Mars Express (2023)

[Tech-UK]

I've contacted Capelight Pictures to enquire about the source (resolution), of their UHD, and I've also asked them about the DV/HDR grade, as to whether it was provided to them in an HDR deliverable, or if it is an in-house grade.

Hopefully I will get a response, and I'll post it in this thread

[Tech-UK]

Query I sent:

Hi there, I’m hoping that someone will be able to answer my query regarding the technical aspects of your 4K release of Mars Express.

Does your release come from a 4K master or is it an upscale? And was the DV/HDR grading done by yourselves at Capelight, or was it provided to you as a HDR deliverable?

Kindest regards,

And the response from Capelight Pictures:

thank you for reaching out to Capelight Pictures.

I have inquired about your question and received the following answer from our studio:

The masters for MARS EXPRESS have been delivered to us from the world saler.
The 4K HDR work was done by a leading Swiss expert company and approved by the world sales/producer.

Hope this helps.

[kristoffer]

Keep waiting for an English friendly Region B or alternatively UHD with English subs.

[Misioon_Odisea]

Toussaint Egan from Polygon interviews Périn about his Anime preferences:

Read more at https://www.polygon.com/anime/2024/6...les-patlabor-2

Originally Posted by Toussaint Egan

My Favorite Anime: Mars Express director’s journey from The Rose of Versailles to Patlabor 2

From gender-defying historical dramas to genre-defining political thrillers



Mars Express, the new sci-fi noir thriller from French director and animator Jérémie Périn, is finally available to stream on VOD this week following its American theatrical run in May. Périn’s film is fantastic: a sophisticated, hard-boiled detective story set in a futuristic society where humans and robots live side by side that’s as indebted to Chinatown and The Long Goodbye as it is to Ghost in the Shell.

Polygon recently had a chance to connect with Périn, so we had to ask: What was your first favorite anime, and what’s your favorite anime now?

My Favorite Anime is Polygon’s column dedicated to collecting the stories of the biggest celebrity anime fans in the world, charting a path from their earliest introductions to Japanese animation to the series and films they love today. Here’s what Jérémie Périn had to say.

[Tech-UK]

Site review is up: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Mars-...350247/#Review

Interesting references regarding the banding and compression artifacting, which is most likely more present on the BD, than the DE UHD.

I definitely spotted banding on the DE UHD, most likely source related, but the improvements gained with the UHD standards over BD, definitely help those shortcomings mentioned.

[elgee]

Saw this tonight and I was very impressed. I was wondering if anyone knows if the US BD is region A locked?

[Misioon_Odisea]

Originally Posted by elgee

Saw this tonight and I was very impressed. I was wondering if anyone knows if the US BD is region A locked?

Shout! Factory's 1080p Blu-rays are almost always Region-Locked to my knowledge especially those from GKIDS. Although I do not have the equipment to test it out, I believe this one would be no exception. Someone will figure it out shortly, but for the moment it is best to assume it's Region A-Locked.

[elgee]

Originally Posted by Misioon_Odisea

Shout! Factory's 1080p Blu-rays are almost always Region-Locked to my knowledge especially those from GKIDS. Although I do not have the equipment to test it out, I believe this one would be no exception. Someone will figure it out shortly, but for the moment it is best to assume it's Region A-Locked.

I might take the plunge anyway. I have a Panasonic UB820, and the other Shout release I own is Coraline, on which the "top menu trick" works on.

[elgee]

All that aside, I find it baffling that every single Region B release so far is without English subtitles. The Limited Edition package would've been amazing to own, if not for that.

[Misioon_Odisea]

Right now, I'm just learning that a prequel book for the movie exists, titled Mars Express TEM by author Cédric Degottex and supervised by the filmmakers, telling a different story to what we watch on-screen but featuring lead characters Aline and Carlos. Apparently, it's still untranslated to English, but the following webpage speaks of foreign licensing rights:

https://groupe.bragelonne.fr/en/fore.../mars-express/

Cédric Degottex

Mars Express

TYPE Science-Fiction
WORD COUNT 60,000

ALL RIGHTS AVAILABLE

A spectacular prequel
to the sci-fi film

Aline and Carlos, friends since their days at the police academy, have been tasked with a particularly sensitive investigation. Tem, the youngest daughter of a wealthy family on Mars, is a disabled child and a renowned artist. But she has been diagnosed with an aggressive genetic disease, which a host of nanomachines are seeking to treat, and has lost her ability to create.

The Edo-Jendal family tells Aline and Carlos that Tem was born without the ability to communicate, and that she owes her artistic genius solely to the personality of a young artist copied onto a chip implanted in her brain. But the experimental nanomachines have proved to be wildly aggressive and have damaged the personality chip. The family wants Aline and Carlos to find the young artist, who has disappeared into the hell of Earth.

The novel, whose action takes place a few years before the events of Mars Express, plunges detectives Aline and Carlos into a probe that will lead them from the financial elite of Mars to the Earth’s underbelly, in the tradition of Blade Runner and the novels of William Gibson.

[Ben_C]

Originally Posted by Misioon_Odisea

Toussaint Egan from Polygon interviews Périn about his Anime preferences:

Read more at https://www.polygon.com/anime/2024/6...les-patlabor-2

Always good to see some love for Patlabor 2.

[Brandon K]

Originally Posted by Site Review

Compression struggles at times, with banding a periodic sight.

I didn't think it was that bad but I need to look at it again in more detail. Would be great to know if anyone has specific timestamps. On the GKIDS Blu-ray, the video bitrate is very constant in a straight line floating between 32 and 34 mbps. Having such a constant bitrate indicates that they just targeted a bitrate and didn't pay attention to the encode, so even with a relatively high bitrate, I wouldn't be surprised to see problems such as banding with this encode strategy. The average video bitrate is 30.75 mbps as the lower bitrates during the credits bring down the average as usual. I've added this to the site (pending).

I'd be interested to know bitrates and what the encodes look like on the German and French discs.

[kristoffer]

When can we expect a UK BD of this?

[kong73]

Loved this film even with its bleak ending

[Brandon K]

Originally Posted by Site Review

Compression struggles at times, with banding a periodic sight.

Originally Posted by Brandon K

I didn't think it was that bad but I need to look at it again in more detail ... On the GKIDS Blu-ray, the video bitrate is very constant in a straight line floating between 32 and 34 mbps ... The average video bitrate is 30.75 mbps as the lower bitrates during the credits bring down the average as usual.

So I wanted to briefly follow up on this. Having looked through the Blu-ray a bit more, I would say there is one egregious instance of banding, and that's during the opening logos lol. Otherwise throughout, the potential for banding is well managed and actual banding, when it occurs, ranges from subtle to mild, and is only most notable (as one would expect) during the outer space scenes.

The image at times seems to have a very fine layer of grain, which may just be part of a post-processing effect to add some texture to the image, and/or to dither gradients as well as color shading that has fine details that could be mistaken for banding. I didn't see this theatrically so I don't have another point of reference for the image quality.

So I can't say I agree with the 3.5 stars for the Video rating, this is at least 4 stars for me. Could it be better? Yes, but probably not by much, only perhaps to fine-tune the encoding of a few scenes, such as the outer space scenes, and maybe a few of the exterior scenes with the sky. Is it distracting? Not at all, at least for me.

That said, I'd still be interested to hear about the international releases. If any of them handle the space scenes appreciably better, I might be tempted to pick them up.

[Hedrox]

Originally Posted by Tech-UK

And the response from Capelight Pictures:

A bit late on this, but I watched the movie recently and found it fantastic, so naturally I came looking for a 4K.

This response seems to suggest the master they were provided was likely 2K SDR (I seriously doubt this had a 4K DI) and Capelight then used a different company to "juice" it up for a 4K HDR release. Even if it was approved by the rights holder, I have to say that doesn't inspire much confidence in this 4K release.

Its weird that the French editions are already sold out, as I would've gone for one of them.

[Tech-UK]

True, without them specifically providing the source deets of what was provided to them, it is probably safe to assume that it is indeed a 2K SDR deliverable, and then upscaled and HDR graded by the 'leading Swiss expert company', of whom I don't know. A quick Google search pulls up this company, but it could be someone else https://c-sideprod.ch/feature/authoring-duplication-en/

Having watched the DE UHD, it looks pretty darn good to me. See my previous post for a quick review. HDR looks to be tastefully done, and encoding looked to hold up well, along with keeping the banding in check to a certain degree, considering the source content.

The standard DE UHD is out soon, judge for yourself, and share your thoughts



I appreciate others concerns and analysis, so it would be interesting to hear from someone who also owns the DE UHD release.

[Hedrox]

Originally Posted by Tech-UK

True, without them specifically providing the source deets of what was provided to them, it is probably safe to assume that it is indeed a 2K SDR deliverable, and then upscaled and HDR graded by the 'leading Swiss expert company', of whom I don't know. A quick Google search pulls up this company, but it could be someone else https://c-sideprod.ch/feature/authoring-duplication-en/

Having watched the DE UHD, it looks pretty darn good to me. See my previous post for a quick review. HDR looks to be tastefully done, and encoding looked to hold up well, along with keeping the banding in check to a certain degree, considering the source content.

The standard DE UHD is out soon, judge for yourself, and share your thoughts

Yeah, I read your review and appreciate it, but I'm not a fan of homebrew HDR releases. Will wait for some screencaps, or a detailed review/comparison from these guys.

It should be noted that the German release comes with basically nothing in terms of extras, except for the trailer. Meanwhile the original French digipack had a massive 238 min. making of documentary. But again, oop sadly.

[Tech-UK]

Although currently Germany is the only place to have released it on UHD (physically).

Thanks for the link to that site, the 'real or fake 4K UHDs' is an interesting page. I'll have to check it out.

If you find a review or analysis of the DE UHD of Mars Express, please could you link to it in this thread

[kong73]

I talked to the Dir earlier this year and he said the 4k doesn't really matter because the Film is a 2k native