Blu-ray Review A Few Words About A few words about…™ Secret of the Incas – in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[SD_Brian]

This is one of those who wore it better difficult moments.

I don't know if Harrison Ford could rock that scarf as hard as Charlton Heston did.

 

[SD_Brian]

They have the rights, but the fact that “commercially available” recordings exist does not mean that Paramount has access to them. To simply use a commercially available recording for remastering may be available to end users under the Fair Use doctrine, but a studio would want access to original masters for best possible quality, much like you want to work from at least an IP for the video master. They’d have to pay for that access.

And, if they did take on the effort and expense to upgrade the music, Paramount/Kino would be lambasted by the audio-purists for tinkering with the original sound mix. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

This is a tough one. The 2023 Kino is definitely sharper, the sound is quite a bit crisper in tone, and it is free of the blue splotches that mar many scenes compared to the 2022 Imprint Blu-ray. But as far as eye-popping color goes, well… It would seem that perhaps a few more adjustments could’ve been made for the new 4K-sourced master. It’s possible some scenes should appear rather dark and bluish in keeping with the nighttime setting of some scenes, but I do wonder if perhaps a few adjustments should’ve been made throughout this new master so that the color had some of the richness (but not the oversaturation) of the prior release.

The colored halos and fringing are definitely gone. I only noticed the very different color scheme in some scenes when making this A/B comparison video, which includes a few shots at twice the size to show up the sharpness difference.



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I was looking at these caps again. The blue "splotches" and other anomalies can be attributed to misalignment in the element [note the green and blue fringing on Heston's white shirt]. The Imprint also looks artificially boosted, so while the flesh tones may be more pink and other colours more bold, I'd lean towards the Kino as being more accurate to source.