Le Cercle Rouge 4K UHD (1970)

[Geoff D]

I’ve said it before that David M is no miracle worker, he’s just very good at his job. Amazing how being competent at something means you’re regarded as some sort of deity compared to the rest of the ****tards you work with, and that’s not snark aimed at anyone here, I’m thinking of my own employment situation.

[Scottishguy]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I’ve said it before that David M is no miracle worker, he’s just very good at his job. Amazing how being competent at something means you’re regarded as some sort of deity compared to the rest of the ****tards you work with, and that’s not snark aimed at anyone here, I’m thinking of my own employment situation.

The fact you might be working a job that isn't commensurate to your own intelligence? Well human intellect is highly complex, and extremely diverse.

More the problem with people is a lack of access, unawareness of, or disinterest in engaging with resources required for intellectual development. A lot of it can be simply boiled down to good old fashioned social forces, and the fear of alienation from one's peer groups.

It's why I don't like using the word's smart and dumb that often. It's, in my not so humble opinion, a complete fallacy.

Anyway. Didn't David M encode The Miracle Worker?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

The fact you might be working a job that isn't commensurate to your own intelligence? Well human intellect is highly complex, and extremely diverse.

More the problem with people is a lack of access, unawareness of, or disinterest in engaging with resources required for intellectual development. A lot of it can be simply boiled down to good old fashioned social forces, and the fear of alienation from one's peer groups.

It's why I don't like using the word's smart and dumb that often. It's, in my not so humble opinion, a complete fallacy.

Anyway. Didn't David M encode The Miracle Worker?

My point is that it doesn’t matter what job you have, there are always people who just don’t give a fook. It's not intelligence that’s the issue, it’s the lack of sheer common sense and any kind of personal responsibility with people these days and it drives me up the fookin wall.

[johnpaul2]

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

Teaches my less than technical brain, again, don't ever think anything is simple.

I used to think it was at least quite linear and mostly correlated to the bitrate meter (or even the AVB). It's only more recently I've realised it isn't at all (even less so with UHD new required extra-care).

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

I see your point about FIM not being innovators in the strictest sense. But I don't think everyone is as capable of tailoring the way David M does. Indeed probably because the industry was so lackluster, that gave him incentive to really get good. And capitalised well it for his efforts.

I think he might have himself said something to that effect. Could be wrong.

It could be in some sense, but I've seen other facilities doing marvels on encodes which could certainly be deemed as good as what David does. For instance, I don't remember who Pathé are working with for their BD encodes, but their BD encodes of 4K restorations are beautiful. Same goes for Gaumont (they usually work with Eclair). So, at least to some extent, all those facilities are on the same starting line.

However, the issue rather lies with how numerous less competent facilities are and how they keep getting jobs to do seemingly with no continuous improvement to be seen. This cyclic thing in France has been going on for years, possibly from facilities with 10+ years of experience in encodes, but they aren't getting better at all. That's what is most frustrating : labels and studios are willing to keep working with them for this level of quality, and those facilities aren't realising (or don't care) how easily their work can be beaten because it's that mediocre and doing something to at least improve their game, at least to show they're learning...

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

Criterion, besides weighing down a disc with so much supplemental material. It's like they don't want to even try making gains in that area with their product. Which is kind of contrary to their mission statement.

... and that's most of the issue with Criterion : Pixelogic (former Radius60) have been struggling doing proper BD encodes of fine material since almost a decade now and barely improved ever since, and Criterion seemingly doesn't care enough to either ask a subcontractor they're paying to get a service to offer a better service (I obviously don't know the terms of their contract, but Criterion are the customer here, so they could say "this isn't enough, I'm not paying for this mediocre result, I know it can be improved, so go and improve it"), nor to challenge their clearly gigantic loyalty-turned-force of habit of working and test another subcontractor (at least for a few gigs).
Which is bit weird, because if a company has enough buffers and people and a robust workflow to do so, it's probably them.

The worst is that even Peter Becker and Fumiko Takagi know the encodes they're getting from Pixelogic is rubbish, but they have this misplaced loyalty seemingly overtaking everything else.

But then, the issue also lies in how most consumers don't see the issue when it happens, obviously won't see the improvement when there's one, and most likely don't even understand what an encode is to begin with (I mean, I probably know more about UHD encodes than people actually equipped with UHD... Not to brag or anything, but just to remind the knowledge even equipped people can have, let alone the general audience). Basically, good encodes don't bring sales, but bad encodes also most certainly don't really hurt sales either. So why spending extra time, resources, possibly money, disturbing a 20 years old workflow for this ? It however says a lot about labels when some, despite this state of things, choose to care while others just don't.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

My point is that it doesn’t matter what job you have, there are always people who just don’t give a fook. It's not intelligence that’s the issue, it’s the lack of sheer common sense and any kind of personal responsibility with people these days and it drives me up the fookin wall.

More than caring or feeling responsible, I think the issue lies within what you're mentioning in your precedent post : some people are just more skilled than others at a given job. And some are also better at quickly getting better and better at it.
The issue is that theoretically, people who aren't shouldn't be able to build a 10+ years of experience at it. They should be taken care of, one way (trainings, etc) or the other (getting a different job they're more skilled for).

But indeed, David shouldn't be looked like some kind of miracle worker, it's rather all the other encoders that should be questioned as being any good at what they're doing.

[Scottishguy]

[Show spoiler]

Originally Posted by johnpaul2

I used to think it was at least quite linear and mostly correlated to the bitrate meter (or even the AVB). It's only more recently I've realised it isn't at all (even less so with UHD new required extra-care).



It could be in some sense, but I've seen other facilities doing marvels on encodes, and those encodes would certainly be deemed as good as what David does. For instance, I don't know who Pathé are working with for their BD encodes, but their BD encodes of 4K restorations are beautiful. Same goes for Gaumont (they usually work with Eclair). So, at least to some extent, it is possible to be transparent enough to the source.

However, I'd tend to say the issue rather lies with how numerous less competent facilities keep getting jobs to do seemingly with no continuous improvement to be seen. This cyclic thing in France has been going on for years, possibly from facilities with 10+ years of experience in encodes, but they aren't getting better at all. That's what is most frustrating : that labels and studios are willing to keep working with them with this level of quality, and that those facilities aren't realising how easily their work can be beaten because it's that mediocre and doing something to at least improve their game, at least to show they're learning...


... and that's most of the issue with Criterion : Pixelogic (former Radius60) have been struggling doing proper BD encodes of fine material since almost a decade now, but they barely improved since, and Criterion seemingly doesn't care enough to either ask a facility they're paying to get a service to offer a better service (I obviously don't know the terms of their contract, but Criterion are the customer here, so they could say "this isn't enough, I'm not paying for this mediocre result, I know it can be improved, so go and improve it"), nor to challenge their clearly gigantic loyalty-turned-force of habit of working with a given sub-contractor and test another one (at least for a few gigs).

Because we now know it's not a question of the amount of extra features on their discs (it used to be, but only because Pixelogic weren't prioritising the movie over the extras in terms of disc space), it's a pure question of a customer being kinda lazy on this and not wanting to go outside their zone of comfort in terms of professionnal relationships and technical workflows.
Which is bit weird, because if a company has enough buffers and people and a robust workflow to do so, it's probably them.

The worst is that even Peter Becker and Fumiko Takagi know the encodes they're getting from Pixelogic is rubbish.

But then, the issue also lies in how most consumers don't see the issue when it happens, obviously won't see the improvement if the issue is solved at some point, and most likely don't even understand what an encode is to begin with (I mean, I probably know more about UHD encodes than people actually equipped with UHD... Not to brag or anything, but just to remind how ignorant - in a neutral way - even equipped people can be, let alone the general audience). Basically, encodes don't bring sales when they're good, but also most certainly don't really hurt them either when they're bad. So why spending extra time, resources, possibly money, disturbing a 20 years old workflow for this ? It however says a lot about labels when some, despite this state of things, choose to care while others just don't.


More than caring or feeling responsible, I think the issue lies within what you're mentioning in your precedent post : some people are just more skilled than others at a given job. And some are also better at quickly getting better and better at it.
The issue is that theoretically, people who aren't shouldn't be able to build a 10+ years of experience at it. They should be taken care of, one way (trainings, etc) or the other (getting a different job they're more skilled for).

But indeed, David shouldn't be looked like some kind of miracle worker, it's rather all the other encoders that should be questioned as being any good at what they're doing.

Would you say another factor in the stagnate, low quality output of encoders, is the average screen size of the end consumer? We might be coming at these discs on 65" and above screens, and projection as well. But 43" to 55" is more than likely the average, where poor compression is comfortably not revealing itself from an 8 to 10ft viewing distance.

While I obviously can't tell you whant to do. But I'll give you a hard nudge in the direction of the main UHD board. You should branch out there more.

This kind of technical insight is solid gold.

Also, on another note. And not that I think you care for Eurovision. But France should have won

[Sky_Captain]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

My point is that it doesn’t matter what job you have, there are always people who just don’t give a fook. It's not intelligence that’s the issue, it’s the lack of sheer common sense and any kind of personal responsibility with people these days and it drives me up the fookin wall.

I was recently poached to join a complex casework team, at work and we're dealing with cases other colleagues have been referring since March, as this casework was removed from them.

It's become abundantly clear in a short space of time, who the idiots that do f*** all are.

[Scottishguy]

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

I was recently poached to join a complex casework team, at work and we're dealing with cases other colleagues have been referring since March, as this casework was removed from them.

It's become abundantly clear in a short space of time, who the idiots that do f*** all are.

Usually I find the janitors in most companies should in fact be the executives.

[Sky_Captain]

Admin staff are the real heroes.

[johnpaul2]

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

Would you say another factor in the stagnate, low quality output of encoders, is the average screen size of the end consumer? We might be coming at these discs on 65" and above screens, and projection as well. But 43" to 55" is more than likely the average, where poor compression is comfortably not revealing itself from an 8 to 10ft viewing distance.

I don't think so. Actually, the average screen size has increased over the years (I guess in part at least because the lower 32" screens aren't getting much traction anymore).

I think it's just that whatever we can debate on color grading and such, restoration labs and their equipments seem to have improved much faster (relatively speaking) than the home video labels and as such, releases who used to look OK with lower sources now require much more technical care, thus revealing who are the labels who care and/or have the technical mindset placing the quality bar at the right level and are now visibly showing their limits. For instance, it's interesting to look at the French release of Soderbergh's The Limey : it's very likely L'atelier d'images did the BD and UHD encodes themselves since they started as an authoring house 15 years ago, but if that's the case, it means that 15 years of experience didn't prevent them doing an incredibly crappy job on the BD. It's likely they also encoded their own Mississippi Burning BD, which is about on-par with the issues of The Limey (which is a cyclic encode issue... so maybe they're the ones doing those SC UHDs ? Who knows).

As for the average consumer ? My guess is that he never cared, still don't, and never will. Encodes is at least one step above what he needs to enjoy its movie. I mean : just look at how movies are watched mostly nowadays. If it wasn't the case and he was more interested in it, stuff like we're seeing at Criterion or Studio Canal would have been fixed 6 years ago, but then, these consumers wouldn't be "average" anymore too.

But I myself don't have a particularly big screen, and yet, I'm interested enough by this stuff to approach it in a continuous improvement state of mind : I like to train my eye, catch more stuff, understand how things are done and then how it looks. Not many people are looking at this in such a playful manner, but I'm not doing unique incredible things. Anybody can do what I do.

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

But I'll give you a hard nudge in the direction of the main UHD board. You should branch out there more. This kind of technical insight is solid gold.

I'm no expert at all, this insight actually merely is a combination of my own consumer-viewer experience and parrotting what more knowledgeable people know.
But the industry definitely should be lobbying for increasing its own quality. I mean, you know, just as a sale incentive. That doesn't seem like a bad marketing idea.
But I guess they're more interested in having tons of releases, includings kilos of rubbish ones, rather than filtering stuff a bit more to ensure no mediocre jobs get through. This isn't new though : if the home video industry as a whole was interested by quality over quantity, we would have stopped a long time ago to see releases (BD mostly now) recycling 20+ years old "HD" masters.

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

Also, on another note. And not that I think you care for Eurovision. But France should have won

I actually care for Eurovision and have been watching it since 2015 without a miss.
I don't think France should have won at all, I actually expected this Edith Piaf rip-off to end up much lower. But I had the rest of the best placed songs about right so I'm happy. Except for Switzerland. No idea how it got so up in the scores.

[Scottishguy]

[Show spoiler]

Originally Posted by johnpaul2

I don't think so. Actually, the average screen size has increased over the years (I guess in part at least because the lower 32" screens aren't getting much traction anymore).

I think it's just that whatever we can debate on color grading and such, restoration labs and their equipments seem to have improved much faster (relatively speaking) than the home video labels and as such, releases who used to look OK with lower sources now require much more technical care, thus revealing who are the labels who care and/or have the technical mindset placing the quality bar at the right level and are now visibly showing their limits. For instance, it's interesting to look at the French release of Soderbergh's The Limey : it's very likely L'atelier d'images did the BD and UHD encodes themselves since they started as an authoring house 15 years ago, but if that's the case, it means that 15 years of experience didn't prevent them doing an incredibly crappy job on the BD. It's likely they also encoded their own Mississippi Burning BD, which is about on-par with the issues of The Limey (which is a cyclic encode issue... so maybe they're the ones doing those SC UHDs ? Who knows).

As for the average consumer ? My guess is that he never cared, still don't, and never will. Encodes is at least one step above what he needs to enjoy its movie. I mean : just look at how movies are watched mostly nowadays. If it wasn't the case and he was more interested in it, stuff like we're seeing at Criterion or Studio Canal would have been fixed 6 years ago, but then, these consumers wouldn't be "average" anymore too.

But I myself don't have a particularly big screen, and yet, I'm interested enough by this stuff to approach it in a continuous improvement state of mind : I like to train my eye, catch more stuff, understand how things are done and then how it looks. Not many people are looking at this in such a playful manner, but I'm not doing unique incredible things. Anybody can do what I do.


I'm no expert at all, this insight actually merely is a combination of my own consumer-viewer experience and parrotting what more knowledgeable people know.
But the industry definitely should be lobbying for increasing its own quality. I mean, you know, just as a sale incentive. That doesn't seem like a bad marketing idea.
But I guess they're more interested in having tons of releases, includings kilos of rubbish ones, rather than filtering stuff a bit more to ensure no mediocre jobs get through. This isn't new though : if the home video industry as a whole was interested by quality over quantity, we would have stopped a long time ago to see releases (BD mostly now) recycling 20+ years old "HD" masters.


I actually care for Eurovision and have been watching it since 2015 without a miss.
I don't think France should have won at all, I actually expected this Edith Piaf rip-off to end up much lower. But I had the rest of the best placed songs about right so I'm happy. Except for Switzerland. No idea how it got so up in the scores.

I wasn't mistaking you for an expert per say. Maybe a guy who works in some industry related to all this perhaps.

I wasn't a fan of that Italian band. I don't think they can properly do rock in Italian, and yeah it's not easy doing rock music in most languages consistently outside of English, unless it's Polish.

I'll take Zucchero over Måneskin any day lol.

[johnpaul2]

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

Maybe a guy who works in some industry related to all this perhaps.

Not even : I'm really just a self taught passionated amateur. Which is why I'm stating this, because to me, it tends to prove anybody can learn all this stuff if one wants to. Especially nowadays, when info about the workflows, the scanners and elements used, the labs who did the work etc is much more available than in the past. And there are of course people truly working in the industry and that are willing to interact with regular people like me.

Which is why, I believe, equipped people still claiming, say, that Terminator 2's 4K restoration is gorgeous really have no excuse : it's all there for those willing to just take a few minutes to learn new stuff and refine their knowledge.

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

I wasn't a fan of that Italian band. I don't think they can properly do rock in Italian, and yeah it's not easy doing rock music in most languages consistently outside of English, unless it's Polish.

I'm not a connoisseur of Italian rock, but it felt like one of the better '21 Eurovision song to me. I'm usually not fond of the vocal ballads it can get, and some of the Eurodance songs this year weren't very good either (like that Greek one), but I expected it to end up high in the ladderboard, along with Iceland, Finland, Lithuania (though it's unfortunate for them Eurovision 2020 got cancelled, I feel their 2020 song was catchier) and Ukraine.

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

I was recently poached to join a complex casework team, at work and we're dealing with cases other colleagues have been referring since March, as this casework was removed from them.

It's become abundantly clear in a short space of time, who the idiots that do f*** all are.

Work in IT for a big bank. In a 10 member development team, only 3 people does most of the work. This is typical in most projects I have worked in the past 21 years of my IT career.

The poor 3 continue to be overworked, underpaid, under recognised and over scrutinised whilst the rest are relaxing with their mates and family. I can bet this is happening in other sectors as well.

Back to topic, looks like Amazon UK will never get this stock and its £27 in Amazon FR.

[wobelix]

So, down to the nitty-gritty of 'Le Cercle Rouge': has the film been tampered with too severely during restauration, especially in the colour scheme, or not?

I saw this ages ago in the movie house(s) my folks worked in, but of course, the mind and especially memory play all kind of tricks with us.

It truly is a wonderful film, though, and I never had it on blu ray, only on dvd, so I might as well, ... oh well...

.

[grahams76]

Originally Posted by wobelix

So, down to the nitty-gritty of 'Le Cercle Rouge': has the film been tampered with too severely during restauration, especially in the colour scheme, or not?

The 4K disc has a completely natural colour palette and looks like a film of its era. Whether that is accurate or not, I can't say for sure.

I will say that the recent blu-rays that were completely saturated in cyan/blue looked completely unnatural for a 1970 film.

The review on this site is way too harsh on the colour palette in my opinion - however, the actual 4K transfer isn't that great anyway. Really low bitrates in some scenes and visible macro-blocking here and there (and I'm not that fussy and watched it on a a 43-inch TV). Still just about an OK transfer though... just.

[JimDiGriz]

Originally Posted by wobelix

So, down to the nitty-gritty of 'Le Cercle Rouge': has the film been tampered with too severely during restauration, especially in the colour scheme, or not?

I saw this ages ago in the movie house(s) my folks worked in, but of course, the mind and especially memory play all kind of tricks with us.

It truly is a wonderful film, though, and I never had it on blu ray, only on dvd, so I might as well, ... oh well...

.

Buy it. You won't be disappointed. It looks a lot better than that freezer cold Blu-ray. I can't imagine what the DVD was like...

[vector72]

Originally Posted by MarkGubarenko

The calibration also required a long homogenization [process] between the sources with, as a working reference, a vintage copy and a copy validated in 2000 by Pierre Lhomme, director of photography of L’ARMÉE DES OMBRES.”[/I]

If the info above is honest, then they made a real effort to get the color grading correct for the HDR release (in spite of what people may have been expecting to see).

I don't mean that the disc is flawless overall, but if you adjust your color temperature slider to cool, you can't go more that a few clicks before the scenery starts to look unnatural.

[wobelix]

[QUOTE=JimDiGriz;18973130 I can't imagine what the DVD was like...[/QUOTE]

Me neither, thank goodness, hihi.

[wobelix]

Originally Posted by MarkGubarenko

So I've received my copy from Amazon UK on Friday, and watched it on Saturday. All I can say that it looked wonderful (to me), but I've never seen it other than on DVD.

Since I haven't found lot's of information about new restoration at first, I've tried to dig deeper.

Here's what I've found out:

1) This restoration premiered at last year Venice Film Festival as Venice Classics sidebar.
2) Here's more info on restoration that I've google translated from French:
[I]“The digitization and 4K restoration of LE CERCLE ROUGE was carried out by StudioCanal with the help of the CNC as part of the Selective Aid for the digitization of cinematographic heritage works.

The restoration was performed by the Hiventy laboratory from the original negative and the interpositive. The first element had undergone a lot of handling and had multiple visible scratches, tears and seams. As for the second, it had a lot of spots, print area and a different geometry from that of the negative.

The calibration also required a long work of homogenization between the sources, with, as a working reference, a vintage copy and a copy validated in 2000 by Pierre Lhomme, director of photography of L’ARMÉE DES OMBRES.”

Thank you very much for this clarification.
The odd thing is that they use another d.o.p. to validate the work of another d.o.p., simply because they worked with the same director.

Both excellent cameramen, and boy does France have and had some aces for that job, but the background of Decaë reads like the one of Coutard (a war time camera-journalist), the d.o.p. who helped to kickstart the Nouvelle Vague, a searcher, trying to push the limits, where Lhomme starts out that way, albeit his training was in a famous Filmschool, but later on seems to be more like a 'mainstream' kind a guy, who turned out gorgeous looking films ('Quartet', 'Maurice', 'Cotton Mary' and more for Ivory & Merchant, 'Cyrano The Bergerac', 'Camille Claudel' and quite some others; all great).
Why temper with other folk's work?

Of course it isn 't always pleasant that the original d.o.p. is on the restauration job; think Storaro who wants to change AOR decades after shooting to his beloved but misjudged 2.00 : 1 (= 2 times 4:3 side by side...)

We miss these old masters from days gone by, who are no longer among us.

[wobelix]

Originally Posted by JimDiGriz

Buy it. You won't be disappointed. It looks a lot better than that freezer cold Blu-ray.

Ordered it right now.
Thanks a million for the heads up!

[wobelix]

Originally Posted by grahams76

The 4K disc has a completely natural colour palette and looks like a film of its era. Whether that is accurate or not, I can't say for sure.

I will say that the recent blu-rays that were completely saturated in cyan/blue looked completely unnatural for a 1970 film.

The review on this site is way too harsh on the colour palette in my opinion - however, the actual 4K transfer isn't that great anyway. Really low bitrates in some scenes and visible macro-blocking here and there (and I'm not that fussy and watched it on a a 43-inch TV). Still just about an OK transfer though... just.

Thank you very much!

All I remember 'for sure' (ahum...) from long gone done days of sneeking into the movie houses run by my parents as a (very) young teenager and watch indiscriminantly ALL the movies that were shown, and with as much multiple viewings at that, is that Paris never looks 'glorious' or lush. It looked grim, Dickens' bleak, a bit gray (desaturated?).
But not cyan, no.