Nothing Sacred (Blu-ray) (1937) UPDATED

[Brent_Reid]

The latest BD is cropped along the bottom edge, making it wider than 1.33:1. It wins for its audio commentary but even apart from the cropping, for different reasons the transfers are roughly even, despite the latest being restored. As for the footnotes, both BDs have "2K transfers"!

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

The new disc is from a 2K scan of the restored fine grain master. The old disc is a 2K scan from what?

[Brent_Reid]

Suggested new listing notes:

Old Kino:
Features a 2K scan of David O. Selznick's personal nitrate print

New kino:
Features a 2K scan of Disney's 1999 restoration

This is one of my fave films and I've been waiting literally since the restoration was first announced for it to be released on home vid. Regardless, I bought the first first Kino BD because it was still better than anything previously available. When Disney finally licensed their restoration to Kino (the one Kino wanted in the first place) I was overjoyed. But it's quite disappointing:

Old BD: sometimes a little washed out; apart from that, it's fine.

New BD: has a small amount of extra detail and more colour, but is often very over-saturated and much too dark overall. There are some serious Technicolor registration errors not present in the previous version, and then there's the cropping.

I don't understand why Kino bothered reissuing their BD, because it's clearly not a significant upgrade. It's possible any problems the film has could be fixed with more recent digital restoration tools.

On balance, I narrowly prefer the first BD and at best would say the new one is no better than even.

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

Suggested new listing notes:

Old Kino:
Features a 2K scan of David O. Selznick's personal nitrate print

New kino:
Features a 2K scan of Disney's 1999 restoration

I see the old Kino says "Mastered in HD from an original Technicolor nitrate 35mm print, preserved by George Eastman House Motion Picture Department."
and the new Kino says "Brand New HD Master from a 2K Scan of the Restored Fine Grain Master"

Where are you getting the info of both being 2K scans?

[Brent_Reid]

The listing for the new BD already mentions a 2K scan, as reported everywhere, including by Kino.

I can't find an online source (just ubiquitous mentions of the new BD) for the previous BD scan being 2K. But in 2012 or so, I clearly remember it being said of all five then new-to-BD films in the Kino Selznick Collection. I'm sure Kino can easily verify this, but unless you want to drop them a line, don't worry about it.

FWIW, for silent and classic-era titles, the overwhelming majority are still scanned and restored at 2K. Even the few expensive, high profile films that get scanned at 4K are usually still restored and timed at 2K. This is mainly due to time, cost and data storage issues.

[James-Masaki_Ryan]

I don't see any reason to change it if there's no confirmation. Just updated the wording in the notes for each.