The Shining 4K UHD (1980)

[perseus77]

I still have the old Stanly Kubrick Collectiond DVD box set, would love to compare 20 years difference in technology.

[UltraViolentFilmBuff]

Originally Posted by perseus77

I still have the old Stanly Kubrick Collectiond DVD box set, would love to compare 20 years difference in technology.

You're gonna see a WORLD of difference because that box set is kind of terrible lol.

[Matt89]

Originally Posted by UltraViolentFilmBuff

You're gonna see a WORLD of difference because that box set is kind of terrible lol.

The initial pressing, anyway. It was re-released as a remastered open-matte transfer with almost the exact same packaging. But yeah, that first pressing is godawful.

~Matt

[I KEEL YOU]

Originally Posted by Matt89

The initial pressing, anyway. It was re-released as a remastered open-matte transfer with almost the exact same packaging. But yeah, that first pressing is godawful.

~Matt

The later Kubrick DVDs are basically reference quality for the format and look as good as a DVD can look. But obviously there will be a night and day upgrade when it comes to the UHDs, in every way.

[Geoff D]

I've still got that remastered DVD collection, I treasure it.

[eddievanhalen]

Did any of the Stanley Kubrick BD's use the same source as the DVD's? I remember reading back in the day that the DVD's were mastered from an HD/2K source, I bet Warner Bros. used those same HD masters for the BD's.
The Shinning BD (US release, I don't have the international release) looks fine even by today standards but of course even on BD there's room for improvement. I think the BD for A Clockwork Orange is quite bad, Warner Bros. has had a new transfer since 2011 or 2012 when they re-released the movie as a digibook. They did a new disc authoring, they used DTS-HD Master Audio instead of PCM but the videomaster used was the same even if they had just completed a new scan and restoration. I don't remember if this was done at 2K or 4K.
I can't wait to see both movies on UHD BD.

[Alister_M]

Hell, the original Full Metal Jacket BD was mastered from a 1080i source and was riddled with de-interlacing artefacts, so that was probably an HDTV master It's a pretty good bet that all the other old Kubrick BDs are from the same masters that the widescreen DVD set was sourced from.

[I KEEL YOU]

Originally Posted by eddievanhalen

Did any of the Stanley Kubrick BD's use the same source as the DVD's?

I believe all of them did. At least the ones from the later Kubrick DVD releases. Other than the Criterion release of Barry Lyndon, which is sourced from a much newer master.

The one from FMJ looks identical to the DVD master as well:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x...8&l=0&i=0&go=1

I think that early BD release of FMJ might have been some encoding error than sourced from a more dated master.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by I KEEL YOU

I believe all of them did. At least the ones from the later Kubrick DVD releases. Other than the Criterion release of Barry Lyndon, which is sourced from a much newer master.

The one from FMJ looks identical to the DVD master as well:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x...8&l=0&i=0&go=1

I think that early BD release of FMJ might have been some encoding error than sourced from a more dated master.

There was a set of DVDs created from the HD transfers which were also used for the HD DVDs and BDs. Those transfers are materially very different from the non-anamorphic/open-matte editions that were originally released (twice) on DVD.

As for FMJ on HD DVD and Blu, it was an older HD transfer stored at 1440x1080i (which was the limit of the HDCAM storage at the time) and then poorly upsampled back to 1920x1080p for encoding to disc, hence the jaggies. Thankfully Warners were pretty quick to correct FMJ and the remastered version was a huge improvement, but this affected several other Warners HD masters from that period e.g. Caddyshack, Enter the Dragon, The Fugitive, The Perfect Storm, most of which would only be corrected when brand new transfers were issued several years later (though I think they redid the upsampling on TPS rather than re-transferring the film from scratch).

[Matt89]

Originally Posted by I KEEL YOU

The later Kubrick DVDs are basically reference quality for the format and look as good as a DVD can look. But obviously there will be a night and day upgrade when it comes to the UHDs, in every way.

Yup, I remember being floored when I got those remastered DVDs back in the day.

~Matt

[goodnitesteve]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

There was a set of DVDs created from the HD transfers which were also used for the HD DVDs and BDs. Those transfers are materially very different from the non-anamorphic/open-matte editions that were originally released (twice) on DVD.

As for FMJ on HD DVD and Blu, it was an older HD transfer stored at 1440x1080i (which was the limit of the HDCAM storage at the time) and then poorly upsampled back to 1920x1080p for encoding to disc, hence the jaggies. Thankfully Warners were pretty quick to correct FMJ and the remastered version was a huge improvement, but this affected several other Warners HD masters from that period e.g. Caddyshack, Enter the Dragon, The Fugitive, The Perfect Storm, most of which would only be corrected when brand new transfers were issued several years later (though I think they redid the upsampling on TPS rather than re-transferring the film from scratch).

Oof that sounds quite awful. Hopefully, these new editions will tackle these issues. 2001 looks great. I'm holding out for the shining and its deleted scenes, but I doubt we'll ever get them.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by goodnitesteve

Oof that sounds quite awful. Hopefully, these new editions will tackle these issues. 2001 looks great. I'm holding out for the shining and its deleted scenes, but I doubt we'll ever get them.

FMJ did actually get remastered to correct the aliasing and the banding during these early years on HD DVD and Blu, the botched one was released in 2006 and the remaster came along about a year later. I'm sure a brand new 2019 4K offering would look betterer still but, like most of the Kubrick Blus, FMJ is eminently watchable in its current state.

[mizo69]

I could certainly live without the tacky skeleton-and-cobwebs scene towards the end which seems to have wandered in from another film set. Currently re-assessing if I like the Euro cut better. I tend to like slower, longer films. At least Kubrick did this cut much closer to the time of the original US cut.

[hYPE]

Any idea of when this will be released?

[mizo69]

Can we do a recap on aspect ratios? I used to work as a front-of-house manager in a cinema in London. For some reason, the owner wanted all films to be shown unmatted, meaning there was this ugly furry open square projected on the screen whatever film was shown and you were aware of the rest of the white parts of the screen to the side, to boot! I can't swear it was absolutely like that for all films, but I am pretty sure. You noticed it especially if films were shown in 1:33. To add to this, I remember this very experienced projectionist saying that Kubrick had a habit of ringing up cinemas (or getting people to) to tell projectionists to show his film unmatted but this is of course a generalisation and he probably meant for first-run releases.

As far as these BD transfers go, I am really surprised that posters aren't up in arms that Warner settled on 1:78 for many of the films when they should be either 1:85 or 1:66 (?). That's not to say that I have a huge preference for the academy ratio in The Shining, for example, but I've always felt that if he composed for 1:33, that's how it should be shown now, so ...can anyone restate what would be the ideal AR on BDs in general, and The Shining in particular, when the OAR was 1:33, and is there a case for having 1:33 on BDs at all (where it's possible to know that was what Kubrick intended for the cinema).

[BluPat]

Originally Posted by hYPE

Any idea of when this will be released?

Yea I'm wondering as well. I'm guessing October/November since Doctor Sleep is coming in November.

[AlexIlDottore]

Originally Posted by mizo69

Can we do a recap on aspect ratios? I used to work as a front-of-house manager in a cinema in London. For some reason, the owner wanted all films to be shown unmatted, meaning there was this ugly furry open square projected on the screen whatever film was shown and you were aware of the rest of the white parts of the screen to the side, to boot! I can't swear it was absolutely like that for all films, but I am pretty sure. You noticed it especially if films were shown in 1:33. To add to this, I remember this very experienced projectionist saying that Kubrick had a habit of ringing up cinemas (or getting people to) to tell projectionists to show his film unmatted but this is of course a generalisation and he probably meant for first-run releases.

As far as these BD transfers go, I am really surprised that posters aren't up in arms that Warner settled on 1:78 for many of the films when they should be either 1:85 or 1:66 (?). That's not to say that I have a huge preference for the academy ratio in The Shining, for example, but I've always felt that if he composed for 1:33, that's how it should be shown now, so ...can anyone restate what would be the ideal AR on BDs in general, and The Shining in particular, when the OAR was 1:33, and is there a case for having 1:33 on BDs at all (where it's possible to know that was what Kubrick intended for the cinema).

Kubrick filmed the shining with an intended aspect ratio of 1.85. he protected for 1.33, but it's intended ratio is 1.85.

there is no grey area here. we even have a page from the Kubrick archives where the man himself expresses this in black and white.

Edit: the OAR of The Shining is NOT 1.33

[Retroj23]

Originally Posted by AlexIlDottore

Kubrick filmed the shining with an intended aspect ratio of 1.85. he protected for 1.33, but it's intended ratio is 1.85.

there is no grey area here. we even have a page from the Kubrick archives where the man himself expresses this in black and white.

Edit: the OAR of The Shining is NOT 1.33

Correct. Kubrick protected the 1:33 ratio because span and scan ruined his artistic vision of 2001. Remember this was way before widescreen versions were available on home cinema, tv broadcasting and of course 16x9 tvs. He absolutely hated it and from then on he decided not to film in such a wide scope of 2:35 for fear of more pan and scan jobs. All of his films after 2001 were shot with ratios of 1:66 or 1:85, with 1:33 protection for home broadcast, and no wider.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by Retroj23

Correct. Kubrick protected the 1:33 ratio because span and scan ruined his artistic vision of 2001. Remember this was way before widescreen versions were available on both home cinema, tv broadcasting and of course 16x9 tvs. He absolutely hated it and from then on he decided not to film in such a wide scope of 2:35. All of his films after 2001 were shot with ratios of 1:66 or 1:85, with 1:33 protection for home broadcast, and no wider.

But on The Shining, without the mattes, you can clearly see the helicopter blades in the aerial shots.

[Retroj23]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

But on The Shining, without the mattes, you can clearly see the helicopter blades in the aerial shots.

True, however this was done with the knowledge that these anomalies would be viewed only on home broadcasts or video. A far better trade off for Kubrick than some random ****** messing with his artistic vision.