UHD New Releases, Reissues and Upgrades

[tenia]

Is it safe to suppose they re-graded the movies based on the originally graded masters instead of re-grading them based on ungraded masters ?

[nicolas]

Posts suggest that they only refined the previous masters instead of re-doing them from the ground up. The LG insider who used to post on the other forum until a while ago mentioned a few years ago that they’d also fix some inherent issues but to what extent is still unknown except for noticeably improved highlights.

A comparison for the first part is up already. The poster added the following description later after people questioned the caps from the new disc: “It’s the HDR -> SDR conversion. You’re essentially squeezing 10x of range into SDR. The previous 4K looks more contrast-y because it pushed the bright highlights more (unnaturally so imo). In a good HDR display it will not look as flat.”

[Mr.DarjeelingLimited]

Madagascar 2 coming to 4K disc. Hell yeah

[TechnicolorAcid]

Madagascar 2 coming to 4K disc. Hell yeah

Nice! My little brother loves the Madagascar movies and 2 especially so this would make a great gift for him!

[therewillbeblus]

Any reviews on the Sirat import, or Shout!'s The Haunting?

[Finch]

Positive comments on The Haunting but nothing in depth or caps so far.

[nicolas]

Lots of stock of The Haunting apparently shipped to retailers with a ripped cover artwork underneath the shrink wrap as Shout apparently used a very thin paper.

The Sirat 4K is great! It has Dolby Vision and Atmos and the extras that are on the Neon BD. But be warned in case you don’t know already, the film received a DNR pass which can be very noticeable from time to time. The 4K encode fortunately is very good and doesn’t exacerbate the digital sheen more than already present. Like The Smashing Machine, this is another recent film that was shot on 16mm and then de-grained by the filmmakers. It’s not as if someone’s forcing them to shoot on film, let alone a grainier format if they don’t want the textures that come with it. Anyway, the 4K is recommended over a BD release as the finer grain of the former camouflages the DNR a little better.

Also, another day, another poor Kino release: Harry and the Henderson caps are here.

[tenia]

I thought Sirat looked weird already just on BD. It honestly didn't look very pleasing, closer at times to a digital movie with an overlay of frozen grain. It made me wonder why bothering to specifically shoot on 16mm if it was to get such a final result.

[nicolas]

Wow, the first 4K release of a Woody Allen film is about to come out. It’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona and it will be released by Metropolitan (France) on August 7th.

[nicolas]

Notting Hill (Universal) - cap and audio comparisons

[nicolas]

Geoff D on the new Rambo 3 4K.

[tenia]

Also, another day, another poor Kino release: Harry and the Henderson caps are here.

OMG, and this is happening with a 74 491 kbps + 18 791 kbps HEVC encode. I think I could do better with just Handbrake.

[nicolas]

You probably could and even with a simple CBR preset. I brought up Lionsgate’s But I’m a Cheerleader in the Rambo thread as their first collaboration with that terrible authoring house (it must be Kino’s) and went back to the thread as I remembered the discussion from a few months ago. Here’s a good post from the HDR Dissector who checked the code of that file and came to the conclusion that in addition the poor FEL setting that targets ~18 MB/s, the encoder must’ve run the compression with a fast preset. I can’t imagine the original files are to blame for any of the films they encoded.

[CSM126]

Take a 4K master and make it look like SD video. That’s Kino.

[Finch]

Geoff:

First Blood's encode holds up a lot better than Rambo III's. There's enough stuff in open skies like trees and mountains and whatnot to break up the monotony that usually makes the encoder decide to kill itself when given these settings, although the prolonged shot of the water with the sky above in the opening credits is more than a bit messy. It's an optical anyway, but the digital junk dancing about is purely compression related.

Other than that this still looks just like how FB has looked on 4K: very green, very thin blacks, very bright highlights in key moments (those flashes of lightning while they're hunting Rambo on the mountain are squint-inducing) and decent enough detail when the source allows as there's a few missed focus pulls. I'm starting to warm up to those murky blacks tho, it doesn't look like they used any lighting inside the mine aside from the fire itself and it's incredible that they pulled as much out of the emulsion as they did.

[nicolas]

Geoff on First Blood Pt. 2:

Just finished First Blood Part II, it's more like Rambo III's encode i.e. a bit schizophrenic, and it has that same 'hyper sharp' look to it. There are way more shots of open country in FBptII than the first film so there's plenty more opportunities for the compression to shit itself, and it does. But then you get a shot that's 'busier', with lots of clouds or action stuff going on, and it's fine. It baffles me that this can handle smoke, flame, rain and debris flying everywhere with apparent ease, all things that are usually a nightmare for interframe compression, but give it a slow moving shot of a clear sky and it loses the plot, it's almost like because there's so little for the encoder to latch on to it just goes 'nah' and farts out a bunch of blocks in those areas instead.

I will say tho that overall it's still vastly betterer compressed than the original US UHD which simply broke down at various points. The SC euro UHD was a big improvement on that but as I no longer have it to compare to then I can't state which one wins for me, but I'm happy enough with the new UHD and, again, the new/old audio tracks are glorious. In terms of the actual visuals I can't think of many obvious deviations, this one always had more of a denser 'look' than First Blood and it's still present on this latest 4K, along with that lovely diffusion that British cinematographers were so fond of.

And once more on Pt. 3:

Yikes. I'm half an hour into Rambo III proper and almost every shot of open skies, and there are a lot, are outrageously poor, as is that bit when Trautman gets captured and they're shining that light on him. Whatever dumb f*cking luck enabled the first two movies to get away with it has evaporated here, this is the worst compression job I've seen in a long time. A long time.

It's so bad I feel like turning it off and ordering the old US UHD as the encode on that was excellent. I think I'll rebuy it anyway as I'm not watching this disc again, OG audio be damned. I can tolerate various things to varying degrees and/or overlook them to a certain point if there are other key benefits, but this is such staggeringly bad work it's distracting me at every turn. Still, it's in the correct colour space at least!

[nicolas]

Lenny (Criterion) - Chris’ glowing review

[nicolas]

Scream 4 (Lionsgate) - another Kino-grade encode with a huge DV layer. People noted that a French 4K is also upcoming. Maybe tenia gets a review copy and can let us know if it's better.

[Finch]

The irony with Scream 4 is that the stream encode is great.

[Zot!]

The irony with Scream 4 is that the stream encode is great.

How does one even rate a stream encode? Isn't it dependent on streaming service, and the bitrate is further dependent on your modem speed? Not to mention it can be undone at any given moment at the whims of our overlords? Or am I crazy and has this now all been standardized? I know I rented Heat from Amazon in the last couple of years, and it looked nearly unwatchable...I'm sure they must have corrected it since.

[JunkeonWedge]

I've hit the 60k character limit on the OP, so I'm shifting the audio section to this post.

UHDs with poorer audio than previous releases:

Heavy filtering / muffled

Anatomy of a Murder (Alternative: 1986 RCA/Columbia LaserDisc)
Bridge on the River Kwai, The (Alternative: 1985 RCA/Columbia Hi-Fi VHS)
Citizen Kane (Alternative: 1992 Turner Hi-Fi VHS)
Dawn of the Dead (Theatrical Cut) (Alternative: 2017 Midnight Factory BD or 2013 JP Happinet BD)
Dr. Strangelove (Alternative: 1994 LaserDisc)
For a Few Dollars More (Alternative: 1984 Key Video Hi-Fi VHS)
Halloween (Alternative: 1994 Criterion LaserDisc)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Alternative: 1995 Columbia Tri-Star LaserDisc)
Paths of Glory (Alternative: 1999 MGM US DVD)
Raging Bull (Alternative: 1990 Criterion LaserDisc)
Rear Window (Alternative: Universal DVD)
Wizard of Oz, The (Alternative: 1989 MGM LaserDisc)

Moderate filtering

2001: A Space Odyssey (Alternative: 1997 LaserDisc (PILF-2510) or 1998 MGM DVD)
Double Indemnity (Alternative: 1991 MCA LaserDisc)
Elephant Man, The (Alternative: 2001 Paramount US DVD)
Fistful of Dollars, A (Alternative: 1985 CBS/Fox LaserDisc)
For All Mankind (Alternative: 2009 Eureka UK BD’s 5.1 (created from original audio stems) or 2.0 (OG matrixed stereo))
Full Metal Jacket (Alternative: 1999 Warner R1 DVD)
Godfather, The (Alternative: No good alternative)
Great Escape, The (Alternative: 1991 MGM LaserDisc)
In the Heat of the Night (Alternative: 2018 Criterion BD)
It's a Wonderful Life (Alternative: 1991 Republic Pictures LaserDisc)
Jaws (Alternative: 1995/1997 MCA LaserDisc)
Servant, The (Alternative: Universal DVD)
Seventh Seal, The (Alternative: 1993 JP LaserDisc)
Vertigo (Alternative: 2005 Universal DVD)

Light filtering

Get Carter (Alternative: 2000 Warner US DVD)
Piano, The (Criterion & StudioCanal) (Alternative: 2014 StudioCanal UK BD’s 5.1 for a faithful de-matrixing of the original Dolby Stereo track, or (maybe) 2012 Lionsgate US BD’s 2.0 for matrixed stereo)
Taxi Driver (Very minor. Likely not discernible. Alternative: 1990 Criterion LaserDisc or 1991 Japanese Columbia Tri-Star LaserDisc)

Non-OG mix & misc. other issues

American Gangster (Non-OG. Alternative: original BD)
Apocalypse Now (Theatrical Cut) (US Lionsgate UHD only has Atmos remix; IT Eagle UHD only has an earlier remixed 5.1. Alternative: German UHD & US BD purportedly have OG 5.1 in AC-3)
Back to the Future Trilogy (A handful of dialog has minor changes over the years. Alternative: LaserDiscs should have original versions)
Big Lebowski, The (Comparison against Cinema DTS disc reveals that UHD mix is non-OG.)
Blade Runner (Atmos track has later remixed effects. Alternative: 2007 BD Dolby TrueHD 5.1 is closer to OG)
Casino (DTS:X’s surround channels are boosted compared to theatrical. Alternative: Cinema DTS or BD 5.1)
Deer Hunter, The (StudioCanal’s 5.1 is sourced from 70mm mix but has a brief audio drop at one point. Their 2.0 is possible OG stereo and doesn’t have the drop. Shout’s 2.0 and 5.1 both have this audio drop, and neither sounds like StudioCanal’s 5.1. Hypothesis is their 2.0 is a downmix from 5.1, which in turn is an old remix.)
Escape from New York (Shout’s 2.0 is a unique faithful remaster of the OG theatrical, whereas Eagle only offers 5.1 remix. Shout > StudioCanal.)
Gladiator (Non-OG. Alternative: Cinema DTS or Signature Collection DVD AC-3)
Jurassic Park (Non-OG, but OG has distorted vocal. Alternative: 3D BD’s DTS-HD MA track seems to be best-sounding)
Killing, The (MGM DVD has “the most balanced sound”)
Labyrinth (Advertised OG 2.0 on the 35th anniversary steelbook is likely a downmix. Alternative: LaserDisc or 1999 Sony US DVD 2.0)
Marathon Man (No OG mono. But the 5.1 remix sounds good and likely came from original audio stems. Alternative: Warner/Paramount BD has lossy restored mono)
Matrix, The (Comparison against Cinema DTS disc reveals that both Atmos and 5.1 are remixes)
Reservoir Dogs (No OG 2.0. Alternative: US/JP LaserDisc 2.0)
Shawshank Redemption, The (Noticeable clipping. Alternative: 2008 US BD TrueHD 5.1)
Shining, The (No OG mono. Alternative: 1999 Warner DVD)
Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The (No OG mono. Alternative: MGM DVD or BD)
Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The (Second Sight) (Filtered and missing a few grunts. Alternative: LaserDisc/VHS likely will have less filtered and correct audio. MPI UHD’s mono appears to be correct content-wise.)
Thing, The (Non-OG. Alternative: Signature LaserDisc AC-3 or Shout BD 2.0)
Top Gun (Atmos track widely considered a bad mix. Alternative: US THX LaserDisc’s AC-3 5.1 or PCM 2.0)
Total Recall (Neither the US Lionsgate nor IT Eagle UHD has OG 2.0. Alternative: US LaserDisc) [/color]

I have a question about the reported “best” version of Vertigo’s mono. There is no 2005 DVD to my knowledge. There is the 1999 dvd and the reissue with a different cover that both only have the 5.1. Then there is the 2008 Legacy Series DVD.

I assume the person who updates this thread got the information about some of these audio mixes from blah-ray.com. On that site, they say the best version of the mono comes from a 2005 DVD. My copy of the 2008 release has an obvious downmix of the 5.1. The title music is in stereo and the gunshot at the beginning is stereo and sounds like a modern effect.

I thought maybe there was a R2 DVD from 2005 that had an untouched version of the mono, but it seems like they just got the same releases as R1. Since blah-ray frustratingly doesn’t have picture of the releases they pull from, I’m not sure what they’re talking about specifically.

What I’m asking is, what DVD does the “best” version of Vertigo’s mono come from? Was there another pressing of the 2008 DVD that has the actual mono, and not the downmix that’s on my copy?

[denti alligator]

There's a 2005 Masterpiece Collection in which it has mono.

[tenia]

Scream 4 (Lionsgate) - another Kino-grade encode with a huge DV layer. People noted that a French 4K is also upcoming. Maybe tenia gets a review copy and can let us know if it's better.

I'm trying to get a UHD of the French release but only received the BD so far (which looks fine but only has 5.1 tracks). I need to check whether the French subs are forced though, which is a definite possibility with M6.

[nicolas]

Thanks for the info! Looking forward to your review at any rate.

[nicolas]

The Burbs (Shout) - caps