Kursk: The Last Mission

[jerclay]

Ok, so apparently there's no thread on any blu ray on this movie, which I found odd, as this is a pretty good film, which I really enjoyed in cinema and it should have gotten more attention.

I see it was released on blu ray in the States and across Europe via different labels and different titles (what the heck?!) - Kursk, The Command, Kursk: The Last Mission. I happen to have the UK one frm Signature, and Jesus Christ, does it suffer from the digital artefacts - bending, posterisation, poor compression overall, especially in underwater scenes!

I read some reviews on the US blu ray, and the French one, and it seems like they share the same problems.

Literally, this is something I haven't seen since the early days of blu ray era - the posterisation is so bad, you can see layers and layers of color washing over each other in the darker underwater scenes. And my OLED, with its known issues of digesting standard blu rays in general, just goes completely WTF on this disc.

Instead of watching the movie you just sit there thinking, how come this transfer could pass QC at all. Completely unexceptable.

I wonder if Nordic releases are any better...

[malcy30]

I think this was one of those multi funded Euro independent films with many producers from each country putting up some of the money. Probably why you don't get the care of a title from the Hollywood studios or someone like Studio Canal. Is also probably only one HD master used for TV and BD everywhere hence why all the discs look crappy.

Sadly it's not the profile of film to get the distributor in one country paying for a new master and hopefully improving the picture quality.

[jerclay]

But wasn't it a Besson-produced film? EuropaCorp was certainly involved, as with Valerian, and Valerian got a decent 4K UHD release, even though it almost sank EruopaCorp, and so did Anna. Besides, they were all released by Lionsgate in the US. Okay, you don't have enough love for Kursk (for whatever reason) to release it in 4K (which I am sure would solve most, if not all the compression problems), but do you really hate it THAT MUCH, to slap a crappy master on your disc? So weird...

[Geoff D]

TBH this is why I avoid BDs from smaller distributors (and even some big ones, lol @ StudioCanal being mentioned in the same breath as the major studios, their UK BD of Rush is terrible for banding) in general, the mastering and/or encoding is just so bad. And Lionsgate are one of the worst out there for regular BD, banding has plagued their stuff for years while their UHD encoding is impeccable.

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

TBH this is why I avoid BDs from smaller distributors (and even some big ones, lol @ StudioCanal being mentioned in the same breath as the major studios, their UK BD of Rush is terrible for banding) in general, the mastering and/or encoding is just so bad. And Lionsgate are one of the worst out there for regular BD, banding has plagued their stuff for years while their UHD encoding is impeccable.

Not when they use a Studio Canal prepared 4K master. They seem to share the rights of many films UK and US e.g. the old Rambo films.

[jerclay]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

And Lionsgate are one of the worst out there for regular BD, banding has plagued their stuff for years while their UHD encoding is impeccable.

Guess my best chance would be to wait for Lionsgate to release it in 4K then

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by malcy30

Not when they use a Studio Canal prepared 4K master. They seem to share the rights of many films UK and US e.g. the old Rambo films.

Right. But the horrible irony there is that although the SC-prepared BD of whatever 4K remaster is leagues better than something Lionsgate would produce, the SC-prepared UHD disc is liable to have atrociously bad compression! It's SUCH a shame that Lionsgate aren't handling the UHD authoring themselves on these SC-owned movies like Rambos 1-3, Lock Up, Red Heat, Evil Dead 2 etc.

I'm eternally grateful that the situation was reversed with Apocalypse Now, that Lionsgate were in charge of creating the UK/US UHD rather than StudioCanal because it looks superb and SC would've ballsed it up big time. But, true to form, the Lionsgate BD of the new AN remaster is genuinely awful for compression.