WHV Press Release: The Wizard of Oz 70th Anniversary UCE (DVD/Blu-ray)

From your lips, Terry. 

It makes sense considering Wal-Mart's customer base.  The people that wait for those "falling prices" don't want to buy really expensive sets to own a favorite movie. 

I mean, W-M's the home of the $5 DVD bin! 

Can anyone verify that if I order this from the UK, I should have no trouble playing it, and all of the bonus features, on my unmodified Blu-ray player here in the States?  (Yes, I've read the previous posts in this thread and am pretty sure that's the case, but I'd just like confirmation  )  Thanks in advance.

- Mark
Edited by Mark_TB - 9/5/09 at 10:46am

Is anyone else seeing OZ in a theater at the one time showing on, I believe, Wednesday, Sept. 23rd? I'm going with my kids and looking forward to it. I still wonder if a properly made real technicolor print would in fact look better than this digital projection we're going to see, but I guess I'll never know.

Well, in the 1989 re-release that I saw in theaters it did look pretty good. I don't actually know what kind of print I was looking at then.

There are rumors that there are fine quality technicolor prints that were made in the 60s or 70s that are still floating around and are in pretty good shape...

I doubt anyone can answer with certainty right now but from everything i've read we should be fine.

I'm confident i'll be happy with my order of this and Gone With The Wind from the UK.

Rob Ray: Thanks for this response. I'm hoping from what you've written that this will be an excellent experience.

By any chance do you know, or does anyone know, what most digital projectors are like these days in most theaters? Specifically, I've heard that most projectors are "2k." Forgive my ignorance, but I don't really know what that means. I assume (and I may be wrong here) that true hdtv being a bit more than 1000 lines of horizontal resolution is "1k"--which is what I've got on my sony xbr tv at home. So "2k" is twice that. But given my screen is only 46 inches in diagonal, and I assume that the screen I'm seeing it on is more than 46 feet diagonally measured, the limitations of 2k may become apparent if you get too close--just as they are apparent for 1k when I'm a few inches away from my tv. So, I would assume that 4k would do for even a pretty large theater. Is that correct? And are more theaters now buying 4k projectors?

I can't answer any of the technical questions but I can tell you this:  I own the Blu-Ray of Gigi and recently saw it presented theatrically in a digital print.  Seeing Gigi on a giant wide screen, while the image was probably as sharp as a 35mm print, I still felt like I was watching my Blu-Ray.  There's just something about watching actual film...

I'm sure Oz will look fine but it won't look like any film print you've ever seen.

Yeah, that makes sense. I have a feeling it will look rather like a glorified blu-ray. Which is not a bad thing, since I'm new to blu and so far absolutely love it.

I have an acquaintance from another forum who tells me that a well made film print will almost always blow away anything purely digital, and I have a feeling that at this point he may be right. But with future improvements, who knows which will really be better.

I see that you're in So Cal, where I grew up. You probably know that there's a little festival of real Cinerama movies going on right now at the Cinerama Dome in LA. Wish I could be there for that. The highlight of their show is How the West Was Won--done with newly restored prints, three projectors, etc., etc. Even though that film may not be that great, apparently seeing it in that format is pretty cool.

Anyway, don't know if this link will work:

https://www.arclightcinemas.com/ArcLight/faces/MovieDetails.jsp?movieName=ArcLight+Presents%26%2346%3B%26%2346%3B%26%2346%3BHOW+THE+WEST+WAS+WON&pageInfo=ARC

I am reading online that wires were digitally erased for this new edition. The thinking was that 1939 audiences couldn't see them because of film stock, etc. However, I just popped in the 1998 disc and you can plainly see the wires holding up the Scarecrow. Something about the argument doesn't add up and frankly I'm a little concerned about it.

Eric Scott: Interesting. By any chance do you have a link?

Thanks, Ben

I would think they would almost *have* to digitally erase those wires.  If you were looking for them in older prints, they were always visible, but with Warner's ultra-resolution process perfectly aligning those three color matrices, the wires would almost become a distraction.  It's an interesting dilemma -- what do you do when the improved resolution starts revealing things that the original filmmakers assumed would be obscured.

According to George Feltenstein and Robert Harris, audiences in 1939 couldn't see the wires. I can see them on every vhs and dvd release. How could they have not seen them in 35mm?

 Apparently the dye-transfer printing process managed to obscure them. How it did so I will leave to the experts.

Actually, 1080p is very close to 2K. Most digital cinema projectors are 2K, though some of the newer ones are 4K. But it's a bit of a moot point, as I believe most digital intermediates are still done at 2K.

benbess&all,

the "2K" references vertical lines of resolution, not horizontal. our current HDTV standard has:
1920 vertical lines and 1080 horizontal lines.

strictly speaking DI (digital intermediates) are:
2K (2048 x 1080)
4K (4096 x 2160)
8K (7680 x 4320)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinema

so for our purposes, 2K IS 1080p. it also means:
4k=2160p
8k=4320p

some new screenshots are supposedly on this site:  www.thejudyroom.com/news-oz.html#screenshots

Those look great. The color is more muted than the previous release, which is more in line with how Technicolor films looked in 1939 (I think.) The sepia tone also looks more appropriate (some gray scale and not so orangey).

the screencap on the left is from my 2005 dvd, the right is from the link I posted above.

my 2005 dvd on the left, blu ray on the right.  I'm not an expert on screencaps,
it's just to give you an idea of how they compare.

I have to say I hate the art work on the UK release:

http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/the-wizard-of-oz-70th-anniversary-edition.html

"Sing-along" edition?  Bleah.

More Oz Hoopla:

http://www.thejudyroom.com/media/dvd/dvds/oznetflixpressrelease.pdf


Basically says the film will be available free on line for one day October 3 from Netflix.

It is free for anyone online but if you are a Netflix member with unlimited access and you have the proper equipment you can stream the film on to your TV. I tried pasting the press release
here but it kept getting cut off.
Anyway there is also a free concert in Central Park in NYC on September 29th featuring the songs from the movie followed by the film itself .



Edited by Garysb - 9/11/09 at 11:13am

Thanks very much, jedifonger, for this tech info!

So, what we are seeing at home on blu with a nice set up is pretty much the same as a theater at 2k. Interesting.

Don't you think theaters should go to 4k asap so that they can say that you're getting something beyond what you're getting in your living room?

Details about the restoration - from http://www.multichannel.com/article/340027-_Oz_Gets_An_HD_Makeover.php

Roland,

Thanks for the link:

"A recently discovered nitrate print manufactured by Technicolor in 1939 also gave them a better insight into the way the film should look. "We had reference Technicolor prints in the past but we weren't sure of their pedigree," Price said.

This print showed that "there was more grey curve in the film, meaning that the mid-range was more open," he explained. "It wasn't so contrasty in places and the colors were more muted. The early Technicolor films were not so much about primary colors. They had more earthy tones, which is not to say that they weren't vivid. It's just that the colors were more complex than previously seen in photo chemical printing. So we went and made the picture less contrast-y and toned down the color palate."

"Toned down the color palate" ... from that and from some of the screenshots that have surfaced, we're getting color changes from the last botched release.  That must thrill those that fell on their swords defending the last release.  ;)

Robert:  The way I read the blurb under that post in the thread, it seems like that's NOT the UK release cover art...but a separate release that features just the songs from the film. 

Or the Casablanca set sold well...

Doug

4k projectors are VERY expensive. In addition, most 35mm theatrical release prints are at least 4 to 5 generations away from the original camera negative. Add gate weave to that and your average 35mm print seen at the multi-plex, is probably not much more than 2k resolution.

 

So 2K digital projection is probably pretty close to what most people are used to seeing in theaters with regard to resolution.

In addition to that, 2k "digital cinema" has a much wider color space than blu-ray is capable of, giving it the ability to display a far greater pallet of colors.

Doug

Mike:

The text above the artwork says:


That makes it sound as if it definitely is the artwork for the UK release.  Of course, I hope that's not true, but it doesn't look good.

I'm no expert, but I think it probably has to do with the fact that they dye-transfer process didn't create the sharpest of prints, due to the fact that they had to align the multiple passes for the separate colors during the process (and they never lined up perfectly).

Holy Moley just saw the cover for the UK release.  My God --
the worst cover I have ever seen for a Blu-ray title.  Looks
like something that came out of the VHS era.