UHD New Releases, Reissues and Upgrades

[nicolas]

According to Bill Hunt, there are several new Warner UHDs coming in December: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php? ... tcount=251.

If true, they’re likely doing a Columbia Classics-type set, which makes sense as Boogie Nights was originally listed at a retailer and then quietly taken down again. But then, they’re also releasing Kubrick’s Lolita before Eyes Wide Shut. I’m glad it’s coming, don’t get me wrong, but these are some very unusual release choices.

[Finch]

Gremlins 2 is hopefully not a box set exclusive but wouldn't surprise me if it was.

[yoloswegmaster]

I just realized that the link is directed to the thread dedicated to the list of titles that WB was asking about to upgrade to 4K in their survey. Since Arrow just announced Demolition Man, I wonder how many of the other titles in that list will be released by other labels besides WB. I wouldn't be surprised to see Criterion release Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut, and it would be cool if their first Spielberg release in the HD era were to be for Artifical Intelligence. I could also see Arrow doing Them! and Speed Racer.

[Fus1on]

Suggestion for Finch, if you have time:

Since both the original Friday the 13th and the reboot have entries on this list, you should label each one as the 1980 and 2009 version, instead of just leaving it as simply "Friday the 13th" for both entries. All of us know exactly which film you're talking about in each entry (Arrow being 2009, and Paramount being 1980), but I feel like most newcomers to this thread will be confused as to which version you're referring to.

[rberrios15]

Question for the contemporary list -- is Chernobyl a red or blue tier upgrade?

[Fus1on]

I personally haven't seen the Chernobyl UHD yet, so I'm not sure. Based on the Blu-ray.com review, it sounds like a blue tier disc, but again, I'd need to see it for myself or have someone else in this thread verify it before I place it.

[Finch]

Added the release years to the F13 entries. Good shout Fus1on.

[nicolas]

Question for the contemporary list -- is Chernobyl a red or blue tier upgrade?

Chernobyl is blue tier at the maximum but I recently put in one of the UHDs to check on my system and was quite disappointed by the encode.
Bitrates are often very low and the digital noise doesn't resolve properly particularly in highlights, so it's indeed a mixed bag and more disappointing than perfect.
It appears to be a general problem with TV series that too many episodes are being put on a disc.

[mfunk9786]

It appears to be a general problem with TV series that too many episodes are being put on a disc.

My eyes popped out of my head when I saw that the Friends UHD set has 12 episodes per disc! 4 and a half hours of 4K video plus extras is way too much, even for a BD-100.

[tenia]

It's indeed a typical issue with tv shows, and even more so from studios like Warner that cheapen out on discs. It's even more of an issue when you can't encode crap : on Friends, the average bitrate is about 35-40 Mbps, which is low for 35mm-4k-sourced stuff, but on top of that, it looks like the compression is so poorly done that the 4k streams from MAX are better compressed, and from what I found, these streams have a 18 Mbps average bitrate.

[rberrios15]

Chernobyl is blue tier at the maximum but I recently put in one of the UHDs to check on my system and was quite disappointed by the encode.
Bitrates are often very low and the digital noise doesn't resolve properly particularly in highlights, so it's indeed a mixed bag and more disappointing than perfect.
It appears to be a general problem with TV series that too many episodes are being put on a disc.

Super helpful. I have the BD and was on the fence about upgrading but seems like it would not be a major upgrade.

Separately, I have Westworld: season 1 UHD and think it would also be blue tier at best for similar reasons especially the bitrate but welcome others thoughts. Unfortunately, can't speak to seasons 2-4 since I don't have them. Other reviews, including Blu-ray.com, suggest they might be stronger than season 1.

[nicolas]

It's ridiculous what studios are doing with TV and they're clearly misinterpreting who's the target audience for sets like this in 2024, although they probably still sell thousands of units of the Friends set at this and every other upcoming Black Friday to customers who've got no idea what they're looking at.

[Yakushima]

Arizona Dream (Studio Canal) (4Kult Italian import):

I never upgraded my old and excellent French Studio Canal DVD to Blu-ray, so for me, this 4K UHD was a major improvement. The encoding is very good most of the time. It looks film-like in motion, with only a few brief instances of the image suddenly having a slightly "digital" look.

My main qualm with this version (and I presume this is the issue rooted in the resto) is that the colors lean teal quite heavily throughout, to the degree that it becomes distracting. Also, the final exchange between Axel and his uncle in the Eskimo language is not subtitled.

This film holds a lot of nostalgic value for me, and although now I can more clearly see its shortcomings, I still enjoyed it very much. Kusturica was at the peak of his talent when he was making this.

[nicolas]

Arizona Dream (Studio Canal) (4Kult Italian import):

I never upgraded my old and excellent French Studio Canal DVD to Blu-ray, so for me, this 4K UHD was a major improvement. The encoding is very good most of the time. It looks film-like in motion, with only a few brief instances of the image suddenly having a slightly "digital" look.

My main qualm with this version (and I presume this is the issue rooted in the resto) is that the colors lean teal quite heavily throughout, to the degree that it becomes distracting. Also, the final exchange between Axel and his uncle in the Eskimo language is not subtitled.

This film holds a lot of nostalgic value for me, and although now I can more clearly see its shortcomings, I still enjoyed it very much. Kusturica was at the peak of his talent when he was making this.

For anyone wanting the English subtitles for the Eskimo scenes, the German / French StudioCanal release has them but the rest of the feature isn’t subtitled. Encoding is only good in Dolby Vision, HDR10 has chroma and macroblocking issues.

[Yakushima]

Arizona Dream (Studio Canal) (4Kult Italian import):

I never upgraded my old and excellent French Studio Canal DVD to Blu-ray, so for me, this 4K UHD was a major improvement. The encoding is very good most of the time. It looks film-like in motion, with only a few brief instances of the image suddenly having a slightly "digital" look.

My main qualm with this version (and I presume this is the issue rooted in the resto) is that the colors lean teal quite heavily throughout, to the degree that it becomes distracting. Also, the final exchange between Axel and his uncle in the Eskimo language is not subtitled.

This film holds a lot of nostalgic value for me, and although now I can more clearly see its shortcomings, I still enjoyed it very much. Kusturica was at the peak of his talent when he was making this.

For anyone wanting the English subtitles for the Eskimo scenes, the German / French StudioCanal release has them but the rest of the feature isn’t subtitled. Encoding is only good in Dolby Vision, HDR10 has chroma and macroblocking issues.

Nicolas, thank you for the heads-up regarding proper subtitles for the Eskimo scenes on the German / French StudioCanal release. It is too bad SC is so inconsistent with their releases between different countries. I was hoping for a better encode from 4Kult, considering their track record, but it did not occur to me they could mess up subtitles.

[nicolas]

Arizona Dream (Studio Canal) (4Kult Italian import):

I never upgraded my old and excellent French Studio Canal DVD to Blu-ray, so for me, this 4K UHD was a major improvement. The encoding is very good most of the time. It looks film-like in motion, with only a few brief instances of the image suddenly having a slightly "digital" look.

My main qualm with this version (and I presume this is the issue rooted in the resto) is that the colors lean teal quite heavily throughout, to the degree that it becomes distracting. Also, the final exchange between Axel and his uncle in the Eskimo language is not subtitled.

This film holds a lot of nostalgic value for me, and although now I can more clearly see its shortcomings, I still enjoyed it very much. Kusturica was at the peak of his talent when he was making this.

For anyone wanting the English subtitles for the Eskimo scenes, the German / French StudioCanal release has them but the rest of the feature isn’t subtitled. Encoding is only good in Dolby Vision, HDR10 has chroma and macroblocking issues.

Nicolas, thank you for the heads-up regarding proper subtitles for the Eskimo scenes on the German / French StudioCanal release. It is too bad SC is so inconsistent with their releases between different countries. I was hoping for a better encode from 4Kult, considering their track record, but it did not occur to me they could mess up subtitles.

I’ve become slightly wary of Eagle / 4Kult as of late because of things like that. Their QC should have flagged the issue as SC clearly included the subs even though they don’t appear to have worldwide rights for the film. Still, it can be argued that the film doesn’t make sense if subtitles for the Eskimo parts aren’t included. In Eagle’s case, I’d say the same applies and it’s a particularly unfortunate QC oversight as they did include English subtitles for moments in Killers of the Flower Moon that aren’t English, such as the intertitles. Encoding-wise, I hope things don’t go downhill as they’re using the same authoring house another Italian label (Lucky Red) uses and they totally messed up Past Lives and Perfect Days from LR isn’t beautiful either. Eagle’s new 4K of The Zone of Interest is reported to have blocking in dark areas, so fingers crossed the Leone films will turn out better.

[Fus1on]

Contemporary UHDs List Update:

Chernobyl (WB) (Added to Solid Tier)

[Yakushima]

so fingers crossed the Leone films will turn out better.

I too keep my fingers crossed for that since there is unlikely to be any better option in the foreseeable future, and I already pre-ordered the Eagle's :-k

[therewillbeblus]

[onedimension]

According to Bill Hunt, there are several new Warner UHDs coming in December: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php? ... tcount=251.

If true, they’re likely doing a Columbia Classics-type set, which makes sense as Boogie Nights was originally listed at a retailer and then quietly taken down again. But then, they’re also releasing Kubrick’s Lolita before Eyes Wide Shut. I’m glad it’s coming, don’t get me wrong, but these are some very unusual release choices.

List is gone...

[Finch]

Paramount's Breakdown 4K is disappointing.

[tenia]

What, you mean RAH and his almost perfect PQ score was wrong ? (again)

[Yakushima]

Bluray.com's reviewer is disappointed by Second Sight's The Hitcher 4K UHD, complaining that "while The Hitcher looks very healthy now, it does not have the proper appearance of a genre film from the 1980s."

I would be concerned if I had not watched the disc already. The 4K version looks phenomenal on my system, with healthy grain abound. I suspect the reviewer does not know very well what he/she is writing about.

[Fus1on]

Bluray.com's reviewer is disappointed by Second Sight's The Hitcher 4K UHD, complaining that "while The Hitcher looks very healthy now, it does not have the proper appearance of a genre film from the 1980s."

I would be concerned if I had not watched the disc already. The 4K version looks phenomenal on my system, with healthy grain abound. I suspect the reviewer does not know very well what he/she is writing about.

Yeah, it's typical Svet Atanasov assuming that just because the 4K transfer has a different color grade from the (usually heavily tinted) DVD version, it's unfaithful to the way the film should look. He's done this with a lot of other really great 4K releases like Criterion's Mean Streets and several others. It's even worse because he's also ignored a ton of actual issues with other 4K releases, such as the mediocre audio from Kino's 12 Angry Men, which he claimed was better than Criterion's audio. He also gave 4K releases such as Blood Simple, Leviathan, and many more, 5/5 stars for video quality, despite those releases being very underwhelming from a visual standpoint. This isn't even getting into his political opinions, which are not only awful, but he shoves them into several of his reviews when they are completely unnecessary. If you want to know what I'm talking about, just go read his reviews of Soy Cuba 4K, Do The Right Thing (Criterion), and Thelma & Louise 4K.

Really infamously terrible reviewer on that site, and I'm really surprised that Blu-ray.com hasn't kicked him off yet.

Side Note: Yes, you are correct when you say that he doesn't know what he's talking about. His "Dr." title doesn't come from a doctorate in video production, film, etc., as you would reasonably expect, it's literally from bassoon playing. He literally has no idea what he's talking about and yet he uses his doctoral status as a way of sounding smarter.

[CSM126]

Just remember: when svet says a movie looks wrong, what he’s really saying is “I would have shot it differently”, not “the restoration changed things”.