High Society 4K UHD (1956) from Warner Archive

[SanCarolina59]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I suspect this will be delayed to June at the earliest.

Unfortunately, it appears it has - WAC's FB page is now showing that High Society has been delayed now until June 10th:

COMING TO 4K FROM THE WARNER ARCHIVE COLLECTION ON JUNE 10th!
New 4K UHD HDR Dolby Vision Master from 13.5k scans of the Original VistaVision Negative!

[bondfooll]

Originally Posted by SanCarolina59

Unfortunately, it appears it has - WAC's FB page is now showing that High Society has been delayed now until June 10th:

Oh! A couple of weeks isn't that bad. I thought it would be delayed by months.

[Flapperdame16]

Man, June is a busy WAC month! Now it got moved to June!

[Hammerlover]

Any thoughts about what WAC's third 4K will be?

[Juan de Internet]

Originally Posted by Hammerlover

Any thoughts about what WAC's third 4K will be?

I don't have any insight into what goes on at Warner Archive, but surely Ben-Hur (1959) has to be the leading candidate for the third WAC 4k? AFAIK, Warners has run out of VistaVision movies to put on 4k (let alone 1956 VistaVision movies, lol), but given the pattern set of reserving WAC 4k for large-format films, Ben-Hur is the next obvious choice.

Combine that with the fact that a brand new 4k restoration debuted at TCM Classic Film Festival just one week ago, and the fact that the first two are (supposed to be) released five months apart, putting the third right around the anniversary of Ben-Hur's release in November, and all signs point to Ben-Hur.

Here's Alexander Payne last week introducing the restoration at the Chinese Theater:

Alexander Payne introduces William Wyler’s BEN-HUR, 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival - YouTube

[ScottSullivanTV]

Originally Posted by Juan de Internet

I don't have any insight into what goes on at Warner Archive, but surely Ben-Hur (1959) has to be the leading candidate for the third WAC 4k?

You would think for a film as big as that that WB would want to put that out on the studio label so the digital versions get that 4K upgrade too.

[Juan de Internet]

Originally Posted by ScottSullivanTV

You would think for a film as big as that that WB would want to put that out on the studio label so the digital versions get that 4K upgrade too.

Agreed. But I never thought Warner Archive would release The Searchers either.

Actually, I’d probably prefer the main label release Ben-Hur, if only so I can pick it up from the Warners bargain bin. Heck, I love The Searchers and yet five months later I’m still waiting for that first WAC 4k to drop below $30 before I’ll bite.

The only thing is I wouldn’t put it past Mother Warner to slap that 3-1/2-hour movie on a BD-66 and call it a day. But that’s okay by me: I haven’t spent the last 66 years on tenterhooks waiting for the Ultimate Ben-Hur Release, and I’m not holding my breath now either.

[Areyakiddin]

The main Warner studio label doesn't seem to be interested in doing a wide release for John Wayne 4K UHDs. They made the 4K for Rio Bravo MOD as well, albeit without the Warner Archive branding.

[Nocheduro]

Originally Posted by Juan de Internet

The only thing is I wouldn’t put it past Mother Warner to slap that 3-1/2-hour movie on a BD-66 and call it a day. But that’s okay by me: I haven’t spent the last 66 years on tenterhooks waiting for the Ultimate Ben-Hur Release, and I’m not holding my breath now either.

Warner isn’t allergic to BD-100s like they used to be, and Ben-Hur would likely go on one anyway due to it’s length. A WAC release is still preferable as we’ll get Dolby Vision and an FIM encode.

[Juan de Internet]

Originally Posted by Nocheduro

Warner isn’t allergic to BD-100s like they used to be, and Ben-Hur would likely go on one anyway due to it’s length. A WAC release is still preferable as we’ll get Dolby Vision and an FIM encode.

Is it too much to hope for two BD-100s? I’m pretty sure you could fill two of them with this 65mm movie (and some supplements) and not be past the point of diminishing returns. It’s not like I can sit through a 3-1/2 hour movie without a break these days anyway.

For that matter, why not four BD-100s? You could split the frame down the middle, making this a 6k release! It’d be a bit tricky to stitch it up for viewing, but I bet I could figure out the software to do that. Okay, that probably is wishful thing.

[cinerama]

It's on TCM right now. Looks and sounds fantastic!

[Megalotumsman]

Originally Posted by Juan de Internet

Is it too much to hope for two BD-100s? I’m pretty sure you could fill two of them with this 65mm movie (and some supplements) and not be past the point of diminishing returns. It’s not like I can sit through a 3-1/2 hour movie without a break these days anyway.

For that matter, why not four BD-100s? You could split the frame down the middle, making this a 6k release! It’d be a bit tricky to stitch it up for viewing, but I bet I could figure out the software to do that. Okay, that probably is wishful thing.

I'd be perfectly fine with two BD-100s, but since Ben-Hur has that super-wide aspect ratio, it means ~40% of a 16:9 screen will be Black Bars anyway.
Since it only uses ~60% of the pixels, that seems like it should only take up ~60% of the space. So data-wise it only may require the space equivalent of a 2.1 hour full-screen movie.

[Juan de Internet]

Originally Posted by Megalotumsman

I'd be perfectly fine with two BD-100s, but since Ben-Hur has that super-wide aspect ratio, it means ~40% of a 16:9 screen will be Black Bars anyway.
Since it only uses ~60% of the pixels, that seems like it should only take up ~60% of the space. So data-wise it only may require the space equivalent of a 2.1 hour full-screen movie.

I could be wrong, but I think you can allocate more bits to the non-black parts of the picture. In my experience, the image quality keeps improving all the way to the 128 Mbps limit of UHD Blu-rays and beyond. I don't know the intimate details of HEVC encoding, though, so maybe there's a per-block limit that prevents you from simply allocating more bits to the actual picture.

Having said that, I'm pretty sure they're just going to put the whole movie on one disc as that was one of the key-touted benefits of UHD's extra space.

To give some context of just how much information 65mm can hold, consider Sony's upcoming 53x40mm sensors (53mm is the actual width of the picture area for the MGM Camera 65 film used in Ben-Hur) are 19,200 pixels across. Now 1959 film is not going to have the same resolution as a state-of-the-art sensor from 2025, but that is 5x the linear resolution of 4k. 4k is nowhere near being able to capture 53mm of sensor data from a Hollywood-level camera.

And that's just in terms of resolution. In terms of disc space, consider that a 3h32m 2.76:1 film captured on Sony's new sensor and stored uncompressed would take up 81.5 TB. That's over 815 BD-100s.

[Maggot]

Hopefully we get a pre-order here in a week or so. Can't wait!

[SpookyDollhouse]

Originally Posted by SanCarolina59

Unfortunately, it appears it has - WAC's FB page is now showing that High Society has been delayed now until June 10th:

Looks like this has been pushed again to 6/24/25. They posted this a few hours ago on FB:

CONFIRMATION OF NEW STREET DATE:
HIGH SOCIETY 4K/BLU-RAY COMBO and BLU-RAY now arriving JUNE 24th.

Pre-orders will go live shortly. Thanks!

[McCrutchy]

The pre-order is now live at MovieZyng for $29.99, with a release date of June 24th:

https://www.moviezyng.com/high-socie...y/840418325667

[roccog94]

This also went up for pre-order over at Gruv for $33.99, or $27.19 after their SIGNUP20 code.

[yellowcakeuf6]

Originally Posted by BorisKarloffice

Perspecta is the red-headed stepchild of sound formats. It feels like only Criterion remembers it exists.

Don't forget This Island Earth from Shout! It's the only disc I've ever seen with the Perspecta Stereophonic Sound logo on the back cover.

[Deciazulado]

High Society 4K Blu-ray

[Deciazulado]

on Ben-Hur you're cramming the equivalent of ~20mm of film emulsion per picture height in those ~1400p x 2.75 pixels, while from VV it's the same ~20mm per picture height, or 12mm per picture height from 35mm Sound, across the ~2160p x 1.75 pixels.

So theoretically the image being transferred into that 1400p central section could be from 1.5x to 2.5 sharper than a regular full screen image if it's nearing the pixel resolution limits, and need more bits than it.