UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading

[tenia]

The Misumi set does have however at least 1, most likely 2, restoration that is visibly grain managed.

[nicolas]

The Misumi set does have however at least 1, most likely 2, restoration that is visibly grain managed.

I was referring to the encoding in particular. Sorry for the confusion.

[Finch]

Are there any French UHDs not released elsewhere that are good and English friendly?

[nicolas]

Are there any French UHDs not released elsewhere that are good and English friendly?

The list is very short. I’ve just looked at those I have and I’d only say Pathé’s Le Samouraï fits the bill 100%. Astérix & Obelix Mission Cleopatra is good, not perfect but still the best version of the film in the world. Maybe tenia knows a few more but almost all French exclusive UHDs are sadly not English friendly.

[M-A]

Letter From an Unknown Woman is English friendly

[nicolas]

Letter From an Unknown Woman is English friendly

Unfortunately the UHD has forced French subtitles and raised gamma levels, which may be a dealbreaker for those without capable players to adjust both of that.

[M-A]

Unfortunately the UHD has forced French subtitles and raised gamma levels, which may be a dealbreaker for those without capable players to adjust both of that.

Oh whoops. I didn't check before I ripped it

[rrenault]

Gaumont tend to be the one French company to programmatically offer English subs on all their discs, and they’ll be releasing Besson’s Nikita on UHD later this year. Even StudioCanal won’t offer English subs on releases not due for release in English-speaking countries sometimes.

[rrenault]

Letter From an Unknown Woman is English friendly

Unfortunately the UHD has forced French subtitles and raised gamma levels, which may be a dealbreaker for those without capable players to adjust both of that.

The forced French subs are definitely a dealbreaker at €30 .

Then again, I picked up Carlotta’s Red Desert Blu-ray for around €20 so go figure.

[rrenault]

Are there any French UHDs not released elsewhere that are good and English friendly?

The list is very short. I’ve just looked at those I have and I’d only say Pathé’s Le Samouraï fits the bill 100%. Astérix & Obelix Mission Cleopatra is good, not perfect but still the best version of the film in the world. Maybe tenia knows a few more but almost all French exclusive UHDs are sadly not English friendly.

The French UHD of Rules of the Game is English-friendly and is arguably better than Criterion’s release.

Potemkine’s release of Lost Highway has removable subs and has just as good an encode as Criterion’s release.

On that note, the French UHDs of Le Samourai and Lost Highway should probably be included in the red on the master list.

[nicolas]

Letter From an Unknown Woman is English friendly

Unfortunately the UHD has forced French subtitles and raised gamma levels, which may be a dealbreaker for those without capable players to adjust both of that.

The forced French subs are definitely a dealbreaker at €30 .

Then again, I picked up Carlotta’s Red Desert Blu-ray for around €20 so go figure.

If you can move them out of frame or get rid of them altogether by ripping the UHD, I wouldn’t say it is. The gamma issues are the bigger thing but I can adjust that too via my player. I’m very happy with my set despite the issues. I still consider it a miracle that we’re having one Max Ophüls masterpiece in 4K and that it looks astounding once the “roadblocks” are cleared. I’d take both of these issues any day over the usual encoding problems and audio issues that plague way too many releases.

[Finch]

Dark Water (Arrow)

[hearthesilence]

The French UHD of Rules of the Game is English-friendly and is arguably better than Criterion’s release.

Caps-a-holic has samples that look very different - I can't tell home much of this may be due to the way the caps were created, but at least for me, I want to say the French UHD is much better. Even if something is throwing off the contrast, the texture on the French UHD looks more like film grain.

[tenia]

It's likely that the difference in contrast, coming from comparing a SDR disc with a wrongly-HDR-disc-downconverted-to-SDR, is giving the impression of a more present texture. I'm not sure it's actually the case, though this does seem weird : https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=2&x=32 ... 0&i=2&go=1

[M-A]

I took some screenshots of the ESC edition when forced into SDR to get a better idea of how it would actually look. It didn't match the grading 100%, but I am not sure if that is an actual difference on the discs, or if my caps didn't turn out right, but either way they should be more useful than caps-a-holic's comparison.

https://slow.pics/c/58lZwoU1

[tenia]

Bad, bad news from our friends at the best label in the world. Stalag 17 in 4K is the new Walkabout, now in black and white.

The included BD is also from the new master but no help either. It’s the same authoring house, as Tarzi said. What’s interesting for me (I never bothered to compare) is how aggressively they filter their masters for their BD releases.

I hope the UHD is better than what the BD makes of the 4K master, because, yikes : https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 37&i=5&l=0
(though it seems the Kino caps on caps-a-holic might have been improperly captured)

[nicolas]

Bad, bad news from our friends at the best label in the world. Stalag 17 in 4K is the new Walkabout, now in black and white.

The included BD is also from the new master but no help either. It’s the same authoring house, as Tarzi said. What’s interesting for me (I never bothered to compare) is how aggressively they filter their masters for their BD releases.

I hope the UHD is better than what the BD makes of the 4K master, because, yikes : https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 37&i=5&l=0
(though it seems the Kino caps on caps-a-holic might have been improperly captured)

The UHD is better but suffers from Walkabout-level bad compression issues in the highlights. The sky in cap 2 is among the worst I’ve seen. The grain cuts off like a razor around the trees in the background and when the camera moves, huge digital blocks pulsate in the sky. I hate this look so much that I bought the Eureka BD with the old master, which is consistently filmic. A shame as the OCN textures on the UHD are otherwise astoundingly beautiful and detailed, almost DCP-level sharp.

Regarding the caps, the person who did them mentioned on the other forum that they are indeed correct and nothing went wrong. I assume the frames that look better and those that don’t is part of the bad encoding on that disc, which we sometimes get from French BDs when the compression suddenly breaks down after a few frames that look good and stable. This is also a major issue with Curzon’s Wenders set that makes the BDs unwatchable. I tried to capture this when I made my screenshots last year but it’s not that easy as you need to hit the right frame(s).

[nicolas]

I just stumbled across this interesting post on Twitter / X: https://x.com/drewmcweeny/status/176946 ... 22202?s=46

It seems like the three Cameron UHDs aren’t the end of the road (for now) when it comes to the use of AI.

My first guess was that Se7en might be the UHD the poster is referring to as we already know how Peter Jackson and George Lucas are. More AI / DNR re-releases of their stuff would hardly cause a stir like that any more. Fincher makes sense as we haven’t gotten a single UHD of his pre-digital films so far. Also, we’re not aware that he ever supervised the Blu-ray transfers of his early films. Criterion’s The Game BD was supervised by Harris Savides, for example. Fincher was involved with Se7en and already hinted at the work he did for the new 4K restoration in an interview (no mentioning of anything beyond the use of power windows to fix blown-out highlights).

[dwk]

Fincher did sign off on The Game's transfer. Getting his approval was the thing holding back the release for so long.

[therewillbeblus]

3. Punch-Drunk Love for a brilliant restoration and grade from an interpositive as requested by PTA, yet when watching, it feels like they used the negative. The difference to the Criterion is significant even though the same element was used. Bonus point for a fantastic Atmos presentation. Jon Brion’s score and the sound mix sounds absolutely amazing and is a definite step-up from a comparatively timid 5.1.

I'm not typically as sensitive to audio as most, and would almost never commend a release for an audio upgrade before the visual one, but here we are. Perhaps because I've watched my Criterion blu a few times in the last few months, I could notice how well-rendered the soundtrack was on the 4K - It balances well with vocals, pops at the right times, and I think they've even tinkered with where Brion's score escalates in a few scenes that somehow elevate the sensations more. Visually it's a treat too, but I was not expecting the sound to floor me like this after so many repeat viewings

[nicolas]

3. Punch-Drunk Love for a brilliant restoration and grade from an interpositive as requested by PTA, yet when watching, it feels like they used the negative. The difference to the Criterion is significant even though the same element was used. Bonus point for a fantastic Atmos presentation. Jon Brion’s score and the sound mix sounds absolutely amazing and is a definite step-up from a comparatively timid 5.1.

I'm not typically as sensitive to audio as most, and would almost never commend a release for an audio upgrade before the visual one, but here we are. Perhaps because I've watched my Criterion blu a few times in the last few months, I could notice how well-rendered the soundtrack was on the 4K - It balances well with vocals, pops at the right times, and I think they've even tinkered with where Brion's score escalates in a few scenes that somehow elevate the sensations more. Visually it's a treat too, but I was not expecting the sound to floor me like this after so many repeat viewings

I’m glad you treated yourself with the beautiful UHD version and noticed the enhancements they did for the Atmos. I started with the original 5.1 and then switched to the Atmos mid-scene. The difference was genuinely stunning. PDL now sounds like a film that had a much higher budget for the mixing and it’s appropriate because of how creative the score and sound mix weave together. I can’t imagine how beautiful the mix comes alive in a speaker system setup if it sounds that great on a soundbar already.

[Guido]

I splurged on buying the 4K disc of PDL on ebay, and can attest to the fact that the Atmos mix is spectacular, if maybe a bit more subtle than I originally expected (I tested on my HT-A9 Atmos system). It isn't doing anything particularly noticeable in terms of height or even rear effects, afaict, but its clarity is remarkable. Looking forward to watching the whole thing this week and cross-comparing with the 5.1 mix.

[therewillbeblus]

The word that comes to mind is "smooth" - like there's an effect to the Atmos track that lets the sound breathe a bit more, which greatly helps the parts of the sound and score that reflect Barry loosening up as he begins to trust part of the unpredictable social world for the first time. The anxious bits earlier on still work the same, but it's the moments of spiritual promise: the moment before the title card, the moment when the pudding speaks to Barry prompting his romantic gesture... it's all rendered with such pronouncement but not overwhelming.

[Finch]

Second Sight's edition of Picnic at Hanging Rock added as the superior import as the Criterion 4K lacks the theatrical cut (possibly the Dream Within A Dream documentary, too? I can't tell what the documentary on the CC is). The Criterion unsurprisingly is from the same controversial restoration but the UK release at least has the FiM encode. EDIT: not a FiM encode on this Second Sight release but confirmed for Green Room.

[Finch]

Also added Second Sight's new release of Possessor as a better import over the Well Go USA 4K. I think Second Sight were advertising their edition as the only one where the Dolby Vision was officially approved by Brandon Cronenberg. I don't know whether Turbine consulted him or not, but both imports advance over the US version with the inclusion of DV, more extras and a booklet each (I believe in German only with the Turbine).