The Fog (1980) 4K UHD

[Geoff D]

Nothing like that, no. The menus don't have sound.

[Scott H]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Nothing like that, no. The menus don't have sound.

Thanks for checking yours, Geoff, much appreciated.

I've not had any problems like this on any of my other BDs (of which I own a few hundred). If no one else is seeing the strobing lines then it might be a faulty disc. I'll get a replacement.

Thanks again mate.

[thisis2]

..av forums reviews of THE FOG 4K and PRINCE OF DARKNESS 4K are out

and another on home theater forum

[Martoto]

Originally Posted by EvilJames

Mine did the same when “Outtakes” was highlighted - though I’m pretty sure the teaser itself hasn’t made its way onto the disc!

Yeah. It's perverse.

Either something technical went wrong with these menus or some licensing issue deprived them of music. It just feels weird that they're silent given how animated they are.

[x5gb]

Noticed the framing on this is tighter than the Scream with infomation missing on all four sides (especially on the sides), don't know which is correct but personally prefer the Scream on that aspect.

[Geoff D]

You're not always supposed to see every last millimetre of the frame, not even with anamorphic. The new transfer is better in every (other) way.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Martoto

Yeah. It's perverse.

Either something technical went wrong with these menus or some licensing issue deprived them of music. It just feels weird that they're silent given how animated they are.

I feel the same way, having an animated menu be completely silent is almost unsettling. It's the same with They Live though and is preserved on all six discs (BD + UHD + extras for both movies) so I doubt it's an error. As you say, maybe they were scored but licensing issues meant that they had to pull the music.

Something else about the menus is that they're blindingly bright in HDR on my TV. I'm usually someone who chimes in and says "I didn't have a problem with x being too bright" but on these menus they're aggressively bright. I like to leave the credits running on movies to hear the music, I'm odd like that, and going from sitting in darkness for two or three minutes to the main menu was downright uncomfortable for my eyes. Noted the same on Deer Hunter's UHD as well, when the country select screen first came up (being stark white with a stylised illustration of De Niro) I was quite sure it could be seen from space.

[Martoto]

I just want to give my tuppence worth re removing and repacking the contents safely.

Always let gravity do the work when taking the pack and booklet out - ALWAYS at the same time. Don't attempt to take one out at a time.

The set came with digipack on the left / booklet to the right, and were in pretty good shape like that so it would appear to be wise to keep it way.

I recommend putting the booklet in first, which enables you to position it over the inside flap at the back without snagging it.

Corner the digi-pack in then start to slide it vertically while rotating until the digi-pack 99.99% straightened up and almost out of the box again. At that point you should be able to slide the whole digi-pack into the box without too much drama.

No bulges. And no creases unless you're too hasty with it.

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by Martoto

I just want to give my tuppence worth re removing and repacking the contents safely.

Always let gravity do the work when taking the pack and booklet out - ALWAYS at the same time. Don't attempt to take one out at a time.

The set came with digipack on the left / booklet to the right, and were in pretty good shape like that so it would appear to be wise to keep it way.

I recommend putting the booklet in first, which enables you to position it over the inside flap at the back without snagging it.

Corner the digi-pack in then start to slide it vertically while rotating until the digi-pack 99.99% straightened up and almost out of the box again. At that point you should be able to slide the whole digi-pack into the box without too much drama.

No bulges. And no creases unless you're too hasty with it.

Well, I guess this is good advice for me since I'm kind of an impatient type of person.

[Matt89]

So mine showed up yesterday, wow these are really nice sets. Had to check out the climax of The Fog that everyone's been talking about and wow yeah, the compression in that shot is shockingly bad. YouTube-level bad. There is also a bit of weird grain on the first daytime shot with Andy on the beach. It looks sort of frozen, so I popped the blu-ray in to compare and it seems to be better resolved on the blu-ray but I feel like the issue is more to do with the shot itself. Overall though, honestly it's a gorgeous transfer. The blu-ray is really nice too (it definitely has better compression in those select scenes and it's a big step above the SF transfer) but the film grain on the UHD is glorious.

I didn't get home till late last night and both The Fog and They Live had been delivered, as well as the UHD of 2001, so I won't be able to check these out till tonight. But I thought The Fog looked really really good for the most part.

Couple minor gripes about the packaging. It really is rather difficult to get the contents back into the box, they probably could've made the sets a tiny bit thicker so it wasn't such a struggle to get the contents in and out. However, there was no damage to either of my sets. Secondly, I feel like they really overused the artwork. I actually prefer it to the original theatrical poster with Jamie Lee, but did they need to use it on not only the cover, but the cover of the booklet, the poster, the UHD and both blu-rays? It's overkill. I feel like they could've changed it up a bit, used the original poster for the cover of the booklet or something or change up the disc art. Anyway, it's still a beautiful set and I prefer them over the look of the SF editions.

Just a shame about the compression in those few scenes. Otherwise I actually think The Fog looks gorgeous in 4K. The colours, the wide shots of the California coast, the shots on the ocean. This is one beautiful-looking restoration.

~Matt

[DJR662]

Well what do ya know, I literally received this a couple of minutes ago (along with the UK Matrix trilogy set as well as the new Halloween II steelbook ).

So I removed the packaging as carefully as I could and this is how it came out:



How typical.

[Member-167298]

Despite pre-ordering as soon as they went up on Amazon UK, my Fog and They Live 4K sets still have not been dispatched

Anyone else still awaiting shipment?

[xfileed916]

Originally Posted by PrestonXI

Despite pre-ordering as soon as they went up on Amazon UK, my Fog and They Live 4K sets still have not been dispatched

Anyone else still awaiting shipment?

I had to do a livechat with AmazonUK to get mine shipped on Monday. I had pre-ordered back in September. This is the 3rd time in the past few months I have pre-ordered from AmazonUK and had to contact their customer service to get them to ship the damn thing. In all 3 cases, the release date arrived and it showed as in stock and yet they had not shipped. Only after I pushed them did they essentially reply with "oh yes, it's in stock. not sure why we haven't shipped it. making a note here in the system to make sure it ships out today." Really frustrating.

[Mikeyos]

My copy finally shipped yesterday, even after pre-ordering on the first day it was available. The Fog is in my top 5 favorite horror films, so I'll gladly watch this on my 4k tv, fully aware of the problematic transfer. I watched this (for years) with VHS level transfers, so I'm quite excited to see how it looks now.

[The Fallen Deity]

I just don't understand how SC can drop the ball on the compression when they did a great job with They Live.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Matt89

So mine showed up yesterday, wow these are really nice sets. Had to check out the climax of The Fog that everyone's been talking about and wow yeah, the compression in that shot is shockingly bad. YouTube-level bad. There is also a bit of weird grain on the first daytime shot with Andy on the beach. It looks sort of frozen, so I popped the blu-ray in to compare and it seems to be better resolved on the blu-ray but I feel like the issue is more to do with the shot itself. Overall though, honestly it's a gorgeous transfer. The blu-ray is really nice too (it definitely has better compression in those select scenes and it's a big step above the SF transfer) but the film grain on the UHD is glorious.

Yes, I pegged the first shot of Andy at the beach also, the grain does some very funky things. While the shot itself is an optical (for the fade in) I can assure everyone that an optical doesn't make the grain freeze and break up into lots of ugly macroblocks, it's another example of SC taking their eye off the ball. The weird thing is, I could swear that most of the opticals in the movie seem to be quite blocky and nasty (only not as obvious as the Andy shot), it's almost as if StudioCanal's encoder turned the bitrate down every time there was an optical which is a very stupid thing to do as the coarser, noisier grain of those shots needs MORE bitrate, not less.

Originally Posted by The Fallen Deity

I just don't understand how SC can drop the ball on the compression when they did a great job with They Live.

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.

[OutOfBoose]

Looks like EfNY is doomed.

[samdaman94]

Sorry, I'm late to this party - can somebody tell me the timestamp of where the issues of The Fog crop up so I can check my copy, out of interest?

[The Fallen Deity]

Originally Posted by OutOfBoose

Looks like EfNY is doomed.

#prayforplissken

[HDMan72]

Originally Posted by samdaman94

Sorry, I'm late to this party - can somebody tell me the timestamp of where the issues of The Fog crop up so I can check my copy, out of interest?

Father Malone ending scene when he gives the cross back to Blake.