I'll wait to see what the reviews are of this disc, because reviews of Kino's BDs generally complain about Kino's encodes. That's in part because Kino is cheap (in the pejorative sense of the term) and puts everything on a BD25, but even their rare BD50s seem to come off poorly compared to lndicator or Eureka region B releases of the same titles. Kino's penchant for cheap comes through again with their announcement that it's an SDR disc, and it looks like they dropped restoration efforts so the source flaws will be magnified in 4k. They also don't say that a new 4k scan of the OCN was done. If they can't do it right why do it at all?

Yeah...I don't think they should have added that as a "bragging" point. The forum at blu-ray.com just exploded, I am sure.

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital) - March 30, 2021

https://www.target.com/p/kingsglaive...1/-/A-82111240

30 hours of color grading may not sound like a lot, but that's probably way more than most catalog titles get. One big reason teal-and-orange became such a fad is that it's super easy to just turn up the blue and green dials and let teal drown out every other color in the image. You can bang that crap out practically in real-time while the movie plays through once. Not much supervision or adjustment required.

To that end, four business days earmarked just for color grading? Probably not so bad.

The movie already had a 4K scan done a few years ago. Assuming that the raw scan data (prior to the ugly yellow grading L’Imaggine Ritrovata gave the eventual video master) is still available, there's no need to scan it again.

Scanning the negative is not something you can or should do every day. Every time you unroll the OCN and put it in a scanner, you risk adding wear and tear to the physical film elements. The OCN should be archived for preservation with as little use as necessary.

30 hours of grading is far more than most catalog transfers get these days.

And I wouldn't worry about Goodfellas, Warner likes pulling popular movies in and out print every so often for reasons known only to their accountants. It's almost like a mini-vault strategy they use borrowed from Disney. I'm sure Goodfellas UHD will come back at some point. There are no rights issues.

I will stay cautiously excited about Kino's release. At least they put some effort into the complaints people have had. Is there anyone else lined up to spend the money and make this release happen? Unfortunately, probably not, so I'll see what Kino can do with it.

If Kino got their hands on the raw 4k scan, maybe this will come out ok. Though if I had to guess, I'd say they're just going to try and correct the previous grade. And even if they did get the raw scan, I don't particularly trust them to do a competent job. What are they using for references? The last go around they just sort of eyeballed it and then got pissy when people who know better pointed out their shortcomings. The various UK boutique labels are the only ones I would trust with this sort of project sight unseen. Not even Criterion at this point. Prove me wrong Kino!

As I recall, for the last release Kino just tried to dial the yellow out of the MGM master, leaving other colors however that happened to look afterwards. Which, yeah, didn't turn out great.

Some occasional screw-ups like that one notwithstanding, I don't have quite as negative opinion on Kino as a whole as you do. Even that one I think was mostly a budgetary issue and lack of resources. It sounds like they're trying to do better this time. I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and will at least wait for reviews before writing this off.

Sure, but when a proper 4k master is used it's usually advertised, either by saying "new 4k scan" (even if they're really reusing an existing 4k scan) or "from a 4k scan". This press release says neither, which makes me wonder if Kino upscaled an HD master.

Kino rep:
”We only had an UHD-SDR master for the longer cut, it's the same transfer, but the theatrical cut which we created back in 2017, was only available in regular HD from the same 4K scan.

We could care less about the so called "controversy". We were very happy with our 2017 release and since it's by far tour best selling KLSC release, most of the fans agree.”

Kino Insider is the literal worst.

I saw this on Amazon

It came out on Nov 3, 2020

Digital looks great, I’ll pick this up when there’s a sale for it.

To anyone who bought the Midsommar 4K UHD from A24, check your discs.

Other forums have posted that their discs are freezing in various places in the film. I had mine happen around the 57-58 minute mark pretty badly, which was common on other forums as well.

A24 have replacement discs, you just have to contact them via email.

Pull Back Camera is selling Fanny Lye Deliver'd directly (and exclusively) on Ultra HD Blu-ray. It's a really nice package, and they got Fidelity in Motion to handle the encoding, so that end of things should be top-notch. The downside is that it's over $50 shipped to the U.S. I'm thinking about it, though...

Soderbergh has been talking about putting out a box set of some of his early work. Many thought it would come from Criterion, but it seems like he is putting it out himself through his website.

If ever there was evidence Criterion had no intention of going 4k anytime soon, this would be it.

I will absolutely buy that set.

They won't act on it. Although, A good Criterion move would be to offer 4K versions on their channel. I guarantee you that would increase some subscriptions. I'd join.

Official artwork TBD.

Gravity!!!

I'd love to finally get the extended cut of Godzilla 2014 we were told about.

Some good titles there. I’d like to get Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Shawshank Redemption, and maybe the Snyder Cut as well as Batman V Superman.

In for A Clockwork Orange. I also doubt that is the cover art for any of those since it is WB releasing them. The monkeys with crayons are probably still working on the art.

I didn't see Batman V Superman in that pic, there's a movie called The Battle is Bigger in IMAX on there though.