UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ CITIZEN KANE -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[david hare]

I had thought you were referring to the page in the shot prior. Yes, the MS page is quite legible - in the Warner BD. And as you can see the wide shot with Cotton visible is there too. I am in complete agreement with you about the probably original intention to have the faces barely visible in that shot. As for the library scene shots the whited out page just looks wrong now. I'm not usually given to these notions but frankly I would have really preferred UHDs of things like Sony's gorgeous 4K of Lady from Shanghai, and I am looking forward to next year's proposed 4K set of Touch of Evil.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Website Wellesnet is reporting a possible problem on the Blu-ray disc of the upcoming release. Received my shipping notice from Best Buy and will get my copy soon and look for myself.

Problem with 'Citizen Kane' 4K UHD, Blu-ray set?

The problem reportedly involves a dramatic shift in video quality 30 minutes into the film.

www.wellesnet.com

 

[Robert Harris]

Website Wellesnet is reporting a possible problem on the Blu-ray disc of the upcoming release. Received my shipping notice from Best Buy and will get my copy soon and look for myself.

Problem with 'Citizen Kane' 4K UHD, Blu-ray set?

The problem reportedly involves a dramatic shift in video quality 30 minutes into the film.

www.wellesnet.com

I can confirm the problem, which only affects the Blu-ray. It has little to do with Criterion, and is mostly a final QC authoring error, handled by outside vendors.

I’m certain there will be replacents.

This in no way affects the 4k release.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Have been buying Criterion for many years and i think this is a first time for me that i will have to receive a replacement disc. Getting mine tomorrow and if i see the issue i will have to send them a email.

 

[Nelson Au]

Interesring, I literally ordered this disc from Amazon this morning, maybe I should cancel it. I know the reports and RAH said the 4K disc is not affected, but I do want the standard blu ray too.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Mine will be in my hands tomorrow. Cancelling orders seems like it would create more problems than fixing them at this point since it's obviously something they'd replace.

I've only had to get one replacement from Criterion and it was a missing disc (the films about Jacques Demy) in the Varda set. Even with nobody in the office, I had the disc in my hands within two weeks (and gave me an excuse to go through half of the Demy box set)

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Patrick, I was leaning towards leaving the order alone and letting it go through.

 

[dpippel]

My order stands as well. Criterion will take care of any problem with the Blu-ray.

 

[JediFonger]

should they
take the 4k disc back and fix dolby vision that is overblown as well?

 

[David_B_K]

Interesring, I literally ordered this disc from Amazon this morning, maybe I should cancel it. I know the reports and RAH said the 4K disc is not affected, but I do want the standard blu ray too.

I was on the verge of canceling my Blu-ray only order, but the price is down to $24.99 now at Amazon. No telling what it will be if I cancel and reorder sometime in the future. Also, when there is a defective issue, there is always the potential problem that the marketplace is flooded with the defective versions. I'll just leave mine sealed in the package and wait to hear if there is a replacement program. If there isn't, I'll return the unopened package to Amazon.

 

[TravisR]

Mine will be in my hands tomorrow. Cancelling orders seems like it would create more problems than fixing them at this point since it's obviously something they'd replace.

I've only had to get one replacement from Criterion and it was a missing disc (the films about Jacques Demy) in the Varda set. Even with nobody in the office, I had the disc in my hands within two weeks (and gave me an excuse to go through half of the Demy box set)

Yeah, I think Criterion is small enough that an issue like this gets immediate focus and is fixed ASAP. Does anyone remember the last-minute recall of Dressed To Kill that made them move the release date? I think the corrected one was in stores in about a month. Not to say that replacement discs for this will or won't take that long but my point is that they seem to get things fixed pretty quickly when there's a problem.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

In my experience Criterion has made such fixes when necessary and their replacement programs have been very customer-friendly.

 

[tenia]

I can confirm the problem, which only affects the Blu-ray. It has little to do with Criterion, and is mostly a final QC authoring error, handled by outside vendors.

I’m certain there will be replacents.

This in no way affects the 4k release.

It's up to the label to QC the finalised disc. While Pixelogic has a responsibility over properly encoding their discs (not that they haven't been making sub-optimal BDs for years for Criterion though), Criterion has a responsibility over checking the final product. It's quite erroneous and misleading to de-responsibilise them this way (not that I don't trust them with making good here).
Simple exemple : David Mackenzie has been doing all Carlotta's encodes for some years : of course Carlotta still QC the final product, at least because David most likely doesn't have a good enough level of French to check everything.

Moreover, the argument only works if Pixelogic had to do the SDR conversion, something that I'd suppose should be performed at the restoration lab (since they're the ones handling the color grading, which should also include SDR), not at the authoring house. It'd then mean Pixelogic encoded whatever they were given.

 

[Robert Harris]

It's up to the label to QC the finalised disc. While Pixelogic has a responsibility over properly encoding their discs (not that they haven't been making sub-optimal BDs for years for Criterion though), Criterion has a responsibility over checking the final product. It's quite erroneous and misleading to de-responsibilise them this way (not that I don't trust them with making good here).
Simple exemple : David Mackenzie has been doing all Carlotta's encodes for some years : of course Carlotta still QC the final product, at least because David most likely doesn't have a good enough level of French to check everything.

Moreover, the argument only works if Pixelogic had to do the SDR conversion, something that I'd suppose should be performed at the restoration lab (since they're the ones handling the color grading, which should also include SDR), not at the authoring house. It'd then mean Pixelogic encoded whatever they were given.

These are not “restoration labs,” they’re post facilities, and generally outside vendors have the QC responsibility.

 

[Robert Crawford]

These are not “restoration labs,” they’re post facilities, and generally outside vendors have the QC responsibility.

To be fair, shouldn't somebody at Criterion at least watched the finished Blu-ray?

 

[tenia]

These are not “restoration labs,” they’re post facilities, and generally outside vendors have the QC responsibility.

The transfer supervisor and the colorist are both from Criterion Post anyway so following this, that means the technical HDR-SDR culprit would fall back on Criterion.
Then again, I do hope Criterion's own QC checks the final product.

 

[Robert Harris]

To be fair, shouldn't somebody at Criterion at least watched the finished Blu-ray?

Yes

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Have it and did some comparisons to my older Blu-ray disc. On the new Blu-ray around the 30 minute mark when the reporter (William Alland) finishes reading the private archive of Mr. Thatcher the image turns darker and lasts that way to the end. As for the 4K image it looks alright but to me a little on the dark side so on my tv i turned up the gamma setting.

 

[compson]

Criterion is offering replacements:

How to Get Your Citizen Kane Blu⁠-⁠ray Disc 1 Replaced

We discovered this weekend that there is a problem with Blu-ray disc 1 in all of our Citizen Kane editions that affects the contrast in the feature film. We’ll be making replacements available to all of our customers!

www.criterion.com

 

[Robert Crawford]

As for the 4K image it looks alright but to me a little on the dark side so on my tv i turned up the gamma setting.

This has been a constant complaint about 4K images from some people and a condition that I never have encountered to the degree that I had to comment about it.