HTF REVIEW: Heat - Two Disc Special Edition

I picked this up last week and have finally gotten some spare time to watch it today. This is quite definitely the same transfer as the previous edition. Herb's already noted a few specific places, but the one nobody's mentioned yet is the color shift in scene 17.

The timecode is at 54:28 on my DVD player. It's at the end of Neil's phone conversation with Eady. Eady's shots have been shown with an overall brown tinge to them, but in the last shot of her, the first few seconds have a notably more bluish tinge, until she puts down the phone receiver at 54:28, when it shifts back to the same brownish tinge. This was on the original version as well.

Maybe the transfer was cleaned up or remastered or whatever the term is, but they quite definitely started with the same source material.

Of course, it wasn't even in question whether I'd pick this one up or not (a cursory glance at my top 20 movies list should tell you why). I do wish we'd seen a DTS track, though.

cheers,
Phil

ok question:

do cops love this movie or something? I went to best buy on my lunch break and there were two cops on line to buy it, one of whom had two copies in his hands Then the next few guys also had copies. Really surprised by all the interest. I mean, I like the movie a lot but geeez...

I was really wanting to spend money on this new release for (like another person wrote) improved PQ/AQ, but it sounds like that isn't happening until HD, so I'll pass.

You know, I just saw this last night on my 92 inch screen and I found the compression better than the last release. The lower-contrast, grainier scenes looked more like grain and less like digital "hash." Just my $.02.

Also, was the last release's DD 5.1 track at 384 or 448 kbps?

Well I picked it up but haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

I did notice something odd, though. Nowhere on the packaging (at least that I could find) was there mention of a "new" or "improved" picture. So WB isn't even touting that they put any new work [with regards to the picture/transfer quality] on this DVD, which is odd considering that even the crappiest transfers I've seen usually have some sort of "newly remastered" or "remastered digital picture" or some other such vague wording on the back cover.

WB's message for this DVD seems to be, "here it is, take it or leave it".

Exactly, Carlo. This was a red flag for me in both the press release and advertising for the title. Although I acknowledge the mixed PQ reports in this thread, if it were a new transfer one would think Warner would be all too happy to use that as a marketing bullet point.

Very good call on that print/color timing anomaly at 54:28, Phil.

-p

Thanks, Paul. I had watched that on my old TV a number of times without noticing a damned thing, but when I got my 48" Mitsu a year and a half ago and watched "Heat" on that for the first time, I saw it right away. The one problem with this more high-end equipment is that it does make mistakes or issues with the video more noticeable.

Watched the extras today. Interesting stuff, particularly the return to the various shooting locations. Loved the story about the Mother's Day shootout.

cheers,
Phil

Thanks for the review Herb!

This was one of the first movies I rented when I got into laserdisc in 1996. It's been a favorite of mine for so long...but I'm glad I can hang on to my current DVD...

...I used to have a lot of "Heat" DVDs...it's been given away so many times by manufacturers as a freebee when the DVD market was still in its infancy...my, my...did it ever grow up fast...

-Mike-

I was going to buy this till I read this thread. Thanks for saving me some money, I'll stick with my orginal copy. I only double dip for improved PQ/AQ not features.

Ok I did buy it and it doesn't seemed to be the same transfer to me.It seems they had it cleaned it up a bit. For instance after the the armored car robbery/murder, Neil meets Nate in a parking garage.As the camera pans horizontaly,there is some white lines appear on the left side of the screen,and quickly dissapear,but it is very noticable. On the new set it is reduced almost completelly,though it's still there to a degree.I listened to the commentary, and I found it to be a mixed bag. While I like Mann's passion he was rambling on and on, on the same subject for what seemed like "hours" being redundant in places.Still he gave some interesting info on locations and the background on the story. I agree if you're a fan this set worth it, speacially for 15 bucks what I paid.

I was surprised to see this had come out the other day while perusing BB. At any rate, I think I'll be holding on to my original copy as it doesn't seem much has changed from the original disc. The extras look cool but I think I can get the same experience from renting it over buying it just for the extras.

Great film though!

WoW!

Thought I ordered HEAT but it never arrived
from my e-tailer.

After reading this thread I have decided just
to forget about it and stick with my older copy.

I too will wait for the HD release.

I compared both versions on my setup (Toshiba 46H84 CRT RPTV upconverted to 540P, from a Panasonic CP72).

Same transfer, but with improved encoding. Image noise levels are reduced slightly, but the bigger improvement is the elimination of the fine detail shimmer that plagued the original. (Check the quick scene in the bookstore, on the original disc, there was substantial artifacting on the shelves, even in progressive scan. This has been eliminated on the new disc.)

This sorely needed a new transfer, but the new disc upgraded the image to watchable status on my set. I imagine people with large FP setups will not reach the same conclusion...

Third time's the charm, perhaps?

You all are kind making me feel bad...

Last night, I exchanged my copy of "Miami Vice: Season 1" for a new copy because the horrible spindle/hub mechanism caused one of my discs to crack.

Because Best Buy always exchanges merchandise -- no questions asked -- I decided to pick up the new version of "Heat."

I loved "Heat" back in the theater when I saw it with my wife many moons ago. I owned the two cassette version on VHS, but had never gotten around to getting in on DVD. It sold very well on VHS, and I figured that we'd get a better version on DVD.

I'd watched the copy that was previously available. I thought it looked pretty good. In fact, Warner Bros. is one of the few studios that has pretty good looking titles from the "early days" of DVD.

I brought the disc home and popped it into my player. Understand...I have a basic Sony DVD Player (by the way, Sony DVD players will be my player of choice in the future, it really has been good and I watch DVDs 2 or 3 hours a day) and a lovely 27" Sharp TV. Both DVD and TV were purchase in the last four years. I have stereo surround sound through a JVC receiver from the early 90s...no, it isn't digital and isn't "pro logic" or any of the other buzz words. It was designed for VHS and CDs...it "simulates" surround sound from stereo source through multiple speakers.

Compared to most of you, my equipment is incredibly basic. I am the average consumer out there. Slightly better than most, but far below most of you.

I just thought it was wonderful to finally have the movie. The picture looks quite comparable to newer movies in similar genres. Sure, there are signs of age in the print, but I have seen worse from movies released in the early and mid-90s.

I got this release for the extras, and so far I have been fascinated by Michael Mann's commentary track. I love commentaries, and you can tell that he is all about the "attention to detail" in his movies.

Sometimes, the topics here can be something of a "buzz kill" for fans with fairly standard equipment. Many of you have "dream" equipment. You have large HD screens, you have expensive DVD players and DVD recorders, and you have top-notch sound.

You have equipment that points out the flaws that others of us really can't see so much. I will agree that when I watch movies on my laptop that there are many newer movies that look better on my LCD than older movies (grain and dust usually being the biggest culprits).

I am not sure that a restore job would have been able to improve this movie "that much." Some of you will recall the new transfer that was done for "Stargate" a couple of years back. It was a drastic improvement over the original flipper disc, but it still had its flaws.

I always thought this was a decent enough looking DVD.

Anyhow...if anything I have said sounds like a "rant," then I apologize. I am a pretty passive person.

I just remember how cool it was back in the mid-90s to be able to purchase movies in "letterbox" format on VHS. I got my first DVD player in 1998 because I wanted a more durable format with a sharper picture than video tape. The bonuses were just that...bonuses.

I understand your feelings, Jonny, and don't feel bad! While I certainly don't have "dream equipment", I do have a Toshiba 42" widescreen and a fairly decent 5.1 surround set up. For the record I'm overall very pleased with the transfer on the new Heat disc. While I can sympathize (and maybe even share to a degree) the disappointment people have expressed in this thread, I don't think anyone can complain too much about the transfer on this disc. It still looks extremely good, IMHO.

while the original transfer of Heat is not demo-level, it wasn't screaming for a new transfer like Matrix or Predator. that said, a new transfer would have been nice, especially considering the realtively high price that WB is charging. if it had been cheaper, i would have considered it worth owning the supplements, which is basically what they are selling to owners of the original disc.

Heat certainly doesn't look bad. It's just for a movie of this nature we except to look quite good -- especially on a SE. My biggest complaint are the lack of rich black levels in this movie -- which I doubt was intended to look this way. Also, I can't explain it well, but it has that early DVD look where the image doesn't look as natural or filmlike such as DVDs made over the last few years.

I disagree about Predator and Matrix --- I think they look better for their age than Heat -- looking at it in that context.

Hey all,

I was just checking this out and noticed that the trailers are not anamorphic. I thought i remembered the original disc's trailers were anamorphic but I don't have a copy of it anymore. Can anyone verify this?

Chuck, yes indeed, they WERE anamorphic (though a couple of the trailers replace the 1.85:1 anamorphic images on the first disc with what look to my eye to be 2:1 non-anamorphic ones); this was a sticking point with me and almost caused me keep the first disc along with the S.E. rerelease but I finally decided to let the original disc go. Weird, though, that Warners would do this (similar to when they traded out the 1.85:1 trailer on the first SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION DVD with a 1.33:1 version on the S.E.) and unfortunate...

Thanks for checking Travis,

I thought something was amiss there. Very strange indeed but I think the new supplements make up for it.

just finished watching the second disc (haven't heard the commentary yet).

the deleted scenes were all very good and especially the ones with Sizemore, i thought could have been in the movie. too bad.

in the infamous scene where De Niro calls Van Zandt after the doublecross and says "there is a dead mean on the other end of this f--k'n line", De Niro doesn't hang up the phone, but just pushes down the 'hook'... i always thought there was another call he made to someone else that got cut from the movie but it wasn't on the disc.

i listened to the commentary and there's some good stuff in there. one thing interesting is that at the beginning, Mann says he set up the shots so that we don't know what's going on exactly; De Niro could very well have been an ambulance driver, we don't there's a heist going on until they put on the hockey masks.
is this realistic? i mean does Mann really expect the movie goier to NOT know that we're watching a movie about De Niro as a crook vs. Pacino as a cop? sure, that experience would exist, but only for the people who are going to the movie WITH the people that want to watch it in the first place (like the friend that doesn't know what movie to see or really care).
perhaps it's necessary for Mann to think this way in order for the storytelling process, i dunno.

I think the idea of ANY improvement in video is history on this one.
I remember the last time I watched my existing copy, and thought to myself `Mann (as in Michael) this needs help. Good thing the SE is coming soon' `I'm sure he did a great job with the new transfer'

Oh Well, yet another shameful release.

E

I was just going through some of the bonus features. I thought the "Return to the Scene of the Crime" featurette was excellent. It was fascinating to see Mann's approach to location scouting for the movie. I especially liked the woman who discovered Trejo's "blood" when her carpet was pulled. Pretty funny...

Did anyone have any problems with the audio, mainly the dialogue, which I found us not audible and I had to crank up the volume much higher than I normally do.

Phil, I saw the same issue on my copy

Now that Michael Mann went back into the telecine facility to personally supervise a new high-definition transfer for the BD release, can we expect a new edition in SD with the new transfer?