Vote for the Sony Classics you want on BD (1 Viewer)

[Mark Anthony]

If you would like a particular Sony title to appear on BD,please add your two-peneth worth to this thread:

LINK REMOVED

Thanks

 

[Robin9]

I don't contribute to that website. I contribute to this one.

Obviously we all have our own ideas about which movies deserve an early release on Blu-ray. It seems to me that movies where the elements are in good condition are most likely to "jump the queue" and come out soon. The other sensible consideration is which movies will benefit most from Blu-ray, both because of the nature of the film and because the DVD is not good enough. The Sony Film Noir box-set has a gleaming DVD of The Line-Up. I doubt that a Blu-ray will be much better.

The three Sony movies which will gain the most from Blu-ray and which have unsatisfactory DVDs that nevertheless indicate that the elements are still in good condiion are Lawrence Of Arabia, Lord Jim and Barabbas. I would buy Blu-ray discs of those three movies in a shot. Hell, I'd pre-order.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Mark,

Out of curiosity, why are you starting a thread over there
and asking people over here to contribute?


...especially since Sony reads and responds to members
in this forum.

I am going to do something I don't normally do. I am going
to remove the link. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that
your intentions were good, but it's very rude to send our
members over to another site to participate in a poll you could
have easily started over here (which you are now more welcome
to do).

 

[OliverK]

Originally Posted by Robin9

The three Sony movies which will gain the most from Blu-ray and which have unsatisfactory DVDs that nevertheless indicate that the elements are still in good condiion are Lawrence Of Arabia, Lord Jim and Barabbas. I would buy Blu-ray discs of those three movies in a shot. Hell, I'd pre-order.

The Long ships would also profit a lot from a Blu-Ray release (large format photography, so-so DVD) but it is probably not the big seller that it should be compared to the cost for preparing the Blu-Ray.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

The Swimmer - While the DVD is miles beyond any previous video release, it would be nice to see this on Blu with some supplemental material given this was a very important film to star Burt Lancaster.

Sense and Sensibility
Remains of the Day
These two are pretty much givens for release at some point.

 

[Douglas R]

Originally Posted by Robin9


The three Sony movies which will gain the most from Blu-ray and which have unsatisfactory DVDs that nevertheless indicate that the elements are still in good condiion are Lawrence Of Arabia, Lord Jim and Barabbas. I would buy Blu-ray discs of those three movies in a shot. Hell, I'd pre-order.

Me too!

 

[Paul Rossen]

1. The Superbit DVD of Lawrence of Arabia is quite good. However, that will not stop me from purchasing the Bluray when it becomes available.2. The Lord Jim DVD when it was available was also quite good though it didn't include the Intermission break.
2. The Barabbas DVD is not up to par. The DVD states 4 track stereo and I believe there may be one scene in stereo-otherwise everthing else come out of the center channel. The Overture and Intermission music is not to be found. Barabbas is one Columbia title that certainly can use a DVD or Bluray redo.

 

[Mark Anthony]

Ron, no disrespect was intended.

The poll idea came up because a Sony insider who resides on blu-ray.com agreed that it would be a good idea and i actioned it.

I'm not aware of any specific Sony insider at the HTF, although i'm sure they do lurk! I thought that HTF readers may have liked to contribute.

Obviously it would have potentially doubled up on respondents to run two polls concurrently. If this is still an issue then fair enough, it's a shame as you could vote for one of your fave's, 1776!

M

 

[Garysb]

I would like to see Barbra Streisand's best films finally come to blu-ray.

Funny Girl
The Way We Were

Funny Girl was restored several years ago and even got a theatrical rerelease.
The DVD came out and was basically barebones with very few extras.

For both films, if they included as extras the cut scenes, which do exist, that would be great.


In the "Way We Were", the end of the movie was changed in the editing.
As filmed the reason the couple split was because Katie was named as a Communist by her college friend Frankie ( James Woods). She refuses to deny the charge or say that she was duped into becoming a communist. Hubbell would be blacklisted if it becomes known that he is to married to a communist. He agrees to stay with her until the baby is born and then they divorce. As edited they divorce because he cheated on her.

 

[Richard Gallagher]

The Bridge on the River Kwai

 

[Simon Howson]

The entire Budd Boetticher Westerns box (the films are only short, they could fit on just 2 x 50 GB Blu-rays, with the bitrate still around 30 Mbps). I absolutely love this set, but the DVDs have too much edge enhancement which puts halos around the actors when they are back lit.

Others:

Bridge on the River Kwai
Lawrence of Arabia
Guns of Navarone
Taxi Driver
Bunny Lake is Missing
Bonjour Tristesse
Anatomy of Murder
Hot Blood
Bitter Victory

 

[OliverK]

Originally Posted by Simon Howson

The entire Budd Boetticher Westerns box (the films are only short, they could fit on just 2 x 50 GB Blu-rays, with the bitrate still around 30 Mbps). I absolutely love this set, but the DVDs have too much edge enhancement which puts halos around the actors when they are back lit.

I will have to finally watch Comanche station to check for edge enhancement. What I remember from the other 4 is that there were some halos but they looked more like from an optical effect than edge enhancement. The Professionals also have some scenes where this is evident.

And I agree that these would be great to have although I would vote for 2 movies per BD50 and a third disc with one movie and the extras as the bitrate should be as high as possible - these movies are VERY grainy.

 

[Simon Howson]

Originally Posted by OliverK



What I remember from the other 4 is that there were some halos but they looked more like from an optical effect than edge enhancement. The Professionals also have some scenes where this is evident.

And I agree that these would be great to have although I would vote for 2 movies per BD50 and a third disc with one movie and the extras as the bitrate should be as high as possible - these movies are VERY grainy.

I don't know what sort of optical effect it could be. My guess is the edge enhancement was introduced during the DVD mastering. My guess is their full resolution HD masters wouldn't have it, so if they just converted them straight to Blu-ray you'd instantly have first rate transfers.

It is probably wishful thinking wanting those films out on Blu-ray. I doubt the DVD box sold that well even though it features some of the best 1950s Westerns made. It should've been marketed as the Randolph Scott & Budd Boetticher Westerns Collection. It never made sense to me that the words "Randolph Scott" and "Westerns" don't appear on the box.

The graininess is just what you expect from 1950s films, no issue with me, I'm used to it and prefer it to modern films where everything seems to be the same colour.

 

[Jim_K]

Not that this really matters I guess but just for shits and giggles:

My Top 10 Most Wanted SONY titles (Alphabetical order)

Bridge on the River Kwai
Curse of the Demon
Das Boot
Guns of Navarone
Jason and the Argonauts (or better yet Harryhausen set vol #2 w/ Mysterious Island, First Men in the Moon and the 70's Sinbad films)
Lawrence of Arabia
Major Dundee
Man From Laramie
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Taxi Driver

I'd also love to see a Film Noir set and Hammer Horror set but it's probably a pipe dream.

 

[JoeBond]

Here are the ones I would like to see in the order of importance to me:

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. Bridge on the River Kwai
3. The Guns of Navarone

 

[OliverK]

I am also happy that the graininess is there - I would not want it any other way.

It is too bad that it is so hard to get real sales numbers for classic titles - without these numbers I would still have to guess that the boxset did not do well enough to warrant a Blu-Ray release.

And you are absolutely right about the name for the box - these were always known as the Scott/Boetticher Westerns and the words Randolph Scott and Western could only have helped with sales. An additional problem for me is that the bluish colored box would never let me expect that it is a western boxset - it looks more like a Thriller or Film Noir boxset.
Of course for us it does not matter for us but for the casual buyer I think that it would have been better to give him a better idea of what to expect with the boxset.

But then what do I know, I am just a guy who likes these movies

Originally Posted by Simon Howson

It is probably wishful thinking wanting those films out on Blu-ray. I doubt the DVD box sold that well even though it features some of the best 1950s Westerns made. It should've been marketed as the Randolph Scott & Budd Boetticher Westerns Collection. It never made sense to me that the words "Randolph Scott" and "Westerns" don't appear on the box.

The graininess is just what you expect from 1950s films, no issue with me, I'm used to it and prefer it to modern films where everything seems to be the same colour.

 

[Robin9]

I've just realised Sony has a treat in store for all red-blooded men: Elizabeth Taylor on Blu-ray in Suddenly Last Summer.

 

[Timothy E]

Originally Posted by Simon Howson

The entire Budd Boetticher Westerns box (the films are only short, they could fit on just 2 x 50 GB Blu-rays, with the bitrate still around 30 Mbps). I absolutely love this set, but the DVDs have too much edge enhancement which puts halos around the actors when they are back lit.

Grover Crisp from Sony gave a demonstration of hi-def telecine to members of the Home Theater Forum at the EMA Show in Las Vegas in 2007. The demonstration included high definition transfers of Bridge on the River Kwai and the Boetticher Westerns. (This was months before the Boetticher set was released.) The high definition transfers of the Boetticher Westerns were interesting to see in that halos were especially perceptible around Randolph Scott's head even though Mr. Crisp informed us that no edge enhancement had been performed on the footage. Apparently, a lot of film stock from that era has the halo effects naturally on the film. The particular type of film stock employed on the Boetticher films at Columbia is grainier than other footage from the same era. This presents a dilemma to film restorationists: should they leave the film as it originally appeared or remaster it to the expectations of modern audiences? The original halo effects were apparently left in the DVD transfers of the Boetticher Westerns. Since I was one of the HTF members who attended this demonstration, I did not have an issue with the halo effects and graininess perceptible on the DVDs when I finally received my set of the Boetticher films. If I had not seen this presentation, I also would have assumed that the DVDs were victims of sloppy edge enhancement.

That being said, I WAS disappointed by the amount of mosquito noise evident on the DVD set which makes the picture appear even grainier than it would otherwise.

The Boetticher Westerns would definitely benefit from a Blu-Ray transfer since the high definition masters look terrific from the preview we were granted. The feedback in this forum shows that there is a lot of interest in seeing such a set released. I would snap this set up on release date whenever the studio sees fit to release it on Blu-ray.

 

[OliverK]

I think it would really be nice to have a kind of primer attached to discs that have heavy grain, halos or other characteristics of movies made on film that could be perceived as a defect when in fact this is just the way that even a freshly struck premiere print woud have looked.

 

[Geo Gabor]

Bridge on the River Kwai
Guns of Navarone
Das Boot

But I'll say right now that any Sony disc that has the subtitles below the image (such as Mask of Zorro) is a NO SALE. With a 2.35:1 screen, I can't see those subtitles. So do the intelligent thing, Sony, and put the subtitles where they belong: in the image frame.