Halloween II 4K UHD (1981)

[TheSweetieMan]

Originally Posted by grodd

While SF is a vastly superior disc than the Lionsgate 4K Interpositive Scan, the compression could have been better. DV however does help, especially on H2 1981.

Geoff tends to be one of the more valuable members here. You don't have to agree with him on everything, but I find he is usually correct. Especially on his last quote.

Vastly is a massive overstatement here. While I do prefer the scan for the SF disc, there’s not a discrepancy between the two in terms of the quality of their colors, dynamic range, or overall visual presentation. The SF disc looks pleasingly warmer and more autumnal — but that’s not to say the LG disc doesn’t look great in its own right. Because it does. And not to mention a vastly superior encode.

[grodd]

Originally Posted by TheSweetieMan

Vastly is a massive overstatement here. While I do prefer the scan for the SF disc, there’s not a discrepancy between the two in terms of the quality of their colors, dynamic range, or overall visual presentation. The SF disc looks pleasingly warmer and more autumnal — but that’s not to say the LG disc doesn’t look great in its own right. Because it does. And not to mention a vastly superior encode.

There is a very distinct difference in colors on the two.
The OCN scan has a noticeable stronger and wider color palette and overall detail. Its not just warmer. Blues, greens and reds are overall stronger.

The Lionsgate is often darker and muted.

[JohnCarpenterFan]

Never had any encoding problems with any of these discs while watching in DV. I had heard the encoding for the original was pretty bad so I was going to keep an eye out for any instances of it during watching but got too invested in the film and forgot all about any potential issues.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by TheSweetieMan

I have a 65-inch OLED. Hardly the biggest screen.

There is 100% encoding issues on Carpenter’s Halloween UHD disc from SF.

Even surprised by Geoff’s post in here, considering he noticed them as well in the Halloween 1979 thread.

There is macroblocking galore going on on the interiors of Tommy’s house whenever a strong light source is present.

This is a 100% undeniable fact.

What's surprising about what I just said? That I think most "pro reviews" are worthless? Seems to be upside-down-day in this place, I'm saying stuff real basic like but people are construing all sorts of opposite stuff. My point here is that people often use the "those with projektors didn't see anything" rationale to defend a shit compression job but I'm saying that folks with projektors are often the LEAST DISCERNING out there, there's usually an inverse proportion between the amount of money spent and the amount of gumption that someone has.

I think the encode on Shout's Halloween is disastrously bad. The DV tidies it up somewhat, especially the dreadful I-frame pulsing, but it still breaks apart in the brighter areas as you say. Halloween II is a LOT betterer though, it's got the infamous titty glitch but apart from that the HDR10 looks fine and the DV cleans up said glitch. HIII has no appreciable nasties in either mode. Ain't it always the way: the best movie gets the worst encode.

[TheSweetieMan]

I misread your post, Geoff.

[TheSweetieMan]

Originally Posted by grodd

There is a very distinct difference in colors on the two.
The OCN scan has a noticeable stronger and wider color palette and overall detail. Its not just warmer. Blues, greens and reds are overall stronger.

The Lionsgate is often darker and muted.

I don't have any issues with the brightness levels for the LG disc -- and I'm still viewing it on older OLED panels.

Again, there's not some night and day difference between the two masters to justify the SC disc. Perhaps if the encode were stronger on the SF disc, I'd prefer that one for sure since I've stated the overall autumnal feel of that master is ideal.

But the LG master still features natural looking skin tones, terrific grain structure (which is handled beautifully by the superior LG encode), a subdued HDR pass which is welcomed for the type of simple visual palette this film has in the first place, and just an all around master that was still overseen and approved by Cundy, like the 98 other renditions he's also worked on.

At the end of the day, the compression of the LG disc makes for a far better viewing experience when taking into consideration that there's not enough of a discrepancy between the two masters visually, to justify watching the SF version when the SF's version is among one of the worst encoded discs that this format has to offer.

[Amiibro121]

Is that why the sf halloween 4k looks kinda off to me? Doesn't look as filmic or grainy as I expected it to be

[Armakuni]

Wow, thanks for the information you guys! It's kind of expensive to get all of the Shout UHD's, so I'm looking to see which ones I can skip. This franchise has never ment as much to me as a whole (I still like the original, third one and H40) as f13th and Elm Street so I might end up picking up just a couple of them.

[JCRW82]

Originally Posted by Armakuni

Wow, thanks for the information you guys! It's kind of expensive to get all of the Shout UHD's, so I'm looking to see which ones I can skip. This franchise has never ment as much to me as a whole (I still like the original, third one and H40) as f13th and Elm Street so I might end up picking up just a couple of them.

If you only like those three films, I would personally skip on Halloween (1978). We are bound to get another 4k release of it in the future (maybe the 45th Anniversary in 2023) and we can hope they provide a better encode of the film and hire someone to finally restore the audio tracks (both original mono and surround mixes) to get a definitive release.

[Geoff D]

Yeah, I think I’ll sell the Shout Halloween and see what next year brings.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterFan

Never had any encoding problems with any of these discs while watching in DV. I had heard the encoding for the original was pretty bad so I was going to keep an eye out for any instances of it during watching but got too invested in the film and forgot all about any potential issues.

This is one of the reasons I hate Dolby Vision. It adds another layer of QC and with the brightness of newer TVs (even modern OLED) isn't necessary. A lot of devices DON'T support Dolby Vision - including high end projectors - thus having the best HDR10 layer *should* be the priority for these discs as it is the universal standard across literally everything. Instead, some of these authoring houses are using Dolby Vision to cover up their sloppy jobs - with HDR10 not even properly QC'd at times like Shout Factory's Halloween II.

At this stage of the game, IMO fans of true preservation should be championing the best HDR10 passes and nothing else, as HDR10 is the only universal format across all devices. If a Dolby Vision pass is added fine, but not at the expense of the more important HDR10!!

[DR Herbert West]

Doing the Extended Cut in 4k (TV scenes upscaled) seems like the best hook for a new edition.

Restored mono
A decent encode
Maybe a new expert commentary
Slipbox with OG art
A nice booklet

I'd happily drop $50 on that.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by DR Herbert West

Doing the Extended Cut in 4k (TV scenes upscaled) seems like the best hook for a new edition.

Restored mono
A decent encode
Maybe a new expert commentary
Slipbox with OG art
A nice booklet

I'd happily drop $50 on that.

Yeh. And then in 2024 they can sell the 18 disc box set with the Zombie films and the new trilogy for $500

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Ruined

This is one of the reasons I hate Dolby Vision. It adds another layer of QC and with the brightness of newer TVs (even modern OLED) isn't necessary. A lot of devices DON'T support Dolby Vision - including high end projectors - thus having the best HDR10 layer *should* be the priority for these discs. Instead, these authoring houses are using Dolby Vision to cover up their sloppy jobs - with HDR10 not even properly QC'd at times like Shout Factory's Halloween II.

The “brightness” of a TV was never the main issue, it’s the tone mapping. To this day some manufacturers still only look at maximum display mastering level metadata which is absurd. The in-house mapping has improved greatly on other brands but I still wouldn’t trust it to provide a wholly accurate representation. If a TV can show 1000 nits in “1:1” fashion then you don’t need tone mapping for most HDR content, but even then some brands are still applying their tone mapping to it.

[bobbyh64]

Originally Posted by DR Herbert West

Doing the Extended Cut in 4k (TV scenes upscaled) seems like the best hook for a new edition.

Restored mono
A decent encode
Maybe a new expert commentary
Slipbox with OG art
A nice booklet

I'd happily drop $50 on that.

And restored mono for the extended cut.

[dallywhitty]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yeah, I think I’ll sell the Shout Halloween and see what next year brings.

I take it you sold Halloween III long ago? Asking for a friend.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by dallywhitty

I take it you sold Halloween III long ago? Asking for a friend.

Yep, it went straight onto eBay.

[Armakuni]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yep, it went straight onto eBay.

Now what is wrong with that one?!

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

The “brightness” of a TV was never the main issue, it’s the tone mapping. To this day some manufacturers still only look at maximum display mastering level metadata which is absurd. The in-house mapping has improved greatly on other brands but I still wouldn’t trust it to provide a wholly accurate representation. If a TV can show 1000 nits in “1:1” fashion then you don’t need tone mapping for most HDR content, but even then some brands are still applying their tone mapping to it.

The point is, brightness-gimped TVs were basically fully dependent on their tone mapping to provide a decent picture. That really isn't the case anymore other than with poor quality sets, so HDR10 should be the true priority because people who really care about 4K physical media don't have probably don't have terrible displays, or at least plan to upgrade to a good TV at some point in the future. People have $30,000+ projectors and are limited by these dodgy HDR10 passes because studios don't QA them properly with Dolby Vision obviously being the priority.

Again, at this point a solid HDR10 pass should be the #1 priority. If you want to add DV or HDR10+ to sell a double dip fine, but getting HDR10 right should be the #1 priority since it is the only universally compatible HDR format that every device has. Otherwise we end up here with Shout's excuses because the DV layer is "good enough" as it masks their crap HDR10 pass.

[Geoff D]

I wanna make it clear that I’m not arguing for terrible base layers, they should absolutely be the #1 priority. But bad compression is weird, it’s like people either see it or they don’t (as evinced by several recent replies in this very thread), even on the biggest screens. Same with Blu-ray for that matter, companies like Criterion have gotten away with blocky-faced murder for years. You’d have thought that the gradual switch to bigger sets over the years would’ve made bad encoding more obvious but if anything it’s gone backwards in terms of public perception, to the point where most pro calibrators insist you should turn off DV and let your TV do the mapping (again, providing its tone mapping is any good).

On the one hand that supports your #doblynotneeded crusade (dvdmike would be proud), on the other it proves exactly what I’m saying about people not noticing/caring about poor compression, even video “pros”, including those folks with giant projektion setups. Until that perception changes, until compression is actually assessed and evaluated by the majority of reviewers (hint: it’s hardly mentioned most of the time), then we’re gonna keep having to fight for competent encoding (for which DV does not have a stranglehold on poor HDR10 encodes, some companies manage to screw up solo HDR10 just as badly).

Originally Posted by Armakuni

Now what is wrong with that one?!

Disc is fine. I hated the movie.