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Livius1 |
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I think the point being made is that if the original elements are in less than stellar condition then HD can do nothing more than emphasise those deficiencies.
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dhtreptow |
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Livius1 wrote: I guess I'd rather have that then, warts and all. I just can't see the value of further degradation of an already compromised source. I could argue all the more reason to wring every last drop from it. This is also pretty relative to what exactly were talking about here. No, some crappy Alpha analog-tape master taken from a 16mm dupe is a hopeless case.
However, go back to the film on something like Devil Bat, Scared To Death, White Zombie, Most Dangerous Game... and you will most definitely top in HD what we
currently enjoy not-too-bad prints of on SD. In my view HD does it's part by getting the most of what exists into my living-room, it's not only for
that which can be made "perfect."
How well TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE looks in HD will be a good indicator of what can be done since it's from a 16mm neg. For me it will be of value if only
because I project on a 10ft. screen.
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Kezilla58 |
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dhtreptow wrote: Agreed. Before Dish Network ditched the VOOM HD channels, I DVRed BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, which looked stellar
(they indicated it had been mastered in 1080i). Count Gamula was over one night and was amazed by the quality and clarity of the picture. I also recorded DAY
THE EARTH STOOD still, which looks equally as excellent.
I'm still grousing about the loss of MONSTERS HD. Kezilla
Last Edited By: Kezilla58
07/02/08 7:29 PM.
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dhtreptow |
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I just read that the premo-HD-DVD transfer of ADVENTURES OF ROBBIN HOOD will gracing us on Blu-ray August 26th. Yeah!
Last Edited By: dhtreptow
07/02/08 6:40 PM.
Edited 1 times.
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Paul Denham |
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I would say B&W Academy ratio films are subject to the law of diminishing returns here- especially with problem sources. Didn't Columbia (now Sony)
have some catostrophic damage down to its holdings years ago? I thought I read that they lost a lot of the original elements/prints to much of their classic
catalog.
If that is the case, then HDs of dupe elements might just seem like a very, very low priority. Especially in a market that sees poor sales of one of, if not THE, most popular and well cared for B&Ws of all time. With economics the way they are, I'm going to have to curtail some of my HD upgrades in the future. And while something like Casablanca may look great in HD, 1.33:1 B&Ws are just not going to be a high priority for me to 'upgrade'. That said, my copies of Seventh Seal and Black Narcissus shipped out Monday and I'm greatly looking forward to both. And even though I just watched it recently, I'll be very tempted to give SS another spin to see how much a better, less distracting presentation might impact my appreciation of the content. |
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dhtreptow |
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Paul Denham wrote:I'm not sure why it makes a difference what the aspect ratio is, SD could potentially have enough space for HD on a short film, but 480p is 480p and 1080p is 1080p. No matter what way you slice it that's more true definition from film to disk to screen. I guess my point is that even if you have a third generation 35mm safety print as your source, it's not like there is less image to be scanned and compressed than if it were first generation. The computer doesn't know a good print from a bad one, it just knows the size of the file each frame accounts for, and when you compress that info you either lose some of what's there or not. A bad print can always look worse if the process of getting it to disk degrades it further. I'll wager that if you went to the 16mm print OLD DARK HOUSE was taken from, there is still more nuance in those dark areas to draw out, and even a little more detail in those darks would be a big plus given that films compromised state of preservation. It's never going to look better than a 16mm print if that's where it comes from, but I'd bet there is more yet to see on that print than made it to through to the DVD master (which I think is actually an analog laserdisc master).
Last Edited By: dhtreptow
07/03/08 1:09 AM.
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Professor X |
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dhtreptow wrote:
I'm not sure why it makes a difference what the aspect ratio is... I think the argument may be that many old B&W 1.33 films consist mainly of medium shots and closeups, and that DVD resolution is sufficient for those types of shots. Widescreen films generally have more long shots, and so will benefit more from HD resolution. I guess my point is that even if you have a third generation 35mm safety print as your source, it's not like there is less image to be scanned and compressed than if it were first generation. Isn't it possible though that underscanning a poor quality source might actually produce a better-looking - if not better quality - image? For example, the first half of the KING KONG DVD was obviously taken from a poor quality source (or sources), and the image looks really grainy, as if they deliberately left out pixels so as to mask what otherwise would've been a very blurry and poor quality image. I suppose you could generate this same effect in HD, but what would be the point of increasing the resolution only to then lower it? |
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taraco |
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My glimpses of the Voom Monster HD channel were tantalizing for a fan like me, and I wish it survived.
But truth is the channel wasn't very good. One or two movies showed endlessly over and over on a single day; not much additional programming; odd choices of films that would hardly attract anyone but crazies like us. If HD channels were everywhere, then Voom's monster offering could have survived in its niche. But when I was watching it at a friend's house, it was one of maybe a dozen HD channels, between ESPN2HD and H&GHD. If I was a 'regular' person, why would I want to surf past AT THE EARTH'S CORE, in all its HD detail, over and over? I don't blame the satellite or cable companies for dropping it. I blame the programmers who made the channel so on-the-cheap that it was barely above the level of HD public access. david |
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dhtreptow |
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Professor X wrote: Well, here you might be entering the realm of faux-grain introduced to a smooth master, my guess is that KING KONG was a HD master reduced to SD for the
DVD. A 9 GB 480 lpi disk is less transparent to the master and adds compression flaws that a 25-50 GB 1080 lpi disk does not.
Also don't forget that if you have a monitor of any size, a SD will blow-up with more loss than an image that is the correct size already. There's
just a lot more manipulation going on when you keep increasing and decreasing file size all at every step in between getting film to TV.
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dhtreptow |
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From Hi-Def digest
'Hellraiser,' 'Children of the Corn' Planned for Blu-ray |
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Kezilla58 |
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taraco wrote: I agree their scheduling was a pain (I always looked at it as giving me a lot of choices of when I'd DVR it). But they were always introducing cool new stuff to the mix on a monthly basis. I was just checking the schedule and they've got the Kong movies, FRANKENSTEIN VS. THE WOLFMAN, LAST MAN ON EARTH, the PLANET OF THE APES films, and a bunch of other keen stuff I'd like to have seen in HD. It was far from perfect, but it was getting better with age. Kezilla
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dhtreptow |
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BFI (British Film Institute) will be entering the realm of prestige Blu-ray releases with a bang by offering one of the most controversial films of all time,
Passolini's SALO; 120 DAYS OF SODOM on September 22nd, less than a month after Criterion launches their SD DVD. This is starting to get Interesting as it
will be region-free. I will no doubt suspend purchase of the Criterion in lue of this.
In other news Blue Underground has set a date for their first release, FINAL COUNTDOWN will hit October 28th. |
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JimPV |
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dhtreptow wrote: Yeah, I bet Criterion's thrilled about that...! |
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SiBurning |
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dhtreptow wrote: On audiophile message boards, a question that often comes up is do you listen to the music or the equipment? Some people are more sensitive to noise, and
choose to only listen to music that's has excellent recording and playback. There's even something called audiophile music that's acoustically
simple enough and orchestrated to limit the harmonics between instruments because harmonic interaction causes or sounds like a certain kind of blur. (Is there
a filmphile genre where the whole point is to cater to the equipment?) Then there's people like me that listen to old jazz recordings that have large
amounts of noise but still prefer to have it played back as faithful as possible so we can hear more of what was originally played by some great musicians that
we just can't hear any other way.
Last Edited By: SiBurning
07/04/08 10:51 AM.
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dhtreptow |
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JimPV wrote: Well, it's as I predicted BFI & EUREKA may well be handing Criterion it's "sh*t or get off the pot" ultimatum on getting Blu-rays
out, as no regional encoding and PAL/NTSC stuff makes imports a very viable option for anyone with a player. The SALO Blu-ray will probably show up at Xploited
for around $36, and the Criterion DVD is $39.95 (list).
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dhtreptow |
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SiBurning wrote: I'm someone who was once a film-on-film collector, so I tend to feel they've hit the mark when the image retains all it's detail and gradation, without using filters to then remove the actual medium from the transfer. They can clone out reel-change dots, scratches, and prop-up fading color all they want in the name of returning the image to an ideal of how it looked when new. So I'm not a total print-purist, I even like when they do things like simulate lost Technicolor sequences an the like. However, I feel there is an emergence of a "video aesthetic" which suggests that at this point and time we know how all this stuff
"should" look rather than how it does or did. Visual aesthetics can be given to fashion as technology changes, with the myopia of the moment
dictating how something a 100 years old ought to look from here on in, and to me that's way too short sighted, especially if there is no going back once
the original elements are no longer with us.
I worry that we are still plagued by the ghosts of formats that softened the film-look out of the finished product due to it's inability to capture it
in the first place, and what started as a limitation as evolved into a preference based mostly on familiarity.
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SiBurning |
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dhtreptow wrote: Maybe there will be a nice niche for Criterion after all.
Last Edited By: SiBurning
07/04/08 4:23 PM.
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Professor X |
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dhtreptow wrote: Again, it seems to me what we're really talking about here are differences in display technology rather than differences in media. LCD, DLP, and plasma displays are low contrast and produce an image similar to a theater screen. Traditional tube TVs have much higher contrast and produce an image that is more glossy and less film-like. Some people preferred the latter because they gave you a sense of depth and reality - that *looking through a window* effect -which the former often can't provide even at higher resolutions. Of course it can be argued that this *video aesthetic* is not reflective of the way movies looked in a theater and therefore not in keeping with the intent of filmmakers, but who's to say people shouldn't be allowed to watch movies the way they want? Actually, the whole debate is rather meaningless now since tube TVs are extinct and LCD, DLP, and plasma will likely dominate TV sales for years to come. |
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Jeffrey Allen Rydell |
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I guess this is still the place for occasional heads-ups on specific titles...
I just picked up the UK HD DVD of KING KONG '76, marked down to $21.95 at Xploited - as opposed to the identical French HD DVD, which Tony lists for $32.95. My only real misgiving is the lack of the deleted scenes as extras. It's definitely a strong recommend for the feature - the transfer is *quite* superior to the R1 SD DVD, and breathes new life into the film's cinematography.
- Jeff
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SAM33 |
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No offense Jeffrey, because I truly believe all folks should like what they like, but I wouldn't watch the '76 Kong if the players reenacted it in my
theater live, did an encore of the deleted scenes, and then sat down and told me their personal secrets. There's no resolution high enough.
It's lack of titles that interest me that still keep me yawning about Blu Ray. Looks like this fall things will be picking up in the "classic" department though. Also it does seem Sony's set to release two players listing at 500 and 400 any day. If the 400 dollar one streets below that and reviews well, that may be the one to get me to jump in. SAM33 |
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