A Few Words About A few words about... The Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection (1 Viewer)

[Darren Gross]

So, IS there a second audio stream of the 'original' audio mix on the disc?

 

[Robert Harris]

The monaual "Vertigo" track is part of new DVD.

 

[Robert Crawford]

RAH,
Can you elaborate about the problems with "The Man Who Knew Too Much" dvd?





Crawdaddy

 

[Kevin M]

May I ask which Vertigo mix you prefer Robert H., the 5.1 or the original mono? I know they are both a bit of a compromise in their own way.

 

[Darren Gross]

Great. Thanks!

 

[Robert Harris]

Man Who Knew Too Much has problems with color (generally unbalanced and too much), density, contrast, digital enhancement and missing printer functions.

Beyond that, and here's the great quotable part...

"The Man Who Knew Too Much is about as perfect a disc as is humanly attainable."

RAH

 

[Robert Crawford]

RAH,
That doesn't sound much different than the first dvd's problems.



Crawdaddy

 

[oscar_merkx]

I have none of the films so far on dvd

Guess I'll get them at some point

 

[ScottR]

When someone gets this, can they please answer my question about the sound on Psycho? Thanks! I'm probably just gonna keep the one I have though.

 

[Member 323668]

This Box set is a huge disappointment!

On one side, there are the professionals like Warner Bros. (George Feltenstein: Thank you so much for the recent wonderful releases!) and Criterion - on the other side are the dilettantic loosers, totally out of touch with their customer base. I don't want to be the judge on what side Universal is, but I do know that they continue to do a very bad job with their classic releases. There is only one way to satisfy the customer - paying a lot of hard-earned money for the DVDs: Creating new high-definition transfers and encode them professionally for DVD release.

I repeat my comments on this box set from another thread:
Except for "Saboteur" and "The Trouble With Harry", I doubt that there is any new high definition telecine / film to video transfer involved. All titles seem to derive from the old masters, just with some "digital enhancements" made, like adding brightness and artificially sharpening the picture, along with more efficient encoding and some digital cleanup. This results only in part in visually "improved" DVDs, but certainly is far from the quality that could have been achieved by making real high-definition transfers from the original camera negatives.

By no means even close to Warner standard!

Excessive use of a noise filter in combination with artificially adding sharpness often results in visible edge enhancments, halos, jitter and aliasing effects. Best visible in "The Man Who Knew Too Much". A totally faulty transfer, partly unwatchable, where the edge enhancement sometimes makes the picture jitter so much that it almost seems to "move" vertically.

Vertigo anamorphic with improved picture quality and the "original" monaural soundtrack. A plus.

Psycho anamorphic, but - in my opinion- looking worse than the original release. Don't get me wrong: I love to see film grain and hate plain filtered transfers, but this is not FINE grain, it is "macro grain" of a standard definition master digitally framed for anamorphic encoding. Nothing else. Disappointing.

 

[Robert Harris]

Johannes S...

What is it that leads you to believe that many of these transfers are not of more recent high definition origination, which have been down-converted?

Universal does some beautiful work, much of it represented in this boxed set.

RAH

 

[Kevin M]

Robert, what is your opinion of the mono track on Vertigo?

 

[Paul Borges]

I'm a little confused about 'The Man Who Knew Too Much.'

I thought that this title was restored. Why wasn't the restored print used for the dvd? Or am I totally lost and the film elements are in really bad shape.

 

[seanOhara]

Should I take it, then, that this is a digipak with over-lapping discs? That's really annoying.

 

[Robert Harris]

Kevin M...

The mono track on "Vertigo" is what it is.

A fifth or sixth generation audio (which sounds quite good considering) derived from parts of different 35mm prints, with a high end that makes certain instruments in the orchestra disappear. Dirt abounds, as does wow and flutter in some areas of the music.

It is, however, the only extant version which comes close to being an example of what the film might have sounded like if the original track elements had not been ordered junked.

As such it serves as reasonable reference.

Except for the effects on the new track, which are a bit heavy, especially in areas where there were none, I still prefer the new stereo mix for the music.

RAH

 

[Kevin M]

I kind of thought you would say that, I agree with you about the 5.1 track with the caveat that I have not actually heard the mono track yet.
But I have always claimed that the 5.1 track doesn't bother me as much as it does others....well now we all have a choice.

 

[Member 323668]

Robert, first of all, many thanks and appreciation for your restoration work on the film elements of Vertigo, my all-time favourite!

My "test equipment": Panasonic 50" HD-Plasma screen fed by a Denon A1XV (5910) via HDMI scaled to 1080i.

Well, I don't sit in front of the screen with an oscilloscope, checking every bit of data for errors... I just use my eyes and I can see that there is hardly any difference or improvement to the "old" R1 DVDs. I noticed some digital cleanup, e.g. on "Torn Curtain" (check the arrival scene at East-Berlin airport, where the print had a lot of scratches and defects) and some digital increase in contrast and brightness. The digitally enhanced "sharpness" is nothing else but edge enhancement with all negative "side-effects" visible. I think the times are over to sell "digitally remastered" DVDs and create the illusion of HD transfers just by excessivly using edge-enhancement.

I am not the kind of picky person complaining about minor flaws in transfers like the beautifully created new "Ben Hur" transfer by Warner. I also know that investing several millions of dollars can make the best transfer look even better... But the least I expect is the creation of new HD transfers on a "state-of-the-art" telecine like e.g. the "Spirit Datacine".

Even with little experience, I believe, one can differenciate, whether the DVD was created from an analogue, early digital (LD) or HD master.

It is a shame to see that, e.g., Sony/Columbia's B-Western "Bonanza Town" (1951) with Charles Starrett and Smiley Burnette got a wonderful HD-based transfer with fine grain and high density and Hitchcock's Masterpiece "Psycho" a second-class recycled SD transfer.

Check the following scenes of "The Man Who Knew Too Much":
Beginning of chapters 4, 8, 9, 12. The edge-enhancement totally disturbs the picture. Almost hurting the eyes...

In general, I didn't say the transfers are BAD, but they are not up to today's standards and expectations. They are a vast improvement to the R2 releases for sure and perhaps a minor improvement to the previous R1 DVDs. Did you know that Universal released "The Birds" in Europe as a Pan/Scan transfer, where they panned and scanned within the already matted 35 mm frame? I think there is only one major studio capable of such cruelties....

The executives at Universal ought to know for sure now, that we, their customers, are NOT SATISFIED anymore with "half-hearted" recycled transfers. Period!

 

[Darren Gross]

Does PSYCHO have the color title sequence anywhere on the disc?

 

[Robert Harris]

No. This is something which is still not generally accepted as fact. Reading (if memory serves) the London Times review re: the Psycho opening, may bring this into better focus.

RAH

 

[David Von Pein]

I'm confused. Just how does "dirt abound" in a soundtrack? Can you hear "dirt" within an audio track? Or is this a hi-tech audiophile term I'm not familiar with? Just curious.