THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH - ( L'uomo che sapeva Troppo ) - 1934 - STUDIO 4K

[Jesse_James]

...Absolutely the best vintage Hitchcock (along with "THE 39 STEPS") for the English period, in my opinion much higher than remake (which in any case is great, although too "Politically Correct" ), both for the atmosphere and for the set (a huge effort for the period) also the Beautiful B/W, with a FANTASTIC Peter Lorre .
...This "little" Pearl finally shines a new light, thanks to a complicated and expensive restoration, and here by us in EUROPE is an absolute preview, as we have this wonderful Restored Master Beautifully Transferred on Blu Ray Disc, BD absolutely ITALIAN, and this is due to the Miraculous STUDIO 4K .

...Here the Beautiful Review of Robert Harris, who talks about the phases of the Extraordinary and Difficulty Restoration...:

""With few exceptions, Criterion is known for their quality, and not releasing a title until either the elements or the technology to make them shine are available.

Alfred Hitchcock's original 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much is one of those titles.

Around 2006 I supplied them with an original nitrate 35mm print that had been struck directly from the camera negative. Great full sound (for 1934), and an image that portrayed the negative for what it was at that time -- well-printed. Minus density dirt was the norm, along with occasional tears in the original printed through. Every other reel had a cut through scratch at the far left of the frame, that would have necessitated a great deal of hand painting to eliminate.

So they waited.

And finally, with access to an original lavender at the BFI, they began testing. 2k scans of the lavender on a pin-registered scanner, which looked very nice. But it was found that the element was too shrunken to go through safely.

So they waited.

They tested printing the lavender to a dupe neg, but the result wasn't as good as the earlier scans.

So they waited.

And finally, the BFI installed a wet-gate scanner with pin registration or sprockets, and the project moved forward.

The final result, as color corrected and digitally cleaned is quite superb. The main title sequence is a bit soft, and actually to my eye, looks to be a dupe, but it is what it is. Get into the body of the film, and things look and sound great. A very nice gray scale is in place, with quality black levels. The image is quite steady, and overall pleasing.


A great classic British Hitchcock production that should be in every serious collection.

Image - 4.25

Audio - 4.5

If only the Universal (two decades newer) re-make looks one-tenth as good.

Very Highly Recommended.""

RAH




...Our Disk...:


...I was planning to write an elaborate analysis, also in this case, but then I told myself that here there is little to "work", because the point is very simple, far by now really I'm not surprised about anything (positive obviously ) regarding this extraordinary ITALIAN Label, and since as it says the motto, "an image is worth a thousand words"...:

...Comparative directly in the frame,at FULL SCREEN Resolution 1920x1080 PNG UNCOMPRESSED: STUDIO 4K ITA VS. CRITERION USA...:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/63706

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comp...3707/picture:0

...In a nutshell, we have also in this case, "The Man Who Knew Too" wonderfully transferred on Blu Ray Disc, with the latest and gorgeous new Master used by Criterion for their latest edition.

...And so in the specifically, a beautiful original audio track in English LPCM 2.0 Stereo, which travels at about 1.6 Mbps, plus two other tracks in English and Italian, in simple and good DD .

...About Extras, we have one very interesting coming directly from Criterion Edition, and is...:

The Illustrated Hitchcock, an extensive interview with director Alfred Hitchcock from 1972, conducted by journalist Pia Lindstrom and film historian William K. Everson , the duration of 49:48 minutes .


...Also, I say to you without any shadow of a doubt, we have probably the best BD Transfer of a "dated" Movie ,that you ever saw in our market (Italian Market), this BD has a very high average bitrate (also because of the little duration of the Movie), which is really AMAZING, look here...:

...and it is almost always stable, really un'Excellent Encoding ! .
...Absolutely the best (along with LIFEBOAT ) and most important Movie by Master Hitchcock, presented on Blu Ray Disc by STUDIO 4K so far ! .



...Here ARE compared the two different partial report, to the two different BD editions...:


...CRITERION - USA :
Runtime: 1:16:04.865
Disc Size: 46,326,654,104 bytes
Feature Size: 25,599,449,088 bytes
Average Bitrate: 34.98 Mbps
Dual-layered Blu-ray AVC


...STUDIO 4K - ITA :
Runtime: 1:15:38.450
Disc Size: 36.420.148.076 bytes
Feature Size: 22.230.343.680 bytes
Average Total Bitrate: 39,19 Mbps
Feature Bitrate: 34999 kbps
Dual-layered Blu-ray AVC


...the "differences" in terms of bitrate in comparison to the USA disk , in this case are really minimal .



...Here however, the Full report of the Italian STUDIO 4K Edition...:



DISC INFO:

Disc Title: L UOMO CHE SAPEVA TROPPO
Disc Size: 36.420.148.076 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: No
BDInfo: 0.5.8

PLAYLIST REPORT:

Name: 00004.MPLS
Length: 1:15:38.450 (h:m:s.ms)
Size: 22.230.343.680 bytes
Total Bitrate: 39,19 Mbps

VIDEO:

Codec Bitrate Description
----- ------- -----------
MPEG-4 AVC Video 34999 kbps 1080p / 23,976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1

AUDIO:

Codec Language Bitrate Description
----- -------- ------- -----------
Dolby Digital Audio Italian 448 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 448 kbps
LPCM Audio English 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps

SUBTITLES:

Codec Language Bitrate Description
----- -------- ------- -----------
Presentation Graphics Italian 26,148 kbps
Presentation Graphics Italian 0,366 kbps

FILES:

Name Time In Length Size Total Bitrate
---- ------- ------ ---- -------------
00004.M2TS 0:00:00.000 1:15:38.450 22.230.343.680 39.186

[Jesse_James]

Originally Posted by Pecker

Many thanks.

A quick question - the Studio 4K Blu-ray Disc of The Man Who Knew Too Much - is that the same transfer as the Criterion, too?

Steve W

...Here is the answer, Steve

[gap]

Fantastic news. Steve was asking partly on my behalf so you have my huge thanks.

Now I'm off to start my Studio 4K collection...

[Bucky]

I hope the Studio 4K releases will continue to be Region Free, as was the case with The Third Man.

[Brent Reid]

This is a bootleg and Studio 4K have thankfully long bit the dust.

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by Brent Reid

This is a bootleg and Studio 4K have thankfully long bit the dust.

I figured considering the specs sound identical to Network’s