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Warning: Alien 3 Strato V Update

LoveCinema

Well-known member
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Joined
Nov 27, 2023
Messages
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Head's up folks: Alien 3 has received a Strato V Compatibility Update. Unfortunately, it appears that the update strips the Special Edition cut. I'm unsure if the expectation is that this will return in the future (ala Extras) or if we're down to just the Theatrical Cut (like Bad Santa).

Personally, I expect the Special Edition WILL return in time. Although there has technically been a change of hands from 20th to Disney, Alien 3 is still widely distributed to other digital stores as a package of the Theatrical and Special Edition cuts (unlike Bad Santa, which is now sold as three separate products).

However, I thought I'd throw a notice out there for folks that might have non-Strato V players in their environment but are grabbing HD Compatibility updates. Consider yourselves warned.
 
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Yeah, I noticed the same thing. I'm excited to check out the new theatrical encode (video bitrate looks much improved) but the longer cuts are my preferred version(s).
 
Yeah, I noticed the same thing. I'm excited to check out the new theatrical encode (video bitrate looks much improved) but the longer cuts are my preferred version(s).
Let me know how it looks. I'm probably going to hold off for the time being; no Strato V here so no urgency to lose the Special Edition.

I noticed that The Breakfast Club got updated too. That's one that clearly had an old/inferior encode, and I wrote K about it. I'm hoping that they got a new source for the update. It's in the download queue so I guess I'll know tonight.
 
This is weird to me. Aren't we always told that if you purchase a title, it remains yours even if it vanishes from the store. Getting rid of a cut of a movie like this is a pretty egregious violation of that rule. Especially if it was done without notifying the customer in advance.
 
This is weird to me. Aren't we always told that if you purchase a title, it remains yours even if it vanishes from the store. Getting rid of a cut of a movie like this is a pretty egregious violation of that rule. Especially if it was done without notifying the customer in advance.
Unfortunately it happens but rarely. One example I can remember of, is the update of the 25th Anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts. I was really not happy about it as performances like the Metallica/Ozzy performing “Paranoid” together and some others were removed without any notice.
 
This is weird to me. Aren't we always told that if you purchase a title, it remains yours even if it vanishes from the store. Getting rid of a cut of a movie like this is a pretty egregious violation of that rule. Especially if it was done without notifying the customer in advance.
For what it’s worth, K has been very clear that they’re focusing on movies first and so you may see Extras temporarily stripped during updates. If they consider the Special Edition an Extra (even though it was not presented as one on this title) then K has informed us. As stated, I’m expecting it to come back. But, given what happened with Bad Santa, it’s worth being cautious with this update.
 
Let me know how it looks. I'm probably going to hold off for the time being; no Strato V here so no urgency to lose the Special Edition.
It's on my wish list now..waiting for a sale. :sneaky:

I did D2D The Change-Up, Fred Claus, The Rundown, Scooby-Doo, and Seven's new encodes. I sampled all of them outside of The Change-Up and Fred Claus seemed to be a definite improvement over the blu (but it's no jaw-dropper), Rundown and Scooby were incremental improvements, and Seven was already a smokin' good Blu and the newer K encode is also smokin' (not much room for improvement).
 
It's on my wish list now..waiting for a sale. :sneaky:

I did D2D The Change-Up, Fred Claus, The Rundown, Scooby-Doo, and Seven's new encodes. I sampled all of them outside of The Change-Up and Fred Claus seemed to be a definite improvement over the blu (but it's no jaw-dropper), Rundown and Scooby were incremental improvements, and Seven was already a smokin' good Blu and the newer K encode is also smokin' (not much room for improvement).
Thanks for the updates.

I just checked out Breakfast Club, and it's the same old assets at play. Honestly, I'd recommend Apple's stream over the K download. If you want it to look it's best, grab the Criterion Disc.
 
Thanks for the updates.

I just checked out Breakfast Club, and it's the same old assets at play. Honestly, I'd recommend Apple's stream over the K download. If you want it to look it's best, grab the Criterion Disc.
If you want to save a bit more, the Universal 30th Anniversary Edition BD has the same video transfer as Criterion, it doesn't have the mono track but still looks great.
 
This is unfortunate, I'm happy I already have the previous version downloaded. I have a feeling the SE version will be added by K hopefully soon. On the other hand, it would have been nice to get a heads-up from K before this happened so anyone could have downloaded the existing version before it was updated.
 
If you want to save a bit more, the Universal 30th Anniversary Edition BD has the same video transfer as Criterion, it doesn't have the mono track but still looks great.
Ah, thanks for this info! This is probably the source for other digital stores as well. We were having a movie night with guests and The Breakfast Club was chosen. I checked it out on K a few days in advance and was surprised to find unsteady image and some blown out reds. After comparing to every other streaming source and finding K's offering lacking, I opted for the Criterion disc. There was likely some cleanup done for the 30th disc that you mentioned with new assets distributed, but K missed out. Hopefully that gets addressed at some point.
This is unfortunate, I'm happy I already have the previous version downloaded. I have a feeling the SE version will be added by K hopefully soon. On the other hand, it would have been nice to get a heads-up from K before this happened so anyone could have downloaded the existing version before it was updated.
Given K's warnings about the Strato V HD update process, I preemptively went through my collection and downloaded anything I thought might get compromised. I'm fortunate to have the storage to do such a thing, and to date there are 80+ HD updates I won't take due to loss of Extras, downgrade of Extras, or Alternate Cuts being removed. Efforts are no where near complete, so I'm just sitting by and being patient to see how it all sorts out. I do expect to see more permanent changes like Bad Santa, but I know K will do their best to minimize this.
 
Ah, thanks for this info! This is probably the source for other digital stores as well. We were having a movie night with guests and The Breakfast Club was chosen. I checked it out on K a few days in advance and was surprised to find unsteady image and some blown out reds. After comparing to every other streaming source and finding K's offering lacking, I opted for the Criterion disc. There was likely some cleanup done for the 30th disc that you mentioned with new assets distributed, but K missed out. Hopefully that gets addressed at some point.

Given K's warnings about the Strato V HD update process, I preemptively went through my collection and downloaded anything I thought might get compromised. I'm fortunate to have the storage to do such a thing, and to date there are 80+ HD updates I won't take due to loss of Extras, downgrade of Extras, or Alternate Cuts being removed. Efforts are no where near complete, so I'm just sitting by and being patient to see how it all sorts out. I do expect to see more permanent changes like Bad Santa, but I know K will do their best to minimize this.
Any chance you can post a list? Or am I asking a dumb question that has already been answered. Also, any hints on how to get rid of a Strato C that is less than a year old. Thank you!
 
Any chance you can post a list? Or am I asking a dumb question that has already been answered.
Let me clean it up a bit and I'll follow up.
Also, any hints on how to get rid of a Strato C that is less than a year old. Thank you!
Just post it in the Marketplace section of the forum. Strato C's are still highly sought after, as they can offer a superior experience for people with projectors, large screens, and Terras. Look at prior For Sale posts and you'll see that they go quickly.
 
Any chance you can post a list?
As requested, below. Please be aware that K has repeatedly stated that all HD Extras are expected to return in HD.

Here's my current list of updates on hold (87 movies as of 10/28/24), along with the reason:
  • SD Extras: Extras have been downgraded from HD to SD
  • Removed Extras: Extras have been removed completely.
  • Removed Extras; SD Extras: Some Extras have been removed, some Extras remain in SD only.
There are also notes for the removal of alternate cuts or the merging of downloads. With merged downloads, for my specific use case, this means that I'll have to use up more Terra space than I do today in order to take the update. (Example: I want a single alternate cut but the cuts have now been merged into a single download.)
StratoVUpdatesOnHold.jpg
 
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Whilst I haven't checked every title with similar problems I assume that these types of 'issues' are only applicable to purchases from the US store and won't affect purchases made in the UK store. In this particular case though it's irrelevant, as I don't think any of the Aliens franchise has ever been for sale through the UK store, but for other titles these sorts of schenanigans could be more than a tad problemmatic.
 
Whilst I haven't checked every title with similar problems I assume that these types of 'issues' are only applicable to purchases from the US store and won't affect purchases made in the UK store. In this particular case though it's irrelevant, as I don't think any of the Aliens franchise has ever been for sale through the UK store, but for other titles these sorts of schenanigans could be more than a tad problemmatic.
It's clear at this point that K is treating alternate cuts as "Extras." For the vast majority of alt cuts in the K Store, they appear as an alternate feature on the listing, which is FAR better than appearing in the Extras menu. But, for the purpose of HD Compatibility Updates, the alt cuts are Extras to K. So this is affecting many titles beyond the Aliens franchise, and I'm assuming it would affect all regions.

Examples from today include That Thing You Do!, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Green Lantern. The references to alternate versions on all of those listings have disappeared. Again, I expect these to return in time.* These posts are purely intended to inform people that DON'T rely exclusively on a Strato V, have the movies downloaded, and want to keep the alternate cuts until they return.

I intend to inform, not alarm.

*I have no doubt that we'll again see issues like Bad Santa, where the distributor changed and the product owned by users was swapped out. However, I'm sure K will try their best to minimize this.
 
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