DVD Review HTF DVD Review: The Jungle Book - 40th Anniversary Platinum Edition (1 Viewer)

[Chuck Pennington]

I have my tv calibrated using Video Essentials and the lines are visible in many shots, but only when I look for them and get up close to the screen. In fact, doing this I can see some sort of compression on ANY DVD, though admittedly the lines on THE JUNGLE BOOK are different.

When I set my TV to some of the default settings, the lines are far more visible - but the contrast and brightness is set too high on those settings. Again, my set only has a 800:1 contrast ratio so that might have something to do with it.

ROBIN HOOD I was pleased with, but the last PETER PAN was pretty bad IMHO.

BTW - I just got done posting ROBIN HOOD comparison pics over at UltimateDisney.com.

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/...ic.php?t=21163

 

[RobertSiegel]

are you watching this upscaled or did you try 480p on a regular dvd player? I will have my copy tomorrow, so I can test on the Epson 1080 projector, but seems like it's there for everyone.

 

[Craig Beam]

50" Panasonic Plasma set, upconverting Sony DVD player via HDMI. My brightness isn't set very high, and I can see the lines. Damn it.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

I didn't say I couldn't see them - I said they are very slight and only noticeable when I look for them, just like the pixilization around the lines of characters on ALL of these Disney DVD restorations.

What is your contrast set to? Mine isn't set to the max like I see a lot of TVs default to. Maybe that is pronouncing it, I dunno.

 

[Reagan]

I checked the 43:25 mark and the lines are there. It actually starts at 43:27 on my disc. The odd part is that the lines aren't always there. Some shots, yes, and others, no - even when the color and brightness of some object is the same (e.g., Baloo's gray fur).

It's hit and miss, and I can understand why a reviewer would miss it. I noticed a lot of compression artifacts in the shots with the lines - as someone above has said, maybe there is a relationship.

Long story short, there's a problem. How noticeable the problem is depends on the brightness of your monitor and viewing distance. From my normal distance, the lines are barely perceptible.

-Reagan

 

[Mike Frezon]

I'm not. I think it looks great.

But I often see things differently than the guys with big set-ups here. I'm watching on a 26" HD CRT (calibrated with Avia).

 

[Jim-M]

I found it happening at about 23:45 into the movie. I noticed during the first viewing, but no one else in the family did. I'm viewing it on a 46" 1080p LCD with a Sony upconverting DVD player. I changed the output of the player from 1080i to 720p to 480p, but the lines were always there. I also changed the brightness and contrast on the TV but could not make the lines go away. The other 99% of the DVD has such great audio and video compared to the previous release that the momentary lines did not detract from the viewing. The lines are definitely noticeable while viewing, but not as prominent as some of the blown up screen shots in this thread might lead you to believe. They happen for a second or two and there is usually enough motion in the scene that they can tend to blend in more to the eye than the still screen shot indicates.

 

[Brian Sharp]

Will be interesting to compare to the region 2 release when it comes out next month though i would be surprised if it is any different. But there again I have been surprised in the past!

 

[Chris Cheese]

This makes me wonder if my copy is indeed more defective than some other folks' copies, because for me, the lines are there throughout most of the film (though I didn't notice them much in the last 15-20 minutes) and they sometimes last for a number of seconds at a time.

 

[Jim-M]

I didn't look at all the listed times I saw in one of the posts when I was checking last night. I didn't mean to imply that 23:45 was the only time in the film I saw those lines.

 

[Reagan]

Other than the shots with the lines (and I haven't catalogued them - and probably won't), I think it looks great. The PQ of the opening two or three minutes wowed me.

-Reagan

 

[Patrick McCart]

The compression on the captures really needs to be toned down... I always try to use 100% quality JPEG or uncompressed PNG to avoid adding artifacting.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Well, Patrick, I have tried to alter the compression using VLC. Show me where to change the settings in Preferences and I'll do so. I can select PNG or JPEG, but the quality is the same.

 

[Lyle_JP]

Sure, the screenshots of the 1:1.75 cropping looks fine. Does it still look fine on a 16:9 monitor with standard 4-5% overscan?

 

[Reagan]

I watched the documentary on disc 2 over the weekend, and I really enjoyed it. One of the things I liked best is that one of the Disney vets interviewed is Floyd Norman, a man whose stories I've enjoyed reading for years.

-Reagan

Lyle,

My monitor is set to 4% overscan I had no problems with the framing.

-Reagan

 

[Mike_Heggemann]

Don't know if this tells anyone what might be wrong or not, but here it is:

I have a Sony DVP-NC85H 5 Disc Upconverting DVD player connected to a Westinghouse LTV-37w2 HDTV via HDMI.

My usual setup is to have the Sony output at 720p. In that setup, I see the lines.

At 1080i, I see the lines.

If I switch my progessive mode settings from "auto" to "video", the lines get worse. (Over HDMI on this player, I cannot disable progressive mode.)

Here's where it get interesting, though...

If I set the DVD player to output at 480p, which my TV DOES NOT play as widescreen, but as a 4:3 screen in the middle of the set, the LINES GO AWAY. As in they are NOT there at all.

When my TV displays in this manner, the picture is "squished" side to side, like the picture on the DVD would be before being "stretched" to widescreen. I think in this mode, with this setup, I am seeing the true picture that is encoded on the DVD.

That seems to leave us with either an upconversion issue of some kind or a progressive issue of some kind. Anyone want to hazard a guess?

Edit:

I was a bit premature, but what I found is even more bizzare...

I was using the scene about 45 minutes into the movie where Baloo bends over Mowgli and says "Mowgli, Mowgli, time to get up and wipe the sleep from your eyes", just before "we've got a long walk ahead of us".

In 480p, that scene is PERFECT - Baloo's body is one solid grey color with no lines at all.
In 720p and 1080i, Baloo's body has the lines on it and they are painfully obvious.

However, if I went back a couple of minutes to when Baloo says "Can't I tell him in the morning", followed by "It is morning", the lines DO appear there, despite their not being in evidence in 720p or 1080i at that point.

BTW:

When the lines DO show up in 480p, they look more like thin, single parallel lines spaced evenly apart in pairs.

When the lines DO show up in 720p or 1080i, they look almost like someone drug a wide tipped marker over the picture at evenly spaced intervals.

So, it looks like the lines show up in different spots in the movie depending on what resolution you are viewing the movie at.

 

[Sumnernor]

I have just gotten the (German) PAL Junglebook and see no problems with the picture. I have a good quality TV TUBE (Loewe) and a good DVD player. Has anyone in the US tried it on a TV without Progressive scan OR on a tube TV.

 

[Brian Kidd]

I also noticed the lines on my 42" Toshiba Plasma. I don't use an upscaling DVD player, so I don't know if that makes a difference or not. They were rare, but fairly distracting.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

That may be true, but I saw 101 Dalmatians on a general re-release in the early 90s (I think), and I remember it being 1:37:1, pillarboxed within the 1.85:1 frame.

Of course classic films have been framed differently for different theatrical releases (the 70mm versions of Gone With the Wind and The Ten Commandments, or the Cinemascope version of The Wizard of Oz, for example). I would've thought that by the 1990s, they would have had that nailed down, though.

Sorry for the confusion, and for going off topic slightly.

 

[Patrick McCart]

UCLA Film & TV Archive lists a 1961 35mm dye-transfer print with hard-matting (to 1.66:1).

As far as I know, a CinemaScope version of The Wizard of Oz has never existed.