New Criterion Collection Boxsets have a common issue... 

Also Elliot , you forgot to mention that with region A , they will won't play on European Bluray players ( unless you get a region free blu ray player , which a lot of people don't have) with the UK being part of European it is region B. I can't play blu rays from America or Asia. Unless the film/show are on region free discs

Some labs do not have any kind of quality control, neither incoming or outgoing.

It’s something that has become harder to ignore over time for me. Once you’ve spotted it, it’s hard to ignore - a bit of a curse in that sense! They could very easily fix these issues if they wanted to. Thanks for watching by the way. It’d be great to chat sometime about films and physical media if you’re up for it.

@@ElliotCoen it’s definitely much more prevalent with larger 4K televisions magnifying any kind of source or mastering issues! I’d love to have a chat sometime!!

They may not act like it, but all labels monitor review channels and forums. They know.

I have raised it with them but unfortunately I’ve never had a reply to my emails from Criterion HQ. I’d love to chat with them sometime soon

I never had their Pan’s Lab release but yeah, it’s been an issue for many years. I guess it’s wearing on me a bit more these days when I see such good work other labels do in that department

⁠@@ElliotCoen which labels would u recommend that practice good mastering and compression?

Hi John, I haven’t ever done that but it’s a great idea! I’ll put some plans together. Cheers!

Same with del Toro's Pinocchio.... How they could not notice this is beyond me. It's basically the first thing when you put in the disc. And that for the price.

@@marcus1333The Walkabout 4K is the same way. I thought there was something wrong with my disc at first. Maybe it’s a player issue.

@@ralphjenkins6223 I noticed something weird yesterday. This issue happens on my TV, but not on my beamer. Same player, same receiver. I cannot explain that (yet). Speculating I would say eARC gets in the way somewhere in this chain. Still, I blame this on the disc. I have hundreds of discs and this is the only one that has this issue. In my book this is then a disc issue until proven otherwise. A minor one I must say: the main feature plays fine.

Having the same issue with Mean Streets. Returned it twice to Barnes and Noble. Three discs in a row with no menu music, and they all freeze and stop working at the exact same spot.

I have an Oppo UDP 203 - now unavailable so I don’t know what I’d get as a replacement if this one broke!

Panasonic 9000 for video, Magnetar 800 for audio and video.

They pop up on most Criterion discs unfortunately but these two sets had more noticeable issues

Even more so, Akerman was vocal about cinema not being a competition, and disliking accolades and awards in general. Part of me thinks she’d turn in her grave seeing her films labeled as masterpieces or the greatest of all time!

Criterion have reviously released a (non-numbered) boxset on dvd with the word Masterworks in it: "Ingmar Bergman - Four Masterworks".

@@Kardinalinrome I did not know that. Thanks.

The new transfer of Le Samourai is head and shoulders above the old Criterion disc. I have the new Pathe blu-ray (which will use the same scan as Criterion) and it looks amazing.

​@@j0n.p I can't wait!!

Question, do your other 4K movies look good? Just wondering because I know that the first time I tried to watch a 4K I didn't understand the HDR and had to mess with the settings a bit on my player and TV. The 4K criterion reviews for Roaring 20s are extremely positive from what I've seen so it's possible your settings are not optimized for 4K.

@@ColombianThunder Nope. My other 4K discs look great. This one however looks like an old copy you may have seen on a local TV station. Just faded and lacking contrast

@@rickdrais9737 oh weird, very strange! I wish I had a copy. Is it possible your disc is defective? Find it odd no one else seems to mention this.

@@ColombianThunder Very possible. But the Blue Ray looks so good that I don’t care so much. Just a little odd

Have a quick search for macroblocking and you’ll find plenty on it. Sadly it’s been around for a long time!

banding is another similar issue which I have seen on numerous discs (including Criterions)

I would say that generally speaking, in terms of compression issues, Criterion, 88 Films, Imprint, Third Window, and Second Run have let me down the most. The best are generally Arrow, Indicator, Radiance, Eureka, Vinegar Syndrome. BFI is somewhere in the middle.

Indeed they would have. I don’t have the capacity to take any screenshots

Indeed, it’s in the mastering stage before the discs get printed

Eh it depends. Luckily pretty much every label and distributor offers a blu ray alongside the 4K and if they are from the same scan, the difference is honestly not very noticeable (if the 4K doesn't have HDR). Personally I think that HDR if done well enhances the image a lot without changing the original piece. There are moments when they mess up, but really this can be true of even blu-rays. I think it will be pretty sustainable. Basically every thing including even video games have adopted HDR. It's simply now and the future. The biggest issue with HDR is not necessarily hardware but that it's entirely optimization dependent. Most people will try HDR with the wrong settings and then they complain that it looks bad because their settings have either off or it's in conflict with their player and TV or they have some other AI smoothing or upscaling thing turned on. Of course it's okay to not like it, even with everything right haha.

@@ColombianThunder Kino and Criterion have neglected to give out accompanying blu-rays to recent releases. Ditto for the new Chinatown and Pulp Fiction restorations. I'm sure there's dozens more big titles that I can't think of doing the same. Hope it's not a trend, as I'm not 100% sold on it staying around forever. There's been lots of things that have come and gone.

@@j0n.p really? I swear every Criterion 4K has come with a blu ray as well. I know Kino doesn't though which is a shame. I know Arrow at least releases them separately so you don't get both at once.

A film negative isn’t limited to the constraints of digital colour. So technically HDR should allow a film to look closer to what it should - however your point is totally valid, as many companies love messing with colours too much, but they do that regardless of whether it’s HDR or SDR. HDR is quickly becoming the industry standard when it comes to digital cinematography so I don’t expect it to go anywhere - and I think shot on film movies will only benefit if treated properly.

​@@URBONED We can disagree about the first part, but what worries me is, most people (not us) are VERY slow to adapt to newer technology. With streaming, disc sales are already super low, and from the lastest data I could find, dvd's still make up the bulk of media sales (51.5%) with blu-ray's at (34.5%) and 4K at (14%). Most people haven't gone to blu-ray, let alone 4K. Blu-ray's play easily on any TV. You need compatible hardware (TV and 4K blu-ray player) to even play the new discs. I have to be honest, on my 65" Sony, I rarely see enough of a difference between the 2 to even care. Then if I want to watch special features, I have to put in another disc, since the 4K disc is usually just the movie. On top of all that, my problem with HDR and the encoding/authoring nightmares it can introduce. It does have some advantages, however. A longer movie can have bit rates in the 50's or 60's, lowering the risk of compression artifacts. I just see more cons than pros, unfortunately. That's why when Kino releases Paths of Glory in 4K HDR only, I think it's a huge mistake, given the percentage of the market that even cares. Ultimately, it's just a way for us to buy the same movie again.

I think most people don't really notice it. Criterion's compression is definitely not the best, but it's also negligible to the average person, just on the threshold of looking good for most people. It's also entirely dependent on the size of your TV and how far or close you're sitting from it. I remember people were complaining about the compression once for The New Three Colors transfer, comparing it to a release from a different label and I needed someone to point me to a specific thing to look at and zoom in for me to even notice.

@@ColombianThunder Notice I said "reviewers" and not "most people".

@@wright96d I think reviewers can just as easily not notice. Some people (including reviewers) are just not as attuned or to picking up on something like that

@@ColombianThunder A reviewer that can't pick up on these things probably shouldn't be a reviewer.

@@wright96d I don't disagree