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A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD - Page 2

post #31 of 82
9/21/07 at 10:00am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Reputable confirmation:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=30580


The Audio:
Anchor Bay provides three audio tracks for this release: The original mono, Dolby Digital 5.1, and an uncompressed PCM 5.1 track. Now, I'm sure some home theater junkies will kill me for it, but out of the three, I actually preferred the mono track. After all, it is the original mix that the crew put together for theatrical exhibition. Also, the surround mixes just don't sound much better. In fact, the dialogue actually sounds worse in the multichannel mixes, because they're using the same mono sources, but putting them up against remixed versions of the score and the sound effects, making the dialogue sound thin and artificial. The best part of the 5.1 tracks is the score, which spreads effectively across all channels. The Dolby Digital and the PCM tracks are almost indistinguishable, and they just can't hide the fact that they're using elements from a low budget 1978 film.
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post #32 of 82
9/21/07 at 11:19am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD



The back of the case does not even list the mono track, simply Dolby Surround and PCM 5.1, so does that mean it was a last minute addition?
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post #33 of 82
9/21/07 at 11:23am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Quote:
This one seems to be right in the middle, color-timing wise. It isn't as startling in changes as the Divi edition, but also isn't like the so-called "Cundey approved" edition. Yes, I own all the DVD editions. But also, the very nature of HD makes all the green in the daylight scenes POP, and for a movie that takes places on Halloween it is a bit distracting. But it doesn't seem as "sterile" as the Divi version either. Others with better eyes for such things will soon chime in, I'm sure, but considering that other major players have screwed up titles with the format, Starz Entertainment did an admirable job right out of the gate.

Jordan, thanks. It looks like I can finally retire the '98 ABE Halloween.
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post #34 of 82
9/21/07 at 2:03pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

I was debating it, but I think I'm still gonna hold onto my old '98 LE set. It's got a lot of sentimental value, plus the TV cut, which although nothing special is nice to have as a completist.

I can't wait to tear into these Blu-Rays tonight.....
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post #35 of 82
9/21/07 at 3:48pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jordan_E


The back of the case does not even list the mono track, simply Dolby Surround and PCM 5.1, so does that mean it was a last minute addition?

WTF!?! Evil Dead II is out on Blu Ray? Where have I been hiding? I'm picking up both these titles
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post #36 of 82
9/21/07 at 4:06pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Graham
I was debating it, but I think I'm still gonna hold onto my old '98 LE set. It's got a lot of sentimental value, plus the TV cut, which although nothing special is nice to have as a completist.

I wouldn't get rid of my other editions of Halloween either, and am thinking of grabbing that Divi edition of Halloween 4, as I actually don't own anything past Halloween III.
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post #37 of 82
9/21/07 at 5:09pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, boys, but I just A/B'd ALL the scenes in question with the color timing and to me, this looks just like the Divmax DVD timingwise. The scenes in Haddonfield look like spring in LA. The blue light at night is pale like in the divimax. Especially the scene where Laurie is barricaded in the kitchen and the shape puches through the door. Looks just like the divimax. The door is whitish grey, not blue. I compared the BD to the divimax to the cundey THX transfer. Same input/ HDMI splitter. PS3 and oppo player.

Someone like Xylon at avs will confirm but that's how it looks to me.

It looks AMAZING detail-wise but I fear the colors are once again, off. Whoever said they would probably re-time the master I think just said that.
Now I may be wrong, but that's how it looked to me.
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post #38 of 82
9/21/07 at 5:31pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Read your post over at AVS, Dave. Going to watch this one again tomorrow morning (with the original track) and watch that kitchen in particular. But like I wrote earlier, to me it seems right down the middle on the two mentioned versions, but the fact it is HD could disguise the Divi-look to an extent; I seem to remember that the thin shaft of light from the bedroom when Laurie approaches to find Annie did look more like from the Divi version than the THX edition, where it almost had a laser-like quality.

BTW, did you catch the hair fluttering in the lower right hand side in Laurie's bedroom scene?
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post #39 of 82
9/21/07 at 5:46pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Just skipped around so far.
The detail and clarity is indeed jaw-dropping but I was looking specifically for the color timed sequences in question.
I believe that this is pretty much how an original print probably looked at the time and for the Cundey supervised DVD, he simply increased the color and tweaked it for certain scenes. It all looks VERY natural but spring in LA to me looks like, spring in L.A.
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post #40 of 82
9/21/07 at 7:00pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

I've never been to Illinois, but I really doubt there's that much green left by the time October 31st arrives! Those trees were downright lush!
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post #41 of 82
9/21/07 at 7:02pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

yep.

Still looks MAH-Velous, incredibly detailed... just wrong.

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post #42 of 82
9/21/07 at 8:23pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

OK, well, if the "blue tint" ain't back it IS wrong. Dammit.

I guess I'll have to wait and see for myself, but I'm now no longer excited to see this disc like I was before.

I mean, it's so stupid... after the fuss was originally raised with the colors being off on the DiviMax edition, they could've at least tried to go back in and perform a tape-to-tape color correction and adjust the blue imagery to try and get it at least CLOSE to what it was supposed to be. All they would've had to do was put the Dean Cundey master up on a monitor and used it as a guide to change the DiviMax master to the Cundey approved color timing! I know it bothered ABE a bit about the problem of the blue lighting being timed out because someone at the company called me and asked me for my opinion and quizzed me on how much I thought it would cost to fix. I even offered my services to supervise the fix for them! Of course, nothing ever came of it and they didn't get back to me on my offer.

I'm sure ABE didn't go in and do an all-new high-def transfer for the BD version since they had the DiviMax one.... but, really, it would not have cost THAT much to fix the color timing. Are we ever going to see a real, honest-to-goshen "definitive" release of this thing?
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post #43 of 82
9/21/07 at 8:44pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Don May Jr
Are we ever going to see a real, honest-to-goshen "definitive" release of this thing?

I'm being cynical, but considering they have dipped so many times on this title, maybe we'll see the Cundey version in the future.
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post #44 of 82
9/21/07 at 8:47pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

I found a link to a DVD BEAVER review that shows screencaps from different versions of HALLOWEEN, NOT including the newer DiviMax DVD release, but the older, original THX Dean Cundey approved transfer from Anchor Bay.

Can anyone who has the BD version look at the screenshots in the link (especially the bottom/nighttime/last one) and see if they look about the same on the BD? You can see in the ABE shots that the daylight/fall color scheme is a bit yellow, giving the scenes a more "fall-like" look and, of course, the blue lighting is front and center on that last pic... even on the first "window" shot, there's a blue light on the curtain! Is this on the BD?

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare2/halloween.htm
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post #45 of 82
9/21/07 at 8:49pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave H
I'm being cynical, but considering they have dipped so many times on this title, maybe we'll see the Cundey version in the future.
In the case of Halloween, I think 'being cynical' is better referred to as 'being realistic'.
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post #46 of 82
9/21/07 at 10:01pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Don May Jr
I found a link to a DVD BEAVER review that shows screencaps from different versions of HALLOWEEN, NOT including the newer DiviMax DVD release, but the older, original THX Dean Cundey approved transfer from Anchor Bay.

Can anyone who has the BD version look at the screenshots in the link (especially the bottom/nighttime/last one) and see if they look about the same on the BD? You can see in the ABE shots that the daylight/fall color scheme is a bit yellow, giving the scenes a more "fall-like" look and, of course, the blue lighting is front and center on that last pic... even on the first "window" shot, there's a blue light on the curtain! Is this on the BD?

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare2/halloween.htm


All I know is, I watched specifically the daytime scenes and was A/B'ing through an HDMI splitter first the divimax and then the Cundey.
The scene where Myers crashes through the locked kitchen door which is clearly a dark, strong blue in the Cundey transfer looks grayish white tom like in the divimax dvd.
Since that it is a dark scene, I would need to break out the tripod to do a screenshot, might be possible but would be interesting to explain to mini-Mack's mom.

"ummm... what are you doing...?"

"well, the Blu-ray of Halloween...."

We need someone like xylon from AVS to put this to the test as he will do screen-caps directly from the discs. All I know is what I saw going back and forth today with the A/B switch.
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post #47 of 82
9/21/07 at 10:33pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

I got home late, but I did have time to pop this BD in, and we definitely have the Divimax transfer here. The key scene to compare is when Laurie enters the house and discovers the bodies of her friends, and then her escape from that house. I popped in the '98 release, and the house both inside and out is bathed in blue. In the Blu-Ray release, the blue has been pretty much totally stripped away.

I think we have a window of opportunity here, as one has to assume Starz has only done one pressing of this disc so far, and sales of catalog titles on the new formats are relatively small, thus making a voluntary exchange program not quite as large a project as it might be otherwise. Anyway, what I think we should do is get some solid snail mail contact addresses for the relevant people at Anchor Bay and organize a write-in campaign - maybe just a postcards. Heck, I'll use the Halloween postcard that came with the '98 Limited Edition set.

I would propose something similar to what Sony offered with The Fifth Element - not a recall or anything like that, but a program set up to where people who want corrected transfers can call in and get replacement discs. As much as I appreciate Anchor Bay for jumping in and delivering some truly outstanding releases, we early adopters have some influence at this point to get this changed, since we are still the primary consumer base for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, and these formats need to preserve the original theatrical presentation as much as humanly possible.

Don, do you have any relevant addresses we can use? I figure the best way to do this is drum up some support, then have everyone mail theirs in around the same time. I think we'd be best to serve Anchor Bay by doing this before they send another batch to the replicators (though it may be quite some time before they would need to), which for BD50s likely isn't cheap for an indie.
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post #48 of 82
9/22/07 at 1:28am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Ok, tripod. Canon camera in FULL manual mode. Same exposure setting, same time, same iris, EVERYTHING identical, raw, untweaked pics.



Cundey THX transfer....




Blu ray version.....



another....




Cundey THX version....




BD version


another....




Cundey THX version




BD version


another...




Cundey THX version




BD version


one more



Dean Cundey THX dvd




Blu Ray




Same input on PJ using HDMI splitter. camera in manual mode with identical settings for both.

It's not me, boys.... And at least in these night shots, seems like the DVDtalk guy doesn't know what he's DVDtalking about!


Gonna load up more in a sec. The daytime scenes were definitely tweaked. Much closer to the Cundey but still not exact. Kind of in the middle.

give me a sec...



The, "Hey jerk! Speed KILLS!" scene....



Dean Cundey THX




BD version (NICE additional detail!)



and last but not least, the divimax DVD






So it looks like the new BD is somewhere in between the GREEN of the divimax and the more fall-like Cundey at least in the day scenes.
But the night ones, especially the scene in question above, to me look like the divimax.
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post #49 of 82
9/22/07 at 3:21am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Graham
Don, do you have any relevant addresses we can use? I figure the best way to do this is drum up some support, then have everyone mail theirs in around the same time. I think we'd be best to serve Anchor Bay by doing this before they send another batch to the replicators (though it may be quite some time before they would need to), which for BD50s likely isn't cheap for an indie.

I would have an address for them, but they are moving their offices over the next few weeks and I honestly don't know the new address!
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post #50 of 82
9/22/07 at 4:23am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Just had a look at the Day Of The Dead disc and it's stil the version with the audio substitutions in some scenes ,although the subtitles on the disc are correct for some strange reason! Way to go Anchor Bay
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post #51 of 82
9/22/07 at 5:20am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Oh, this just really pisses me off...
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post #52 of 82
9/22/07 at 6:08am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Boy, Anchor Bay is really batting a thousand with their first batch of BD's.
Halloween still has incorrect color timing in the night shots. Day of the dead has the TV dub language, Evil Dead II supposedly has that nasty waxy DVNR look from the book of the dead crappy transfer....
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post #53 of 82
9/22/07 at 6:55am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

I'm cancelling my AMAZON order for the BD of HALLOWEEN. I hear, however, that the DAY OF THE DEAD BD does contain the original mono soundtrack as well as the 5.1. Can anyone confirm for me that the mono soundtrack on DAY is also the incorrect dub with the replaced audio? If the 5.1 is altered, but the original mono is the original, unaltered soundtrack, I'll at least still keep my DAY OF THE DEAD BD on order. Are both DOTD BD soundtracks incorrect, or just the 5.1?
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post #54 of 82
9/22/07 at 7:03am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

I cancelled EVIL DEAD II. No excuse releasing that transfer, since everybody flat out despises it! Yet they do it anyway.

No thanks.
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post #55 of 82
9/22/07 at 9:01am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Nice job, Dave. Nice job, indeed!
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post #56 of 82
9/22/07 at 9:30am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Don, if you can give me the times of the scenes in question, I can check at some point today or this evening.
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post #57 of 82
9/22/07 at 2:30pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

WOW! I'm so saddened by the pictures of Halloween on BD. Thank you soooo much Dave Mack, for taking so much time to do all of this for us. It really helps us to see what's been happening to the transfer.

It is truly sad to see the blue tint completely gone from the BD release. AT LEAST (yes, I am a tiny bit happy) they actually tweaked the colors in the daytime sequences to more closely resemble the Cundey approved version... I will give them credit for that! Because that DiviMax version is just soooo horrible when it came to those daytime colors. I can see a major improvement (in the pictures you posted) in regards to the daytime scenes.

I know I'm asking a lot here, but can you post a screen shot of Laurie's close-up when Linda says, "the only reason she babysits is to have a place to..." and Laurie interrupts her with, "shit!" There's a beautiful close-up at that moment of Laurie that on the Cundey approved version is very, very orange (and gorgeous) and on the DiviMax looks just horrendous due to the wrong colors... I wonder just how much tweaking they did on the BD to match that one shot.

And I totally agree that although Anchor Bay knows about all of these issues with all of these various transfers (especially Halloween, but also the transfers used on Evil Dead, etc.) they choose to ignore what the fans want! I think they need to start listening to the fans more closely. And WHY on earth can't we have the Halloween mono track UNCOMPRESSED???? Is that too much to ask for?

Will there ever be a definitive version of Halloween? No... I honestly don't think so. Not if they keep screwing every release up. Every single release seems to have SOMETHING wrong with it. Get Cundey back in the studio, re-color time the DiviMax HD master and give us a LOSSLESS PCM Mono track! That's the only way it'll ever be definitive. I just fear that that day may never come.
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post #58 of 82
9/22/07 at 3:09pm

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Good news! The mono track on Day of The Dead is indeed the uncut, non-dubbed version. The PCM track has the edits, but not the mono track.
I used the list from DVD Talk to compare and contrast, and the mono track is indeed uncut.
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post #59 of 82
9/23/07 at 3:39am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

I had a look at the mono track on Day Of The Dead and I can also confirm that it's the original unaltered version.so,YAAAAAYY!!!
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post #60 of 82
9/23/07 at 4:25am

Re: A few words about...™ Halloween -- in BD

Quote:
Originally Posted by stephen^wilson
I had a look at the mono track on Day Of The Dead and I can also confirm that it's the original unaltered version.so,YAAAAAYY!!!


Great! I'll keep it on order then! Good news!
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