List of Paramount 4K UHDs with Superior International Alternatives

[DawnShadow]

Thought I would make a thread about this to raise awareness since there is a lot of discussion going on in the Vanila Sky and The Firm threads at the moment.

The gist of the issue here is Paramount's US releases are using BD-66s and have very poor compression. International counterparts are starting to appear utilizing BD-100s and vastly superior encoding.

CONFIRMED:
Flashdance (Italy) - thanks to andreasy969
Screenshot comparisons and bitrate info : https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...3&postcount=78
The Truman Show (Italy) - thanks to andreasy969
Screenshot comparisons and bitrate info: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...2&postcount=75
Roman Holiday (Italy) - thanks to barrett75
The Firm (Italy and Scandinavia) - thanks to barrett75 and yetanotherone
Comparisons of both bitrates and screenshots, again thanks to yetanotherone
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=295
Vanilla Sky (Scandinavia) - thanks to yetanotherone - Italy also likely and TBC
Comparisons of both bitrates and screenshots, again thanks to yetanotherone
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=181
Devotion (Belgium and Netherlands) - thanks to Axel X and Krobar
Bitrate details
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=104
Beverly Hills Cop (Italy)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Italy)
Breakdown (Germany)
Comparison screenshots thanks to DonaldMcDonald
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...75&postcount=4


Amazon Italy purchase links:
The Firm
Vanilla Sky
Roman Holiday
The Truman Show
Beverly Hills Cop
Flashdance
Breakdown direct from Turbine

[jerclay]

King Kong (1976) - Studio Canal has way better encoding (but a bit worse color correction).

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by jerclay

King Kong (1976) - Studio Canal has way better encoding (but a bit worse color correction).

The Paramount version also has an audio error that the Studio Canal does not

[Hedrox]

Originally Posted by lgans316

Is it possible to update the OP with purchase links?

Amazon Italy is probably the most convenient way to get them:

The Firm
Vanilla Sky
Roman Holiday
The Truman Show
Beverly Hills Cop
Flashdance

[jerclay]

Originally Posted by Hedrox

Amazon Italy is probably the most convenient way to get them:

The Truman Show

I thought The Truman Show encode was fine. Have my eyes failed me?

[yetanotherone]

Originally Posted by yetanotherone

My The Firm Scandinavian disc will probably be here tomorrow. I'll post screenshots in The Firm thread.

Ready: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=295

Now to watch this film I haven't even seen before

[Jodi]

How about The Core?

[yetanotherone]

Originally Posted by Jodi

How about The Core?

It follows the same pattern of a late release in Scandinavia and Italy, so it should also be one of the improved discs based on what we have deduced so far! But there's only way to find out, and I'm not doing a second double buy for a film I don't even know if I'll like, so someone else should buy that one!

[Spartan21]

Can someone please tell me where I can purchase the Scandinavian releases of these movies?

Edit: Nevermind, I got it

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Hedrox

Amazon Italy is probably the most convenient way to get them:

The Firm
Vanilla Sky
Roman Holiday
The Truman Show
Beverly Hills Cop
Flashdance

Thanks mate. Are all these better than the Paramount 4Ks? Some of them seem to have identical artwork, so a bit confused. Do all of these have English subs?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by yetanotherone

It follows the same pattern of a late release in Scandinavia and Italy, so it should also be one of the improved discs based on what we have deduced so far! But there's only way to find out, and I'm not doing a second double buy for a film I don't even know if I'll like, so someone else should buy that one!

Originally Posted by Jodi

How about The Core?

The Core is from a completely separate distributor to Plaion or Paramount anyway, it's being released by Eagle and apart from Disnee stuff they almost always do their own encodes. (Which aren't always amazing in themselves but their worst is still betterer than the best of Paramount's b-team authoring house.)

[yetanotherone]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

The Core is from a completely separate distributor to Plaion or Paramount anyway, it's being released by Eagle and apart from Disnee stuff they almost always do their own encodes. (Which aren't always amazing in themselves but their worst is still betterer than the best of Paramount's b-team authoring house.)

Oh ok, if it's Eagle for Italy, I didn't check that at all, I was again talking about the Scandinavian release that came out just the previous month, alongside Vanilla Sky, The Firm, etc. https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-C...lu-ray/327934/

I kind of doubt that the Scandinavian release uses Eagle's encode, so maybe it's the same Paramount worldwide encode, or maybe it's a new one, who knows.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by yetanotherone

Oh ok, if it's Eagle for Italy, I didn't check that at all, I was again talking about the Scandinavian release that came out just the previous month, alongside Vanilla Sky, The Firm, etc. https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-C...lu-ray/327934/

I kind of doubt that the Scandinavian release uses Eagle's encode, so maybe it's the same Paramount worldwide encode, or maybe it's a new one, who knows.

Good shout, didn't realise there's a uniquely Scandi version of The Core too!

Edit: In some ways it's a blessing that Par didn't put a crap-ton of language options on these to start with. That they've been re-encoded with markedly superior compression could well be more thru luck than judgement i.e. their European arm has said 'right, we'd like to redo these for x markets' and they've done them using local authoring houses who actually give a crap, Par US said 'yeah, whatever, we're not doing them ourselves so knock yourselves out' but it could just as easily have been another two-bob outfit who took the money and just pressed a couple of buttons. In other words I don't think they deliberately sought to improve them, but I'll still take it!

Heck, if improved compression was actually sought out then maybe we'll all get the benefit on future releases, I mean Par already shifted their replication to Germany so why not move the authoring to this side of the pond as well? It's just data after all, it could be authored anywhere on the planet. Next thing you know they'll start putting OG audio on stuff automatically, then I'll know the world really has turned upside down

[Geoff D]

Ordered Vanilla Sky, Roman Holiday, BHC and Truman Show from Italy. Not bovvering with Flashdance because it's already got a decent enough encode and The Firm is far too expensive right now. Yes, I want to reward competence but for nearly £30 that'd better be Fidelity levels of compression goodness. I'll pick it up laterer.

Edit: and I don't think Roman Holiday is gonna majorly benefit from a new Bertie Big-Bollocks encode, but as I don't has it already on UHD I might as well have the bestest one, for what it's worth.

[Hedrox]

Originally Posted by lgans316

Thanks mate. Are all these better than the Paramount 4Ks? Some of them seem to have identical artwork, so a bit confused. Do all of these have English subs?

I don't know if they're all necessarily better until we see caps, but they're Plaion releases and they should have different encodes from the Paramount ones. And yes, they have English subtitles.

[Markgway]

Can anyone confirm that the Italian TRUMAN SHOW has the OG 5.1 track?

[Spartan21]

Is there a Scandinavian Truman Show version?

[NeilZ]

To be fair to the US Paramount releases, many of their HDR10 encodes are subpar (or even poor) but the Dolby Vision FEL really does improve the grain in a number of them quite significantly.

[bebbsie23]

I know it's a long shot, but I'd be curious to know if any of the European territories got an improved encode for Star Trek 2009. I notice the Scandinavian version has only two audio tracks and was released 3 months after U.S/U.K. etc.

[Ben_UK]

Do the Italian releases have DV?