Robert Harris

"The eager gaze of the uninitiated"

David Lean told a story about the production of In Which We Serve (1942) in which he shared the directorial assignment with Noel Coward.

In the background of one scene there was a need for a whistler. Coward pushed to cast a professional, who could whistle as necessary on cue, with the audio being recorded live.

Lean wanted an actor, whistling or not, knowing that the actual audio could be added later.

Mr. Coward won out, and a professional whistler was cast.

When it came time to shoot the scene, however, Coward was less than thrilled, as the non-professional stuck out like a sore, well... whistler.

The way that Lean told it, Coward approached him, and acknowledging the casting error, shook his head at the problem and explained to Lean that it wasn't working, as the gentleman "had the eager gaze of the uninitiated."

Whatever could this have to do with Blu-ray home video?

The point is this.

Generally when publications hire reviewers for any purpose, there is a search for a hire, based upon one's CV, an elimination and final selection.

Not when it comes to home video blogs and on-line reporting.

There are many bloggers and on-line reviewers, some with more experience than others.

Before I go further the point needs to be made that many on-line writers are uncompensated, and do their writing for the fun of it. You cannot expect perfection from them, and they should be lauded for their work.

I should also make the point that quite of number of reviewers got it, were able to decipher what they were seeing, and commented on it.

The recent discussions regarding PQ on Patton, The Longest Day and Gang of New York has brought this to a head.

Two of these films, Patton and TLD, are difficult films to review for a number of reasons. One needs high end equipment, a reasonably large 1080p monitor, and a quality Blu-ray player, all properly set up to work with one another. And make no mistake, Patton and TLD look gorgeous on moderately sized monitors.

The other problem is that a reviewer needs some sort of reference, and here's the rub.

A reference cannot be a standard definition DVD, and broadcast television is less than helpful. One really needs to know what certain films, at least certain formats look like on film, projected in a theater.

That is what the concept of Blu-ray is all about.

"Experience movies the way filmmakers intended!"

A quick search of reviewer's comments on these films will reveal the phrases:

"I've never seen this film before, but..."

"Great colors, and much sharper than one would expect from a 30 year old film."

"Beautiful for an old film."

"A real step up when compared to the original DVD."

These films have all been professionally reviewed in the past. A quick search on MRQE.com will usually bring up dozens of reviews.

On-line when they are reviewed as films, the additional information adds a nice bit of surrounding journalism, but the rub is that one cannot adequately give a quality appraisal of a Blu-ray disc without having at least some idea what it should look like.

On the other side of the equation are readers who seem overly willing to give up their hard earned coin of the realm in order to own a Blu-ray disc that is at least a bit better than the SD that they already own.

They, like some of the reviewers, don't know what their expectations should be.

And this is sending the wrong message to the studios.

A Blu-ray disc should be a formidable creation, with six times the image quality of SD, and the "ho-hum" attitude of some purchasing those discs means that adequacy is the function of the day.

I'm going to make a point for the umpteenth time.

Fox produces extremely high quality Blu-rays, and I look upon Patton and The Longest Day as merely aberrations, but aberrations that need to be dealt with industry-wide before there is an acceptance of what they represent. These are discs where something in the process just went awry.

Gangs of New York is something else.

I posit that any reviewer that gave high or even acceptable grades to Gangs, either needs to be educated properly or should not be reviewing.

The disc is a travesty of the first order.

Can reviewers be initiated to how good a film should look on Blu-ray?

In most cases, yes.

Can the public learn to be more discerning in their purchases?

Absolutely, although many will remain gleeful as things stand, and will continue to deny any problem with their discs, inclusive of Gangs.

What should the expectations of the final consumer be?

As perfect a product as can be created by the studio technicians, which is most cases, problem film elements aside, is very, very impressive.

Where do we go from here? Fix it, I guess.

Things need to occur reasonably quickly, so that our reviews as well as the Blu-ray buying public are unaffected by "The eager gaze of the uninitiated."

RAH

Paul Hillenbrand

Re: "The eager gaze of the uninitiated"

Thanks Mr. Harris.

Your above comments have a definite ring of truth.

My Blu-ray / HD DVD / DVD Collection

Danny_N

Re: "The eager gaze of the uninitiated"

I know what my expectations should be but I nevertheless bought Patton and TLD because I want studios to know that there is a market out there for classics. Apart from Warner, all other studios mainly release modern movies. Unless people buy classics in sufficient quantities to justify their release it will stay that way. A format without classics is a dead format for me. A DNR'ed to death format is something that I will not support either but at this stage I'd rather have something to complain about than nothing at all.

As for reviewers, I've said it all along, most of them don't know what they're talking about. But the battle against DNR is bigger than I thought when you have reviewers like Glenn Erickson and Stuart Galbraith at DVDTalk who know what film looks like, giving high marks to the BDs of Patton and TLD.

TonyD

Re: "The eager gaze of the uninitiated"

ouch, someone must have given a good review on the pic quality of "Gangs"

What Did He Say?

Paul_Scott

Re: "The eager gaze of the uninitiated"

The problem is this cuts both ways. In defending 12 Monkeys and American Werewolf here and elsewhere, the attitude I would commonly see was "This should be a huge upgrade otherwise what's the point".The thing is, both of these for me, on my gear and my viewing angle were a suprisingly substantial upgrade. For most everyone else, people like me were seen as sending the studios a message that 'adequete' was enough-or else excusing the formats poor standards because of the format war. The problem is that there is no standard display minimums as there are with theaters. There are small shoebox multi-plex screens out there, but the average viewing angle within still hits a scale that dwarfs average or even dominant home viewing angles. As you yourself note Robert, you have two displays and on one of them the films (two anyway) look sensational. THAT is the bigger problem. A future DNR'd 12 Monkeys Blu-ray might end up looking more impressive to the person with the smaller display than the more faithful HD DVD. What do you do about that?

Robert Harris

Re: "The eager gaze of the uninitiated"

There is no way for those with more moderate setups to know about quality concerns, except by reading reviews and noting opinions in chat rooms, which for Patton and TLD are a virtual impossibility due to the disparities in opinion.

And concerning opinion, let me be very clear. There are several reviewers whose opinions I respect that have given Patton and TLD positive, and even glowing, reviews. They're obviously seeing something that they like.

Many people start out with moderate home theater setups, and gradually build them as affordability permits. They may begin with a small HD monitor and a PS3 on which Patton will look just fine, and may only notice problems on replay years later on a high end monitor.

Copyright holders and publishers should be cognizant of the need of everyone, inclusive those who may not be able to see the difference between software at all quality levels with immediacy to provide the highest level software technologically possible.

My hope is that some type of approval system will come into play, with publishers submitting and receiving a notice of quality. This would take much of the guesswork out of purchasing Blu-ray, as well as making the concept of pre-ordering more viable.

With the exception of the small group which apparently likes and approves of Gangs of New York, there will be many affected blu-ray viewers who pre-ordered, viewed, and may now possibly be stuck with an expensive disc of poor quality. I've a feeling that Disney will step up to the plate on this issue however, and make good on the release.

BTW, I was one of those who felt that 12 Monkeys looked quite film-like, even for an early release.

Ed St. Clair

Re: "The eager gaze of the uninitiated"

One of whom would be you:
"Patton" RAH Recommened (5-28-08): "Do I like this Blu-Ray of Patton? Absolutely! Can I recommend it? Without a doubt."
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...n-blu-ray.html
Which you edited on 6-17-08 to say:
"It is not recommended for any high end systems, screens much above 50" or to anyone who prefers their Blu-rays looking like cinema."
&
"TLD" RAH Recommended (5-25-08): "Can I recommend a disc that has been processed to look a bit like Bambi? Sure. The Longest Day is superb filmmaking, bought to Blu-Ray by Fox in what appears to be a nicely cleaned version."
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...y-blu-ray.html
With this send-off: "Do I like it? No. Will many people care? Probably not."
"Moderate" in size?
Thanks.
What are the chances of something like this happening?
Thanks, again.
Reviewers should never recommend an inferior product quessing that it will be displayed on smaller screens.

On "GoNY" a BIG thanks; as this was one of the uglyest, if not the uglyest, DVD's I'd ever seen. You saved me $$$!!!

Movies are: "The Greatest Artform".
HD should be for EVERYONE!

Robert Harris

Re: "The eager gaze of the uninitiated"

To Ed St. Clair,

"moderate" in size. Correct.

Reviews were updated as there was confusion among some readers as to how I could recommend something for smaller screens and pan for larger.

Approval system?

Wishful thinking, possibly. But something must be brought into place, as publishers do not seem able to deal with the problem internally.

Ed St. Clair

Re: "The eager gaze of the uninitiated"

Wouldn't resolution be a better way to evaluate a system?
One could have a 100" screen, however seating 20 ft. away wouldn't be able to discern the details/resolution as someone with a 42" 1080i/p display displaying a 1080i/p source from 5 ft. away.
Or is there something inherent to "blowing up" the picture too evaluating PQ?
Thanks.
No problem. I'm glad & approve of your updating your review.
It was just funny, too me, that you 'approved' of reviewers such as "yourself"! :-)
Yeah, I thought that was a pipe dream. Butt hay, if you got it I'd smoke it!!!

EDitEDbyED:
And I wanted too add, I enjoyed the story as well.
Hope the whistler at least got the job for the overdub!

Movies are: "The Greatest Artform".
HD should be for EVERYONE!

Robert Harris