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Spartacus

post #1 of 32
7/28/08 at 1:28am
Thread Starter 
Hello Robert,

are you at liberty to tell us if there is work being done on Spartacus to prepare it for Blu-Ray release ?
And I am not talking about the second coming for the disappointing HD-DVD but something that you would be happy with.

Thanks !

Oliver
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post #2 of 32
7/28/08 at 6:49am

Re: Spartacus

I too would like to know. When I first heard Spartacus was to be on HD DVD, it nearly motivated me to jump onto HD DVD in 2006 (rather than Dec. 2007) but when I learned of its poor quality and how disappointed Mr. Harris was with it, I held off from buying it and from buying into HD DVD until prices plummeted (at that point, I wanted to know if HDM was worth the upgrade and HD DVD offered me an inexpensive way to test for that). So, until an HDM version is released with Mr. Harris' stamp of approval, I'll remain content with my R2 [I believe it mirrors the Critierion R1 release, or close to it, in terms of extras] release from the UK (picked it up for very little on a trip to the UK in March 2007--before then I soldiered on with my letterboxed VHS copy ).
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post #3 of 32
7/28/08 at 7:16am

Re: Spartacus

Add me to that list. I suspect that we're not the only ones who will only purchase a Blu-ray edition of Spartacus if Universal does the right thing and hires RAH to supervise a new HD transfer.
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post #4 of 32
7/30/08 at 1:01am
Thread Starter 

Re: Spartacus

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Lidolt
Add me to that list. I suspect that we're not the only ones who will only purchase a Blu-ray edition of Spartacus if Universal does the right thing and hires RAH to supervise a new HD transfer.

I take it as a good sign that so far we got no answer from the man himself. If absolutely nothing was happening I would think that we would have gotten a short answer, but it might just be that either Mr. Harris is working on Spartacus again in one form or another or that he at least knows of developments he cannot talk about. Or maybe it is just that I want something good to happen to Spartacus so that we can finally enjoy it on Blu-Ray
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post #5 of 32
8/26/08 at 3:39am

Re: Spartacus

xylon.haloapplications.com - /hddvd/sparticus/
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post #6 of 32
8/26/08 at 2:19pm

Re: Spartacus

Ouch. That is shocking. How could that be allowed to happen? It looks worse than many standard DVD's I have.
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post #7 of 32
8/26/08 at 4:57pm

Re: Spartacus

Wow, it doesn't look nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Grainy, but not exactly "worse than Madacy" level as touted.
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post #8 of 32
8/26/08 at 5:50pm

Re: Spartacus

If you look at the details in the fine text in the title sequence, you'll find that the HD DVD is actually much more detailed than the DVD. That isn't to say that this release couldn't be much better.

Doug
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post #9 of 32
8/26/08 at 6:10pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Spartacus

Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick McCart
Wow, it doesn't look nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Grainy, but not exactly "worse than Madacy" level as touted.

The color timing is way off and makes the movie look completely different from the theatrical prints I have seen, that alone is completely unnecessary even with the bad master they had.

As Doug said it is better than all previous versions with regard to detail but this does not mean that much, knowing that Spartacus has the potential to look as detailed as for example Grand Prix.
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post #10 of 32
8/26/08 at 10:28pm

Re: Spartacus

I believe that the Spartacus transfer comes from 65mm elements on less than state of the art telecine equipment. Hence the softness of something that should be practically razor sharp.

And as noted the Criterion version is much more accurate with regard to color. I believe Mr. Harris had a hand in the color corrections on that version.

I will say this, at least the HD DVD version of this film still looks like film.

Doug
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post #11 of 32
9/22/08 at 1:40pm

Re: Spartacus

Maybe Criterion would be nice enough to do the blu-ray using a new 8k RAH-approved transfer.
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post #12 of 32
11/23/08 at 8:06am

Re: Spartacus

one of my all time greats, just the sort of film that would get me on to blue ray,
fingers crossed
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post #13 of 32
12/18/08 at 7:50am

Re: Spartacus

I see the HD is going for a song there days (I suppose that goes for most HD's). Due to the harsh things said about the transfer, & no news on the Blu-ray front. I'm hoping Universal are starting afresh, maybe scanning all the neg. into HD & going from there. I hope so.
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post #14 of 32
12/19/08 at 2:37am
Thread Starter 

Re: Spartacus

Quote:
Originally Posted by Billy Batson
I see the HD is going for a song there days (I suppose that goes for most HD's). Due to the harsh things said about the transfer, & no news on the Blu-ray front. I'm hoping Universal are starting afresh, maybe scanning all the neg. into HD & going from there. I hope so.

The master that the HD-DVD is derived from is certainly not up to the task.
But the duplicate 70mm negative surely would be good enough to arrive at a very satisfying Blu-Ray in case Universal does not want to go back to the original horizontal elements.
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post #15 of 32
12/19/08 at 10:33am

Re: Spartacus

Quote:
Originally Posted by OliverK
The master that the HD-DVD is derived from is certainly not up to the task.
But the duplicate 70mm negative surely would be good enough to arrive at a very satisfying Blu-Ray in case Universal does not want to go back to the original horizontal elements.

If they're going to scan it (& I don't know), then it might be just as easy to scan the original negs.
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post #16 of 32
12/20/08 at 4:37am
Thread Starter 

Re: Spartacus

Quote:
Originally Posted by Billy Batson
If they're going to scan it (& I don't know), then it might be just as easy to scan the original negs.

Unfortunately it is not. The original negative is incomplete and already was in a less than perfect shape almost 20 years ago when RAH worked on it for his restoration.

RAH surely could comment on which elements he would see fit to be used for scanning with the aim to arrive at a sufficiently high quality digital master. I would guess the duplicate negative as that would be possible without too much additional expense, going back to the original elements could be considered too costly and too much money to spend on a single movie.

From the work RAH has done on The Godfather movies I would very much like him to work on Spartacus and also on Lawrence of Arabia - The Godfather movies look very much like film in their Blu-Ray incarnations and I hope that we can one day say the same about Spartacus and Lawrence
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post #17 of 32
12/20/08 at 1:34pm

Re: Spartacus

If a 65mm Interpositive of the restoration was made, this seems most likely the element that would be used.
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post #18 of 32
12/26/08 at 12:59pm

Re: Spartacus

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Dalek
Maybe Criterion would be nice enough to do the blu-ray using a new 8k RAH-approved transfer.
Such a release would be a cinematic godsend to home theater enthusiasts around the world! I'd be doing cartwheels in public and I've got arthritis in both knees!
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post #19 of 32
2/23/10 at 5:56pm
OK, so Universal has officially announced this ( is showing up on classicflix) and just going over the extras that is in this single disc release, it seems that some of the above statement's  might come true. seems a lot of the extras look very familiar as the same ones on my Criterion set.

This need to be done correctly, and if it has taken this long for them to get from the HDDVD version to something more in line with what this truly deserves then i hope that in the coming months that i will be happy.

i would be even more ecstatic to know that RAH had a hand in it this time
Edited by dana martin - 2/23/10 at 6:41pm
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post #20 of 32
2/24/10 at 12:44am
Thread Starter 
Seeing how the HD-DVD looked I cannot see it that Universal would be giving us just an improved version of the same HD Transfer so I have high hopes that it will be a new and worthy effort to bring this to HD media. 

I think this would also be the first pre 70ies title that gets released by Universal on Blu-Ray - imo they picked the right movie!

Quote:
Originally Posted by dana martin View Post

OK, so Universal has officially announced this ( is showing up on classicflix) and just going over the extras that is in this single disc release, it seems that some of the above statement's  might come true. seems a lot of the extras look very familiar as the same ones on my Criterion set.

This need to be done correctly, and if it has taken this long for them to get from the HDDVD version to something more in line with what this truly deserves then i hope that in the coming months that i will be happy.

i would be even more ecstatic to know that RAH had a hand in it this time


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post #21 of 32
2/25/10 at 10:55am

Quote:
Seeing how the HD-DVD looked I cannot see it that Universal would be giving us just an improved version of the same HD Transfer 

I hope you're right, but given all of the studio's history of recycling old transfers for new formats, I'm not sure I share your confidence. (How many laserdisc transfers were ported to DVD unchanged in the early days of THAT format.)  

True, using the same transfer wouldn't given owners of the HD-DVD version a reason to double-dip, but it isn't like they are the target audience for this release.  So much of the growth in BD has taken place since the end of the format war (as HDTVs become more mainstream and normal people actually have a reason to pay attention to hi-def content) that I daresay most current Blu Ray owners have never heard of HD-DVD, much less collected the format.  If nobody who owns the HD-DVD release buys the upcoming Blu Ray it probably won't make much of a dent in Universal's bottom line.  They just need to produce a disc good enough to entice people to replace their DVDs, or to buy the film for the first time on BD. 

Regards,

Joe
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post #22 of 32
3/1/10 at 1:17am
Thread Starter 
Joe,

I think that every studio has to start somewhere and Universal would make a very wise decision to start with Spartacus as the first classic that is treated right. At this point in the game I think that Universal would face very harsh criticism for another botched release and I hope that they know this and that they will act accordingly.

But you are right: With Universal we will only know for sure when the disc is released so there is a certain amount of uncertainty that would not be there if Warner releases Ben Hur or when Sony finally gets around to Lawrence of Arabia.

Regards

Oliver


Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino View Post



I hope you're right, but given all of the studio's history of recycling old transfers for new formats, I'm not sure I share your confidence. (How many laserdisc transfers were ported to DVD unchanged in the early days of THAT format.)  

True, using the same transfer wouldn't given owners of the HD-DVD version a reason to double-dip, but it isn't like they are the target audience for this release.  So much of the growth in BD has taken place since the end of the format war (as HDTVs become more mainstream and normal people actually have a reason to pay attention to hi-def content) that I daresay most current Blu Ray owners have never heard of HD-DVD, much less collected the format.  If nobody who owns the HD-DVD release buys the upcoming Blu Ray it probably won't make much of a dent in Universal's bottom line.  They just need to produce a disc good enough to entice people to replace their DVDs, or to buy the film for the first time on BD. 

Regards,

Joe
 


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post #23 of 32
3/2/10 at 5:23pm
i know there is a general tendency to question what we will get next when it comes from Universal, some times it can be quite stellar, then there are those times that you kind of wish the release could have been more. they are not the only studio that has had an error or bad release, even the two mentioned WB and Sony have had releases that were not the best. i hope the best for this release, and the other classics that i hope they release, be it Hitchcock, classic monsters, BTTF, most of these have been released via legacy series, but i can see an eventual blu for most of these releases.

also their is the pressing of the disc, which is completely different than hddvd, and all i need do is suggest that you look at some of the items released on that format to see that they were willing to go deep into catalog items, so there is hope.
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post #24 of 32
4/19/10 at 7:18am
Is it known what will be on the Spartacus blu-ray to be released on May 25th?  Will any of the Criterion extras be on this?  If not, then this will be a rental.
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post #25 of 32
4/19/10 at 12:20pm


Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Angell View Post

Is it known what will be on the Spartacus blu-ray to be released on May 25th?  Will any of the Criterion extras be on this?  If not, then this will be a rental.
 


According to the Universal web site, these are the extras for the 50th Anniversary Blu-Ray:

Disc 1
  • Run Time: 3 Hours and 17 Minutes
  • MPAA Rating: PG-13 (N/A)
  • Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (English)
  • Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
  • Picture: Widescreen (2.35:1)
  • Color
     
  • Bonus:
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Interview with Peter Ustinov
  • Interview with Jean Simmons
  • Behind-the-Scenes Footage
  • Vintage Newsreels
  • Theatrical Trailer
  • Production Stills
  • Concept Art
  • Costume Designs
  • Saul Bass Storyboards
  • Posters & Print Ads
  • My Scenes
  • BD Live
     


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post #26 of 32
4/20/10 at 7:56am
If they went the extra mile on this release then i would buy it in a heartbeat and by going the extra mile i don't mean noise reduction and sharpening which is what i suspect will happen. Maybe i'm just being far too skeptical.

I absolutely love older movies and enjoy buying them more than newer releases but i do sometimes end up disappointed.

Its amazing that four years into the format we still get so many titles with sharpening added.
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post #27 of 32
4/20/10 at 9:02am
Looks like its the same red-boosted non-RAH approved transfer. Is the 2002 Criterion master not up to snuff?
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post #28 of 32
4/20/10 at 9:40am
Thread Starter 


Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Dalek View Post

Looks like its the same red-boosted non-RAH approved transfer. Is the 2002 Criterion master not up to snuff?
 


How would you know about that?
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post #29 of 32
4/21/10 at 5:49pm
Should the aspect ratio be 2:20 not 2:35?
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post #30 of 32
4/21/10 at 6:29pm


Quote:
Originally Posted by trajan View Post

Should the aspect ratio be 2:20 not 2:35?

Technirama was a unique process. The horizontally-running, 1.5X anamorphically squeezed OCN had an AR of 2.25:1 that was meant to be slighty cropped for either 35MM or 70MM film prints resulting in 2.35:1 and 2.20:1 respectively. It is basically VistaVision with an anamorphic lens attached.
http://widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/techniramaspecs.htm

Edited by Mark-P - 4/21/10 at 6:44pm
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