Letter from an Unknown Woman 4K UHD (Max Ophuls)

[Yami]

Letter from an Unknown Woman 4K Blu-ray



Coming from French label The Jokers in November

[senseabove]

[gkolb]

Originally Posted by Yami

Coming from French label The Jokers in November

Another gorgeous classic original poster.

[Shanghai Express]

Looks to have been postponed until February

[nicwood]

I’ve received this release today.

There are some good and bad news unfortunately.

Good news: The encoding looks flawless to me. Dare I say this looks like a FiM joint? The film (SDR only) has its own BD-66 with no extras (these are on the Blu-ray) and the fine grain is stunning on my LG OLED in a dark room.

Bad news: The gamma has been botched similar to Studiocanal’s MELODY Blu-ray from a few years ago. I was able to adjust it back to a somewhat normal level on my Panasonic UB824 along the lines of what the Olive release looks like. The Blu-ray is also affected. Also, the subtitles are only in French.

Since the gamma is quite easy to adjust on my end, I have no major problem with it and would heartily recommend this release to anybody able to do the same, especially for Ophüls fans.

Just want to add that I’m not equipped to do screenshots. Maybe another user can follow-up but the issue is definitely noticeable and needs to be fixed for proper enjoyment.

This is a real treat and nevertheless I wish The Jokers will continue to release such “niche” UHDs in the future, especially when the encoding is this good.

[TheBondFan]

Originally Posted by nicwood

I’ve received this release today.

There are some good and bad news unfortunately.

Good news: The encoding looks flawless to me. Dare I say this looks like a FiM joint? The film (SDR only) has its own BD-66 with no extras (these are on the Blu-ray) and the fine grain is stunning on my LG OLED in a dark room.

Bad news: The gamma has been botched similar to Studiocanal’s MELODY Blu-ray from a few years ago. I was able to adjust it back to a somewhat normal level on my Panasonic UB824 along the lines of what the Olive release looks like. The Blu-ray is also affected. Also, the subtitles are only in French.

Since the gamma is quite easy to adjust on my end, I have no major problem with it and would heartily recommend this release to anybody able to do the same, especially for Ophüls fans.

Just want to add that I’m not equipped to do screenshots. Maybe another user can follow-up but the issue is definitely noticeable and needs to be fixed for proper enjoyment.

This is a real treat and nevertheless I wish The Jokers will continue to release such “niche” UHDs in the future, especially when the encoding is this good.

Can you send pictures of the packaging please ?

[MarkGubarenko]

Originally Posted by nicwood

I’ve received this release today.

Also, the subtitles are only in French.

it's 100% in English, right?

[nicwood]

This is my first time uploading pictures. Hope it works.

https://postimg.cc/mcpR8dbL
https://postimg.cc/bGwp0XfV
https://postimg.cc/WFDVKM3M
https://postimg.cc/sQtzRvQb

I know there is another more elegant way of embedding pictures within posts but I haven’t figured that out yet.

[nicwood]

Originally Posted by MarkGubarenko

it's 100% in English, right?

The film is in English, yes. I forgot to mention that the French subtitles are optional and not burnt-in unlike with other French discs.

EDIT: My mistake - the subtitles are indeed forced but NOT burnt-into the master. I unfortunately did not notice this when fast-forwarding the film after receiving my disc. I honestly only focused on the gamma issue since that was quite dramatic that I forgot about the subtitles once I saw that they weren’t hard-coded into the master like for instance Cohen does currently. Maybe a small positive out of this is that the subs can be moved out of frame with players like the high-end Panasonic.

I did stop the film in a couple of sections but coincidentally they must have had no dialogue as I would otherwise remember it. I‘m very sorry for the confusion and inconvenience caused.

[david hare]

Thanks for your posts. Can you advise how and what you did with your gamma adjustment on the Panasonic BD player?

[nicwood]

Originally Posted by david hare

Thanks for your posts. Can you advise how and what you did with your gamma adjustment on the Panasonic BD player?

Hi David,

This is only possible when the film is running. You’ll enter the OPTION menu via your remote and go to the video section. In there you have various options, specifically for gamma but also black luminance options.
You’ll then tinker with that. The guide is how it suits you best but I’ve had to go pretty far into the - section to bring back the deep blacks I’m used to on my OLED.
Don’t overdo it as it will crush the blacks too much if you go all the way down but there is a fine balance which can be found near the end of the negative spectrum on both settings.

I don’t have the exact settings in mind any more since these are really just on-the-fly adjustments and nothing permanent (which they also shouldn’t be since this is a thankfully rare issue nowadays).

Hope this helps for now! If not, I will go back and redo my settings and share a picture.

[david hare]

Thanks. It's a scandal we should have to even do this. Do you think it's
in the encode from The Jokers which you like, or was it done by Paramount at the 4K scanning stage? My copy is en route now so next week I can try all this out.

[nicwood]

Originally Posted by david hare

Thanks. It's a scandal we should have to even do this. Do you think it's
in the encode from The Jokers which you like, or was it done by Paramount at the 4K scanning stage? My copy is en route now so next week I can try all this out.

Based on what we've gotten over the last year from Paramount (with rare exceptions) was almost consistently underwhelming and atrocious even. This encode looks nothing like that. I obviously don't know it for a fact but I can't believe Paramount had anything to do with this release.
Their logo or even the name Paramount is nowhere to be found on the cover either. The film apparently is distributed by Warner in France.

[Shanghai Express]

Originally Posted by nicwood

The film is in English, yes. I forgot to mention that the French subtitles are optional and not burnt-in unlike with other French discs.

Subtitles are locked for me. There's no setup menu on the disc but my player's options show only French, with no "off" or "none" option.

[Cinematt]

The region-free firmware I have for my Panasonic lets me override forced subs, I wonder if nicwood has the same?

[nicwood]

Originally Posted by Shanghai Express

Subtitles are locked for me. There's no setup menu on the disc but my player's options show only French, with no "off" or "none" option.

I owe you all an apology. The French subtitles are indeed forced but not burnt into the master.

I can tell you why I said that they are optional. I fast-forwarded the film slowly and coincidentally stopped here and there in sections with no dialogue because I was specifically going after the gamma issue and the encoding. I should have probably watched a couple of minutes in one piece.

Sorry for the confusion and inconvenience caused.

The half-good news is that the subs can be moved out of the frame by players like the Panasonic.

[Shanghai Express]

Originally Posted by nicwood

I owe you all an apology. The French subtitles are indeed forced but not burnt into the master.

I can tell you why I said that they are optional. I fast-forwarded the film slowly and coincidentally stopped here and there in sections with no dialogue because I was specifically going after the gamma issue and the encoding. I should have probably watched a couple of minutes in one piece.

Sorry for the confusion and inconvenience caused.

The half-good news is that the subs can be moved out of the frame by players like the Panasonic.

Very strange in this day and age. You'd think a boutique label would know not to force subtitles on the premiere 4K release of a classic film, as it is likely to be purchased by collectors around the world.

[M A]

Originally Posted by Shanghai Express

Very strange in this day and age. You'd think a boutique label would know not to force subtitles on the premiere 4K release of a classic film, as it is likely to be purchased by collectors around the world.

They could be forced to by the rightsholder

[david hare]

Received this today. The gamma screwup is unforgiveable and frankly amateurish. If only they had paid half the attention to the disc authoring as they did to the booklet this wouldn't have happened. The forced subs may or may not be licensor prescribed or just stupidity but it's another negative for people who can't manually dial them out of the frame like us. I am inclined to think the master is the same one as used by the Olive Signature BluRay encode back when, which i believe was done by Paramount (before they went nuts with grain removal) and I say this because the optical shots still show slight density variations reflecting the older master for the Olive. But that's not to say the encode here including basic grading, sharpness and grain is very respectable. But the Olive disc remains the only realistic option. I fiddled for an hour with luminance and other settings to no avail, and there is imply no true black or grayscale in the image now. Then I decided to force the playback (Epson TW8400 projector) into HDR and I got what was close to a decent gamma and much wider grayscale but of course it plays havoc with whites, which blow out, and grain management which becomes noisy and unwatchable. So this alas is not a solution either. I would not advise anyone to buy this disc, sadly.

[kmhofmann]

Hi The Jokers Films,

I recently bought your 4K UHD of "Letter from an Unknown Woman" ("Lettre d'une inconnue").
This is a beautiful release, except that the image appears way too bright, without proper shadows and blacks - as if it had been encoded with incorrect gamma settings, or similar.

I also have another release, the Blu-ray from Olive Films released a few years ago in the U.S., which appears to make use of the same master but with the correct gamma settings in place.
Please find two illustrative screenshots attached, comparing your release against the 2017 Olive Films release. The latter looks more correct throughout the duration of the film.

Could you please have a closer investigation of the video (gamma) settings on your release? Both your UHD and Blu-ray seem to be equally affected by this issue.
If this is an error, will you be offering a replacement program?
Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,

-> info@thejokersfilms.com


4K UHD, The Jokers (FR), 2023


Blu-ray, Olive Films (US), 2017

Will keep you updated what I hear back from them!