The Italian Job 4K (1969) 55th Anniversary (UK)

[cybersoga]

Originally Posted by lgans316

https://www.avforums.com/reviews/the...-review.21847/

"Digitally there are no compression issues, and the original source is pristine, with scarcely anything to draw the eye, while film grain is kept to the absolute minimum but still retains a filmic image. great stuff!"

hope it still doesn't have compression artefacts when I watch it in HDR10.

[NoFro]

In my heart I knew the Kino release would be a waste of money but the Blu Ray was so terrible that I couldn't wait. Glad to hear this is better. Mine should be arriving within the hour.

EDIT: Nice sturdy box. 4K banner and info could have been put on a J-card for a cleaner design but it's an alright set.

[BigNickUK]

The audio on the Kino is better, the PQ on the Paramount is better. Shame

[Geoff D]

Anyone else notice that the credits (and subtitles, which are burnt in) have been digitally rebuilt? Nice. And I'm about 10 minutes into the Par disc in HDR10 and the encode is holding up so far. Double nice.

Edit: yep, this is a REALLY nice encode. It's broken the streak of no metadata = garbage encode on Paramount UHDs, can't help but wonder if this was done by the crew who did those recent Par UHD do-overs in Europe. The Panny's bitrate meter isn't perfick, so take this with a pinch of salt, but at one point this hits 181 Mb/s (!) inc the DV layer when the Minis are in the tunnel. It's not just about peaks tho, it's about putting the right bits into the right places and even in quieter scenes, foggier scenes or shots with skies the bitrate doesn't drop thru the floor. And before someone says "but the Kino is on a 100GB disc while this is just a 66", the Kino is one of their mediocre hard-limited base layers with an 18 Mb/s DV layer that gets slapped on regardless, and as the movie is a mere 93 minutes long with only a few extra language tracks - and mere mono at that - on the Par then a UHD66 is more than enough.

[Geoff D]

And I'll give AVF their due: the colour on this is nowhere near as hot hot hot as the Kino, the skies are no longer raging teal and skin tones don't run to various shades of hot pink. If I didn't know any betterer I'd say that the Kino has been pushed into forced 2020 which is what's setting off the reds and greens like that.

[andreasy969]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

And I'll give AVF their due: the colour on this is nowhere near as hot hot hot as the Kino, the skies are no longer raging teal and skin tones don't run to various shades of hot pink. If I didn't know any betterer I'd say that the Kino has been pushed into forced 2020 which is what's setting off the reds and greens like that.

I really don't see any such problem with the Kino. Which makes me wonder if maybe the Paramount pulled a Shout instead? EDIT: Might be a Braveheart though where it doesn't stick out as clear.

re. giving AVF their due: I currently have a very good reason to think they are just full of shit and won't even bother reading.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by andreasy969

I really don't see any such problem with the Kino. Which makes me wonder if maybe the Paramount pulled a Shout instead? EDIT: Might be a Braveheart though where it doesn't stick out as clear.

re. giving AVF their due: I currently have a very good reason to think they are just full of shit and won't even bother reading.

Yes Andi, I did think that maybe the Par is the one with the error in desaturating the colour, but JESUS the Kino looks totally overblown in comparison, the Lambo at the beginning is almost a hot pink. Even if it's not an error at their end the Kino grading is just...yuck. But with the Par it's all calmed down, maybe too much as skin tones can look a bit enervated, but reds still look red and not the burnt orange that normally happens with a colour space error a la Shout.

Something in-between would've been the sweet spot but in any case it's unquestionably a different colour grade from one to the other so yes, AVF were actually right this time.

Edit: and Kino's BD has the same colour as their UHD so it's in there at the master level, it's not a separate bodge like those Shout ones where the new BDs looked fine while the UHDs were clearly 'off'.

[Geoff D]

Oh, and I'm sure Spencer will blow a gasket but I don't care if the Kino has the OG mono audio, the 5.1 remix has always been on the respectful side (prolly one of the most respectful I've ever heard, even) so I'm fine with just having that for audio if it means I get a betterer (IMO) colour grade and a verr naice encode into the bargain.

[dallywhitty]

FFS, I told myself I didn't need this cause I've already got the Kino, but my will is weakening. As God is my witness, I'll never import again.

[ronand]

Originally Posted by dallywhitty

FFS, I told myself I didn't need this cause I've already got the Kino, but my will is weakening. As God is my witness, I'll never import again.

Of course you need it.Just never pre-order a Kino again....

[lgans316]

Would have pulled the trigger if this was a Steelbook. £32 is too much for a Amaray collector's edition for me.

[nicwood]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

And I'll give AVF their due: the colour on this is nowhere near as hot hot hot as the Kino, the skies are no longer raging teal and skin tones don't run to various shades of hot pink. If I didn't know any betterer I'd say that the Kino has been pushed into forced 2020 which is what's setting off the reds and greens like that.

Thanks Geoff, this is music to my ears. I also hate the way the Kino looks and spent half an hour messing with my TV settings to dial back these reds but it’s impossible. It’s a most horrible UHD and I’m overjoyed that it’s another one of their "definitive" releases that bites the dust. I always had a good feeling about this UK Paramount tat edition, thinking that Paramount’s incompetence somehow makes it better and voila, we’ve been served by their A-EU-team. Hopefully this sells well and they continue with this or allow Arrow to license the Kino hostages for the UK.

[david_blu]

So we all need to join a forum where they love the KL and loathe the Paramount so we can all convince them to buy it off us for a decent amount

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by dallywhitty

FFS, I told myself I didn't need this cause I've already got the Kino, but my will is weakening. As God is my witness, I'll never import again.

I'm pretty much there already. Shout and Kino rarely offer up stuff that's crucial to my existence any more, while VS' stuff has always been far too expensive for such frivolous fayre. Might make an exception for that Bill & Ted set as the rights are more tangled in the UK...but then there was that HMV trilogy set which brought together the SC and MGM titles under the Warners aegis, so who knows.

Originally Posted by david_blu

So we all need to join a forum where they love the KL and loathe the Paramount so we can all convince them to buy it off us for a decent amount

Eh, my KL offloads still sell alright on fleabay, especially as they've all got slips.

[lgans316]

If I buy the UCE, what I will do is simply swap the discs alone and sell the UCE with the KL discs as the KL release comes with a slip in a slim case which occupies less shelf space.

[NoFro]

Originally Posted by dallywhitty

FFS, I told myself I didn't need this cause I've already got the Kino, but my will is weakening. As God is my witness, I'll never import again.

Even Paramount release better 4Ks when they're UK only.

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by NoFro

Even Paramount release better 4Ks when they're UK only.

Entertainment in Video (EiV) the best UK distributor wants to have few words with you lol.

[cybersoga]

I'm getting this whenever they release a standard non-collectors edition

[PonyoBellanote]

Oh, so the Paramount disc is actually decent? Colour me extremely surprised. But the problematic colouring choices are still there, I'm assuming?

Goes to show sometimes having a BD-100 and high number of bitrate doesn't always mean better. I'm glad to hear considering importing a european version of The Italian Job will be much better for my wallet than importing the Kino Lorber UHD, though at some point I still may have to get it for the couple of extras that are there and not on the Paramount disc.

EDIT: Oh, so the Paramount does fix the weird colouring issue of the Kino one? I hope we get some screencaps. I wanna see that with my own eyes.

[PonyoBellanote]

Originally Posted by lgans316

Would have pulled the trigger if this was a Steelbook. £32 is too much for a Amaray collector's edition for me.

I'd agree. Mostly because of my OCD, I want to get the steel of the remake, it feels off to me to get one in steelbook and the other in amaray.