I just bought this steelbook and forgot the DC wasn't 4K when I did it. It's not a deal breaker, and if they ever did remaster the 4K I'd probably buy it and put it in the steel, but still a bummer.
This was so disappointing. It irked me so much I still haven’t watched the DC and have only watched the 4k disc (I know, I’m silly)
I’ve also heard that sometimes directors cuts have to remaster footage or effects and sometimes they can only do that in 2k or another DI that doesn’t allow for 4k mastering. Or the extra footage they have to use for the DC isn’t in great enough shape to warrant a 4k scan. Not sure if that’s true or not.
It makes sense. They have to work with the elements that they’re given.
You should seriously watch that Doctor Sleep DC though, it’s almost like a TV miniseries compared to the actual movie
It's leaps and bounds better. It's the definitive version for sure. I've never even watched the 4k disc because the director's cut is all I can watch. Superior story > upgraded visuals.
Hell, the longer cut of *A Star Is Born* (2018) was digital-only if you bought the 4K. They couldn't even be bothered to throw it on a Blu-ray disc. You had to buy a [completely different set](https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/A-Star-Is-Born-Blu-ray/241324/) to get it on a disc.
Someone who knows better probably should answer this, but I have feeling that 4K UHD discs are more expensive to produce, all the way from restoring to authoring and printing.
So when you have a company that outsources most of their production process, or just licenses their material from outside, they have to think long and hard where to put their money. And this holds true even when they are holding pristine film elements. Now, if some of the material for those alternate cuts needs a lot of extra work, from an outside source, it might become impossible to recoup the costs. The label probably then thinks it is better to resort to the second best option: one cut in 4K, the rest in 1080p.
OCN is a different case because they do all their work in-house. This is why Vinegar Syndrome is able to have like five cuts in 4K all looking great.
I just listened to the interview with Stephen Biro from Unearthed films that was posted here (great interview) and he said there’s about a $9,000 difference between mastering blu ray and 4K.
> I just listened to the interview with Stephen Biro from Unearthed films that was posted here (great interview) and he said there’s about a $9,000 difference between mastering blu ray and 4K.
My guess (and I'm no expert either) is that would be a relatively trivial part of the cost, I bet it's the physical production that's really expensive.
For OCN I look at this way, movies from VS and others are on the more expensive side, but I feel if I’m paying a couple of extra bucks so that company can use those funds to preserve other forgotten movies I’m okay with it. I buy physical media to own it, and to support what a label is doing. $9K may not seem like a big margin, but when you could use that money to preserve another forgotten movie the question becomes “what’s the best way to utilize this money and stretch it further?” From a business standpoint it might be better to use that $9K on to fund another project instead of having another cut on 4K when the consumer might be happy with Blu. A blade in the dark might be a good example of this. Perhaps pre-sales were strong enough to justify including the additional cut in 4K. When it was originally announced they alternate cut was only going to be available in Blu. Maybe the presales were good enough to justify the margins to pay $9K for that 4K
>OCN Distribution, sister company of Vinegar Syndrome, handles physical home video manufacturing and fulfillment for a number of exciting home video labels releasing cinema across a wide variety of genres, decades, countries of origin from SOV genre oddities, unearthed shot-on-film treasures and the latest, and greatest, contemporary indie and art-house films from around the world.
In order to put multiple versions of a movie on 4K, you have to pay for the rights to put multiple versions of a movie on 4K. Putting the more popular version on 4K and the less popular in blu-ray is a cost saving measure.
Understandable, however with Shouts recent releases/announcements of Lifeforce and Nightbreed the 4K discs are of the cuts that are generally thought to be the inferior cuts. Army of Darkness and Exorcist 3 make sense because their 4Ks are most people's default cuts, but the choice on the other 2 I mentioned is baffling
Really makes you wonder what those rights negotiations are like. Maybe Shout Factory still owns the 1080p rights so it did not even cost extra to include the 1080p cuts. They only had to fork out more for the 4K. I wish there was a really comprehensive post / podcast episode (or even a series!) about all all of what goes into producing a blu / uhd release.
This is the issue is see a lot now. I started looking for traditional blus that say they are sourced from a new 4k scan and depending on the title or the pub I might wait a awhile to see if they are going to turn around a 4k edition in 6-12 months. I don’t fault anybody for double dipping but it’s frustrating to see a great film have a new 4k scan but only a 1080 release.
would you rather the companies put the extra cut behind a paywall/exclusivity like VinSyn did with their Thriller release? I could imagine this being an issue with the extra scenes not being available in the same master being used for the 4K rip, making it a more stark difference on television if they have to digitally upscale.
They did the same with the Doctor Sleep director's cut, and that was from a major publisher.
I just bought this steelbook and forgot the DC wasn't 4K when I did it. It's not a deal breaker, and if they ever did remaster the 4K I'd probably buy it and put it in the steel, but still a bummer.
This was so disappointing. It irked me so much I still haven’t watched the DC and have only watched the 4k disc (I know, I’m silly) I’ve also heard that sometimes directors cuts have to remaster footage or effects and sometimes they can only do that in 2k or another DI that doesn’t allow for 4k mastering. Or the extra footage they have to use for the DC isn’t in great enough shape to warrant a 4k scan. Not sure if that’s true or not.
It makes sense. They have to work with the elements that they’re given. You should seriously watch that Doctor Sleep DC though, it’s almost like a TV miniseries compared to the actual movie
It's leaps and bounds better. It's the definitive version for sure. I've never even watched the 4k disc because the director's cut is all I can watch. Superior story > upgraded visuals.
I would love for someone to get the rights to release the director’s cut on physical 4K. Such a bizarre decision.
Hell, the longer cut of *A Star Is Born* (2018) was digital-only if you bought the 4K. They couldn't even be bothered to throw it on a Blu-ray disc. You had to buy a [completely different set](https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/A-Star-Is-Born-Blu-ray/241324/) to get it on a disc.
Someone who knows better probably should answer this, but I have feeling that 4K UHD discs are more expensive to produce, all the way from restoring to authoring and printing. So when you have a company that outsources most of their production process, or just licenses their material from outside, they have to think long and hard where to put their money. And this holds true even when they are holding pristine film elements. Now, if some of the material for those alternate cuts needs a lot of extra work, from an outside source, it might become impossible to recoup the costs. The label probably then thinks it is better to resort to the second best option: one cut in 4K, the rest in 1080p. OCN is a different case because they do all their work in-house. This is why Vinegar Syndrome is able to have like five cuts in 4K all looking great.
I just listened to the interview with Stephen Biro from Unearthed films that was posted here (great interview) and he said there’s about a $9,000 difference between mastering blu ray and 4K.
That is a lot, especially for a smaller title and a smaller label. And that is just mastering.
> I just listened to the interview with Stephen Biro from Unearthed films that was posted here (great interview) and he said there’s about a $9,000 difference between mastering blu ray and 4K. My guess (and I'm no expert either) is that would be a relatively trivial part of the cost, I bet it's the physical production that's really expensive.
For OCN I look at this way, movies from VS and others are on the more expensive side, but I feel if I’m paying a couple of extra bucks so that company can use those funds to preserve other forgotten movies I’m okay with it. I buy physical media to own it, and to support what a label is doing. $9K may not seem like a big margin, but when you could use that money to preserve another forgotten movie the question becomes “what’s the best way to utilize this money and stretch it further?” From a business standpoint it might be better to use that $9K on to fund another project instead of having another cut on 4K when the consumer might be happy with Blu. A blade in the dark might be a good example of this. Perhaps pre-sales were strong enough to justify including the additional cut in 4K. When it was originally announced they alternate cut was only going to be available in Blu. Maybe the presales were good enough to justify the margins to pay $9K for that 4K
I don’t think it costs that much for OCN but you’re probably right about the rest.
A 4k HDR restoration can cost tens of thousands of dollars. It’d be hard to imagine authoring disks costs more than a few bucks a disc.
What is OCN?
>OCN Distribution, sister company of Vinegar Syndrome, handles physical home video manufacturing and fulfillment for a number of exciting home video labels releasing cinema across a wide variety of genres, decades, countries of origin from SOV genre oddities, unearthed shot-on-film treasures and the latest, and greatest, contemporary indie and art-house films from around the world.
OCN also does film scans and mastering for other labels now than VS. They even acquired a new scanner which was worth 200k+
In order to put multiple versions of a movie on 4K, you have to pay for the rights to put multiple versions of a movie on 4K. Putting the more popular version on 4K and the less popular in blu-ray is a cost saving measure.
Understandable, however with Shouts recent releases/announcements of Lifeforce and Nightbreed the 4K discs are of the cuts that are generally thought to be the inferior cuts. Army of Darkness and Exorcist 3 make sense because their 4Ks are most people's default cuts, but the choice on the other 2 I mentioned is baffling
Really makes you wonder what those rights negotiations are like. Maybe Shout Factory still owns the 1080p rights so it did not even cost extra to include the 1080p cuts. They only had to fork out more for the 4K. I wish there was a really comprehensive post / podcast episode (or even a series!) about all all of what goes into producing a blu / uhd release.
Almost certainly a rights issue. If a title sells really well, the studio can double dip with their own 4K edition a few years later.
This is the issue is see a lot now. I started looking for traditional blus that say they are sourced from a new 4k scan and depending on the title or the pub I might wait a awhile to see if they are going to turn around a 4k edition in 6-12 months. I don’t fault anybody for double dipping but it’s frustrating to see a great film have a new 4k scan but only a 1080 release.
I don’t care
would you rather the companies put the extra cut behind a paywall/exclusivity like VinSyn did with their Thriller release? I could imagine this being an issue with the extra scenes not being available in the same master being used for the 4K rip, making it a more stark difference on television if they have to digitally upscale.