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Orlac wrote:How is the sound on this? There were issues with the sound on Shockiu's 4k versions of Late Spring and Story of Late Crysantheums.

It's acceptable. All the Shochiku colour Ozu restorations are okay.

You can view the first 3 1/2 minutes of the 4k restoration on the official ShochikuOnDemand channel on YouTube. There's artifacting introduced by the steaming compression, so you can't judge the grain, but the color is probably spot-on.

When I compare Criterion blu-ray screencaps on dvdbeaver to the version streaming on Criterion Channel, they seem drastically different. Those blu-ray screen caps seem much more green-tinted (just like that 4K restoration clip posted above this comment). So has Criterion made chances to the colours of An Autumn Afternoon since they first released it on blu-ray or what's going on here? When I look at those dvdbeaver comparisons it looks that the version now on channel is closer to BFI version than to those screen caps from Criterion blu-ray.

Has anyone here seen it projected on film? Which version is closest to the original film prints in color?

All circulating film prints derive from digital remasterings, I believe. Any antique prints (if they exist) would have suffered severe color degradation by now, So, it is now ultimately a matter of aesthetic judgment, common-sense and guess-work. There is no reliable standard to measure against.

jaffe1234 wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 10:42 am When I compare Criterion blu-ray screencaps on dvdbeaver to the version streaming on Criterion Channel, they seem drastically different. Those blu-ray screen caps seem much more green-tinted (just like that 4K restoration clip posted above this comment). So has Criterion made chances to the colours of An Autumn Afternoon since they first released it on blu-ray or what's going on here? When I look at those dvdbeaver comparisons it looks that the version now on channel is closer to BFI version than to those screen caps from Criterion blu-ray.

Has anyone here seen it projected on film? Which version is closest to the original film prints in color?

Truth be told, I prefer the one that's on the BFI BD and I guess the Criterion channel now. Basically, I don't want to watch it with the constant distraction of thinking "this color looks strange, is this right?" so it was an easy choice.

Although I know Ozu was particular about what film stock he used (his preference for the way red showed up on Agfacolor), everything else about his style makes it difficult to conceive that the film ever had the heavy green tint that appears on many contemporary transfers. Perhaps a green bias, but, the color white should be white, after all, just as it is in life.

It has been a couple years since I saw the Shochiku Blu Ray. My recollection is that it looked like the Criterion Blu Ray as seen on the DVD screen caps. Going by the DVD screen caps, the Criterion DVD and the BFI Blu Ray look similar. The Criterion Blu Ray looks similar to the Panorama and Madman DVDs. Per the booklet that comes with the BFI Blu Ray, the master materials (“transferred and restored in High Definition”) came from Criterion. It also says “further colour grading and picture restoration was completed by the BFI”. Maybe what is being streamed came from the material that was used for the Criterion DDV and not from the Shochiku-restored material? Also, maybe Criterion did their own colour grading on the material that they used for their DVD release?

Carlotta used the same restoration for their Ozu set and it looks identical to the Criterion BD color-wise.

Michael Kerpan wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 1:50 pm All circulating film prints derive from digital remasterings, I believe. Any antique prints (if they exist) would have suffered severe color degradation by now, So, it is now ultimately a matter of aesthetic judgment, common-sense and guess-work. There is no reliable standard to measure against.

I thought about catching a 35mm screening at Film Forum to compare the color, but having once again seen your post from 2020, I guess that would prove nothing. Would the same apply for all 35mm prints of Ozu's color films (they're all struck from the same digital sources used for the current Blu-rays)?

hearthesilence -- I would guess so. It would be interesting to track down the best-preserved vintage prints. But really there would be no way to get around guesswork. Even color-fast (environmentally protected) production stills would not answer the question of what the original prints looked like. Perhaps if someone had painted scenes from the film, authentically capturing colors, we would have an answer. But that seems highly unlikely to exist.