A Few Words About The Big Country (redux) -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Keith Cobby]

I know this is blasphemy to some, but not everyone wants a lot of grain... Sometimes the grain itself can become a distraction. I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I can think of several blu's where too much grain took me out of the movie - when that happens not a good thing IMO. Some filtering makes sense to me - it's just a matter of the degree. Of the Kino and Shout films I have, I've been pretty pleased with their approach. And minus what I think are mostly just some compression artifacts, I'm relatively pleased with the overall look of Kino's The Big Country. But it's nice that there's a label like Koch that is offering a more "grain-heavy" approach to offer a different take.

Spot on. It looks like Brownian motion and can be very distracting. Now that more viewers have larger screens, it is more noticeable than before. Fortunately, many of my favourite films were photographed in large format where it is less of an issue.

 

[David_B_K]

I know this is blasphemy to some, but not everyone wants a lot of grain... Sometimes the grain itself can become a distraction. I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I can think of several blu's where too much grain took me out of the movie - when that happens not a good thing IMO. Some filtering makes sense to me - it's just a matter of the degree. Of the Kino and Shout films I have, I've been pretty pleased with their approach. And minus what I think are mostly just some compression artifacts, I'm relatively pleased with the overall look of Kino's The Big Country. But it's nice that there's a label like Koch that is offering a more "grain-heavy" approach to offer a different take.

The Big Country, shot in Technirama, is not going to look grain heavy. Those Caps-a-holic close up comparison shots are exaggerating what you will see, as if you are looking at frames with a magnifying glass. However, while looking at them, you can see ever so slight a degradation of the detail in the picture in the Kino, as in that shot where Heston is writhing on the ground in the canyon. A little of the detail of the pattern of his shirt is lost. If you select the fullscreen Caps-a-holic comparison, the grain is virtually unnoticeable. But when you alternate between the Koch and Kino in fullscreen mode, it will seem as if a layer of film has been applied to the degrained version to make it a tad smeary. At least it looks that way to me. In any case the degraining on the Kino is not a dealbreaker, but it was unnecessary IMO for a Technirama film.

I agree with you on excessive grain. I remember once (on another forum, I think) during a discussion of degraining, someone wrote "I happen to love film grain". I found that an odd statement. I like a movie to be presented the way it was intended, and if it includes noticeable grain, so be it. However, I would not wish that a movie had more visible grain for grain's sake. Usually you see it when a film is shot with low light. In the golden age of Hollywood, they simply would have used more light to avoid the grainy look, even if it compromised the realism of a scene. As Douglas said, it got more prevalent in the 70's when lots of movies had excessive grain which imparted (IMO) a low-budget/grindhouse look to films.

On another note, I mentioned above the isolated music track of Jerome Moross' score, which included music for the "Old Thunder" scene that was not used. I took a look on YouTube to see if anyone had combined the music with the scene, and they had. It appears the uploader has sped up the film (or used a PAL source) , but it seems to line up pretty well. It is remarkable how differently the scene plays with music. It seems a tad comic with the music, but tense and dangerous without it.

OLD THUNDER SCENE WITH MUSIC

 

[Malcolm Bmoor]

I'll interrupt this serious stuff with a moment of trivia.

We learn from Mr Heston's journal that extra closeups for the fight scene were made in Rome during Ben Hur, using a specially supplied Technirama camera.

There are very few closeups in the scene and maybe none of the retakes were used, but it's an interesting thought when looking at it.

 

[OliverK]

I agree with you on excessive grain. I remember once (on another forum, I think) during a discussion of degraining, someone wrote "I happen to love film grain". I found that an odd statement. I like a movie to be presented the way it was intended, and if it includes noticeable grain, so be it. However, I would not wish that a movie had more visible grain for grain's sake. Usually you see it when a film is shot with low light. In the golden age of Hollywood, they simply would have used more light to avoid the grainy look, even if it compromised the realism of a scene. As Douglas said, it got more prevalent in the 70's when lots of movies had excessive grain which imparted (IMO) a low-budget/grindhouse look to films.

It is completely ridiculous to demand more grain just because. There can only be so much film grain with a well produced movie.

With all that being said I look forward to compare the MGM version of The Big Country that to the new Koch version.

The difference in texture and detail seems to be quite comparable to what we see when we compare Kino and Koch:

The Big Country • DE Blu-ray vs. US Blu-ray

caps-a-holic.com

 

[willyTass]

my Koch copy arrived from Germany today

even with my high end audio set up I cant pick the differences between the 16 bit and 24 bit tracks , unless I rely on placebo .Don’t think any home theatre processors can resolve beyond 19 bits audio anyway, from all the ones that I’ve seen have scientific measurements

the oppos 105 and 205 have phenomenal signal to noise ratios when running audio out of the multichannel analog outs, direct to an amp bypassing a preamp. That’s how I listen to movies these days. sounds much better than going to an audio processor, many of which these days sound inferior compared to classe ssp-800, denon avp-a1hd and the old krell processors like the 1200u

but the Koch compression is beautiful, exquisite. Film grain is super fine never coarse. And when you press pause or slow forward you can see how perfectly they’ve compressed it.

might keep my eye out for future Koch titles

 

[Paul Rossen]

my Koch copy arrived from Germany today

even with my high end audio set up I cant pick the differences between the 16 bit and 24 bit tracks , unless I rely on placebo .Don’t think any home theatre processors can resolve beyond 19 bits audio anyway, from all the ones that I’ve seen have scientific measurements

the oppos 105 and 205 have phenomenal signal to noise ratios when running audio out of the multichannel analog outs, direct to an amp bypassing a preamp. That’s how I listen to movies these days. sounds much better than going to an audio processor, many of which these days sound inferior compared to classe ssp-800, denon avp-a1hd and the old krell processors like the 1200u

but the Koch compression is beautiful, exquisite. Film grain is super fine never coarse. And when you press pause or slow forward you can see how perfect they’ve compressed it.

might keep my eye out for future Koch titles


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Do you have the Kino version to compare the video? Or did I miss something. Since I already have the MGM and Kino versions I want to make sure that there is a boost to the video before another Big Country purchase. Thanks

 

[willyTass]

you have to have your face about 2 feet away form the screen to see the difference on a 50 inch screen . From the seated distance i doubt anyone would notice a difference unless they have a large projector set- up . It's not much I just appreciate that KOCH didn't do any high frequency filtering . Thats why ive added it to my collection as the best version . I also have the KINO and original MGM blu ray. When an authoring house goes the extra mile, they get my money.

 

[willyTass]

now available as a Digibook from amazon Germany

 

[Keith Cobby]

Impatiently waiting for this to be released on 4k disc.

 

[OliverK]

Impatiently waiting for this to be released on 4k disc.

It is a great looking movie shot outdoors and in Technirama - that should look really good and after Ben-Hur it may be the second most highly resolved movie directed by William Wyler.

 

[Robert Harris]

Impatiently waiting for this to be released on 4k disc.

If it’s to be released on 4k, it should receive a new digital restoration.