The Fog (1980) 4K UHD

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by OutOfBoose

Looks like EfNY is doomed.

*whispers* will EfNY be good?

[JohnCarpenterLives]

I was so excited for these releases, but now I'm just starting to get mad. Even returning them would be huge pita. This seems like a clear-cut case of defective products, and they should be recalled.......but I don't think they will be. My only hope is that the DV playback will be fine.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterLives

I was so excited for these releases, but now I'm just starting to get mad. Even returning them would be huge pita. This seems like a clear-cut case of defective products, and they should be recalled.......but I don't think they will be. My only hope is that the DV playback will be fine.

To be fair from the other thread; it seems that They Live is a winner.

[JohnCarpenterLives]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

To be fair from the other thread; it seems that They Live is a winner.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

There's a bit in They Live's 4K where it definitely goes down macroblock avenue, and - surprisingly enough - it's on a shot with a lot of smoke and bright light (when Nada is running away from the second police raid and there are lots of those red flares on the ground) which is what trips up The Fog's 4K so badly. I don't think there's any deliberate improvement on SC's behalf here, that's giving them way too much credit. IMO it's because the source itself is so much brighter and a lot less grainy than The Fog that the encoder isn't troubled by it, but as soon as it comes under any kind of pressure it shits the bed big time. This is what makes me very worried for how EFNY's UHD will turn out as it's another earlier effort shot with less than stellar glass (made only a year after The Fog) and featuring a lot of darkness and a fair bit of flame and smoke here and there.

I don't know, man.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterLives

I don't know, man.

Oh, no. I didn't see Geoff's post.

[Show spoiler]

[Geoff D]

Guys, They Live looks FANTASTIC for 99.9% of it, I'm just saying that there's definitely one moment where it goes a bit Foggy in terms of the compression. That it otherwise looks as good as it does is down to dumb ****ing luck rather than any sort of skilled compression on SC's behalf. The movie mostly takes place in brightly lit locations and interiors, the movie was shot with sharper anamorphic lenses, the movie was shot with finer-grained stock - even the opticals in They Live look far better than the typically dupey, noisy shots seen in The Fog. Getting a decent encode out of a good-looking source shouldn't be difficult (though this is SC we're talking about ), it's when they're trying to encode trickier scenes in 4K that it all goes to hell.

[Rusty100]

I guess we can just hope for an overseas studio to get the same source files but do a different encode? There's slight encoding variations on different releases all the time hey.

[Geoff D]

Given that MGM own The Fog in the US and that they've shown no inclination whatsoever to release UHD Blu-ray product then the chances are very slim right now. I suppose another distributor in Spain or Italy could pick it up, one would hope that they're not just given SC's exact encode to recycle.

This is why I'm not too fussed about ED2's compression looking a bit shabby in the 4K caps, for while SC are doing the Euro disc, Lionsgate are doing the American release. Fingers crossed they're doing their own encode, I guess we'll know when the SC disc of ED2 arrives - if it's got USA in the country select menu then we're boned.

[bradnoyes]

I refuse to give in to fear and despair.

[kamkam]

So has anyone watched this in dolby vision yet? are the compression issues still present in that? When mine ships (which is going to be well over a month eh) it will be watched in dolby vision.

[Rusty100]

Originally Posted by kamkam

So has anyone watched this in dolby vision yet? are the compression issues still present in that? When mine ships (which is going to be well over a month eh) it will be watched in dolby vision.

They would be, as they're in the base encode itself.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Rusty100

They would be, as they're in the base encode itself.

Yes and no. The base encode is part of the stream for sure but in DV the compression has been noticeably improved for me on Saving Private Ryan (which I literally found to be unwatchable in HDR10) and Deer Hunter, potentially helped by DV's processing using the ICtCp space rather than YCbCr, as well as the obvious benefit of merging of another piece of video data into another.

People have said that the major encoding boo-boos are still there in The Fog in DV and I'm not surprised because they're such horrendous compression problems it'd take a miracle (or just a competent compressionist) to fix, but throughout the film I'm seeing the same kind of bitty, looks-like-it's-gonna-break-out-into-blocking-at-any-moment quality to the grain that I saw on Deer Hunter in HDR10, but when viewing it again in Dolby Vision the grain calmed down nicely. The nasty blockiness in the fire during the Vietnam scene with Michael is still there but the rest is tidied up pretty well, and if The Fog gets similarly tidied up in DV then I won't complain. The worst of the worst will still be there but it shouldn't look as 'fragile' as it does to my eyes right now.

[Rusty100]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yes and no. The base encode is part of the stream for sure but in DV the compression has been noticeably improved for me on Saving Private Ryan (which I literally found to be unwatchable in HDR10) and Deer Hunter, potentially helped by DV's processing using the ICtCp space rather than YCbCr, as well as the obvious benefit of merging of another piece of video data into another.

People have said that the major encoding boo-boos are still there in The Fog in DV and I'm not surprised because they're such horrendous compression problems it'd take a miracle (or just a competent compressionist) to fix, but throughout the film I'm seeing the same kind of bitty, looks-like-it's-gonna-break-out-into-blocking-at-any-moment quality to the grain that I saw on Deer Hunter in HDR10, but when viewing it again in Dolby Vision the grain calmed down nicely. The nasty blockiness in the fire during the Vietnam scene with Michael is still there but the rest is tidied up pretty well, and if The Fog gets similarly tidied up in DV then I won't complain. The worst of the worst will still be there but it shouldn't look as 'fragile' as it does to my eyes right now.

How would the DV layer effect compression in the base encode? It's a metadata stream right? Changing the colour space wouldn't explain cleaning up any artifacts. I can see a scenario in which the artifacts are in a dark area, and how if a DV stream further darkened in, they would be less visible.

Short of a completely new base encode, I don't see how DV could impact compression, short of making it harder to see in dark areas.

As far as I'm aware, there is a base encode which carries HDR metadata. When DV is used, the HDR metadata is disabled and the DV metadata is used instead. So if they're both treatments to the same encode, why would DV remove inherent artifacts, being that they're not caused by the HDR but are in the encode itself.

[Martoto]

There is an issue in the BD too, sadly.

Right after Mrs Kobritz gets it, in a shot of the beach house being engulfed in fog, there's flashes with grid lines visible for a few seconds.

[xfileed916]

I noticed terrible issues when watching last night. Any dark scenes (which is most of the film) looked awful. There was pulsing blacks in those scenes and the only way to make them go away was to lower brightness and crush the blacks. This was the case in both DV and HDR10. Watched on my Oppo 203 on my LG 65E6 OLED. Super disappointed in this release. What a clusterf***.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Rusty100

How would the DV layer effect compression in the base encode? It's a metadata stream right? Changing the colour space wouldn't explain cleaning up any artifacts. I can see a scenario in which the artifacts are in a dark area, and how if a DV stream further darkened in, they would be less visible.

Short of a completely new base encode, I don't see how DV could impact compression, short of making it harder to see in dark areas.

As far as I'm aware, there is a base encode which carries HDR metadata. When DV is used, the HDR metadata is disabled and the DV metadata is used instead. So if they're both treatments to the same encode, why would DV remove inherent artifacts, being that they're not caused by the HDR but are in the encode itself.

No no no, the DV enhancement layer can and often does include physical picture information that is not part of the HDR10 base layer and the two are COMBINED during playback which is what makes DV so processor-intensive. It also includes the dynamic metadata as well of course. And their ICtCp processing space is much better suited to HDR whereas YCbCr can run into problems with higher brightness as it was not designed for the PQ EOTF.

further explanation of how DV is actually created for disc: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...3#post15680253

[Rusty100]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

No no no, the DV enhancement layer can and often does include physical picture information that is not part of the HDR10 base layer and the two are COMBINED during playback which is what makes DV so processor-intensive. It also includes the dynamic metadata as well of course. And their ICtCp processing space is much better suited to HDR whereas YCbCr can run into problems with higher brightness as it was not designed for the PQ EOTF.

further explanation of how DV is actually created for disc: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...3#post15680253

Cool, fair enough. I hope MadVR get's DV support soon then. HDR passthrough is great but I can't help but feel I'm missing out on even more for titles that also contain DV. And being able to swap between the two will be great. What I've seen for DV titles through my TV's Netflix app has looked good, and markedly different from their HDR counterparts, although Netflix compression is so bad that it's not my first choice.

[Geoff D]

The heck of it is that some DV discs ARE metadata only, like Warners' Matrix trilogy, but even if the source itself is 10-bit (as some modern DIs still are) then you've still got the improved 12-bit processing space to sweeten things like banding. These Fog and They Live discs have quite hefty extension layers though so they are decidedly not metadata only, and having come from 16-bit scans then they should be true 12-bit on output.

[DMRI2006]

Was on the fence as to whether or not to buy the Limited sets or the steelbooks. I ended up with the LE's and don't regret it.

Geoff is right, the Blu-Ray alone of THE FOG is superior to Shout's so I think this is well worth it even with the UHD oddities. I don't have DV playback but I can tell some weirdness is going down in some of the truly dark sequences with fluctuating brightness. Even with that, it's not a total abomination.

I think the only place you may want to keep the Shout is for the few extras it has, plus those that were carried over from the old MGM release. That said, both commentaries are here and some early 2000's French release-specific Carpenter material was ported over. The new extras are nice to have, though are mostly populated by talking-head "experts" instead of anyone who worked on the film, which is a bit of a letdown.

Overall though I like it and the packaging -- and I like THE FOG a great deal. I find it ages better than much of Carpenter's work, because it's so reliant on atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, HALLOWEEN is an undisputed classic, but I often find myself drawn to repeat-viewings of THE FOG more. I love the cast, the settings and the overall mood of it.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Given that MGM own The Fog in the US and that they've shown no inclination whatsoever to release UHD Blu-ray product then the chances are very slim right now. I suppose another distributor in Spain or Italy could pick it up, one would hope that they're not just given SC's exact encode to recycle.

MGM license out the ying-yang though, so if labels ever start releasing UHDs I'm sure stuff like Escape From New York will be on their radar. Though the coming UK disc being region-free might turn them off.