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Every Imprint release has been region free, worry not

domino harvey wrote:Every Imprint release has been region free, worry not

As of the start of January 2018, every Indicator release was region-free as well. The only way the label can control this is by exclusively dealing with rightsholders who don’t insist on region-locking - otherwise, it’s out of their hands.

Has anyone received a shipping notification from Imprint regarding this? I know the Nick Wayman email indicated it would ship on 09/30, but it seems this is due for release on 10/20.

I haven't, is all, and I am perhaps unduly anxious as I've never ordered directly from them and it seems that there is no record of my order on their website (recently updated), and all I have is the invoice from when I placed the order (including other Imprint titles) on 07/01.

I'll likely email them, but I'm just curious.

Haven't heard anything new

I emailed them last week and they informed me that my ship date would be 10/10.

My response from them last night indicated it could ship as early as the 5th.

I wonder if it’s too much to hope that DeepDiscount orders may also get bumped up. Currently it’s listed with a 10/22 release date.

So mine has shipped. Australian Post express normally takes 5-8 business days, so not too bad. Of course a LOT depends on USPS (which has gotten flaky again).

If anyone is still on the fence about this box, DiabolikDVD is now offering it for $162.99 (with shipping it comes to $170.99). They have it listed in stock even though it isn't (they are doing that to ensure they don't oversell their allotment). The packaging at Diabolik is superb. Everything is wrapped in bubblewrap and then placed inside real boxes that fit the product. I've been ordering from them for about two years and I've never encountered crushed packaging. I was excited to see they were getting this set in and that motivated me to purchase it.

fdm wrote:So mine has shipped. Australian Post express normally takes 5-8 business days, so not too bad. Of course a LOT depends on USPS (which has gotten flaky again).

The recent post reminded me about this and I went to check and I see it's still in Australia waiting to board an international flight.

Limited flights have caused delays for some international deliveries.

My shipment from Imprint cleared U.S. customs in LA yesterday and is apparently supposed to arrive today.

Edit: It did! But I won't be home in time to pick it up from the front office, so first impressions will have to wait.

I received mine yesterday. Only watched Red Sorghum so far - a long time favorite of mine - and I'm guessing it's from the same source as the blu from a few years back. There's some fairly extreme video noise at times, with horizontal bands of digital blocks clearly visible a few times in the opening act of the film. That said, this is still obviously the best (only) edition of Red Sorghum available. I expect similar results from the other films in the set. Many of them have only been available in VHS-quality up to this point, so even a flawed blu is a major upgrade.

For what it’s worth: going off of a rip of the earlier Red Sorghum blu that I found on backchannels, and comparing to impressions and screenshots posted on the blu-ray.com forum, it seems like there might be some differences not attributable to my less-than-ideal references for the two sources. The main thing is that colors seem generally more balanced and nuanced in the new screenshots, while the earlier release looks kind of blown out to me and definitely on the warmer side. No idea which is closer to the original presentation/intentions. Also, while there may be some slight telecine wobble evident in this rip, some users on the other forum are claiming that it’s quite extreme on the new release. Was that something you noticed, RitrovataBlue?

Obviously I’m not going to draw any conclusions about quality from a rip and screenshots/anecdotal observations, but I do think it’s interesting if they didn’t use the same scan. Imprint only claims a 2k scan and I think I remember the WCL release being advertised as 4k… I assumed the discrepancy was due to some error, but if not, I wonder why it was redone so soon.

Anyway, my Deep Discount order shipped today, but I look forward to hearing more impressions here in the meantime!

If telecine wobble manifests in horizontal noise bands, then yes, it is quite extreme at a few points in the new transfer.

bad future wrote:Imprint only claims a 2k scan and I think I remember the WCL release being advertised as 4k…

None of the WCL Xi'an Film Studio releases is 4K restored.

andyli wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:02 am

bad future wrote:Imprint only claims a 2k scan and I think I remember the WCL release being advertised as 4k…

None of the WCL Xi'an Film Studio releases is 4K restored.

Apologies, I’ll double check things I “remember” before posting again, as I should have here.

There is actually a 4K restoration of Red Sorghum that premiered at the Beijing Film Festival in 2019, but it got the same imbecilic 48fps interpolation treatment as the 4K version of The Horse Thief.

I still haven't been able to take a look, but I'll be curious to see if the timing on the Imprint release is that much different from the WCL. WCL's Horse Thief had a very different look from the DP-approved 4K version, which was significantly darker and also fixed an error where a day-for-night scene wasn't properly color-corrected and was left as daytime. Doesn't seem likely given that they're almost certainly using Xi'an's 2K restoration from 2012, but maybe Imprint applied some of their own color tweaks to Red Sorghum?

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 4:02 pm There is actually a 4K restoration of Red Sorghum that premiered at the Beijing Film Festival in 2019, but it got the same imbecilic 48fps interpolation treatment as the 4K version of The Horse Thief.

I still haven't been able to take a look, but I'll be curious to see if the timing on the Imprint release is that much different from the WCL. WCL's Horse Thief had a very different look from the DP-approved 4K version, which was significantly darker and also fixed an error where a day-for-night scene wasn't properly color-corrected and was left as daytime. Doesn't seem likely given that they're almost certainly using Xi'an's 2K restoration from 2012, but maybe Imprint applied some of their own color tweaks to Red Sorghum?

When I was scrubbing through that aforementioned download of Red Sorghum to compare with screenshots others have posted from the new release, there was one particular shot so different that I wondered if the WCL version was lacking a day-for-night filter, or "day-for-dawn" as might be more accurate here. It is a shot that follows a nighttime sequence and precedes a daytime sequence, so it could make sense.

I'm hesitant to post screencaps from A) something I downloaded and B) another user on another forum, but if anyone wants to compare the actual discs when they get a chance, the shot is around 17:45, the wide shot of Gong on muleback with mountains in the background. I can post screencaps for a broad comparison of the color differences I've observed (plus some stretching or squashing?) if anyone thinks they'd be worthwhile given the questionable provenance of both sources, but it seems like that'd be moot soon once more people actually have both releases in hand and the time to look.

Has anyone in USA received this item directly from Imprint yet?

Fanciful Norwegian said upthread that he received it in Los Angeles already

And I just got an email saying it landed in LA, so I should hopefully be getting it soon.

domino harvey wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 7:50 pm Fanciful Norwegian said upthread that he received it in Los Angeles already

I'm in Texas, LA was the port of entry. Was very surprised that it got here one day after it supposedly cleared customs.

Is DVDbeaver going to a review/comparison of the set? I don't see it on their upcoming schedule, but this seems like such a notable release that it would be odd for them to overlook it.

They have reviewed prior Imprint releases

As most people in the US who ordered direct have only just been receiving them and orders from DeepDiscount/ImportCDs have only gone out in the past few days, I'd just assume it'll get added to his queue when he actually receives the set. I expect we'll start to have opinions filtering in on each disc from all kinds of sources in the week to come as many will be recieving.

(Though I think we all know what to expect from Imprint; probably not the absolute best presentation of a title if it's had other recent releases, but for simply putting releases out there that others can't get to (yet or ever) they definitely have their appreciated place in the market. For this set, it just seems readily apparent that while it's perfectly likely the six-ish individual titles not widely available already (so exlcuding Shanghai Triad and Coming Home) might pop up from UK or US boutiques in the fullness of time but it seems they were in a unique position to be able to assemble all of these together now. I have no issues spending the money for an OK set as I definitely think at least two or three of these titles if not more could not appear for years from other local sources but I appreciate not everyone will feel the same way!).