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A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Big Country -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

nealg

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The TCM HD broadcast is certainly not the same digital master used for the Blu-ray. This was the point of my initial post in this thread (#50). And I agree with you in that the HD broadcast is correct. As for the DVD, i have never seen it, but from what you describe, it had its own unique problem.
 

David_B_K

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nealg said:
The TCM HD broadcast is certainly not the same digital master used for the Blu-ray. This was the point of my initial post in this thread (#50). And I agree with you in that the HD broadcast is correct. As for the DVD, i have never seen it, but from what you describe, it had its own unique problem.
It wasn't TCM. It was either MGM HD or HDNet Movies. I'm saying that the HD broadcast I saw (not TCM) must have been distorted because when I did A/B comparisons the DVD looked stretched vertically (or the HD broadcast was stretched horizontally).
 

Robert Crawford

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Originally Posted by David_B_K
It wasn't TCM. It was either MGM HD or HDNet Movies. I'm saying that the HD broadcast I saw (not TCM) must have been distorted because when I did A/B comparisons the DVD looked stretched vertically (or the HD broadcast was stretched horizontally).
It played on HDNet Movies this year. Anyhow, I understand the distortion needs to be corrected, but I'm still happy with this BRD.






Crawdaddy
 

jaaguir

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Robert Crawford said:
No disrespect, but I asked for clarification because I didn't see any distortion during my viewing.  By the way, welcome to HTF.
  
Thanks!
Robert Harris said:
I'm beginning to wonder if the geometry problem may not stem from an attempt to hit what was assumed to be a correct aspect ratio, which is listed as 2.35. As speculation, a problem may have been encountered when the proper uncompressed image arrived at a whopping 2.25. How might one get it to spec? RAH
In the beginning I thought, "wasn't Technirama supposed to be 2.20?" but then the Imdb listed 2.35 as the aspect ratio so I didn't even mention it here. Now after Neal G's last post I guess this definitely isn't what happened?
Mark-P said:
It's disappointing to say the least, but it's not unprecedented for a Blu-ray to have incorrect geometry. I believe the Blu-ray release of The Truman Show was another example of a slightly stretched image. I wish things like this didn't happen, but it's probably not going to be something that MGM/Fox will feel warrants a recall.Edit: I just looked at your initial post which you have updated to say you presume that the disc is likely to get corrected. Great! I haven't found time to watch my copy yet, but now I will hold off in hopes of getting a replacement.
I wish a corrected version was released too, but I wouldn't say it's likely (I think Mr. Harris was speculating about what should be done, but who knows what the studio will do), this being a budtget release... Maybe if they could release a corrected version for the time it stops being a Walmart exclusive... but that would be too soon I guess.
nealg said:
Robert, using the cropping tool in my Nikon editing software, a setting of 2.34:1 comes closest to properly framing the TCM image. A sliver of black falling inside one line is probably due to how close to parallel I was able to get the camera relative to the display, but it's pretty darn close. I don't know what the Technirama spec is, but it works at 2.34:1!My capture of the blu-ray image falls between 2.33:1 and 2.34:1. I cannot set the tool to 2.335:1. The Blu-ray.com captures measure precisely 2.34:1. Interesting?
So you're saying both are 2.35 approximately. And as we previously know, the one without distortion also has more information on the sides. So why would they want to strech the image horizontally for the blu-ray? Maybe they wanted to hide somehing on the sides? Did you notice color fading or some severe damage on the TCM version? (Reel change markers?...even if they were, I guess nowadays they're digitally erased very easily).It's a mistery but well, mistakes happen.
 

FoxyMulder

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One of my favourite films too, its no sale though until i know for sure i am getting something which is right and not a distorted image.

Is the German version also by MGM definately the same, i assume it will be from the same master used for this one.
 

Roland

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FoxyMulder said:
One of my favourite films too, its no sale though until i know for sure i am getting something which is right and not a distorted image.

Is the German version also by MGM definately the same, i assume it will be from the same master used for this one.
Buy the german Version (with english Language and Subtitles) and you will be happy with your decision. For sure. For me (i have seen it three times) a simply amazing Restoration and HD-Transfer (in Relation to the age of this Classic Movie) with no problems that justify the wait. Not worth one further day to wait. :)
 

mercyflight

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Robert, I love "The Big Country", but one of my questions about it has always been...wasn't this film is STEREO? It seems like such a big film, and such a great score!
Paul
 

FoxyMulder

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Originally Posted by Roland
Buy the german Version (with english Language and Subtitles) and you will be happy with your decision. For sure. For me (i have seen it three times) a simply amazing Restoration and HD-Transfer (in Relation to the age of this Classic Movie) with no problems that justify the wait. Not worth one further day to wait.
Unfortunately thats not what has been reported in this thread, Mr Harris says there is a significant issue, i cannot buy into a blu ray which has an issue which affects the entire running time, if it was a few scenes then no problem but the whole film, nope.

I'm going to wait, years if necessary, but i have substantial patience that one day i'll get to buy this in high definition, i'm showing the same patience towards films like RoboCop and Terminator 2, one day they will do things right and i'll give them my money.

Age doesn't matter, film is film, and any film can look stunning on blu ray.
 

Robert Harris

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Originally Posted by mercyflight
Robert, I love "The Big Country", but one of my questions about it has always been...wasn't this film is STEREO? It seems like such a big film, and such a great score!
Paul
Hello, Paul.

Always a pleasure. Are you aware that HTF is not formal?

There are reports that there were stereo tracks, but no one has ever come up with a print, and although I had a discussion with Mr. Peck re: the tracks (he was a producer on the film) he didn't recall the specifics.

Would it be wonderful to have the Jerome Moross score in stereo. Something akin to Vertigo in stereo. One of the truly great scores.

RAH
 

John Hodson

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The Beaver on The Big Country
On another forum, Ross has posted a couple of caps for comparison, top how it is, bottom how it should be:
5ea0e0a1_223698_10150325265269400_655999399_9288306_2844470_n.jpg

58f2d053_283084_10150325363164400_655999399_9289742_3973374_n.jpg
 

OliverK

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This is one of the occasions where I really love my scaler - no problem to increase the height as prescribed :)
 

Rick Thompson

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Robert Harris said:
Hello, Paul.   There are reports that there were stereo tracks, but no one has ever come up with a print, and although I had a discussion with Mr. Peck re: the tracks (he was a producer on the film) he didn't recall the specifics. Would it be wonderful to have the Jerome Moross score in stereo.  Something akin to Vertigo in stereo.  One of the truly great scores. RAH
Way back when, there was a stereo soundtrack album (not the later re-recording on CD), but oddly enough the music did not sound near as good as the mono album, to the point where I kept the mono and discarded the stereo. Maybe they recorded the score twice for the film, decided they didn't like the sound of the stereo after all, and released it with the mono tracks. That would explain the reports of a stereo recording, and why the stereo LP release sounded so bad.And before anyone points it out, I admit this is conjecture.
 

Douglas R

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Rick Thompson said:
Way back when, there was a stereo soundtrack album (not the later re-recording on CD), but oddly enough the music did not sound near as good as the mono album, to the point where I kept the mono and discarded the stereo. Maybe they recorded the score twice for the film, decided they didn't like the sound of the stereo after all, and released it with the mono tracks. That would explain the reports of a stereo recording, and why the stereo LP release sounded so bad.
And before anyone points it out, I admit this is conjecture.
There was never a true stereo LP. I think you must have had one of those "electronical enhanced" fake stereo LPs - all of which sounded really bad.
Incidentally, does anyone know where the Intermission occurred? At that length it wouldn't have played without one.
 

FoxyMulder

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Originally Posted by John Hodson
The Beaver on The Big Country
On another forum, Ross has posted a couple of caps for comparison, top how it is, bottom how it should be:
5ea0e0a1_223698_10150325265269400_655999399_9288306_2844470_n.jpg

58f2d053_283084_10150325363164400_655999399_9289742_3973374_n.jpg
Thats just awful, come on MGM, do a re-release and fix the issues, compression in the left part of the background looks slightly worse to me and really it should be better on blu ray than an HD broadcast.

How would you use a scaler to combat this issue. ?
 

OliverK

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How would you use a scaler to combat this issue. ?
I have a Lumagen Radiance scaler and I can freely define (within certain constraints) how high I want my active picture in one pixel increments.
One could do the same with a CRT front projector in such situations as it allows to increase vertical amplitude without introducing any scaling errors.
This is not to say that MGM should not fix this - in certain scenes the compressed height looks really bad and in others it seems not that much of a problem so I would wager a guess that it would best to fix this on a scene by scene basis.
 

Rick Thompson

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Douglas R said:
There was never a true stereo LP. I think you must have had one of those "electronical enhanced" fake stereo LPs - all of which sounded really bad.
Incidentally, does anyone know where the Intermission occurred? At that length it wouldn't have played without one.
I wouldn't have bought anything labeled "electronically rechannelled for stereo." In any event, The Big Country is a 1958 film, and by then most everything was recorded in stereo. However, doing mono-only and then stereo-only recordings of the same work was not uncommon. Later on, you had different recordings of the same arrangement for singles and albums (the Paul Mauriat "Love Is Blue" on the album is NOT the same recording as the single), and different mixes (listen to the Association "Windy" single versus the album to see what I mean).
Again, I admit my conjecture. I have seen pictures that purport to show studio recording tapes of the Big Country soundtrack clearly labeled "stereo." What happened back in 1958, probably no one will ever know -- such as why the trumpets clearly don't play the "scotch snap" Jerome Moross wrote for the famous fanfare. Moross clearly approved the change because he conducted the sessions, but the change was apparently never written down on the parts and Moross never wrote any explanation of it, which in turn is why The Philharmonia Orchestra plays it as written -- and different from what's in the film -- on the 1988 re-recording of the score.
For what it's worth, I've never seen The Big Country played with an intermission, and I'm old enough to have seen it in the original release. In addition, I've never heard (or heard of) any Entr'Acte music -- which there would have been to open the second half of the film.
 

john a hunter

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You may not have realised it but it was "electronic" stereo, ie mono. I tried to find the original soundtrack at the time,after saving up my pocket money, but it was only ever in mono or a variation thereof. The original recording was released several times in the years following its 1958 release, usually on a "cheap" record label in "electronic stereo".
While stereo recording was becoming more and more popular at least for orchestral recording in Hollywood in the late 50's, it was no means guaranteed that a film as "big" as "Big Country" would have been recorded in stereo.
 

Mark B

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http://www.soundtrackcollector.com/catalog/soundtrackdetail.php?movieid=1179
All the versions of the soundtrack are here. It is listed as Rechanneled Stereo.
 

Douglas R

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Rick Thompson said:
For what it's worth, I've never seen The Big Country played with an intermission, and I'm old enough to have seen it in the original release. In addition, I've never heard (or heard of) any Entr'Acte music -- which there would have been to open the second half of the film.
Quite honestly I find it hard to believe that cinemas played THE BIG COUNTRY without an intermission. I've never seen a film of two hours forty five minutes which didn't allow audiences a break. Long films often used to have intermissions without any Entr'acte music if they were not roadshow attractions.
 

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