Depends on the title, but the main issue with Kino specifically is that some of their discs are mastered at the wrong gamma level. Titles like THE REIVERS and SPACE CAMP are two of the most obviously affected, but there are actually a fair amount from the last few years that have this problem. On SPACE CAMP you can see matte lines you shouldn't be seeing, the entire brightness level is raised excessively high. It's something in their QC department that they've lacked over the years, and they ARE responsible for that. (If you do run into it, it can be solved by turning your TV's gamma level down a notch or, many times, two).Edmund Kattak wrote: ↑Tue Apr 28, 2020 2:04 pm Has Kino-Lorber been known for generally mediocre transfers? So far, the couple I have seem pretty grainy - like THE PACKAGE (1989).
As for THE PACKAGE itself -- which I don't think has a gamma problem -- there's such a thing as a "typical MGM catalog master" and that's pretty representative of it. Those are usually decent, better-than-DVD efforts, but you know they could be better if they were newly remastered. The majority of MGM titles that have been released on Blu-Ray -- be it from Kino, Twilight Time, Shout, Olive, etc. -- are from that batch which were probably done in the mid-late 2000's. They also populate the MGM HD channel and its broadcasts.
It's good, not great. Kino does do remastered transfers -- like MJ noted, they're usually marked as being 2K or 4K restorations. In the case of MGM, newer masters typically have a newer, "gold tinted" MGM logo before them (with Leo's eye up close before pulling out to the usual MGM logo).