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The 10 episodes aren't bad, and there's some mosquito noise that is noticeable in a handful of places. It's possible overanalyzing screen grabs may bring forth more issues, but overall, when watching it, the compression is handled fairly well. Black levels are very weak, though, more grayish and crushing was a problem.

But if you compare A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love to their respective episodes they do look noticeably better: film grain is better rendered and I thought the fine details popped a bit more (which probably plays into the reason why depth looks better in the two films). There are a couple things I'm going to go back and check Killing on, and probably Love but they do look better in comparison. Blacks aren't that much stronger, though.

Aren't the Short Films from a different restoration due to different rightsholders abroad, though?

They were, and maybe that plays into it as well. The looks are similar, though.

Eight of the films that compose Dekalog are presented in their original aspect ratios of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. Dekalog: Five, Dekalog: Six, A Short Film About Killing, and A Short Film About Love are presented in their original aspect ratios of 1.70:1. On standard televisions, the image will appear letterboxed. On widescreen televisions, the image should fit the screen.

Approved by the respective cinematographers when possible, this new restoration of Dekalog was undertaken by TVP from scans made in 4K resolution from the 35mm original camera negatives. The original monaural soundtracks were remastered from 35mm magnetic tracks and restored by the Criterion Collection using Pro Tools HD and iZotope RX.

The new restorations of A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love were undertaken by Studio Filmowe TOR from scans made in 4K resolution from the 35mm original camera negatives. The original monaural soundtracks were remastered from 35mm magnetic tracks and restored by the Criterion Collection using Pro Tools HD and iZotope RX.

cdnchris wrote:new restoration of Dekalog [...] by TVP [...] 4K resolution from the 35mm original camera negatives.

new restorations of A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love [...] by Studio Filmowe TOR [...] 4K resolution from the 35mm original camera negatives.

Interesting that they end up being similar but not identical despite similar workflow on similar (same ?) elements. I guess that's where lies the fine line of pure faithfulness.

Colourwise and such they look the same, but I haven't made direct comparisons. When I say the longer films look better it's that the digital presentations look noticeably better (film grain looks better, details pop a bit more, blacks are a teeny bit better, still not great, though in all fairness to Killing it is so heavily stylized in comparison to the other film/episodes it could be related more to that). It could be either because the transfers/restorations are slightly better or they're allowed more room to breathe on the disc (or both).

The television episodes still look fine, but I'm admittedly curious about Arrow's.

I would imagine that the camera negative was cut to conform either to the feature film versions of episodes 5 and 6 or to the television episode, but not both because of the common footage.

If the feature-length versions use the camera negative, that could account for some of the difference in visual quality.

It would certainly make sense for the feature-length versions to have used the camera negative, because at the time of production Kieślowski wouldn't have had any more elaborate plans for the shorter cut besides a Polish television screening in standard definition on old CRT systems.

That's what I was thinking too. I'm glad that TOR has restored both the feature films from 4K scans, since they're two of Kieślowski's very finest works.

Well, my Family Video order for Dekalog arrived with a smashed corner and a broken spindle on one of the disc holders. I'm sure they'll address it for me but I have a feeling they'll just send me another copy in the same exact packaging.

MichaelB wrote:The Arrow will be at the correct 25fps (the TV broadcast framerate in Poland in 1988, for which Dekalog was initially exclusively made), although this does mean that importers from outside Europe need to be careful.

It is great that Arrow will be releasing this in the correct framerate. However, my Oppo player will have to convert it to 60hz for my display. I'm assuming that conversion will be no improvement over the Criterion edition. Is that a correct assumption?

Yes and no.

When converting from 50hz to 60hz for a 60hz-only display, your Oppo will insert 10 extra images per second. As a result, a 50hz version will run at the correct speed (rather than marginally too slow) and have the correct pitch. Whereas when taking 25fps content and slowing it down to 24 (or 23.98fps), there are no extra images created, the number of frames stays the same but the speed they're output at changes.

The down side is that with any kind of source-and-display mismatch, you might see some stutter. (3-2 pulldown with 24fps movies on 60hz TV is another example of such a mismatch).

Of course, if one version has some other advantage or disadvantage, that will still hold, regardless of the frame rate.

djproject wrote:Apparently, Kieslowski had in mind expanding Dekalog 9 as A Short Film About Jealousy.

Piesiewicz also confirmed this in the interview found in the Criterion edition (and apparently made for the 2003 Warner Poland edition). He called it "A Short Film About Betrayal" and it didn't happen due to lacking funds.


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This is really a great release and it's a shame that Arrow's release will probably still end up blowing it out of the water; all of the supplements are wonderful and super-informative, and the book(let) is really great and interesting (the essay is more an essay on all of Kieslowski's career, even discussing The Calm). The transfers look really good and oftentimes fantastic; I think only Three disappoints, as its set almost entirely at night so its got a lot of black that doesn't come out looking great. Criterion tried with this one. I'd like to imagine it's still well worth the expense for both editions (I haven't yet checked out the Short Films themselves but it's fair to assume those are presented well too).

I just received my copy of the Criterion box set, and the first thing I did was to sample A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love. I see some of the slight limitations that cdnchris noted in his review, but really both films look vastly better than I have seen before in any format, except for perhaps DCP. In fact I was astonished at times.

Restoring the films in 4k from the camera negative certainly made a difference! It makes me glad that I opted to purchase the Criterion set in addition to the Arrow set which I pre-ordered. A happy case of double-dipping...

Due to the recent discussion over at bluray.com, I really think Criterion should start thinking seriously about getting another - more impartial - reviewer for their releases, because in the end it's the label itself that is being exposed continuously, as it's transparent to many members in many forums.

I'm not sure they can. Blu-ray.com only have so many reviewers and Criterion requires a lot of work time.

By the way, I am surprised that none of us that dare to defend the Arrow release have been banned yet there or have been insulted in a most ungraceful way.
Such tactics had worked in the past for silencing the opposite voices.
I guess it helped that professionals stepped in the discussion.

I shouldn't have to do this, but I have of course been regularly archiving the thread.

I am only too aware of Blu-ray.com's dissent-suppresion tactics in the past, including quietly deleting posts a few days after the thread has died down. Obviously, I can't say who actually carried out the deletions, but if it wasn't Svet he really should be having a quiet word with his colleagues, as this stealthy censorship in order to make him look good is actually having the exact opposite effect, and he's bearing the brunt of the embarrassment - not least because, as my archiving of the original Thieves' Highway discussion demonstrates, they weren't just censoring abusive posts, they were censoring ones that merely had the temerity to counter his assertions with easily checkable facts.

In particular, it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone quietly removed or amended three really cringeworthy factual howlers in the Dekalog thread that reveal that whatever Svet may have done in "eastern European" (presumably Bulgarian) television, it clearly wasn't anything especially technical. Because even if by some miracle he turns out to be right about the framerate (although I'll be truly astonished if this actually is the case), I'll never forget that his idea of a convincing argument is "well, it was shot in 35mm, so it must have been 24fps".

The fact that 3 professional persons who directly worked on the release chimed in with factual responses (notably the chronology with words from Kieslowski himself and the TV-being-synced element from Nick) certainly helped stopping further counter-arguments there.

Interestingly, Criterion also had to slow down Antichrist to 24fps while the movie was natively shot at 25fps (hence some releases being 1080i50), and I don't recall such lengthy discussion about which one is the correct-est. Same for World on a Wire.

MichaelB wrote:"well, it was shot in 35mm, so it must have been 24fps".

Which sadly is a myth that seems invincible. I stumbled upon it while checking the discussions on Antichrist and the same was said (it was mostly rebuked by "it was shot digitally so it can be 25fps", not just "it can be 25fps even on film").
I thought that at least World on a Wire would have settled the matter (shot on 16mm film at 25fps), but no.

Ken Russell's entire BBC output from 1959-70 was shot on film at 25fps - and mostly 35mm film at that.

There would have been absolutely no point shooting it at any other framerate, as there were no plans at the time to screen it anywhere other than via BBC broadcasts.

In Europe, when it comes to shooting on film (the gauge of film being irrelevant), feature films are generally 24fps and TV productions are generally 25fps. The waters only get muddied if the end result is intended for both film and TV, but that wouldn't have been true of eight of the Dekalog episodes (at least at the time of production), and I'm equally satisfied that Dekalogs Five and Six (i.e. the TV versions) should also be watched at 25fps. I can't confirm how they were originally shot, but I certainly can confirm that the sound mix is only pitched correctly at 25fps.

When I get my hands on a BD of one of the Short Films About..., I'll perform a similar pitch check, but my working hypothesis is that the longer versions were given a 24fps-friendly sound mix with regard to the music.

Discussion of the great Blu-ray.com purge of 2016 has been moved to the dedicated Pro-B thread

So outside of really wanting the A Short Film About... films or not being region-free, is there any compelling reason for opting for the Criterion set over the Arrow?

Well its not out of the question that some people's set up cant accomodate a 25fps program. Though easilly overcome, i realize there are still people buying DVDs as well.

I should add that even when you can accomodate 25fps, the quality of the outcome (stutter, stability) may be dependent on your rquipment, wheras criterion would be normailzed in that respect.

Silly of me, but I find the wording to be weird on the back of the cover.

http://i.imgur.com/CZdufAN.jpg

"Its ten hour-long films[...]"

I get what they were saying, but it makes it seem like this thing is 100 hours in length.

EDIT: Okay, the hyphen is important. Kind of stoned right now, so my bad..