22964170

Thank you, Nicolas. I will head over there for information on TV show and audio releases and stay here for information on movies.