Critical discussion Thread: Your thoughts on Kino-Lorber Blu-rays

[Kino Lorber Insider]

All discussion, reactions and reviews to announced or released Kino product should be discussed in this thread!

klsc.jpg

[captveg]

Go back to to SC and insist they follow their "paper" trail on why they think the KHaC master they gave you is the new 2019 master, despite looking identical to their 2011 master. Maybe it's a simple clerical error somewhere up the chain - a misnamed file, or something similar. But the visual evidence is undeniable if one is interested in truth - the 2019 KL image matches identically the 2011 SC image.

EDIT: You just stated in the other thread that you reached out again to SC. Let's hope they give some serious time to looking into it.

[Kino Lorber Insider]

We reached out to StudioCanal again and asked them to confirm that we received the latest master for KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS and not an older one. They are in France and most likely on holiday, but we hope to hear back from them soon.

[willieconway]

Please always include subtitles.

[Gambit1138]

Originally Posted by willieconway

Please always include subtitles.

THIS. I was incredibly disappointed that releases like The Ox-Bow Incident and The Apple didn't include subtitles. They're among my and my Deaf parents' favorite films, and we've chosen not to purchase these discs and stick with our DVDs because they have available captioning.

[Kino Lorber Insider]

Originally Posted by willieconway

Please always include subtitles.

Most of our releases include them now. Some of the TV movies don't, but that's it.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by willieconway

Please always include subtitles.

This was the primary reason why I replaced my otherwise-impressive KLSC Blu-ray of the British noir, No Orchids for Miss Blandish, with the region free Powerhouse/Indicator edition.

KLSC has mostly rectified this issue with recent releases.

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Please issue replacements on releases that have Kino caused technical errors even if it means taking a bit of a loss at the particular time. Customers will be more satisfied and will continue wanting to support the label, meaning even more business.

Also, if a release already has technical errors, that aren't fixable by Kino, please pass on releasing it.

[Davidian]

Please fix Nosferatu.

[mdaniels]

Originally Posted by Davidian

Please fix Nosferatu.

What's wrong with Nosferatu?

[James Luckard]

Per request, I'm moving this discussion from the main KL thread:

Is there any word yet on BLACKMAIL?

The BFI-restored silent version looks stunning.

However, both included versions of the "talkie" version seem to have issues.

The version on disc 2, labelled as 1.20 (which would be the OAR), appears to be squished to around 1.10.

I'm unclear about the reason for the apparently stretched 1.33 version being included on disc 1.

I would definitely like to hear Kino's comments on this.

Originally Posted by Kino Lorber Insider

The packaging 1.20:1 ratio was a typo.

The correct ratio for the master we received from Studiocanal is 1.11:1

The same as every other release of the film.

I'm not sure that's correct.

The version currently streaming on Vudu is 1.20:1, as shown in the caps here:

https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=28489

The 2007 Optimum/Studiocanal UK DVD that I have is 1.20:1, there are caps of it here:

https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Blac...sing_(UK,_2007)

You can click on any of the caps there and you'll see comparison caps from the 2002 German Arthaus DVD and the 2005 French Studiocanal DVD. They're all roughly 1.20:1 as well:

https://the.hitchcock.zone/cgi-bin/c...pl?compare=11d

The other caps are from older public domain versions, so they're not really useful.

It appears that every authorized release of the film has been approximately 1.20:1 up till now.

[Kino Lorber Insider]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Per request, I'm moving this discussion from the main KL thread:

Is there any word yet on BLACKMAIL?

The BFI-restored silent version looks stunning.

However, both included versions of the "talkie" version seem to have issues.

The version on disc 2, labelled as 1.20 (which would be the OAR), appears to be squished to around 1.10.

I'm unclear about the reason for the apparently stretched 1.33 version being included on disc 1.

I would definitely like to hear Kino's comments on this.



I'm not sure that's correct.

The version currently streaming on Vudu is 1.20:1, as shown in the caps here:

https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=28489

The 2007 Optimum/Studiocanal UK DVD that I have is 1.20:1, there are caps of it here:

https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Blac...sing_(UK,_2007)

You can click on any of the caps there and you'll see comparison caps from the 2002 German Arthaus DVD and the 2005 French Studiocanal DVD. They're all roughly 1.20:1 as well:

https://the.hitchcock.zone/cgi-bin/c...pl?compare=11d

The other caps are from older public domain versions, so they're not really useful.

It appears that every authorized release of the film has been approximately 1.20:1 up till now.

We released the master we received from Studiocanal. The UK boxed set released by Optimum back in 2007 includes Blackmail in the same ratio. There will not be any replacement program or recalls.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by mdaniels

What's wrong with Nosferatu?

Silent films used to run in 18fps or 20 fps, and have to be converted to 24fps for 1080/24p blu-ray. In order to do this, the person authoring the blu-ray disc would have to repeat a number of frames. For a 18fps movie, You'd basically insert a repeat after every 3rd frame which would result in 6 "repeated" frames out of 24 frames per second. Something like that. I'm not sure if that's the method that is always used, but that is the gist of what has to happen to convert from different framerates.

If you watch their Nosferatu disc, the movements are quite jerky. Somehow this frame-rate conversion got screwed up really badly on the Nosferatu disc, someone was able to determine it is actually MISSING frames. Instead of having 18 frames and 6 repeated per second as it is supposed to, in actuality it only has like 14 frames and 10 repeats per second. Which obviously makes it look quite choppy compared to the other releases of the film. It's the kind of mistake that definitely should have been recalled and corrected. As far as I know they've never even acknowledged there was an issue with it.

[Logos14]

Originally Posted by AgentOrange

If you watch their Nosferatu disc, the movements are quite jerky. Somehow this frame-rate conversion got screwed up really badly on the Nosferatu disc, someone was able to determine it is actually MISSING frames. Instead of having 18 frames and 6 repeated per second as it is supposed to, in actuality it only has like 14 frames and 10 repeats per second. Which obviously makes it look quite choppy compared to the other releases of the film. It's the kind of mistake that definitely should have been recalled and corrected. As far as I know they've never even acknowledged there was an issue with it.

And to my knowledge none of these problems are present on the Masters of Cinema release. If only Kino had released that version.

[prkchopexpress]

Originally Posted by MassiveMovieBuff

Please issue replacements on releases that have Kino caused technical errors even if it means taking a bit of a loss at the particular time. Customers will be more satisfied and will continue wanting to support the label, meaning even more business.

Also, if a release already has technical errors, that aren't fixable by Kino, please pass on releasing it.

this is bs. only a spoiled, entitled brat thinks not having a release at all is better than a release that may not be perfect. do you realize how good we have just to be able to get stuff in the original aspect ratio? do you remember how awful bus was? thank goodness you're not in charge of anything.

and then to try and sell the nonsense "customers will be more satisfied and will continue wanting to supporting the label, meaning even more business." gimme a freaking break. just admit you're cheap AND high maintenance at the same time and want to be able to get free stuff if you some random person somewhere claimed the film print looked different and the color values aren't to your liking.


I personally have no issues with any of the kino discs in my collection.

this is an unrealistic nitpick, but I wish there was more behind the scenes material. I also fully understand that sometimes it just isn't possible logistically. and this not something that is unique to kino. if you said I could I have 20 barebones releases of movies I want that have not been available that I've never seen or ten stacked special editions of stuff I already love... I'll take the 20 barebones editions.

[nitin]

If there are technical errors on a disc, but it’s not financially viable to offer replacements or corrected discs, I think it would still be preferable to most consumers if that is said and the errors are acknowledged rather than denied (and learnt from so that they don’t happen again).

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Originally Posted by prkchopexpress

this is bs. only a spoiled, entitled brat thinks not having a release at all is better than a release that may not be perfect. do you realize how good we have just to be able to get stuff in the original aspect ratio? do you remember how awful bus was? thank goodness you're not in charge of anything.

and then to try and sell the nonsense "customers will be more satisfied and will continue wanting to supporting the label, meaning even more business." gimme a freaking break. just admit you're cheap AND high maintenance at the same time and want to be able to get free stuff if you some random person somewhere claimed the film print looked different and the color values aren't to your liking.


I personally have no issues with any of the kino discs in my collection.

this is an unrealistic nitpick, but I wish there was more behind the scenes material. I also fully understand that sometimes it just isn't possible logistically. and this not something that is unique to kino. if you said I could I have 20 barebones releases of movies I want that have not been available that I've never seen or ten stacked special editions of stuff I already love... I'll take the 20 barebones editions.

Whatever you say, MisterLime. I mean, prkchopexpress.

[jcs913]

Please mention to the 'higher ups' to slow down your output to a level where EVERY disc gets the proper QC. IMO, releasing more titles monthly than major studios do is a dangerous thing when you are a smaller company. Leads to a lot of problems that seems to be avoidable. I get that people want everything out that can be put out, but it leads to more issues later on. When several of these releases barely best the dvd, there is a problem somewhere. Please have the 'higher ups' think about the customer for more than a few minutes and not the profits.... Thanks.

[Kino Lorber Insider]

Originally Posted by jcs913

Please mention to the 'higher ups' to slow down your output to a level where EVERY disc gets the proper QC. IMO, releasing more titles monthly than major studios do is a dangerous thing when you are a smaller company. Leads to a lot of problems that seems to be avoidable. I get that people want everything out that can be put out, but it leads to more issues later on. When several of these releases barely best the dvd, there is a problem somewhere. Please have the 'higher ups' think about the customer for more than a few minutes and not the profits.... Thanks.

Every release is QCd. Output has nothing to do with it.

Somethings are missed. QC people are warned to be more careful and replaced when it happens again.

[Professor Echo]

Really, is this thread necessary? It seems to have been created in a pique of anger and in many ways will probably prove to be awkward, confusing, aimless and redundant. I just don’t see the need for it when there has been an accepted all encompassing thread devoted to the label for so many years now. I understand that things got a little out of control in the other thread, but isn’t it the moderator’s job to step in and resolve a runaway thread rather than a label rep impetuously attempting to change all the rules in the middle of a game?