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post #31 of 132
6/21/08 at 2:49pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Damn, what a shame. I can tell you that as a whole the HTF reviewers are VERY concerned about the removal of grain for HD releases and this is something we WILL NOT be quiet about. I sincerely hope this gets more noise generated and gets a recall.

Sam
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post #32 of 132
6/21/08 at 3:01pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

It's also the EE. If this is the same master they used for the 2003 dvd, it looked like the characters had forcefields around their heads against the sky in the opening battle scene.

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post #33 of 132
6/21/08 at 3:49pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Damn. Thanks - as always - for the insight RAH.

Disney aren't the only ones who've dusted off old masters and DNR'ed them to hell for HD, but given how hideous the old GONY DVD is, them dropping the ball with the Blu-ray is inexcusable.

I was mesmerised when I saw this flick at the cinema, and no home video version I've yet seen has reproduced that experience because they look utterly awful. Someone, somewhere, has got to rectify this.
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post #34 of 132
6/21/08 at 3:50pm
Thread Starter 

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

The "forcefields" are now far shaper and more highly resolved.

Blu-ray at its best.
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post #35 of 132
6/21/08 at 5:04pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Such a shame, truly. It is a beautifully lit and shot film and deserves much better.

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post #36 of 132
6/22/08 at 7:12am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Shit.

Will this film never get a decent home video release? My primary use for the
SD-DVD edition has been as a perfect "reference" disc for explaining the evils of edge enhancement (as the above picture posted by Dave Mack demonstrates). I was looking forward to replacing it.

--Jefferson Morris
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post #37 of 132
6/22/08 at 8:44am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jefferson Morris
Shit.

Will this film never get a decent home video release? My primary use for the
SD-DVD edition has been as a perfect "reference" disc for explaining the evils of edge enhancement (as the above picture posted by Dave Mack demonstrates). I was looking forward to replacing it.

--Jefferson Morris
I guess now on Blu-ray, we really have *the* reference disc for the evils of EE...
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post #38 of 132
6/22/08 at 9:29am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Very disappointing. I was looking forward to adding this disc to my collection. I'm hoping that this and PATTON aren't harbingers of more bad catalog releases on HDM.
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post #39 of 132
6/22/08 at 10:13am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Sutliff
Very disappointing. I was looking forward to adding this disc to my collection. I'm hoping that this and PATTON aren't harbingers of more bad catalog releases on HDM.

If I have to pick an "evil", I'll take what happened to PATTON any day over the case of GANGS OF NEW YORK...
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post #40 of 132
6/22/08 at 10:54am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

How do they view these 2K and 4K scans ,since the tubes are only
720P and Lcd and Plasmas are only 1080p,So do they downcovert them
before they start working on them???
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post #41 of 132
6/22/08 at 2:01pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Neski
How do they view these 2K and 4K scans ,since the tubes are only
720P and Lcd and Plasmas are only 1080p,So do they downcovert them
before they start working on them???

High resolution computer monitors can go up to 4k and in some cases beyond that. More often than not to view a full 4K image they are looking at an enlarged area anyway if they are doing work to clean up the image.

Doug
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post #42 of 132
6/23/08 at 8:54am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

...well.

this just sucks.

I was looking forward to picking this one up... anyone got Marty's phone number? :-)
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post #43 of 132
6/23/08 at 4:00pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Oh well. One less repurchase for me I guess...

_Man_
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post #44 of 132
6/23/08 at 4:46pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Does anyone know whether the French or German BDs are worth importing?
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post #45 of 132
6/24/08 at 5:24am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

I just rec'd this non-response from BVHE:

Quote:
Felix,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding GANGS OF NEW YORK. We appreciate your interest.

THE GANGS OF NEW YORK is tentatively scheduled for Blu-ray release July 1,2008.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to reply to this email. You may also contact us at 800 477-2811 (Canada 888 877-2843), Monday 9:30-7:30 and Tuesday through Friday 9:30-6:30 CST.

Sincerely,
I find it amusing that it's still "tentatively" scheduled for release July 1. I also responded that they should consider pushing back the release date to give this film the proper Blu-ray treatment.
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post #46 of 132
6/24/08 at 8:10am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

This is too bad, but I guess I would rather rent this disc and judge for myself before I jump on the “recall” bandwagon.
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post #47 of 132
6/24/08 at 8:33am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

I'll bet my body that Scorsese has no idea about this.
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post #48 of 132
6/24/08 at 12:30pm
Thread Starter 

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Yet another voice hear from...

"Buena Vista Home Entertainment's Blu-ray release, however, is a disc that every serious home video collector should seek out and avoid. Released in 2003, the standard-definition edition of Gangs was widely-and understandably-trashed. Edge enhancement, compression artifacts, you name it, they all made the movie an artificially sharp mess that had little to no picture detail and proved to be somewhat of an eyesore. When the Blu-ray release was announced a few months ago, I was elated. Disney has been consistently strong with the picture transfers for their BD releases, which led me to think that Gangs would finally get its due respect on home video.

Sadly, I was wrong. It appears that the Mouse House has recycled that atrocious transfer from five years ago for this release, and while it is a slight improvement over its SD counterpart, the added picture resolution from the 1080p/VC-1 encode seems to only accentuate the transfer's faults. The edge enhancement is so apparent at times that some of the characters look like they have force fields around them (maybe that is how Bill won the fight at the beginning of the film). Then there is the heavy use of digital noise reduction which renders the picture grain-free and dull while giving the actors' skin a waxy look. Adding salt to the BD wounds is a surprising amount of dirt, nicks and marks on the print given its age, and on more than one occasion, the picture displays a slight hiccup, as if someone hit the machine handling the transfer. I would expect this kind of work from a small, independent home video company, but Disney?

Is there anything nice to say about the video transfer? Well, the colors and black levels are stronger here than they were on the SD release, and compression artifacts are non-existent. And oh yeah, it's nice to have the film presented on one disc, uninterrupted. That’s… pretty much about it, I’m afraid." - Shawn Fitzgerald, The Man Room
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post #49 of 132
6/24/08 at 12:34pm
Thread Starter 

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

and another...

"Since I am a huge fan of this film I was really disappointed when I viewed this one on Blu-ray. The original DVD release of this film was pretty bad with excessive edge enhancement and compression issues. This HD release almost looks like a scaled up version of that same DVD and exhibits many of the same issues. This image has been so heavily processed that it doesn't even remotely resemble high quality HD. Fine detail and film grain have been completely removed and the image has a hard processed look that completely robs dimensionality and depth. Instead we're left with a flat image with noticeable noise reduction artifacts such as image swimming and details that look exaggerated and unrealistic. Honestly, this could be one of the worst looking HD presentations to date for a film that should have looked incredible on the format. I really hope Miramax recalls this one or goes back and redoes the master and transfer soon.

While I wish I could recommend this one on Blu-ray at this point I would say stay away. Miramax has really dropped the ball on this presentation and delivered a huge disappointment in the video department. For such a great film this release should have delivered so much more." - Kris Deering, Home Theater
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post #50 of 132
6/24/08 at 3:45pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

I can only surmise that those in charge of Disney's other excellent releases are not the same people in charge of the Miramax releases.

Bad news for the rumored Cold Mountain release this Fall if true.
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post #51 of 132
6/24/08 at 8:39pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Maybe all of this negative attention of Gangs will pre-empt Disney to not allow this with Cold Mountain.
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post #52 of 132
6/24/08 at 9:14pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Is Disney actually in charge of the transfer process? If they simply let a 5 year old master from Miramax be re-used, what's to say they have any say? Or did they just not care with this one title, thereby breaking a decent track record.
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post #53 of 132
6/24/08 at 10:57pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

it's pretty funny how this outcome for this film is for disney. after disney dropped the ball with chicago on dvd, they redeemed them self on blu-ray. i had similar hopes for this film but we were wrong.

our only hope is that any other studio around the globe puts a better presentation for this film on blu-ray. afaik the film has already been released on br in france by a different studio.
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post #54 of 132
6/25/08 at 7:32am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Not trying to stir the pot here, but I find fascinating how Mr. Harris will say “Gangs Of New York” blu-ray “yields an image that is fully electronic” and is “Extremely Highly NOT Recommended”, then gives glowing reviews to “Peter Pan”, “Bambi”, “Lady and the Tramp” and “Mary Poppins”. All four of these looks quite different from the original 35mm release versions. The so-called “restored” versions have grain reduced or removed, incorrect colors, and an overall electronic enhancement appearance that make these films like video games. Mr. Harris raved about these releases, but to many expert Disney aficionados an injustice was committed on Walt and his team by the “keepers of the frames” at Disney.

I guess revisionism is OK on cartoons features, but recall is in order for live action films with too much DNR. Got it.
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post #55 of 132
6/25/08 at 8:34am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

If you had seen what Gangs of New York looks like I don't think you would make that comparison. Unlike the Disney movies, Patton, etc. the issue here is not so much revisionism as just a plain old, terrible master.
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post #56 of 132
6/25/08 at 8:49am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Crow
I guess revisionism is OK on cartoons features, but recall is in order for live action films with too much DNR. Got it.
I guess it has more to do with the formats themselves. The capabilities of DVD versus HD. While I can't answer for Mr. Harris it seems to me that many in the industry never took DVD seriously as a videophile format anyway since the technical specs are so limited compared to a 35mm print. Therefore what was regarded as ok and acceptable on DVD (as just another compromise on an already compromised format) is looked at differently when released in HD since 1080p HD as a system is pretty close to normal 35mm prints in some areas and potentially even better in other areas. So the whole question of fidelity gets far more urgency here. DVDs have been plagued by EE and DNR from day one and continue to be affected/degraded by these digital gimmicks till this day. It 'comes with the format', so to speak. :-)
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post #57 of 132
6/25/08 at 12:14pm
Thread Starter 

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Deleted
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post #58 of 132
6/25/08 at 7:04pm

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Harris
My read on the latest incarnations of the Disney Classics is very simple.

The original elements survive, and are well cared for.

Disney has a terrific Asset Protection program and a superb executive in place, who knows and understands animation art.

The latest series of DVDs have been created for a new audience -- mostly children -- that is not concerned about the "painterly" look.

Further, grain combined with paint played havoc with compression for DVD.

The difference between animation art and live action is also quite different.

I tend to look at the new Disney animated Classics as New Editions of the originals. The originals can still be viewed as intended on film.

There will be those who disagree.

RAH

But Robert, the original elements survive on “Gangs of New York”, and the original version can also still be viewed, as intended, on 35mm.

As you say the “grain combined with paint plays havoc with compression for DVD”, but you don’t see this on Warner Brothers, Universal, MGM, UA, or on Disney’s Treasures series when it comes to cartoon shorts. These are not cleaned or degrained to hell as Disney has done on most of the features. All were produced at or around the same time using the identical paint and cells variety, and film stocks. There is no difference between what Disney has done to the animation features since the laserdisc years to todays “DNR to death” live action releases on Blu-ray. In my view, you are talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Robert, we agree to disagree.
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post #59 of 132
6/26/08 at 1:34am
Thread Starter 

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

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post #60 of 132
6/26/08 at 7:22am

Re: A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray

The Disney cartoons with the “techno-stylistic decision” are still wrong, no matter if they are “pleasantly viewable”. Not to sound flip, but I’m betting it’s the “superb executive in place” you like more than the work you see on the screen.

Besides you and a handful of reviewers, not many people have seen the blu-ray of “Gangs of New York” for themselves. I’m incredibly glad you review titles here, I enjoy them, but it’s troubling to see how others follow your lead, trashing this disc, without seeing it.

I’m waiting to rent the disc and develop my own opinion, keeping the reviews, including yours, in the back of my mind as I view. I hope others will do the same.
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Home Theater Forum › Home Theater Forum › Blu-ray, DVD, Streaming Video and Digital Downloads › Blu-ray › A Few Words About By Robert Harris › A few words about...™ Gangs of New York -- in Blu-ray