House Of Flying Daggers R1 - April 19 (1 Viewer)

[Brian_cyberbri]

This isn't the first time there has been widely conflicting reviews/reports on DVDs. IGN had a glowing review of the Taxi DVD pq, different people said the new Fifth Element UE was an improved transfer, and Miramax's Hero caused a huge uproar (at least on AVS Forum).

 

[Aaron Silverman]

True. A lot of it has to do with differing equipment, and a lot of it is personally subjective as well. Any type of lossy compression is going to evoke different responses from different people due to psychological and physical factors.

 

[Andy Patrizio]

Brian,

I revisited the Taxi transfer after it came up here and realized I was way off. It looked really bad, which is disappointing because Fox is usually very good about it.

And my The Incredibles review resulted in me going on a $3,000 bender.

 

[Andy Patrizio]

When Jin first sees Mei. We see her standing a distance away, from his perspective. I just went "ouch."

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

Andy,

Did you calibrate your new display or anything after you got it? I wonder if you contrast setting is up too high, like I accidentally did when I calibrated mine. I didn't notice any "issues" until I checked some scenes in Finding Nemo.

See the "Case Study" section of my first post here to see what had happened with that. I wonder if you may possibly have the contrast up too high on your new display (RP-LCD was it?)

 

[Andy Patrizio]

See my above post. Yes, I checked twice with Digital Video Essentials. Contrast is spot on. I watched Blade Trinity last night, and considering how dark that film is, my black levels should be all blown out with a badly set contrast. Those black levels were awesome.

 

[Yumbo]

I'm with Andy, totally calibrated.

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

The "Contrast"/Picture Level adjustment is the white level, so it would mainly affect the whites and bright areas, only very slightly affecting the black levels. The "Brightness" control moves the black level, how deep the blacks are, how much shadow detail you have, etc. Yes, the labels are misleading - probably backwards.

From this website:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6463_7-...2.html?tag=dir

Brightness
What it is: Also called black level, brightness actually adjusts how dark the black sections of the picture appear.

Contrast
What it is: Also called picture or white level, contrast controls the intensity of the white parts of the image and determines the overall light output of the display.


If you want to see if you Contrast/white level is out of wack, try Finding Nemo, right at the end of the chapter where Marlin rescues Dory from the jellyfish. If your contrast is up too high, you'll see major banding. Like I put in the calibration thread post, on my DLP when I calibrated contrast/white level so that the brightest white my display is capable of is at 235, it really messed up the high end of the spectrum, and made Finding Nemo look like crap. I didn't see any "issues" on any other DVDs with those settings - they just seemed "brighter" because there was more light in the image. I didn't know there was an issue with calibrating my digital display's Contrast (white level) setting so the brightest white it could produce to be at 235 rather than 255 or higher. I could see it affected the greyscale patterns a certain way, of course. But once I popped Finding Nemo in...

Here's the link again for calibrating, and my text about setting Contrast (white level) on my DLP digital display:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=523614

Calibrating for Digital Displays - Case Study == Using Finding Nemo as a Gauge:
(NOTE: This is based on my own experience calibrating my Samsung DLP, so your mileage may vary with your own display)

While the brightness/black level adjustment advice holds true, and you should match the brightness setting to show level 16 blacks as black, with good gradation up from there, with digital displays the contrast/white level setting may not work the same way.

The idea of course is to set the darkest black your display is capable of to be at the level 16 black, making sure you can see detail in the dark values, etc. But on some digital displays, like my DLP, the display is capable of extremely bright whites. I found that if I adjusted the contrast/white level setting in my service menu up until I found the brightest white it is capable of producing, and set that level to level 235 white, the upper range of the greyscale was adversely affected, shifting to yellow or red at certain %'s.

For reference, the "normal" contrast setting in my service menu is about 103. I could take it up to about 125 to produce the brightest whites the set is capable of, and depending on the level of the red/green/blue gains, I could take this up to 130-140 and get the "brightest white" the set can produce set to 235.

When I tested out DVDs with this higher contrast setting, they all seemed to look fine, albeit brighter than I remember them of course. But one DVD was extremely messed up, with banding, macroblocking, etc. I had seen banding on the DVD before, and was aware that it could show such problems if the display (and video chain) aren't up to par. The DVD? Disney's/Pixar's Finding Nemo, of course. The PQ of this DVD has been fervently debated, some people saying it's perfect reference quality, and others saying it has banding, blocking, etc., and then the people who don't see those issues say it's the video chain/display that's bad if you see issues. See this thread, started late 2003, to see what I'm talking about.

So, with my high contrast settings, thinking I was setting the "white level" at the correct spot, Finding Nemo looked like trash. Banding was slight with certain scenes, but at the end of Chapter 14, when Marlin and Dory come out of the swarm of jelly fish, I saw 3! colors of blue, with saw blade-like blocking between the different tones. Lost and trying to tweak levels, I spent the better half of Saturday (much to my wife's dismay) "fiddling" with the TV and computer. I settled on some decent settings Saturday night, something I could be satisfied with (for a day), back at an acceptable level of banding on Finding Nemo that I had grown accustomed to seeing.

But I was obsessed with nailing down the settings to get Finding Nemo to look better, even though every other DVD I tested looked "fine". So Sunday, I spent about 2-3 hours (took much less time this time) tweaking. I started off by lowering my contrast down to around the previous level, and the extreme banding in the scene described above went away. So from there, I used DVE greyscale screens to adjust red/green/blue gain/offset balance. I had a hard time with this, and found that using the Phillips Pattern Generator a much more complete and convenient tool, although I still checked the DVE screens for black level and overall status. The Phillips Pattern Generator has greyscale bars and many other test patterns, but I found the CRT color/b-w adjustments to be the most useful. I was able to nail down the red-green-blue gain/offset adjustments with the greyscale bars. Then I nailed down the contrast level and color saturation (in the user menu) to create a proper 0-100 gradation for each color, with clear distinctions at the 1%-5% steps on both the top and bottom end (although the bottom end, about 0-10% or so, required moving brightness/black level to 0 instead of 16 temporarily). Too much contrast, and the upper range of the colors bands together, as seen in the Finding Nemo example. The same applies to the Color saturation setting, as too much color will lose the differentiation between 100% and 99%, etc. Working through my Samsung's Service Menu reverts the user menu controls to the "Dynamic" mode, which has Contrast at 100/100, Brightness at 50/100, Color at 65/100, and Sharpness at 65/100(?). So after getting the brightness and contrast levels dialed in with the service menu, I exited and went back to the user menu controls to turn off the sharpness and dial down the color to fine-tune the color gradations and get proper differences between single % changes with the Phillips program.


Basically, this meant that for my digital Samsung DLP display, I lowered my brightness/black level to set "black" at 16. But I kept my contrast/white level lower, not going for the absolute brightest white it was capable of. I went for the proper greyscale gradation through the whole 0-255 range using the Phillips Pattern Generator, aside from the lowered brightness for black=16, and found those results were the best. The "white" level appeared light grey compared to the maximum white the display can achieve on a greyscale ramp, but even at the lower contrast/white level setting, a screen of all "white" is still plenty bright, and looks "white" anyway.

I was a little nervous as I brought up Finding Nemo, but was pleasantly surprised. On all scenes tested -- 0:30 opening, aquamarine-colored water under "butt" boat, Dory's blue skin/scales at the beginning of Chapter ? right after Marlin and Dory first meet, water around deepsea fish's antenna, water where Marlin and Dory come out of jellyfish swarm, etc. -- banding was gone or reduced to so slight a level I had to stare and look to see it. I couldn't have been more pleased with myself, and the results, and every other DVD I tested looked great like before, with seemingly better gradations, colors, detail, etc. I had a good calibration before, after I got my new light engine installed a few weeks ago, but redoing it (light bulb losing a bit of brightness after first 100+ hours of use, etc.) this time, I think I have my settings better than ever before. And there is less noise in the picture than I remember from before as well - on the DVDs I tested, I could only make out the noise by pausing the DVD and advancing frame by frame.

Lessons (I) learned from this experience:

A) Digital displays can be very finicky, where a CRT may seem to hide/blend colors together for less banding, at least with DVD sources, or computer+DVD sources.
B) The Finding Nemo DVD is a great test to gauge your digital display for proper color/br/ct balance. If the settings are off just a little, you'll see banding and artifacts.
C) Brightness/black level is easy enough to set, but contrast can be a bit trickier (at least on digital displays with a high amount of light output), so testing with finicky real world material like Finding Nemo can help put things into perspective. Other DVDs with distinct green/red/orange/blue looks can also help see if you have your green or red, etc. up/down a few notches too far, as you can tell a green looks too green or doesn't have enough green more in a scene you know, than on a greyscale where it may not show up as well in the greys.
D) Using an HTPC as a DVD player gives you a lot of control and options that normal DVD players don't, not only with playback, but especially with calibrations. Being able to use the Phillips Pattern Generator, etc. to dial in my settings meant that I can have (near) perfect settings without needing fancy, expensive signal generators, light meters, etc. Too bad this only applies to the DVI/HTPC input.

 

[Herb Kane]

Exactly. Above and beyond the most important factor of equipment and its calibration, a few other points to keep in mind:
[*] When did you watch the film (morning, afternoon or night). Oftentimes, when I watch a film affects my feelings regarding it – atmospherically. The morning or afternoon viewing may also add some unwanted daylight in terms of where you do your viewing.
[*] Are you rested when you watch it?
[*] What kind of mood are you in… have you had a crummy day? Stressed out from work or the kids…?
[*] Who – if anyone, did you watch it with? Definitely affects my feelings when watching certain types of films.
[*] Deadlines – not that we have any per se but is there a specific grouping of titles on the release horizon forcing the reviewer to expedite his/her reviews?
[*] Unfamiliarity with the material. Stylistically it’s often very difficult to comment on or critique something that we don’t know for sure if a visual effect, say, was intended or unintended.
[*] Unfamiliarity with the content material. I find television shows difficult to review for this very reason. Many shows have years and years of history of long running themes or gags or other devices which may not necessarily be immediately evident to the reviewer.
[*] Unfamiliarity with the quality of the elements used. Particularly important when reviewing older films. All we get is a one or two page press release (if at all) which usually never affords us any info pertaining to the elements used. All we can do is report on how the material looks/sounds and compare it to material of a similar vintage.

These are factors which affect all of us here, the only difference is that we’re putting pen to paper and making comments about the material. I’d be very suspicious of the reviews if they were always identical to everyone else’s…

 

[Ron Boster]

What other negative comments would one refer to, but the ones within the thread that they are discussing. I was merely pointing out the difference between a respected HT publication ratings and the comments posted within this thread. I have not yet seen a copy of the R1 disc, so that I can compare it to my Starmax copy.

Ron

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

Okay. Thanks for clarifying.

I ordered the EDKO 2-disc version online, and I should have it in a few weeks (along with Kung Fu Hustle). I didn't want to take a chance with the R1 version, just in case, and I wanted to go for the better audio anyway (why I chose the EDKO 2-disk version over the Starmax).

I'm very much looking forward to seeing this movie, not to mention experiencing the full-bitrate DTS track.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Can anyone be certain, there will not be a SB release for this title? With a little less EE & DTS (well, I could also hope for un-censored version. Like that's going to happen in the USA in 2005), this (R1) could be the one (for PQ & SQ) too own.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Herb,

Good points -- although by "psychological and physical" I was actually referring specifically to the psycho-physical response of different people to digitally compressed material!

Not having seen a film in a proper theater (and even then, in most cases one can never be 100% certain that the presentation is exactly accurate) makes it very tough to know the director's intent in terms of the look of the image.

 

[Herb Kane]

Yeah, but you weren't very specific were ya...

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Well, how else am I supposed to maintain my aura of mystery and suspense???

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Well, I wanted the DVD with the best PQ;
Not, the R1.
Well, I wanted the DVD with the extended cut;
Not, the R1.
Well, I wanted the DVD with the best (re: DTS) sound:
Not, the R1.
Well, I wanted the DVD that was not censored;
Not, the R1.
Well, I am going to BB today to buy the R1;
????????????????????????????????
Well, I wanted the DVD for ten bucks;
Not, badd!

 

[Adam_WM]

Ed, ????

 

[Jeff Cooper]

One thing I noticed is that one of the scenes cut from the R1 release is in fact intact in the storyboard comparisons in the special features.

Check out the 'Fight in the flower field', where Jin slices one of the soldiers throats.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Adam,
According to DVDBeaver;
The R1 is censored, hence the "not the R1".
The Starmax (R3) has the best PQ, hence "not the R1".
The EDKO (R3) has the best SQ (DTS), hence "not the R1".

Hope that's clear.

The extended cut was a mistake by me, got all the 'problems' with the R1 "Hero" (hey, at least it has the same director ;-) ), mixed up with HoFD. My badd!

 

[Brian_cyberbri]

Just got my R3 Edko 2-disk version in the mail today, along with Kung Fu Hustle. I picked up Lemony Snicket on Tuesday as well, so it looks like I have a full weekend of movie-watching ahead of me.