Terminator 1 & 2 - Page 3

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

For those interested in lossless audio, I think that can be accommodated... it's always just a matter for the studio to decide how they want to balance the picture and audio quality versus other features. While some materials can obviously be put on a separate disc to keep the AV quality of the feature up, some other special features do have to run in concert with the film, so there is always a tradeoff.

I know that many if not most of the folks on HTF are of the opinion that not only should the feature quality always come first, but that all available space should go towards it, and not towards all those (often filler) special features that many don't want to watch... but the sad truth is that from the studio's POV, just having great sound and picture alone is not going to give Blu-ray any edge in this age of YouTube. They feel it's the added interactive stuff that will drawn regular folks to the format beyond the quality of the feature, and that this larger group is going to have to embrace the format if it is to be anything beyond laserdisc in terms of adoption.

In my book, image and sound quality have to be a given, but it can be balanced against what else the format has to offer... and unfortunately, time and money are a factor as well... all you can do is to make it as good a disc as you can within the limits of schedule and budget you can... and within the limits of what you can get programmed. I'm on this forum so I can ask you folks what we can do to make a better and more innovative product... but I --like my esteemed colleagues-- am still beholden to budgets, legal issues, marketing schedules and the whims and opinions of directors and studios.

For YiFeng, Dave and Wayne, you may be happy to know that the next version I do of T2 on Blu-ray will have DTS_HD Master Audio.

To EnricoE and Joel: obviously, EVERY film would probably benefit from having the luxury of going back to the original sound elements and completely redoing it with modern technology and techniques... but not only is it really difficult to find a lot of usable T1 audio stuff (it was a low-budget film after all), one might argue that some of its charm and its power come from the rawness of it. I've always said it can end up like going back and rewriting your old high school essays... if it got you an A back then, let it remain a snapshot of that time and don't give it a makeover just to "update" it, lest you end up with the new Star Trek 2.0 crap. We don't want to see this classic 1984 film (which was just inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress today!) suddenly filled with figurative Jawas and Rontos and Greedo shooting first and Rodian dancing girls and stuff, do we?
;-)

Finally, David, I understand your preference on the color and framing of T2 between the UT2 and T2X versions... but it does all come down to preference, and what I've found is that when I look at transfers I've been involved with in the past, I often go "Yikes! Why did we make it look like THAT?" when I recall perfectly well that we loved how we did it back then we we did it that way. Two observations in that regard:
1) people's vision of what's good and what they see in an image changes over time. This is especially true of directors; if you have them do a new, blind transfer (with no previous reference) and compare it to their previously-apporved transfer, I can much guarantee that the to images will look different, and sometimes wildly so.
2) as the technology and viewing formats get sharper and cleaner, you tend to back off on the hardness and go for the subtleties in the image. You don't have to saturate the colors and overemphasize a particular hue just to punch through the limits of the viewing format... you can try to maintain some of the subtlety of the image. The best analogy I can give you is how you have to do grand gestures and project loudly to get your point across when you perform in a stadium, whereas you can still get an effect but carry some nuances in your performance when you're in a more intimate setting. The clarity and quality of HD can give you that intimate setting.

Just my two cents... I welcome your opinions.

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Well, if I have any say on this, I will definitely push for having the original mono track included on T1 as well, as I did back in 2001 when I produced the DVD. As a producer, I only have certain sway on these things... but I can't imagine the studio or Lightstorm not wanting to include it.

If we're lucky, we'll have some interesting stuff on Blu-ray for both films this year... T2 is a bit tougher, since we've kind of done it to death, but just trying to get the various features from all of the previous releases compiled... there's a lot of collision and believe it or not a disc space problem. And while I agree that having multiple discs is the best way to go for maximum balance (and am envious of my cohort Charlie de Lauzirika's ability to get the studios to fund, like, 5-disc sets!), the studios don't always agree with that philosphy...in particular the smaller ones like Lionsgate or Studio Canal who may not have the resources to fund bigger disc projects like Fox or Disney do. I can contribute a lot of my own effort and time far beyond my budget to do stuff (and I do!), but I can't insist on them funding the authoring and replication of additional discs. Should I take up a collection or hold a bake sale? ;-)

V

PS: if you're inclined towards the Whedon oeuvre, one of the best meta-commentaries EVER is the original musical commentary to "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog": Sample lyric: "And you'll be dazed by the haze of blazing praise / Arrays of ways to rephrase 'those were the days' / Laid on so thick, it'll make you sick / That's the trick to all these commentaries"

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

I totally agree with you folks regarding edge enhancement... that said, the ultimate approval for transfers comes from Lightstorm, so I can only hope they understand this as well, since I'm no longer there.

My experience is also that in some cases, the "edge enhancement" folks complain about is NOT in the transfer or even on the disc, but caused by filters in the player. Or even when someone screencaps the image and posts it as a JPEG online! I recall one time on Episode I where I compared a frame of the original transfer to what someone had posted online as an example of how "LFL had screwed it up with too much EE" and found that the original looked a lot better than this screencap (no big surprise there).

I'm not saying there aren't folks who do use EE and DNR, and often excessively, but one needs to look at the entire chain of how the image gets from the celluloid to the home theatre and be honest in assessing your own equipment as well. The tendency is of course to want to assume your expensive gear is perfect and that the problem is all someone else's problem.

Just my two cents,

V

Re: Terminator 1 & 2

Here's a question for you:

For older films like this, where all of the original special features are only in standard def... IF the studio can't/won't spring for the cost of additional dics, and IF there is enough bandwidth via BD-Live... would you folks consider downoads or streaming of old SD bonus content via BD-Live a viable alternative? If such features were on the menus as normal and you have the connection for it to be relatively seamless in playback (which is happening more and more, since many settop boxes are now adding Netflix and YouTube functionality and access), would you use it as such?

Obviously, having it in hand on an actual disc is preferable (if you're a collector and/or like actual tactile things), but if the alternatives are either to not have those features at all or to have them accessible online, would the latter be a legit way to include them?

Thoughts?

V