UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - Titanic -- in 4k UHD (2 Viewers)

[moviebuff75]

Maybe the disc has been quietly fixed as well.

 

[ArnoldLayne]

Maybe the disc has been quietly fixed as well.

Well I'm ordering from Amazon today

 

[Camper]

There is yet another line missing at 2hr 37m, Jack says to Rose, "This way!!" -- as they go by the minister who is Praying.
It's in the French, Spanish and other foreign soundtracks and in the "descriptive audio" channel.

It's on the Paramount Plus audio and in the UHD discs that were sold in the UK (released by Fox overseas
This is a straight up error. They can whitewash it all they want.

When Nick Meyer wanted the Kirk/Spock lines "That young man is my son", "Fascinating" cut from the UHD/BR of Star Trek II -- it was erased from all languages and from the sub-titles as well.

 

[PMF]

Well, at least they didn’t cut out the line “Iceberg, straight ahead!!!”, otherwise we’d have a real issue.

 

[B-ROLL]

Well, at least they didn’t cut out the line “Iceberg, straight ahead!!!”, otherwise we’d have a real issue.

I guess it'lld time to fold up deck chairs ...

 

[little-endian]

Being quite late to join the party (3rd class organized the fun one, right?), I'm afraid that is somewhat a "roundhouse-kick" now across the whole thread so far, but anyway:

I make mention of that because I'm going to break one of my cardinal rules, which is to never mess with the imagery of a Best Picture.

That rule should have been better be sticked to.

To my eye, it appears that a great deal of labor went into creating a new digital version of Titanic...

If messing things up rewards for a great deal of labor, then yes. If people nowadays wouldn't be so obsessive with that (often misused anyway) term "digital", they would start to understand, that anything preserved digitally, in the best case, is indistinguishable from its analog counterpart within the limits which Nyquist/Shannon's theorem dictates. In that way, the different look between film material and a so-called "digital" productions doesn't arise because one ends up being represented by discreet symbols, but different ways of visual capturing and also electronic processing. Given an ideal film scanner - ADC - DAC - projector chain, the end result would be practically impossible to be distinguished, just like an analog input - ADC/DAC (PCM/DSD) - analog output chain.

I speak for myself when I say that if Robert Harris is highly recommending a film especially one this important in this format then I don't need to view screenshots (which are highly compressed and therefore misleading) to purchase with absolute confidence.

Sounds similar to the "argument" which audio voodooists make "I trust my senses, I don't need measurements" and god forbid to bother them with disproving facts as in "My wife heard it, too!"

Also, your statement about screenshots being "compressed" (as usual, what is actual meant here is "data reduction") in this generalization is wrong, as e.g. caps-a-holic provides non-data-reduced PNG versions as well. What actually is to be taken with a grain of salt though, is the HDR/BT2020 sources as the screenshots get mapped to SDR/sRGB-whatever at an arbitrary nits setting. While hence one should be cautious with statements about the highlights and contrast, the usual awful orange & teal color grading of nowadays' releases often can be still spotted and criticized rightly so.

Do you trust them more than RAH and others here?

Straw-man argument ahoi, captain. But yes, for my part, definitely when it comes to obvious flaws as discussed here. For that, screenshots are mostly good enough.

But you’re not. You’re trusting capsaholic’s pics.

Feel free to rip your lovely disc you purchased and defend and create screenshots on your own. They will hardly be much different from what the quoted websites posted, will they?

I doubt the level of detail in either of these shots (not even Blu-ray, much less 4K) was visible on a 35mm theatrical print in 1997.

Certainly not, however, that doesn't mean that Cameron's gang couldn't have retrieved a higher amount of spatial detail out of newer scans from the negative of course. My impression is that with the UHD version, one undoubtedly gets a hint more real resolution, but meshed up with Cameron's AI horror trip and all its side effects.

My bottom line is that regardless of what digital processes have been used, the final imagery has not gone "plastic." Some shots may be on the verge but don't go there.

Well, the question arises, while maybe not reaching it, why even set sail (pun intended of course) in that direction? Not having messed up something entirely isn't any indicator for quality, which should be stressed in this context.

Say what you will about the Picture Quality, aside from a handful of very brief instances of weirdness, NONE of it looks bad.

"None" is a strong word, given examples like this BD vs UHD BD.

Most people just want their movies to look pretty on their displays. That's it and the industry through whatever means is trying to give them pretty picture whether it's missing detail or not.

I'm afraid that this is true to a large extend and boils down to the fact that the broad mass, just like when it comes to audio, doesn't care for quality. Despite many hypes in the video domain (the audio one being as completed as the catalog of LaserDiscs because it exceeds our hearing capabilities since decades) in terms of higher resolutions, HDR or broader color spaces, I'd still say "not really". Lousy bitrates on streaming services, severe banding artifacts, wrong TV settings ... sadly, none of this seems to be any major concern for most. They still don't care for quality, not in detail.

So, @tenia do you think this is NOT an upgrade from the blu-ray?

Just to add a second opinion to tenia's: after a direct comparison, I still prefer the older Blu-ray release. Rather forgo a bit more (real) resolution and have the more natural image and also colors (orange & teal is greeting at lasted on this UHD as well, yuck).

Titanic isn't going to look "perfect" in 4K no matter how they mastered.

It doesn't have to, but neither should it look worse than it has to. Also, mind you that "4K" is just the container. No one says that an analog source resulting in a 4K or UHD sampled and quantized image has to reach spatial resolution up to the corresponding Nyquist frequency. It is perfectly fine to stay below that (actually even relaxing requirements for prefiltering and avoiding aliasing). Neither should it be a requirement to always max out the theoretically possible resolution of such a digital end product. It would be the same as demanding that every music on a CD following the red book standard must contain an audio bandwidth of 22.05 kHz and thus tones in that range when starting from 0 Hz.

They irked me when I saw them, and then the shots irked me when I watched them on my screen (which, admittedly, in my computer screen as I don't have a UHD TV).

There goes your reputation for the ones who already made up their mind.

@tenia, I definitely appreciate your thoughts/input/argument/points (and those screencaps such as they are, especially since caps-a-holic hasn't offered any just yet(?)... though would be good to know their provenance so to speak for their trustworthiness), but it does seem like you should at least do yourself a favor and upgrade to a good 4K playback setup...

@tenia There it goes ... however, ManW_TheUncool's comment here is still halfway differentiated ...

I'm out!

And there we are, the typical side track reaction which entirely misses the point and core argument. Why deal with those however if one can more conveniently question the other's method to protect one's own worldview?

@tenia: I also learned that in the future it would be probably indeed better to lie about or simply omit such details which only present a welcome target for misguided counterarguments. For instance, I once complained about a player skipping frames in conjunction with certain audio formats. Once raised, no one was really interested in getting it resolved but instead focused on side elements such as "do you even own the original?", "Your rips are the reason for those issues!", etc. Sigh.

I've double, triple, quadruple, and even quintuple dipped on more discs than I care to admit. I've never come across caps-o-holic screen cap comparisons which I felt were in any way misleading. I have found them to be very representative of what I see with the actual discs. I emphasize that this applies only to caps-a-holic.

Same for me. The only thing which can be misleading is HDR/BT.2020 screenshots, as it often is unclear what algorithm has been used for the tonemapping. However, sharpness, hints of aliasing and overall color grading shouldn't be a major problem and whenever I hear about releases which look awful on screenshots getting praised elsewhere, I think those reporters suffer from quite some denial.

For fair transparency though, I personally got somewhat misguided in concrete with "Starship Troopers" where I complained about blown up highlights and bad color grading. Bold claims which I got even more heat for than tenia here. While I had to admit having been wrong about the highlights, it turns out that even on a Sony A95L with Dolby Vision / HDR / exceeding P3 color space with its QD-OLED panel and whatnot, years later, the image of "Starship Troopers" still looks "special" and I can't get rid of the impression that quite some orange & teal color adjustment went into the otherwise great presentation.

So much for "before you dare to criticize our baby and discuss with us, get proper equipment first".

It did look to me as an improvement in terms of details and delineation over the BD, which was already processed but to a less intrusive extent.

An exact observation of the facts. The unofficial 35mm rip for me still has a bit more natural colors, but the Blu-ray seems to be halfway decent and the UHD awful.

neither naturally obtained (ie through a new better scan, a higher work resolution, etc), nor natural looking.

Which is already beyond comprehension for me. Some (content-wise great without a doubt) old catalog title such as "A few good men" gets an entirely new, fresh scan, but for one of the commercially most successful movies of all time, instead of again getting the negatives and scan them properly, some mediocre one, taken years ago, has to do it. What ignorant moron decides this? Must be the same one who thought that Terminator - Dark Fate would become a better successor than all the other attempts since T2.

You’re right. Having seen Titanic over 20 times in 1997 I can say definitively, for me, it looks better.

Which is totally legit and ultimately suggests the only way to really settle things once and for all:

Release the movie just the way it is today - for some people being the next step of great imagery with all the sharpening, color bonbon style, and totally hip AI fuss. Great!

But then, for the (few) ones who happen to care for quality, with sugar on top, add in a fucking 2nd disc, label it "Titanic Cinema 2007" and just put the raw scan without any processing (except for the one ultimately required to get a decent positive as it ran in the cinema, i.e. "color timing") and make everyone happy. There is no good reason not to do this as they can also always supply that "digital copy" fuss in the US as a third, fourth, whatever disc in the US which virtually no one uses anyway. So it can't be that difficult or expensive then.

Yes, it probably does. TITANIC was an optical blow up from Super 35 to 35mm anamorphic (sometime before the advent of Digital Intermediates). And a 4K direct scan from the OCN does matter, and I support that, of course. It’s kind like watching the original negative, timed, with all its info, rather than a third or fourth generation print from that negative.

Exactly, that's the thing. As a purist, one wants the best possible reproduction of the negative, not less and certainly not "more", just because also Cameron now heard about the term "AI" (good for him, the last T6 sucked nonetheless, despite plenty of stories one could have told here, but I'm drifting).

I suppose one could save up their money and buy themselves a 35mm print from 1997. There's probably still some of those around out there?

Well, there are 35mm scans floating around the net. I'm not sure how well those were preserved or how much variance in quality there is between them, but just like with preservations done for "True Lies", "Face/Off" or "The Matrix", while looking authentic, they all have their own issues, very typical for the xth generation of a copy such as rather low spatial resolution, scratches, black crush, heavy blue tint for the first two (allegedly intended so back in the 90s), etc.

Which is the frustrating problem: the sources we standard mortals can get, aren't the best and the best sources are being held hostage by ignorant morons who only release them with ugly post processing. Hurray.

Unless Tarantino and Christopher Nolan are hoarding them all.

With Nolan not being immune to mangling attempts on his own work, either. The re-release of "Memento" (allegedly once again "director approved" which clearly doesn't mean anything for quality) for example looks worse than its decent original US counterpart (from the early days of the Blu-ray with MPEG-2 for the video): stupidly boosted contrast and colors and worse resolved black and white - scenes, probably due to denoise.

Well, it looks like most of us are happy with this 4K/UHD release while there is a small vocal minority of folks that are not happy. For the most part, that seems to be the normal situation with these releases.

Again boosting the argument that the majority just doesn't care. No wonder, VHS could survive that long. The ones rightfully complaining including me, are simply victims of the ignorance of the mass which is always stronger. Sad, but true.

They can careless what we think they should look like on home video. In short, it's their films!

Yeah, but we're the poor souls who are supposed to consume it, aren't we? The men you mention however have the access to better sources in the unlikely case they would care to watch their own flick yet another hundredth time which I doubt, being certainly busy with Avatar 23 and counting up, tsss.

The film is perfectly preserved.

Yes, with that preservation accessible to hardly anyone. Go figure. What worth is a "flawless" preservation when it is locked up in a vault and not getting made use of? Disney may ask themselves the same question, same retardation.

The new 4k disc is NOT a restoration of any kind. It’s a re-visualization.

A 4k UHD disc is a data transmission/distribution element, not an archival or preservation element.

In the sad practise, you're right, but you're missing the point that this isn't how things have to be. The way more clever approach would be to distribute the preservation (at least in addition) and even have a decentralized backup along the way being even free of charge. Neat, isn't it?

I agree. I just think it’s becoming repetitively excessive imo.

Good that no one forces you to follow the thread then. You can be your own program director, the positive effect of nowadays' techniques.

All workflows introduce "artificial processing" of some sort. Digital color correction is "artificial processing."

That is true. So does the processing also continue on the playback side at home which many omit as a fact as well. However, the kind of artifical processing which went into this particular UHD release is hardly the kind we're talking about when we "virtualize" former photo-chemical processes on a computer. As always, it's difficult to draw the line though as in what adjustments are still okay and what aren't.

In the specific case of Titanic, it can't be rocket science though to get a post processing out of a fresh negative scan which matches the look of a decent copy which happened to run in a theater back in 1997, just with the higher resolution and dynamic range but no other adjustments beyond that.

The basic problem here, as I see it, is that unless you're looking at an actual film print projected in a theater, you aren't seeing the film as it was originally intended. No matter what tools are available and no matter the skill levels of the craftsmen producing a home video presentation, that presentation is only going to be an approximation of what the film originally looked like.

I'm confident that it nowadays could still at least be approximated very well. At least way closer to what we get and are discussing here, so that for me is yet another side track argumentative.

The lack of those frames is probably the greatest single difference in projected images. It has been correctly noted that flat panels do not enter the equation.

Well, it's not that those couldn't be inserted there as well. Many now are limited to flickery 60 Hz it seems, though.

The new 4k UHD of Titanic is Not the 1997 film, and as such, a question might arise as to whether certain awards are still applicable to marketing of the disc.

To an apparent archivist: as mentioned before, a way more crucial question arises: where the hell is the Titanic 1997 UHD then and what is wrong to add that one to the package for the real fans of that movie?

The new 4k should be viewed as an experimental vision, and a new, very different, yet potentially non-copyrightable asset.

Which is entirely legit as long as the original is provided along the way.

It is not a restoration. Restorations cannot gain a new copyright In and of themselves. But it is not being marketed as such. Nor is it being marketed as the re-visualization, that it is.

And the remotely sensible reason for that being?

But digital noise and film grains do not behave in the exact same manner, do they? Grain is random while noise is more uniform

I wouldn't say so in general. "Grain" and "noise" refer to the same thing, the latter being adopted from the audio domain. By definition, noise is random, but it may be weighted. If a "disturbance" is closely bound to the input signal, it is rather called "distortion".

Which is also the reason why one may use dither to distribute the error due to quantization and replace destortion by lot more pleasant noise (not only that, dithering actually increases the resolution in terms of signal levels).

Why do you assume "digital noise" can't be random looking?

Of course it can. Give the renderer "madVR" a go with "random dither", lower the bit depth to 1 bit to make a case and see how it looks (like very bad analog TV reception).

In theory, there is no fundamental difference between "analog noise" and "digital noise".

Most people just want their movies to look pretty on their displays. That's it and the industry through whatever means is trying to give them pretty picture whether it's missing detail or not.

I'm afraid that this is true to a large extend and boils down to the fact that the broad mass, just like when it comes to audio, just doesn't care for quality. Despite many hypes in the video domain (the audio one being as completed as the catalog of LaserDiscs since it exceeds our hearing capabilities since decades) in terms of higher resolutions, HDR or broader color spaces, I'd still say "not really". Lousy bitrates on streaming services, severe banding artifacts, wrong TV settings ... sadly, none of this seems to be any major concern for most.

So, @tenia do you think this is NOT an upgrade from the blu-ray?

Just to add a second opinion to tenia's: after a direct comparison, I still prefer the older Blu-ray release. Rather forgo a bit more (real) resolution and have the more natural image and also colors (orange & teal is greeting at lasted on this UHD as well, yuck).

B]Titanic[/B] isn't going to look "perfect" in 4K no matter how they mastered.

It doesn't have to, but neither should it look worse than it has to look. Also, mind you that "4K" is just the container. No one says that an analog source resulting in a 4K or UHD sampled and quantized image has to reach spatial resolution up to the corresponding Nyquist frequency. It is perfectly fine to stay below that (actually even relaxing requirements for prefiltering and avoiding aliasing). Neither should it be a requirement to always max out the theoretically possible resolution of such a digital end product. It would be the same to demand that every music on a CD following the red book standard must contain an audio bandwidth of 22.05 kHz.

What's more likely the real issue is digital is discrete (both in pixel structure and tonality as well as color depth/gradation) whereas film is analog/smooth and not "discrete" like digital (nor being relatively limited in tonality and color depth/gradation).

Actually, it isn't. Although digital information is discreet by definition, an analog source - at least in ideal theory - may be losslessly reconstructed out of it within the boundaries, the Nyquist limit (bandwidth) and quantization (signal to noise ratio) dictate.

Hence, given an ideal chain of analog to digital (and vice versa) conversion, the also analog output may be indistinguishable from the original analog input. For many audiophiles, this statement is blasphemy of course, but truth never triumphs, only its opponents become extinct.

There's no grain in the visible real life/world that we experience 24/7 all our lives afterall, and we don't generally find it lifeless or dead at all.

Well, there is. Apparently, people seem to have different thresholds of what enters their consciousness, but I see it clearly, 24/7 and hardly surprisingly, a lot more in twilight where the SNR naturally decreases.

If you think about it, it would actually be odd if it were any different. The retina is a optical/electric/chemical sensor as well after all and there isn't any channel free of noise, so natural grain it is.

I don't think anyone gets upset about grain-free movies that never had grain in the first place.

At least one (rationally) shouldn't.

I'm not sure about that. Well, I don't get upset per se... but I do at least sometimes find them odd or moderately offputting or unsatisfying...

I understand you, but this is as irrational as prefering some clicking, scratching noisy vinyl recording over a pristine tape or directly PCM-recorded one as one should keep in mind that most analog to digital conversions don't take anything from the original (despite contradicting audiophile claims), they just don't add as many artifacts. Film grain, as "filmic" and nostalgic as it may look, doesn't have anything to do with the original either but is a technical artifact not supposed to be there (same for the vision as stated above, but the human body is just as flawed).

That being written, when in doubt, I would always go with the more grainy release of a movie as there will likely less filtering have been performed.

Titanic is readily available on prior Blu-ray releases.

True, but which aren't exactly reference quality either, not even for their time.

Pity we can't have this option for True Lies and The Abyss.

As OliverK mentioned, you may be helped as for True Lies, there is an official HD-release, just on the way less known format "D-VHS". Far from being reference either (I Robot also got released on that format and it is probably the best one could have before the Blu-ray was released), but till today and sadly maybe forever, the best version for this movie.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Being quite late to join the party (3rd class organized the fun one, right?), I'm afraid that is somewhat a "roundhouse-kick" now across the whole thread so far, but anyway:

That rule should have been better be sticked to.

If messing things up rewards for a great deal of labor, then yes. If people nowadays wouldn't be so obsessive with that (often misused anyway) term "digital", they would start to understand, that anything preserved digitally, in the best case, is indistinguishable from its analog counterpart within the limits which Nyquist/Shannon's theorem dictates. In that way, the different look between film material and a so-called "digital" productions doesn't arise because one ends up being represented by discreet symbols, but different ways of visual capturing and also electronic processing. Given an ideal film scanner - ADC - DAC - projector chain, the end result would be practically impossible to be distinguished, just like an analog input - ADC/DAC (PCM/DSD) - analog output chain.

Sounds similar to the "argument" which audio voodooists make "I trust my senses, I don't need measurements" and god forbid to bother them with disproving facts as in "My wife heard it, too!"

Also, your statement about screenshots being "compressed" (as usual, what is actual meant here is "data reduction") in this generalization is wrong, as e.g. caps-a-holic provides non-data-reduced PNG versions as well. What actually is to be taken with a grain of salt though, is the HDR/BT2020 sources as the screenshots get mapped to SDR/sRGB-whatever at an arbitrary nits setting. While hence one should be cautious with statements about the highlights and contrast, the usual awful orange & teal color grading of nowadays' releases often can be still spotted and criticized rightly so.

Straw-man argument ahoi, captain. But yes, for my part, definitely when it comes to obvious flaws as discussed here. For that, screenshots are mostly good enough.

Feel free to rip your lovely disc you purchased and defend and create screenshots on your own. They will hardly be much different from what the quoted websites posted, will they?

Certainly not, however, that doesn't mean that Cameron's gang couldn't have retrieved a higher amount of spatial detail out of newer scans from the negative of course. My impression is that with the UHD version, one undoubtedly gets a hint more real resolution, but meshed up with Cameron's AI horror trip and all its side effects.

Well, the question arises, while maybe not reaching it, why even set sail (pun intended of course) in that direction? Not having messed up something entirely isn't any indicator for quality, which should be stressed in this context.

"None" is a strong word, given examples like this BD vs UHD BD.

I'm afraid that this is true to a large extend and boils down to the fact that the broad mass, just like when it comes to audio, doesn't care for quality. Despite many hypes in the video domain (the audio one being as completed as the catalog of LaserDiscs because it exceeds our hearing capabilities since decades) in terms of higher resolutions, HDR or broader color spaces, I'd still say "not really". Lousy bitrates on streaming services, severe banding artifacts, wrong TV settings ... sadly, none of this seems to be any major concern for most. They still don't care for quality, not in detail.

Just to add a second opinion to tenia's: after a direct comparison, I still prefer the older Blu-ray release. Rather forgo a bit more (real) resolution and have the more natural image and also colors (orange & teal is greeting at lasted on this UHD as well, yuck).

It doesn't have to, but neither should it look worse than it has to. Also, mind you that "4K" is just the container. No one says that an analog source resulting in a 4K or UHD sampled and quantized image has to reach spatial resolution up to the corresponding Nyquist frequency. It is perfectly fine to stay below that (actually even relaxing requirements for prefiltering and avoiding aliasing). Neither should it be a requirement to always max out the theoretically possible resolution of such a digital end product. It would be the same as demanding that every music on a CD following the red book standard must contain an audio bandwidth of 22.05 kHz and thus tones in that range when starting from 0 Hz.

There goes your reputation for the ones who already made up their mind.


@tenia There it goes ... however, ManW_TheUncool's comment here is still halfway differentiated ...

And there we are, the typical side track reaction which entirely misses the point and core argument. Why deal with those however if one can more conveniently question the other's method to protect one's own worldview?

@tenia: I also learned that in the future it would be probably indeed better to lie about or simply omit such details which only present a welcome target for misguided counterarguments. For instance, I once complained about a player skipping frames in conjunction with certain audio formats. Once raised, no one was really interested in getting it resolved but instead focused on side elements such as "do you even own the original?", "Your rips are the reason for those issues!", etc. Sigh.

Same for me. The only thing which can be misleading is HDR/BT.2020 screenshots, as it often is unclear what algorithm has been used for the tonemapping. However, sharpness, hints of aliasing and overall color grading shouldn't be a major problem and whenever I hear about releases which look awful on screenshots getting praised elsewhere, I think those reporters suffer from quite some denial.

For fair transparency though, I personally got somewhat misguided in concrete with "Starship Troopers" where I complained about blown up highlights and bad color grading. Bold claims which I got even more heat for than tenia here. While I had to admit having been wrong about the highlights, it turns out that even on a Sony A95L with Dolby Vision / HDR / exceeding P3 color space with its QD-OLED panel and whatnot, years later, the image of "Starship Troopers" still looks "special" and I can't get rid of the impression that quite some orange & teal color adjustment went into the otherwise great presentation.

So much for "before you dare to criticize our baby and discuss with us, get proper equipment first".

An exact observation of the facts. The unofficial 35mm rip for me still has a bit more natural colors, but the Blu-ray seems to be halfway decent and the UHD awful.

Which is already beyond comprehension for me. Some (content-wise great without a doubt) old catalog title such as "A few good men" gets an entirely new, fresh scan, but for one of the commercially most successful movies of all time, instead of again getting the negatives and scan them properly, some mediocre one, taken years ago, has to do it. What ignorant moron decides this? Must be the same one who thought that Terminator - Dark Fate would become a better successor than all the other attempts since T2.

Which is totally legit and ultimately suggests the only way to really settle things once and for all:

Release the movie just the way it is today - for some people being the next step of great imagery with all the sharpening, color bonbon style, and totally hip AI fuss. Great!

But then, for the (few) ones who happen to care for quality, with sugar on top, add in a fucking 2nd disc, label it "Titanic Cinema 2007" and just put the raw scan without any processing (except for the one ultimately required to get a decent positive as it ran in the cinema, i.e. "color timing") and make everyone happy. There is no good reason not to do this as they can also always supply that "digital copy" fuss in the US as a third, fourth, whatever disc in the US which virtually no one uses anyway. So it can't be that difficult or expensive then.

Exactly, that's the thing. As a purist, one wants the best possible reproduction of the negative, not less and certainly not "more", just because also Cameron now heard about the term "AI" (good for him, the last T6 sucked nonetheless, despite plenty of stories one could have told here, but I'm drifting).

Well, there are 35mm scans floating around the net. I'm not sure how well those were preserved or how much variance in quality there is between them, but just like with preservations done for "True Lies", "Face/Off" or "The Matrix", while looking authentic, they all have their own issues, very typical for the xth generation of a copy such as rather low spatial resolution, scratches, black crush, heavy blue tint for the first two (allegedly intended so back in the 90s), etc.

Which is the frustrating problem: the sources we standard mortals can get, aren't the best and the best sources are being held hostage by ignorant morons who only release them with ugly post processing. Hurray.

With Nolan not being immune to mangling attempts on his own work, either. The re-release of "Memento" (allegedly once again "director approved" which clearly doesn't mean anything for quality) for example looks worse than its decent original US counterpart (from the early days of the Blu-ray with MPEG-2 for the video): stupidly boosted contrast and colors and worse resolved black and white - scenes, probably due to denoise.

Again boosting the argument that the majority just doesn't care. No wonder, VHS could survive that long. The ones rightfully complaining including me, are simply victims of the ignorance of the mass which is always stronger. Sad, but true.

Yeah, but we're the poor souls who are supposed to consume it, aren't we? The men you mention however have the access to better sources in the unlikely case they would care to watch their own flick yet another hundredth time which I doubt, being certainly busy with Avatar 23 and counting up, tsss.

Yes, with that preservation accessible to hardly anyone. Go figure. What worth is a "flawless" preservation when it is locked up in a vault and not getting made use of? Disney may ask themselves the same question, same retardation.

In the sad practise, you're right, but you're missing the point that this isn't how things have to be. The way more clever approach would be to distribute the preservation (at least in addition) and even have a decentralized backup along the way being even free of charge. Neat, isn't it?

Good that no one forces you to follow the thread then. You can be your own program director, the positive effect of nowadays' techniques.

That is true. So does the processing also continue on the playback side at home which many omit as a fact as well. However, the kind of artifical processing which went into this particular UHD release is hardly the kind we're talking about when we "virtualize" former photo-chemical processes on a computer. As always, it's difficult to draw the line though as in what adjustments are still okay and what aren't.

In the specific case of Titanic, it can't be rocket science though to get a post processing out of a fresh negative scan which matches the look of a decent copy which happened to run in a theater back in 1997, just with the higher resolution and dynamic range but no other adjustments beyond that.

I'm confident that it nowadays could still at least be approximated very well. At least way closer to what we get and are discussing here, so that for me is yet another side track argumentative.

Well, it's not that those couldn't be inserted there as well. Many now are limited to flickery 60 Hz it seems, though.

To an apparent archivist: as mentioned before, a way more crucial question arises: where the hell is the Titanic 1997 UHD then and what is wrong to add that one to the package for the real fans of that movie?

Which is entirely legit as long as the original is provided along the way.

And the remotely sensible reason for that being?

I wouldn't say so in general. "Grain" and "noise" refer to the same thing, the latter being adopted from the audio domain. By definition, noise is random, but it may be weighted. If a "disturbance" is closely bound to the input signal, it is rather called "distortion".

Which is also the reason why one may use dither to distribute the error due to quantization and replace destortion by lot more pleasant noise (not only that, dithering actually increases the resolution in terms of signal levels).

Of course it can. Give the renderer "madVR" a go with "random dither", lower the bit depth to 1 bit to make a case and see how it looks (like very bad analog TV reception).

In theory, there is no fundamental difference between "analog noise" and "digital noise".

I'm afraid that this is true to a large extend and boils down to the fact that the broad mass, just like when it comes to audio, just doesn't care for quality. Despite many hypes in the video domain (the audio one being as completed as the catalog of LaserDiscs since it exceeds our hearing capabilities since decades) in terms of higher resolutions, HDR or broader color spaces, I'd still say "not really". Lousy bitrates on streaming services, severe banding artifacts, wrong TV settings ... sadly, none of this seems to be any major concern for most.

Just to add a second opinion to tenia's: after a direct comparison, I still prefer the older Blu-ray release. Rather forgo a bit more (real) resolution and have the more natural image and also colors (orange & teal is greeting at lasted on this UHD as well, yuck).



It doesn't have to, but neither should it look worse than it has to look. Also, mind you that "4K" is just the container. No one says that an analog source resulting in a 4K or UHD sampled and quantized image has to reach spatial resolution up to the corresponding Nyquist frequency. It is perfectly fine to stay below that (actually even relaxing requirements for prefiltering and avoiding aliasing). Neither should it be a requirement to always max out the theoretically possible resolution of such a digital end product. It would be the same to demand that every music on a CD following the red book standard must contain an audio bandwidth of 22.05 kHz.




Actually, it isn't. Although digital information is discreet by definition, an analog source - at least in ideal theory - may be losslessly reconstructed out of it within the boundaries, the Nyquist limit (bandwidth) and quantization (signal to noise ratio) dictate.

Hence, given an ideal chain of analog to digital (and vice versa) conversion, the also analog output may be indistinguishable from the original analog input. For many audiophiles, this statement is blasphemy of course, but truth never triumphs, only its opponents become extinct.




Well, there is. Apparently, people seem to have different thresholds of what enters their consciousness, but I see it clearly, 24/7 and hardly surprisingly, a lot more in twilight where the SNR naturally decreases.

If you think about it, it would actually be odd if it were any different. The retina is a optical/electric/chemical sensor as well after all and there isn't any channel free of noise, so natural grain it is.



At least one (rationally) shouldn't.



I understand you, but this is as irrational as prefering some clicking, scratching noisy vinyl recording over a pristine tape or directly PCM-recorded one as one should keep in mind that most analog to digital conversions don't take anything from the original (despite contradicting audiophile claims), they just don't add as many artifacts. Film grain, as "filmic" and nostalgic as it may look, doesn't have anything to do with the original either but is a technical artifact not supposed to be there (same for the vision as stated above, but the human body is just as flawed).

That being written, when in doubt, I would always go with the more grainy release of a movie as there will likely less filtering have been performed.



True, but which aren't exactly reference quality either, not even for their time.



As OliverK mentioned, you may be helped as for True Lies, there is an official HD-release, just on the way less known format "D-VHS". Far from being reference either (I Robot also got released on that format and it is probably the best one could have before the Blu-ray was released), but till today and sadly maybe forever, the best version for this movie.

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[JoshZ]

JoshZ said:
My bottom line is that regardless of what digital processes have been used, the final imagery has not gone "plastic." Some shots may be on the verge but don't go there.

If you're going to multi-quote dozens of people in the same extremely long post, please be more careful to attribute quotes to the correct individuals. I did not say the above. Robert Harris did, in Post 48.

 

[Noel Aguirre]

Well, at least they didn’t cut out the line “Iceberg, straight ahead!!!”, otherwise we’d have a real issue.

My favorite line which occurs in a lifeboat from Robert Hiches to Molly Brown is:

“And there'll be one less on this boat,
if you don’t shut that hole in your face!”


Thankfully that’s not cut!

 

[sbjork]

If you're going to multi-quote dozens of people in the same extremely long post, please be more careful to attribute quotes to the correct individuals. I did not say the above. Robert Harris did, in Post 48.

Hey, I got the same multi-quote in two different places in the same extremely long post, correctly attributed, but with the exact same answer copy-pasted each time. I'm honored. Of course, it's a single sentence taken out of context, with a copy-pasted response that has absolutely nothing to do with the point that I was making, but still, it's an honor. I'm assuming that this is a friend of a forum member that I already have on ignore for doing the same thing, so it's another one to add to the list.

Many people have pointed out the issues with the insulting tone of posts like this, and Monsieur Crawford is of course correct to note that personal attacks are a violation of the forum rules. Yet that's not what bothers me, although I still support clamping down on it. No, what bothers me is the bad faith nature of these posts. I'll continue to engage with someone who is being insulting, up to a point at least, but not when they're doing so by mischaracterizing what other people say, building strawman arguments that aren't accurate responses. If you're going to go after someone, at least have the common courtesy to try to understand what they're saying first.

Unfortunately, as a few of the multi-quotes above prove, this kind of post also misinterprets why people choose to ignore the posters, taking it as proof that people can't handle their arguments. No, it's that we don't like having to waste our time responding to those who misrepresent us in order to ride a particular hobby horse. As always, there's plenty of fair debate to be had about this version of Titanic, but there's no obligation to engage in bad faith debate.

Peace out.

 

[OliverK]

Being quite late to join the party (3rd class organized the fun one, right?), I'm afraid that is somewhat a "roundhouse-kick" now across the whole thread so far, but anyway:

That rule should have been better be sticked to.

If messing things up rewards for a great deal of labor, then yes. If people nowadays wouldn't be so obsessive with that (often misused anyway) term "digital", they would start to understand, that anything preserved digitally, in the best case, is indistinguishable from its analog counterpart within the limits which Nyquist/Shannon's theorem dictates. In that way, the different look between film material and a so-called "digital" productions doesn't arise because one ends up being represented by discreet symbols, but different ways of visual capturing and also electronic processing. Given an ideal film scanner - ADC - DAC - projector chain, the end result would be practically impossible to be distinguished, just like an analog input - ADC/DAC (PCM/DSD) - analog output chain.

Sounds similar to the "argument" which audio voodooists make "I trust my senses, I don't need measurements" and god forbid to bother them with disproving facts as in "My wife heard it, too!"

Also, your statement about screenshots being "compressed" (as usual, what is actual meant here is "data reduction") in this generalization is wrong, as e.g. caps-a-holic provides non-data-reduced PNG versions as well. What actually is to be taken with a grain of salt though, is the HDR/BT2020 sources as the screenshots get mapped to SDR/sRGB-whatever at an arbitrary nits setting. While hence one should be cautious with statements about the highlights and contrast, the usual awful orange & teal color grading of nowadays' releases often can be still spotted and criticized rightly so.

Straw-man argument ahoi, captain. But yes, for my part, definitely when it comes to obvious flaws as discussed here. For that, screenshots are mostly good enough.

Feel free to rip your lovely disc you purchased and defend and create screenshots on your own. They will hardly be much different from what the quoted websites posted, will they?

Certainly not, however, that doesn't mean that Cameron's gang couldn't have retrieved a higher amount of spatial detail out of newer scans from the negative of course. My impression is that with the UHD version, one undoubtedly gets a hint more real resolution, but meshed up with Cameron's AI horror trip and all its side effects.

Well, the question arises, while maybe not reaching it, why even set sail (pun intended of course) in that direction? Not having messed up something entirely isn't any indicator for quality, which should be stressed in this context.

"None" is a strong word, given examples like this BD vs UHD BD.

I'm afraid that this is true to a large extend and boils down to the fact that the broad mass, just like when it comes to audio, doesn't care for quality. Despite many hypes in the video domain (the audio one being as completed as the catalog of LaserDiscs because it exceeds our hearing capabilities since decades) in terms of higher resolutions, HDR or broader color spaces, I'd still say "not really". Lousy bitrates on streaming services, severe banding artifacts, wrong TV settings ... sadly, none of this seems to be any major concern for most. They still don't care for quality, not in detail.

Just to add a second opinion to tenia's: after a direct comparison, I still prefer the older Blu-ray release. Rather forgo a bit more (real) resolution and have the more natural image and also colors (orange & teal is greeting at lasted on this UHD as well, yuck).

It doesn't have to, but neither should it look worse than it has to. Also, mind you that "4K" is just the container. No one says that an analog source resulting in a 4K or UHD sampled and quantized image has to reach spatial resolution up to the corresponding Nyquist frequency. It is perfectly fine to stay below that (actually even relaxing requirements for prefiltering and avoiding aliasing). Neither should it be a requirement to always max out the theoretically possible resolution of such a digital end product. It would be the same as demanding that every music on a CD following the red book standard must contain an audio bandwidth of 22.05 kHz and thus tones in that range when starting from 0 Hz.

There goes your reputation for the ones who already made up their mind.


@tenia There it goes ... however, ManW_TheUncool's comment here is still halfway differentiated ...

And there we are, the typical side track reaction which entirely misses the point and core argument. Why deal with those however if one can more conveniently question the other's method to protect one's own worldview?

@tenia: I also learned that in the future it would be probably indeed better to lie about or simply omit such details which only present a welcome target for misguided counterarguments. For instance, I once complained about a player skipping frames in conjunction with certain audio formats. Once raised, no one was really interested in getting it resolved but instead focused on side elements such as "do you even own the original?", "Your rips are the reason for those issues!", etc. Sigh.

Same for me. The only thing which can be misleading is HDR/BT.2020 screenshots, as it often is unclear what algorithm has been used for the tonemapping. However, sharpness, hints of aliasing and overall color grading shouldn't be a major problem and whenever I hear about releases which look awful on screenshots getting praised elsewhere, I think those reporters suffer from quite some denial.

For fair transparency though, I personally got somewhat misguided in concrete with "Starship Troopers" where I complained about blown up highlights and bad color grading. Bold claims which I got even more heat for than tenia here. While I had to admit having been wrong about the highlights, it turns out that even on a Sony A95L with Dolby Vision / HDR / exceeding P3 color space with its QD-OLED panel and whatnot, years later, the image of "Starship Troopers" still looks "special" and I can't get rid of the impression that quite some orange & teal color adjustment went into the otherwise great presentation.

So much for "before you dare to criticize our baby and discuss with us, get proper equipment first".

An exact observation of the facts. The unofficial 35mm rip for me still has a bit more natural colors, but the Blu-ray seems to be halfway decent and the UHD awful.

Which is already beyond comprehension for me. Some (content-wise great without a doubt) old catalog title such as "A few good men" gets an entirely new, fresh scan, but for one of the commercially most successful movies of all time, instead of again getting the negatives and scan them properly, some mediocre one, taken years ago, has to do it. What ignorant moron decides this? Must be the same one who thought that Terminator - Dark Fate would become a better successor than all the other attempts since T2.

Which is totally legit and ultimately suggests the only way to really settle things once and for all:

Release the movie just the way it is today - for some people being the next step of great imagery with all the sharpening, color bonbon style, and totally hip AI fuss. Great!

But then, for the (few) ones who happen to care for quality, with sugar on top, add in a fucking 2nd disc, label it "Titanic Cinema 2007" and just put the raw scan without any processing (except for the one ultimately required to get a decent positive as it ran in the cinema, i.e. "color timing") and make everyone happy. There is no good reason not to do this as they can also always supply that "digital copy" fuss in the US as a third, fourth, whatever disc in the US which virtually no one uses anyway. So it can't be that difficult or expensive then.

Exactly, that's the thing. As a purist, one wants the best possible reproduction of the negative, not less and certainly not "more", just because also Cameron now heard about the term "AI" (good for him, the last T6 sucked nonetheless, despite plenty of stories one could have told here, but I'm drifting).

Well, there are 35mm scans floating around the net. I'm not sure how well those were preserved or how much variance in quality there is between them, but just like with preservations done for "True Lies", "Face/Off" or "The Matrix", while looking authentic, they all have their own issues, very typical for the xth generation of a copy such as rather low spatial resolution, scratches, black crush, heavy blue tint for the first two (allegedly intended so back in the 90s), etc.

Which is the frustrating problem: the sources we standard mortals can get, aren't the best and the best sources are being held hostage by ignorant morons who only release them with ugly post processing. Hurray.

With Nolan not being immune to mangling attempts on his own work, either. The re-release of "Memento" (allegedly once again "director approved" which clearly doesn't mean anything for quality) for example looks worse than its decent original US counterpart (from the early days of the Blu-ray with MPEG-2 for the video): stupidly boosted contrast and colors and worse resolved black and white - scenes, probably due to denoise.

Again boosting the argument that the majority just doesn't care. No wonder, VHS could survive that long. The ones rightfully complaining including me, are simply victims of the ignorance of the mass which is always stronger. Sad, but true.

Yeah, but we're the poor souls who are supposed to consume it, aren't we? The men you mention however have the access to better sources in the unlikely case they would care to watch their own flick yet another hundredth time which I doubt, being certainly busy with Avatar 23 and counting up, tsss.

Yes, with that preservation accessible to hardly anyone. Go figure. What worth is a "flawless" preservation when it is locked up in a vault and not getting made use of? Disney may ask themselves the same question, same retardation.

In the sad practise, you're right, but you're missing the point that this isn't how things have to be. The way more clever approach would be to distribute the preservation (at least in addition) and even have a decentralized backup along the way being even free of charge. Neat, isn't it?

Good that no one forces you to follow the thread then. You can be your own program director, the positive effect of nowadays' techniques.

That is true. So does the processing also continue on the playback side at home which many omit as a fact as well. However, the kind of artifical processing which went into this particular UHD release is hardly the kind we're talking about when we "virtualize" former photo-chemical processes on a computer. As always, it's difficult to draw the line though as in what adjustments are still okay and what aren't.

In the specific case of Titanic, it can't be rocket science though to get a post processing out of a fresh negative scan which matches the look of a decent copy which happened to run in a theater back in 1997, just with the higher resolution and dynamic range but no other adjustments beyond that.

I'm confident that it nowadays could still at least be approximated very well. At least way closer to what we get and are discussing here, so that for me is yet another side track argumentative.

Well, it's not that those couldn't be inserted there as well. Many now are limited to flickery 60 Hz it seems, though.

To an apparent archivist: as mentioned before, a way more crucial question arises: where the hell is the Titanic 1997 UHD then and what is wrong to add that one to the package for the real fans of that movie?

Which is entirely legit as long as the original is provided along the way.

And the remotely sensible reason for that being?

I wouldn't say so in general. "Grain" and "noise" refer to the same thing, the latter being adopted from the audio domain. By definition, noise is random, but it may be weighted. If a "disturbance" is closely bound to the input signal, it is rather called "distortion".

Which is also the reason why one may use dither to distribute the error due to quantization and replace destortion by lot more pleasant noise (not only that, dithering actually increases the resolution in terms of signal levels).

Of course it can. Give the renderer "madVR" a go with "random dither", lower the bit depth to 1 bit to make a case and see how it looks (like very bad analog TV reception).

In theory, there is no fundamental difference between "analog noise" and "digital noise".

I'm afraid that this is true to a large extend and boils down to the fact that the broad mass, just like when it comes to audio, just doesn't care for quality. Despite many hypes in the video domain (the audio one being as completed as the catalog of LaserDiscs since it exceeds our hearing capabilities since decades) in terms of higher resolutions, HDR or broader color spaces, I'd still say "not really". Lousy bitrates on streaming services, severe banding artifacts, wrong TV settings ... sadly, none of this seems to be any major concern for most.

Just to add a second opinion to tenia's: after a direct comparison, I still prefer the older Blu-ray release. Rather forgo a bit more (real) resolution and have the more natural image and also colors (orange & teal is greeting at lasted on this UHD as well, yuck).



It doesn't have to, but neither should it look worse than it has to look. Also, mind you that "4K" is just the container. No one says that an analog source resulting in a 4K or UHD sampled and quantized image has to reach spatial resolution up to the corresponding Nyquist frequency. It is perfectly fine to stay below that (actually even relaxing requirements for prefiltering and avoiding aliasing). Neither should it be a requirement to always max out the theoretically possible resolution of such a digital end product. It would be the same to demand that every music on a CD following the red book standard must contain an audio bandwidth of 22.05 kHz.




Actually, it isn't. Although digital information is discreet by definition, an analog source - at least in ideal theory - may be losslessly reconstructed out of it within the boundaries, the Nyquist limit (bandwidth) and quantization (signal to noise ratio) dictate.

Hence, given an ideal chain of analog to digital (and vice versa) conversion, the also analog output may be indistinguishable from the original analog input. For many audiophiles, this statement is blasphemy of course, but truth never triumphs, only its opponents become extinct.




Well, there is. Apparently, people seem to have different thresholds of what enters their consciousness, but I see it clearly, 24/7 and hardly surprisingly, a lot more in twilight where the SNR naturally decreases.

If you think about it, it would actually be odd if it were any different. The retina is a optical/electric/chemical sensor as well after all and there isn't any channel free of noise, so natural grain it is.



At least one (rationally) shouldn't.



I understand you, but this is as irrational as prefering some clicking, scratching noisy vinyl recording over a pristine tape or directly PCM-recorded one as one should keep in mind that most analog to digital conversions don't take anything from the original (despite contradicting audiophile claims), they just don't add as many artifacts. Film grain, as "filmic" and nostalgic as it may look, doesn't have anything to do with the original either but is a technical artifact not supposed to be there (same for the vision as stated above, but the human body is just as flawed).

That being written, when in doubt, I would always go with the more grainy release of a movie as there will likely less filtering have been performed.



True, but which aren't exactly reference quality either, not even for their time.



As OliverK mentioned, you may be helped as for True Lies, there is an official HD-release, just on the way less known format "D-VHS". Far from being reference either (I Robot also got released on that format and it is probably the best one could have before the Blu-ray was released), but till today and sadly maybe forever, the best version for this movie.

As this is your first post you may not know but this forum is not really a good place for "roundhouse kicks". This usually is a nice place and people appreciate that.

You are certainly not the only one who has an issue with this release but people will be much more willing to consider your arguments when they do not have a latent feeling that you are overly confrontational and/or belittling other members. It would also help if people do not have to read through several pages and a few dozen quotes in just one post - TLDR is probably what more than one member thought when seeing the length of your post!

 

[little-endian]

Please, be mindful of our posting guidelines as we don't allow comments that belittled or disrespect another person's opinion.

Thanks for the response, Robert.

In my first draft, I had indeed some kind of a disclaimer that the following remarks would be "pithy", but in no way meant to be disrespectful or insulting. Somehow, I then must have decided to restructure and omit that. Should have left it in as it turns out.

In a similar way that I got banned here at first with no direct message to me about the specific reason, also you however just quoted my whole (very lengthy indeed) text now and accuse me of violating the terms and being insulting.

If you could kindly elaborate on what part exactly is supposed to be that way, I am happy to reply to it specifically. One should be given the chance to explain oneself, shouldn't one?

Hey, I got the same multi-quote in two different places in the same extremely long post, correctly attributed, but with the exact same answer copy-pasted each time. I'm honored.

To show you the difference about how to deal with justified criticism: my feelings could be now personally hurt by that kind of "smugness" (not sure whether that terms meets the German "Süffisanz") but that point shall go to you. My post full of quotes was indeed extremely lengthy, to an extend that I once copied and pasted a part in addition, had to fiddle through it again and then apparently lost track myself (especially after doing all that on a phone where editing functions are still a pure nightmare, which would justify yet another 'roundhouse kick' against the android developers).

Hence apologies to you any other (also @Noel Aguirre) who has been misquoted here by mistake, which is obviously not my intend.

Unfortunately, as a few of the multi-quotes above prove, this kind of post also misinterprets why people choose to ignore the posters, taking it as proof that people can't handle their arguments. No, it's that we don't like having to waste our time responding to those who misrepresent us in order to ride a particular hobby horse.

This issue is actually twofold - on one hand, you may argue that if the wording and style of an argument isn't presented in a proper way or to your taste, it's not even worth to argue with someone, on the other, it is also the perfect excuse and easy way out whenever a real argument or fruitful dispute has never been intended in the first place, in order to protect the own, already settled opinion.

As always, there's plenty of fair debate to be had about this version of Titanic, but there's no obligation to engage in bad faith debate.

The reactions here show the exact opposite, confirming my perception that the overall willingness to dive into the technical details is rather low.

As this is your first post you may not know but this forum is not really a good place for "roundhouse kicks". This usually is a nice place and people appreciate that.

To be honest, it is not the first time that some "first post" gets under special observation. I might be a bit non-chalant and a bit "careless" here, but I'm registered at many of such forums (mostly under the same nickname) and for me, they are more or less interchangeable, so I just post on one of them where an interesting discussion is ongoing, not really caring about a specific post count, new membership, and "that one community". In other terms: what big difference would it make to have that same thread at avsforum or whatever? Right!

You are certainly not the only one who has an issue with this release but people will be much more willing to consider your arguments when they do not have a latent feeling that you are overly confrontational and/or belittling other members.

A valid point. Admittedly, it comes to my own surprise, that people (including myself) are way more confrontational when discussing in a forum than doing so personally.

Best example: if some acquaintance or colleague would come up with the typical "vinyl sounds better than CDs", while I would settle at a little being embarrassed "well, actually ... err, many say so, not that records can't sound nice as well" when talking in person, in a forum, I would smash around a "no, you're wrong! Furthermore you mean "... than 'PCM'" as the CD is just the data carrier", etc.

An interesting phenomenon indeed, raising the philosophical question whether pseudonymity emphasizes rudeness per se or partly also just takes away "wrong politeness" and prioritising sheer "honesty".

It would also help if people do not have to read through several pages and a few dozen quotes in just one post - TLDR is probably what more than one member thought when seeing the length of your post!

Also valid. I wanted to cover virtually everything and got a bit obsessed with the amount of quotes which are then hard to read for the being concerned, especially when misquotes apparently sneak in to make matters worse.

I'll try to do better and shorter next time - which again now is somewhat a challenge.



@all:

As replied to @sbjork above, having picked up your (righteous) critique though, what unites all your responses however, is that once again, not a single remark has been presented about the actual topic (being criticism on the latest Titanic release, let me remind you), but only about (granted, neither unimportant) formalities such as the tone, correct quoting, etc. Hence it's once again all about the messenger, not the message which is a real pity.

So while my lengthy posting full of quotations, which could have been structured in a better way, I fully admit, for sure wasn't perfect to say the least, I'm confident that it still deserves way more response about the actual content. Not to mention the time and effort such postings take.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Yeah. This thread is not about one member and how that member chooses to post (or not post). Or any relationship between members.

This thread is about the 4k/UHD release of Titanic.

Let's focus on the task at hand and make comments and posts on topic--within the rules of the forum as set out in our rules book.

Let's not make it any more than that.

 

[Riddhi2023]

When you say you haven't seen projected film as sharp as digital... presumably, you mean a vast majority of digital presentations you've experienced...
_Man_

This is a bit late for a reply, but no, I meant analogue film prints (35mm and 70mm); projected via celluloid prints, not DCPs of movies shot on film. It's the projections of physical film prints I have experienced, that looked soothing and soft compared to projection via DCPs.

 

[UNdetectableMAN]

No matter how many times we think about the matter, what Cameron has done with his films is a shame. They are all a shame. Terminator 2, The Abyss, True Lines, Alines and of course Titanic, are all an absolute disgrace. A barbarity.

 

[Robert Crawford]

One post has been deleted because the new member that posted it, isn't talking about the 4k/UHD release of Titanic. We don't care if you want to criticize James Cameron, it is of no concern of ours. Furthermore, if you need to talk with a moderator regarding enforcement of forum rules and guidelines then you need to read our HTF rules specifically the two quoted below:

18. No public disagreements. Anyone arguing with a moderator regarding enforcement of forum rules and guidelines or disciplinary action will be immediately removed. This includes "indirect" argument, where a member vents about a moderator's action being "unjustified", "excessive", etc.

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You must agree to these terms and rules before using the site.

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[moviebuff75]

Three lines of dialogue are still missing.

 

[Tino]

No matter how many times we think about the matter, what Cameron has done with his films is a shame. They are all a shame. Terminator 2, The Abyss, True Lines, Alines and of course Titanic, are all an absolute disgrace. A barbarity.

You really agree with this post @Colin Jacobson ? That’s surprising.

 

[VisionMan]

You really agree with this post @Colin Jacobson ? That’s surprising.

Of course, the best way to view Terminator 2 and Titanic is via their excellent 3D conversions, which stimulate portions of the visual cortex that flat images simply do not. And when both the left and right images are upscaled to 4K by the appropriate projectors, the image quality of each is truly outstanding.

 

[Tino]

Of course, the best way to view Terminator 2 and Titanic is via their excellent 3D conversions, which stimulate portions of the visual cortex that flat images simply do not. And when both the left and right images are upscaled to 4K by the appropriate projectors, the image quality of each is truly outstanding.

Umm……thanks Colin??