criterionforum.org

I see no evidence of DNR or anything similar. What I do see in the Koch is an old master sharpened out the wazoo.



That is not grain. It is sharpened noise.

I was going to say the same as EddieLarkin above. I'm no expert, but the Koch looks extremely artificially sharpened. The Criterion is softer, but it doesn't look waxy to me. Certainly not like Universal's To Kill a Mockingbird or their original Spartacus Blu-rays.

The clip on the Destry Rides Again page is a better indication than Beaver's caps. It looks pretty solid to me and I don't see any waxiness

If a master from Universal is new, it will almost certainly be of top drawer quality. They haven't been producing the sort of crap they used to for years. In fact after Sony they're easily doing the best catalog work amongst all the big studios, especially on UHD.

For what is worth here what the included leaflet has to say regarding the transfer:
This new 4k digital restoration was undertaken by Universal Pictures in collaboration with The Film Foundation, with special consultation by filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. A new digital transfer was created in 4k resolution from a 35 mm nitrate composite fine-grain and a 35 mm safety composite fine-grain.

david hare wrote: Thu Apr 16, 2020 10:00 pm Universal's very poor Blu Ray of the '32 Scarface which is far too sof, DNR'ed or whatever and nothing like the 4K DCP which was a stunner in projection.

Pity, I was planning on getting the standalone disc of this.

I do wonder if people have forgotten what DNR actually looks like when such lush grain fields as seen in the Scarface '32 release (here, here) are called out as DNR'd and very poor. It looks soft yes but presumably this is a generation issue?

EddieLarkin wrote:If a master from Universal is new, it will almost certainly be of top drawer quality. They haven't been producing the sort of crap they used to for years. In fact after Sony they're easily doing the best catalog work amongst all the big studios, especially on UHD.

They've degrained American Werewolf at least, a few years ago, and they're the guys behind the awful UHDs of the early Bourne movies though.
They're clearly more consistent than in the past, but they're still prone to the usual exceptions.

Still, as usual, I'll wait to see more trustworthy caps to judge this one.

This one needs to be seen in motion.

Not necessarily. Just with faithful caps.

The reviewer at highdefdigest.com (sorry--I don't know how to link) is positively gushing over the image quality. After reading that, I'm surprised Beaver's take is so lackluster.

Oh, it's from composite elements ! Yeah, that makes sense about the look and the grain aspect.
That's some quite bad compression, though.

Mind elaborating on that a bit, tenia?

It seemed on the screencaps that yes, it's soft but grain pattern seemed intact yet a bit thick. That's not something you usually see with 4k restorations or even 2k ones when sourced from the OCN. However, later gen elements like composite fine grain master, dupe neg or lavender prints would result in this kind of duality, thus explaining what's happening here.

However, judging by blu-ray.com's caps, as expected, the encode doesn't handle this very well, leading to bad blockiness ans grain clumpiness. Some of these caps are quite bad looking, though there'll always be worse, aka My Own Private Idaho.

TMDaines wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:36 pm This one needs to be seen in motion.

To be fair, this is true of most films.

whaleallright wrote: Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:19 pm

TMDaines wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:36 pm This one needs to be seen in motion.

To be fair, this is true of most films.

I found out over time it's actually very rarely the case.

I think whaleallright was making a joke that movies should be seen as movies and not still images

indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVAdt5bH2tE