Pump Up the Volume (1990)
Music, Drama • 1h 45m
Director: Allan Moyle
Cast: Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Annie Ross, Scott Paulin, Mimi Kennedy, Andy Romano, Keith Stuart Thayer, Cheryl Pollak, Jeff Chamberlain, Lala Sloatman, Holly Sampson, Seth Green, Robert Schenkkan, Ellen Greene, Anthony Lucero, Billy Morrissette, Ahmet Zappa, Matt McGrath, James Hampton, Nolan Hemmings, Virginya Keehne, Lin Shaye, Annie Rusoff, Jonathan Mazer, Alexander Enberg, Robert Gavin, Dan Eisenstein, Mark Ballou, Daryl Sebert, Gregg Daniel, Marc Siegler, Ariana Mohit, Jill Jurres, Justin Hessling, Jay Lambert, Allan Kolman, Clayton Landey, David McKnight, Tony Auer, Paulette Ballock, Robert Harvey, Chris Jacobs, Steve Archer, Larry Clardy, John K. Shull, Michele Bernath, Steph DuVall, Sherri Shaffner, Roger Scott, Gary Dubin, Nigel Gibbs, David C. Glasser, John Pinero, Juliet Landau, Ed Trotta, Kenny McMurphy
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 11 months ago
Overview
Mark Hunter, a lonely high school student, uses his shortwave radio to moonlight as the popular pirate DJ "Hard Harry." When his show gets blamed for a teen committing suicide, the students clash with high school faculty and the authorities.
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
TV series
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative for all episodes
Director: John Ford
Sources: ibb.co (opens in a new tab)
Warner Archive Blu-ray is 4K restoration from nitrate projection elements
Germany Filmjuwelen Blu-ray is AI upscaled https://ibb.co/album/mCJ7RQ
Director: Norman Taurog
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Delbert Mann
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
More Music on Blu-ray
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Shout Factory Blu-ray
Shout's BD has both cuts of the film in addition to the 3.0 stereo and 2.0 mono mixes making it the first time the full theatrical cut is available with the 3.0 mix. The new commentary is good. The 3.0 stereo sounds wonderful and the mono sounds solid.
That's where the positives end. This is the same terrible Universal DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc with a terrible encode making both versions share the disc separately taking up more space. This master was already poor for DVD and is nearly unwatchable here on the Shout disc. It looks virtually identical to the upscaled DVD most of the time with only a bit less noise due to it being 1080p. This is one of the most appalling cases of "DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc" you can possibly find. Absolutely shameful video presentation. This should have never been released this way. Sadly it's still ever so slightly better than the DVD and the only way you get the proper theatrical cut with lossless 3.0 stereo. This is still the best source we have for the film.
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has excellent master in SDR and a good encode. BD caps here.
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor audio: The 2.0 is fine but unremarkable, the 5.1 is presumably an upmix with a botched, strongly raised LFE channel which makes the entire track unlistenable on well-tuned equipment. Audio graphs here.
Director: Sian Heder
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Apple TV 4K Blu-ray with Atmos
(Eagle Pictures is 5.1)
Director: Miloš Forman
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray
Extended: Warner Bros Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray: Huge improvement in colors and detail. The restoration was done by the Academy instead of WB MPI which explains that there’s no grain management or issues with colors. They also accessed the original credit optical and scanned that one instead of recreating them digitally
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray, according to Saentz, the 5.0 is a recreation of the original and subsequently 70mm mix from original elements.
Director: Sidney Lumet
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray replacement disc for fixed audio (there were some dialogues missing)
While the video on the replacement disc is exactly the same as the original release, the Atmos with missing lines has been corrected as it was also corrected on the Criterion commentary. Criterion also included the 6-track which is almost identical to the PAL track; It’s 4.0 in a 5.1 container. This 6-track is slightly better than the PAL DVD track as the PAL has some flutter on some parts that Criterion doesn’t have.
The Atmos on the replacement is identical to the Imprint AUS Blu-ray track which also has all the lines. The compatibility track is also the same,
It is worth mentioning the Imprint only has the Atmos and no 6-track. The 5.1 surround is with LFE and split surrounds and it’s just a downmix of the Atmos. Ditto for the LPCM 2.0 on said Blu-ray.
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