"Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29 - Page 5

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29

I second that emotion!

If anyone wants to read a message into that, they're probably right.

M.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29

This release will be available as a rental online and at many Blockbuster stores, so all of us who want to see it without rewarding New Line for their shoddy work can avoid buying.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29

I find that sort of comment ill-advised. And stated before even seeing the disc. No studio sets out to produce "shoddy" work.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29

so much for that idea.

might need a more direct approach.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29

I'm perfectly happy to take a wait-and-see approach.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29

There's probably enough of us die-hards who are going to buy this on release week that a wait-and-see approach is probably a good idea. I'll certainly report my impressions as soon as my copy comes in and I get a chance to watch it.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29

Love the film, but I'll probably check it out via Netflix before buying. I find myself doing that more and more these days...

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29

Does Netflix stock new BD releases quickly (and w/ a decent inventory)? I started using BlockBuster a couple months back and find them rather lacking when it comes to new BD releases so far.

_Man_

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" coming to Blu-ray on July 29

When someone figures out what Netflix does with Blu-ray, the next thing they should do is corner the stock market because they're a friggin' genius!

My experience with Netflix and BD has been up and down. I have one of the lowest plans, the two a month plan, and I got 'Rambo' and 'The Ruins' rather quickly. However, I still haven't gotten 'Jumper' yet, which has sat at the top of my queue for well over a month now. Currently, they're shipping 'The Enforcer' BD all the way from Butte, MT (I live in VA BTW!) because 'Jumper' and 'The Bank Job' were Long Waits.

In all honesty, neither Blockbuster nor Netflix is clearly better than the other. As far as Dark City is concerned, snagging a catalog rental is infinitely easy than snagging a new release in my experience.

"Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

My two cents on the BD of "Dark City" after I watched the disc yesterday.

This is what you'll get for your money:

A very sharp, edge-enhanced picture with high detail in the foreground.

An almost totally degrained and heavily DNR-ed picture with the minimal remaining grain appearing static and unnatural.

Greetings from Madame Tussaud and General Patton:

The wax figure faces are back again! Poor William Hurt looks like he underwent ten or more facial liftings. (example: chapter 12, time code 1.11.10)

Although the picture seems to appear very sharp on the first glimpse, there is hardly any 3-dimensionality in this travesty of a transfer. Poor background detail, obviously due to low-pass filtering with robbing the 1080p stream it's high-frequency information.

This Blu-ray disc has absolutely nothing in common with the 1998 film elements. This picture was shot in Super 35 with lots of beautiful grain in the theatrical presentation as far as I remember.

I know what answers there will come up: "Just wait a little longer...." "the studios got the message.....". But this will not excuse this new travesty.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

No surprise. Screen shots show obvious edge sharpening and wax like faces. Just like the transfer shown on HBO many times.

Better than DVD? Yup.

But so what?

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

----> Recall and free replacement of their -IMHO fraudulent- products....

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

Johannes S, I think your heart is in the right place, and I do appreciate you sharing your opinion of this disc. However, the hyperbole increasingly found associated with this topic is starting to get a bit out-of-hand and not doing anyone any favors.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

Thanks Johannes......you just saved me $20.

I learned my lesson with Pan's Labyrinth(I should have bought the UK release). I know not to trust New Line until I read a review.

I'm holding firm on my BD purchases on this issue. I'm just not going to spend good money on DNR. If I wanted HD-Lite then I would watch them on Sat TV.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

I agree with all the above.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

Paul, I see your point, but personally I think you are wrong.

We all know the arrogant behavior of the studios and their executives.

Did we forget how hard we had to fight to get the Pan/Scan transfers replaced with decent actual a/r transfers.

It took more than a decade!

"Appeasement" is not the right policy with this topic.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

It will be nothing if not interesting to see where our anti DNR/EE campaign leads, over time.

I suppose that it's on the same order as getting a visit from the tooth fairy, but it sure would be swell if at least a couple of higher-ups in at least a couple of the studios, would come out and make an official statement as to what their overall policy is, or what their proposed plan of action will be regarding future releases.

Is it asking too much for such a mature and responsible discourse, that they discuss policies in the past, pertaining to older technologies, and how those practices are affecting their hi-def products? Is it asking too much, to know if they've actually heard us; deny or acknowledge the issue, and talk frankly about their approach? It wouldn't be acknowledging past or present "failure" on their part, to discuss general, accepted industry practices, and what their immediate and long-term approach will be.

Of course, we are talking about large corporate entities and their general mode of functioning and communicating...something that I confess to having little patience with, or admiration for.

For the more sensitive readers, be aware that I haven't named any studios, corporations, or specific examples.

Do you think it's possible that we could have an online chat with one or more representatives, as has been done in the past regarding other issues?

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

But when you start saying the disc is a "travesty" or "fradulent" and that "We all know the arrogant behavior of the studios and their executives", it just comes off as ridiculous. And I really doubt that if a person reading this that may be in a position to do something would do anything than just roll their eyes when they read such statements.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

Have any studios admitted to the use or over use of DNR? I have read many posts from viewers complaining about it but have not read anything from the studios about the issue. I mean its a lot clearer when you have pan and scan instead of wide screen or if there has been music replacement. I am not saying this is not happening and that this is not a problem . I just don't recall hearing anything from the studios.

I remember when the That's Entertainment films were released in blu-ray and hi-def there were complaints that there was too much film grain and it wasn't sharp enough. Most of the complaints were about the clips from 1930's films.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

Why would any rep show his face with the kind of aggressive hyperbole being bandied about in some of these threads? Any rep reading some of this stuff could rightly conclude that any "discussion" would degenerate into name calling and outright rudeness if his/her statements on the matter did not coincide with what a lot of people expect to hear.

The safest path for reps to follow is to say nothing. If they say nothing then they do not have to deal with the negative fallout that would surely follow.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

I disagree. Under such circumstances, people tend to rise to the occasion, if the event is properly moderated and the rules clearly spelled out in advance.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

Exactly, Travis. Honestly, I don't have an issue with someone calling this disc a 'travesty' as that's their opinion even though I may personally think it is over-the-top. However, one has to realize that using such rhetoric runs the risk of alienating the very people you are intending to educate which may subsequently result in them tuning you out.

What I really took issue with was the term 'fraudulent'. The studios may be a lot of things, including short-sighted, frugal to a fault, and lacking in appropriate QA methods, but I don't think anyone there is purposely trying to ruin these films.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

It is only a relatively small timeframe in which we can bring our concerns to notice and hopefully get heard.

The reaction to RAH's outstanding article on "The Bits", the overwhelmingly positive response it had on this forum, followed by the removal of these threads is proof enough for me, how disconcerted the whole industry is.

"Blu-ray" has to succeed for their continuing revenue streams.

This is exactly the right time to let the studios know what we want and what we DO NOT want. In clear words, without "diplomatic appeasement". That's the language those people understand, nothing else.

Besides, it's our money they live from!

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

I'm not trying to start an argument and I agree with your basic viewpoint but "diplomatic appeasement" and "That's the language those people understand, nothing else" are just more hyperbole. Everyone here is very passionate about movies but those terms are more applicable to terrorism than movies. Trying to apply them to movies are the exact type of thing that will make studios take our concerns less seriously.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

While all this may be the case, and the disc may be one more in a line of underwhelming examples of HD dumbed down by the studios for one-size-fits-all-applications, or for non enthusiast grain-o-phobes, the BIG thing that most people are forgetting here is that

THIS IS ON A 50 GB DISC!!!!!

AND THE BIT-RATE IS THRU THE ROOF!!!!

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

What continues to confound, is that the most notorious examples of DNR seem to be applied to titles where it's least called for, such as 'Patton' with its large format negative, and therefore reduced evidence of grain...and titles such as 'Dark City', which more or less has a cult following, therefore defying the "crowd pleaser" mentality. The audience is going to consist of more hard core cineast; therefore by design, it will displease. You would think that their sense of demographic, and basic technical aspects, would be a bit sharper than that. It is, after all, their industry.

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

I believe what has been learned to this point translates to "Do Not Pre-order."

It simply isn't worth the risk that releases will not be up to par, and with reviewers receiving copies well enough in advance of street date, there is more than enough time to generally receive a desired disc quickly...

after reading comments from whomever you trust on line.

RAH

Re: "Dark City: Director's Cut" - the DNR travesty continues

I'm still curious as to whether this was sourced from an older D-Theater master and the DC material spliced in and de-noised to match. That's the rumour and it would be interesting to see a confirmation or denial.