US Olive Films Blu-ray OOP

US Olive Films Blu-ray OOP

Olive Films  Betty Boop: The Essential Collection: Volume 4 Blu-ray

Olive Films  Betty Boop: The Essential Collection: Volume 4 Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Streaming (Amazon US)

Amazon US Streaming is from the 2018 UCLA restoration. Olive Films Blu-ray is from an older scan and quite rough. caps

Olive Films Blu-ray is again rough, with distortion, crackle and other issues, but sounds much more natural. With some EQ the restored track can be significantly improved

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray

2017 Olive Films Signature Blu-ray. Jokers 4K has forced France subs

The Jokers 4K has raised black levels, good when fixed

1992 Republic Pictures LaserDisc?

Olive Films Blu-ray

Olive Films Blu-ray or France Rimini Blu-ray but no comparison, likely from the same source

Britain Arrow Blu-ray

Britain Arrow Blu-ray

Kino Lorber Blu-ray is significantly worse with potential DNR see caps

OOP Olive Films Blu-ray seems to be the same transfer as Arrow but with Quicktime Gamma Bug see comparison

MoC 4K Blu-ray

MoC 4K Blu-ray, both Kino Lorber and Germany Filmjuwelen 4K Blu-ray have poor encode. See nicolas review on Eureka Blu-ray. It seems the 4K restoration on that disc and the Olive Films Signature US release served as the basis for the HDR master Kino Lorber commissioned. There are the same traces of grain management in the opticals and the small number of shots from a lower quality source that were spliced in between the OCN footage. The SDR grayscale looks great though and after having compared everything, I would’ve preferred a 4K SDR release. The Eureka Blu-ray release wasn’t encoded by FiM and it shows. For those with the Blu-ray and an appreciation for optimal encoding, consider an upgrade.

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray: It seems that Kino Lorber commissioned the HDR/DV grade and some additional cosmetic work on the master. They used to mention "… brand new master by studio X" on their back covers when they were supplied with ready-made materials. This isn’t the case here but maybe someone’s in the know and things are different. The HDR grade is darker than the SDR one and flattened the grayscale quite significantly. I mentioned this in the Sabrina and Sunset Boulevard thread as well but I’m not really a fan of these grades and doubt that they’re enhancing the grayscales to make them appear more film-like. I’ve seen worse and it’s not the end of the world when the film is viewed in a dark environment but don’t expect anything as luminous and sparkly as The Big Heat. Kino Lorber’s encoding can be seen here via ko8ebryant’s caps.

Eureka 4K Blu-ray (BD-100): Same 4K master and same HDR grade as on the Kino Lorber 4K but now expertly encoded. Thanks to no compression anomalies standing in the way, we can now scrutinize the master much better. In comparison with the SDR master, I noticed that there are opticals that got hit with further noise reduction and sometimes egregiously so, such as in the scene with Grace Kelly at the train station at roughly 18 minutes into the film. Parts of that scene were sourced from a lower-quality source. In the HDR master, grain was practically erased altogether whereas in the 4K SDR master on the Eureka Blu-ray, grain is visible in the same shot despite the iffy encoding.

I’d still recommend the Eureka 4K Blu-ray as the OCN shots and scenes are frequently gorgeous, beautifully detailed and at most only minimally tampered with. The imperfect HDR grade bugs me but I’ll still use Eureka’s 4K Blu-ray for my future viewings due to the FiM encode.

Eureka 4K UHD image is frequently stunning and far better than the Kino UHD using the same master. (no surprise) However there is frozen grain throughout baked into the Paramount master, some shots are soft due to management (some are inherently soft) and the HDR is questionable in areas. In some areas the old Eureka BD using the same scan in SDR is preferable. As usual, the issues are Paramount's doing and the only way to escape them would be starting from scratch.

1992 Republic LaserDisc

Kino and Eureka UHDs have a mix of new and legacy extras. To have every supplement you will need both UHDs and the original Criterion Laserdisc for the exclusive commentary.

MoC > Olive Films, not sure about latest Paramount Blu-ray

MoC > Olive Films, not sure about latest Paramount Blu-ray

Eureka MoC Blu-ray

MoC better encode than Olive Films. Brightness levels vary quite a bit between them.

Eureka MoC Blu-ray

MoC better encode than 2016 Olive Films Signature

Pick your poison between Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray or 2018 Olive Films/BFI or 2012 Olive Films/Italy Sinister Films Blu-ray

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray is of a new very flawed Paramount "restoration". This 4K restoration has frozen grain, sharpening and handles lesser materials oddly. The supposed non-Superscope version is false advertising. It merely reveals more picture information and lots of debris. Pick your poison between Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray or 2018 Olive Films/BFI or 2012 Olive Films/Italy Sinister Films Blu-ray. The only video master that looks as good as it can for the respective format is the Criterion Collection CAV LaserDisc due to a lack of image processing.

1992 Republic Pictures LaserDisc PCM Mono BY FAR

Criterion LaserDisc has exclusive commentary. Olive Films Signature Blu-ray and BFI Blu-ray each have exclusive extras. Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has exclusive commentary.