×

91
92

Criterion finally going 4K UHD. First Slate: Citizen Kane, Mulholland Dr., Menace II Society, The Red Shoes, The Piano, A Hard Day's Night (criterion.com)

submitted by KeithVanBreadHoz Hog

all 40 comments
sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a

[–]ceaselessnightmareswelcome to the jungle? welcome to the bank! 56 points57 points  (1 child)

oh snap! citizen 4kane!

[–]RegretPopular9970 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Kane clapping gif

[–]RegretPopular9970 26 points27 points  (1 child)

Damn, “The Piano” AND “The Red Shoes”?

The Dave Dawg is gonna become a Horndawg over this news....

[–]rubendurangoCOME IIIINNN 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Can confirm the inclusion of ‘The Piano’ was giving me the vapours. By the time it got to ‘Mulholland Dr.’ I thought I’d spontaneously combust. That’s one where I’d be willing to double dip for if/when I do a full on 4K setup upgrade.

[–][deleted]  (4 children)

[deleted]

    [–]BklynMoonshiner 6 points7 points  (3 children)

    I always thought it was that VHS The Third Man, but it would have been before numbering.

    And isn't Grand Illusion Spine no 1?

    [–][deleted]  (2 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]BklynMoonshiner 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      I appreciate the clarification.

      [–]benthebossmann 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      That’s some real nerdy shit, worthy of respect.

      [–]p_nut_ 13 points14 points  (1 child)

      The Red Shoes blu transfer already looks incredible, I don't often double dip but I'm very tempted here...

      [–]clwestbrPod Night Shyamacast 6 points7 points  (0 children)

      Yeah that's the one that caught my eye. It's such a stunning film.

      [–]lonepinemall85 10 points11 points  (5 children)

      Wow, Hard Day's Night is surprising. I'm biased as a Beatles-obsessive, but damn that is a well-shot, well-lit movie for "just" a silly day-in-the-life pastiche of what was at the time a Boy Band Movie. Will prob look and sound great.

      [–]EscapeFromThomYorke 3 points4 points  (4 children)

      It's just odd that they were able to capture the world by storm in 5 short years and there was seemingly an endless amount of footage and photographs and recordings and ephemera. I don't think I have seen any photos from that time where any of them didn't look iconic. It's just doubly nuts that they made a good movie out of it. I like Help but it didn't really define a new movie genre. Elvis movies are mostly dumb and shoehorn him into singing.... like that Wayne Gretzky SNL sketch.

      [–]lonepinemall85 0 points1 point  (3 children)

      I will always have a soft spot for Help (I quote it a LOT lol), but it definitely was a "hey let's go screw around as the Beatles" film, where as Hard Day's Night has a lot of care put it into it! You're absolutely right the Elvis movies were just "insert Elvis here" things. But Richard Lester really took the time to capture each of their personalities. Even their on-screen manager works with them well and feels like he could be the real thing. ("You're a swine"). John and George in particular crush all of their bits. It so perfectly captures what they were going through at that exact time with their humor captured so well AND it's so freakin gorgeous to look at

      [–]EscapeFromThomYorke 1 point2 points  (2 children)

      I used to really like Help more than Hard Days Night but I was a dumb kid and I kinda lean toward the druggy later stuff more than the Ed Sullivan end of things. Plus it's in color and the girl is cute.

      [–]lonepinemall85 0 points1 point  (1 child)

      HARD SAME haha. Magical Mystery Tour was the first CD I had of theirs as a kid, the trippy stuff was all my favorite because it was colorful and funny. I Am The Walrus? Come on. 8 year olds love that stuff lol

      [–]EscapeFromThomYorke 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Walrus was my jam in high school... but I would wear $5 sunglasses I bought from 7-11 in tinted frames of green, red, and blue. I somehow thought I was evading my parents' suspicion. I'd go to Laserium frequently and that would be my cover story when I wasn't going because you could extend the curfew time if it started at 11.

      [–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (20 children)

      As blu newb I have some dumb qs. 4k only matters if you have a 4k tv, correct? Is the jump in quality from a standard blu significant enough to warrant upgrading?

      [–][deleted]  (3 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]accidentalmemory 0 points1 point  (2 children)

        I don’t believe that Criterion does that however. I’d have to look at the ones I have but I seem to remember them just being one format or the other.

        It would be very nice if they did that for the titles that they jumped over Blu-Ray for though.

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

        I don't think they do it for Blu-Ray/DVDs but the press release says that their 4K blurays will also include a regular standard blu-ray which will include both the special features and an additional copy of the movie.

        Each title will be available in a 4K UHD+Blu-ray combo pack including a 4K UHD disc of the feature film as well as the film and its special features on Blu-ray. Select films will be presented in Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos. 

        [–]accidentalmemory 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Thanks for reading for me :)

        That’s great news, I’ve recently switched over to buying 4K’s despite not having a setup for it yet and will definitely grab this Citizen Kane (on sale at Barnes and Noble).

        [–]p_nut_ 7 points8 points  (4 children)

        A lot of people notice the larger color range HDR provides more than the resolution bump

        [–]btouch 6 points7 points  (1 child)

        Yes. You can notice the differences primarily in the handlings of very dark and very light scenes/sections of shots.

        One very dorky example is that, in Shazam!, you can better see the bokeh/particle effects in the Shazam Family’s lightning emblems; in SDR (standard dynamic range) it looks more like a less complicated gradient.

        Psycho benefits from this greatly in all the scenes of Marion first arriving at the Bates Motel.

        [–]slomopomo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        That Psycho disc is gorgeous. The daylight scenes even impress.

        [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

        HDR/DV, when implemented well, looks frankly incredible on a display that does it right. Unfortunately, a lot of TVs that support it are simply able to decode it and not actually utilize to anywhere near its full effect. Mine doesn't utilize it well so I just turn it off. I think it's a brightness thing. And if you do have a good enough display, you then have to calibrate it which can be a hassle. It's a wonderful looking format when brought to its full potential just a bit of a pain to get going.

        [–]plantbasedgamer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        RTINGS has calibration guides for every televisions they review.

        HDR10 and Dolby Vision make a world of difference, especially when a set has full support for the color gamut and the set is close to proper calibration.

        [–]anyfuckingmerlot 4 points5 points  (5 children)

        Personal preference. Some care a lot about resolution. Others, including me, think standard HD is plenty.

        [–]ajchann123💦BIG 'N' WET💦 4 points5 points  (3 children)

        There have been a few examples of 4K UHD I've watched where the HDR blew me away more than the resolution -- the glint in people's eyes really hits different

        [–]anyfuckingmerlot 0 points1 point  (2 children)

        That's cool! I didn't know that.

        [–]ajchann123💦BIG 'N' WET💦 3 points4 points  (1 child)

        Yeah, especially with screen size and seating distance resolution really doesnt count for much in most contexts - you're right - but I saw Halloween in UHD on an HDR-enabled TV and was shocked by the range of light values in the dark scenes; the light in their eyes floats around as they look around, panicked in the dark, and it was a real "this is the future" moment of movie-watching

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        Real important to note for newbies that despite sharing the same name, the HDR on TVs isn't the same shitty HDR setting your old phone had on its camera where it over contrasted everything. Two completely different things that share a name.

        [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        Yeah I only have a few blurays anyway and the jump in quality between those and dvds/streamings has been worth it. I'll just enjoy where I'm at for now :)

        Thanks everyone above

        [–][deleted]  (4 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]p_nut_ 9 points10 points  (0 children)

          Well if it's shot of film it's not being "upgraded" by being rescanned in 4k, it's just a better capture of the existing information. Even outside of what's on film, some early early digital stuff like Collateral can have pretty great looking 4k transfers.

          [–]darkeststar 7 points8 points  (1 child)

          ...Many films, especially those shot on film like the majority of the Criterion Collection titles can be improved with 4K. The native resolution of film is something akin to what would be 32k, so every film transfer is actually down-sampling the film to fit the physical medium of choice. 4K scans of film prints that are then ported down to standard 1080p have more depth and detail than just straight 1080p or 2K scans, which is something that Criterion sometimes does already.

          Movies that are shot digitally are typically rendered in 2k, and when released in 4K are just digitally upscaled. If proper time and care is done with those releases they too can look incredible, but that's usually more to do with HDR grading over the resolution bump.

          So really, Criterion (and Kino Lorber) are probably film buffs best bet to see older (and international) films get the 4K treatment.

          [–]TheManWithNoNameBQ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          You guys are right! I didn’t give the conversion process enough credit. Definitely a lot of technical stuff here. Suppose it’s mostly just personal preference as most have said. Some people notice more of a difference than others.

          [–]mellamollama1724 3 points4 points  (0 children)

          November 2021 in Barnes and Noble is going to be a bloodbath.

          [–]TheManWithNoNameBQ 5 points6 points  (7 children)

          Never understood the obsession with 4K. I will resist having to re-purchase my physical media library as long as possible!

          [–][deleted]  (6 children)

          [deleted]

            [–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (5 children)

            4K blurays also look a LOT better than like Netflix 4K, imo. I watched Jaws the other day and I was a bit blown away by how good of a transfer it was.

            [–][deleted]  (4 children)

            [deleted]

              [–]btouch 2 points3 points  (2 children)

              But still a grand improvement over Netflix 2K

              But physical discs will still provide better quality unless and until even more efficient codecs are developed (and to be clear, we’ve come a long way from DVD’s MPEG-2 to UHD’s H.265, lower bandwidth implementations of which are used to stream most 4K content on streaming. Google is maintaining/developing their own codecs - V9, V10, etc - for YouTube)

              [–]nezmito 1 point2 points  (1 child)

              I go back and forth in my mind about what will happen, but right now my stronger belief is that physical will always be better because the economics of streaming vs physical will prioritize bandwidth and therefor any efficiency gains in codecs will mainly benefit the network and not the quality at home. The weak belief is that while this may be true, eventually the difference will completely surpass our ability to tell.

              [–]btouch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              I feel like it is possible that physical video media could one day become a purely collector market (it’ll never go away) rather than a standard consumer distribution platform that “everyone” will use.

              We’ve just, as of this year, hit the point where streaming music services can provide standard quality better than any other available format with the exception of the cleanest, freshest vinyl records possible. And with them going into special Dolby Atmos audio as well, they’re very much leaving audio CDs in the dust (and the industry seems not to care to get behind a replacement).

              [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              It's possible. I think a lot of Netflix 4K content looks really good but I notice little things because I'm an obsessive freak and the blurays look infinitely better to me.