Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Oh this is excellent news.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

What would make this release sheer perfection would be if they finally released the film at 20 fps, rather than the "Keystone Cops" rapid-fire 24 fps the SD DVD is in...or, at the very least, offer both in the same package and let the viewer decide. In spite of Blu-ray's massive storage capacity, though, I'm not holding my breath...

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Is it possible to do a Blu-Ray at 20 fps?

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

The frame rate is a matter of contention. The Murnau Foundation backs 24fps which is how it was reportedly shown at the premier. The restoration theatrical run in 2002 was at 20fps which feeds the fire of the controversy.

I'd support both versions on the disc but yeah don't hold your breath. Honestly the 24fps rate is fine with me if that's all we get.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Split the difference - 22fps.

Seriously though, this is very exciting news! Hopefully other Kino titles they've given the deluxe DVD treatment - Nosferatu, The Black Pirate, Queen Kelly, etc. - will follow shortly behind.

And maybe a remaster of the Keaton silents! (One can dream, can't they?)

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Unfortunately Blu-ray doesn't support arbitrary framerates, I believe it's just 24p, 50i (25p via 2:2 pulldown) and 60i (30p via 2:2 pulldown). So the options are basically 24fps, 15fps (if you duplicate all frames in a 60i stream) or some type of frame interpolation/conversion which will results in ghosting and/or interlacing artifacts.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Sold. This will really show off the quality of the 2K restoration. Hopefully they'll include the music score in PCM 5.1.


I think BluRay can handle different framerates. If 22fps can be used via 480i, I assume they can do 22fps at 1080i. 20fps would be too slow, but 22fps looks visually right from examples I've seen.

As for Keaton silents, the 1080p sourced remaster of The General on DVD from MK2 and Image (the one with the Alloy Orchestra score) looks almost like a new film. Sherlock Jr and Seven Chances seem to have excellent 35mm sources from how good Kino's releases look.

David Shepard had The Hunchback of Notre Dame '23 remastered in 1080p for the recent DVD, but it was sourced from 16mm prints since that's all that survives. Criterion has HD masters on hand for The King of Kings, Pandora's Box, and the Paul Robeson silents they released. MK2 remastered all of Chaplin's films (his estate-owned from after the Mutuals) in HD, plus 2K on Modern Times.

I'm hoping that people will give silents a chance on BluRay. Many have excellent image quality on the film elements used for restorations.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

I just picked up There Will Be Blood the other day and noticed it had a silent short film about oil from the early '20s in HD. I'll have to throw that in to see how it looks as I believe it's the first silent film in HD on BD.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

I own a bootleg of the 20 fps version, as well as Kino's original, and can honestly say the 20 fps version is far, far preferable. I, too, will "take what I can get" (and if these observations about 20 fps material on Blu-ray hold to be true, I may have to) but an official presentation of the 20 fps version would be divine.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Bought!

Now where's Nosferatu; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; Der Golem; Douglas Fairbanks silents and Buster Keaton silents?
Harold Lloyd was released by a different company, right?

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Correct. The Harold Lloyd estate has an exclusive deal with New Line.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

I'm sure it's too much too ask for the Moroder version as an extra or something.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

It'd be nice if it were remastered to get rid of the ghosting that plagues the R1 discs; last we heard, Kino didn't have access to the proper master used in R2, but maybe they can swing something for the BD version.

20 fps works much better as the theatrical run demonstrated---even then some action is undercranked, but appropriately so.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Actually wasn't the same 25fps PAL master used for the Kino edition, and the ghosting was due to the fact that instead of slowing it down to 24fps for NTSC it was frame interpolated?

As mentioned earlier, a 1080p edition running in 24 or 25fps should be perfectly doable, but if you want 20fps or something similar you're going to run into some problems.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

I am def sold

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

The Moroder version would have to be licenced from Moroder, or whoever the ultimate rights holder is on the version (it was released theatrically in North America by Cinecom, an indie that no longer exists).

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Yeah, knew it was too much to ask for.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

It would probably be easier if this was Criterion rather than Kino.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

The Moroder version was made when the film was in the public domain. Now that the original copyright has been reinstated, the Moroder version will probably only exist in bootleg form from now on. The only way around this would be if something could be worked out between the two parties, an unlikely scenario.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

The original copyright may be reinstated, but Moroder's version was copyrighted when it was released. As an alternate version, it has a separate copyright.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Yes, though my understanding was that the frame-interpolated master is what Kino was given, not something they produced themselves. Therefore, unless they get access to the PAL master for the Blu-ray version, the Kino master will still have the ghosting in it.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

The Moroder version is held up by music rights. Too expensive to buy the music rights for DVD.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

They'd better not be using a PAL master for Blu-Ray, as PAL is only SD. A new transfer will need to be produced in HD.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Someone please explain to me why 20fps isn't feasible, or isn't desirable, on Blu-ray @ 1080p60 with each frame repeated 3X? Sounds like pretty simple math to me. Sure, slow-mo, ff, and step-frame features will be a little off in use, but I feel that is a minor annoyance considering how much more enjoyable and historically accurate the film presentation would be. My guess is that the video compression process would also compensate for the file size bulk created by duplicated frames.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

It would seem to me that doing 20fps would actually be easier than 24fps, although I could be mistaken.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

As a matter of fact, I can't see any reason why the pulldown technique used to shoehorn 24 fps material into 30 frames/2:1 couldn't be used here. Yes, it's an inelegant technical hack, & we could wish the BD standard had included arbitrary frame-rate support, but taking every film frame & dropping it into 3 video fields to get 20 fps (instead of alternating 2 and 3 fields for 24 fps) is an obvious step. Of course, it could be something current video-authoring systems don't have an option for, or it could be something the studios avoid because it confuses deinterlacers which are built to detect 3-2 cadence, but in principle it is cleaner than the 24-30 conversion. In the old days it would have been necessary to build a new cam system for the telecine projector, but working from a digital scan the worst one would have to do would be to set up a macro to clone each frame & then eliminate adjacent pairs of fields.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Are you sure about that? Just as all the previous DVDs and VHS versions were forced out of print, I don't see why this version would be any different. Just about every version on video was an alternate version since they all had different scores. Just because Moroder's version used a pop soundtrack doesn't really make the legal stance any different. At least thats how it seems to me, but I'm by no means a legal expert.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

Because it's not a supported video format in BD and neither players nor video pocessors would know how to get the proper 1080p60 out of the 1080i60 on the disc.

Re: Kino to bring METROPOLIS to Blu-Ray in 2009

I thought about that too. The only question is like you say whether current TVs/players are going to know what to do with it, and how to deinterlace it best. I don't think you'll ever get the progressive frames back, I have never heard of anything with support for this kind of cadence detection, but if most sets are going to stutter like mad or something, it could be better to just "pre-cook" it on the authoring side.