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How The West Was Won - Blu ray

post #1 of 63
8/12/08 at 6:09pm
Thread Starter 
Say, is anyone familiar with U.S. and Canadian versions of this film? I noticed that the Canadian release is listed around 31.00 at the place I usually deal with and the U.S. one is 20.00 more. Hmmm... could it be that it is the same as the Ultimate Edition SD dvd? I never knew there would be a difference between the two but the pricing indicates something. September 9 is fast approaching! ( At least that is the release date up here ). Any insight on this?
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How the West Was Won (Blu-ray Book) [Blu-ray]
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post #2 of 63
8/12/08 at 7:00pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

WoW
The three strip process lines in HD!
JJ
I heard they supposedly removed the lines for the last SD release.
Classic film making in HD!
This is a good thing.
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post #3 of 63
8/12/08 at 7:27pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

The difference in price you're seeing is simply the fact that even though for almost 2 years our Canadian dollar has been worth near the same or more then the American dollar, the movie studios will not change their SRP's in Canada. I have no idea why you say the American Version would be more. I would be buying elsewhere.

I've personally asked a few reps about this and gotten the run around about it. One suggested to do what I suggest, buy whatever you can from Amazon.com - theres no import duty and whatever you buy you just need to pay for exchange.

There is NO DIFFERENCE in this title in Canada, except there might be some French on the packaging.
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post #4 of 63
8/12/08 at 8:42pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed St. Clair
WoW
The three strip process lines in HD!
JJ
I heard they supposedly removed the lines for the last SD release.
Classic film making in HD!
This is a good thing.

I vaguely remember reading an article a few months back showing how they had gone back and redid the line removal again . I wish I could recall where I read it though because it showed some nice comparisons between the different versions.
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post #5 of 63
8/13/08 at 10:47am

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris S
I vaguely remember reading an article a few months back showing how they had gone back and redid the line removal again . I wish I could recall where I read it though because it showed some nice comparisons between the different versions.
I hope they did remove those lines and used all their power and magic to do it so that all we see is a pristine image.
Geeeeez. You don't suppose that some people will protest the removal of those lines do ya?
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post #6 of 63
8/13/08 at 2:46pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

From the comparison that I saw it looked pretty good (i.e. no image loss or degradation) so I would think there wouldn't be much opposition. There may be some detractors but I think the majority of discerning viewers will be happy.
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post #7 of 63
8/13/08 at 2:47pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed St. Clair
WoW
The three strip process lines in HD!
JJ
I heard they supposedly removed the lines for the last SD release.
Classic film making in HD!
This is a good thing.

The current SD DVD that's out there on this title is made from the old composite negative. There are obvious join lines with frequently different color balance in each "panel". The image is also from a worn negative with old scratches and debris. I was very disappointed with it when I got it. Hopefully, the new SD and BR discs will be revelations. This title deserves it.
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post #8 of 63
8/13/08 at 2:59pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Well I still can't find that article... but here is one from HMM that should subside some of the join line fears.

Link
Quote:
Feltenstein notes that in all showings subsequent to the film’s original theatrical run, be it in regular theaters, on television or on home video, “people have had to put up with those awful join lines.”

“It was a fact of life; no one ever bothered to fix it or even make any attempt to explain to audiences why the picture looked funny,” he said.

The new and improved How the West Was Won, sans annoying join lines, will be presented on all three home entertainment editions of the film: a special edition DVD, an “ultimate collectors edition” DVD and a Blu-ray Disc edition.

The Blu-ray Disc edition also will come with a second version of the film that replicates the original Cinerama experience.

“Dave Strohmaier, considered the world’s foremost expert on all things Cinerama, calls it the SmileBox version, because it uses the shape of the original Cinerama screen and expands out with a curve so it looks like a frown on the bottom and a smile on the top,” Feltenstein said. “It’s almost 3-D, and it allows anyone who has a home theater system to recreate the Cinerama experience.”

Also for a good example of the join lines from the previous DVD see this image from Wikipedia.
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post #9 of 63
8/14/08 at 2:56am

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

There is a video documentary online here about film restoration which includes
HTWWW: BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | Mission possible: Film restoration

Quote:
Mission possible: Film restoration

Spencer Kelly visits the Warner Bros archive in Los Angeles to meet the people painstakingly restoring old films using the latest technology.
All film deteriorates, end of the story. The 1962 epic How the West Was Won is a case in point.
The last 46 years have not been kind to the reels of film making up the multi-Oscar winning epic - the colour has faded, the landscape is marred by dirt and scratches, and there are strange vertical lines in every shot
Quote:
Cinerama bother

How the West Was Won was more difficult than most to restore - three times as difficult in fact.
In order to dazzle audiences with super-wide vistas, the movie was filmed on three cameras positioned side-by-side, and then the resulting three rolls of film were stitched together and run through three adjacent projectors.
It is an effect called Cinerama and it has given colourist Ray Grabowski something to really get his teeth into.
Each frame is 6,000 pixels wide and since the three rolls of film have all aged differently, each third of a frame has faded or warped to a different degree.
Sitting at a desk that could have been ripped out of the Starship Enterprise, Mr Grabowski uses colour curves, scopes, and his keen eye to match the colour and contrast of each part of the frame.
"The first thing we'll do is adjust contrast to even out the blacks and whites so they're not clipped or just a weird colour," he said.
"From there we'll start to enhance the picture with colour saturation. We'll also work on skin tones, because those are very important."
The stitches between the three parts of the image also need to be removed. Using techniques familiar to the photoshoppers among us, he blurs the offending area of the image using a particular shaped mask.
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post #10 of 63
8/14/08 at 6:08pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by John Hermes
The current SD DVD that's out there on this title is made from the old composite negative. There are obvious join lines with frequently different color balance in each "panel". The image is also from a worn negative with old scratches and debris. I was very disappointed with it when I got it. Hopefully, the new SD and BR discs will be revelations. This title deserves it.
Sorry.
I was sure a few yrs ago they said the SD DVD wouldn't have the "lines".
(after some great restoration or something)
Never saw the SD; so thanks for clearing that up!
Quote:
Originally Posted by frankie108
You don't suppose that some people will protest the removal of those lines do ya?
Yep! :-)
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post #11 of 63
8/15/08 at 8:39am

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

For Los Angeles members - Arclight will be showing "How the West Was Won" in the 3-strip Cinerama projection in the Dome September 7th.
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post #12 of 63
8/15/08 at 1:16pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

I saw HTWWW in Cinerama at the Dome about 5 years ago ( and five years earlier in Seattle ) and it was one of the great moviegoing experiences of my life ( if you're a technology nut or a classics fan ). It was the primary reason for going to both cities and worth every dollar.

Not an especially great place to meet girls, though ! : )
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post #13 of 63
8/15/08 at 6:04pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob W
Not an especially great place to meet girls, though ! : )

Don't you kid us - we all know that the hot girls are all over guys who watch 50 year old movies with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart split into three different parts with visible lines on a huge screen - nothing hotter than that
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post #14 of 63
8/24/08 at 5:06pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Well, its two days until release. I don't see any reviews online and Warner hasn't shipped my preorder. I wonder if this is delayed?
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post #15 of 63
8/24/08 at 6:11pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bleddyn Williams
Well, its two days until release. I don't see any reviews online and Warner hasn't shipped my preorder. I wonder if this is delayed?


The new release date is now September 9th. WHV has it up on their site.

http://whv.warnerbros.com/WHVPORTAL/....jsp?OID=49502
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post #16 of 63
8/24/08 at 8:12pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Thanks, Joe!
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post #17 of 63
9/5/08 at 9:56am

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Has anybody found this in NYC yet? I sure would like to watch it this weekend. Send me a PM if you know where to pick it up.
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post #18 of 63
9/5/08 at 10:20am

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

I used a Best Buy gift certificate to buy this and the Blu-ray of Cool Hand Luke. I received an e-mail that Luke was shipped yesterday, but no work on HTWWW yet.
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post #19 of 63
9/5/08 at 10:52pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

They've been showing a widescreen version of HTWWW on the Encore Westerns channel recently. It appears to me that this is the remastered version because the join lines between the Cinerama strips are nearly gone. You can still see some of the lens "distortion," of course. If this is what's going on Blu-ray, it could end up looking very, very good.
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post #20 of 63
9/7/08 at 3:59pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

The showing today at the Arclight Hollywood Cinerama dome today of HTWWW was ok. I noticed people lining up at 9:00am this morning, wondering why since seats are assigned. Now I know - the first 100 ticket holders got copies of HTWWW on Blu-Ray as they entered the theater!

They had some of the actors and stunt men from the film present in the audience, and the showing today was ok. A big sound glitch marred the first reels about 1/3 the way in all the way to intermission. A high pitched whine developed and only disappeared during loud music/voices/singing. During the second set of reels (post intermission) they found a way to get around it (it would appear for a split second then go away, but happened consistantly).

It was a lot of fun today, I'm glad WB and Arclight did something for the release on BD.
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post #21 of 63
9/10/08 at 10:05am

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

I received my copy yesterday & watched the "SmileBox" version. MY GOD, for the 1st time in my life to see this film without those "terrible" lines was just absolutely splendid!!!!!! I'll watch the regular WS version in a few days. I liked the SmileBox.
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post #22 of 63
9/10/08 at 12:19pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Mine is coming from Amazon this week.

Could someone clear up the WS vs. "smilebox" controversy? Since, noone I know has a curved Cinerama screen in their home, what is to be gained with an artificially curved image? It will just look goofy on one's flat screen LCD/Plasma and spoil the viewing experience in my view.

NOW, if somehow more screen image or some other factor is coming into play here that is NOT present on the generic Widescreen presentation, please let me know now and I will check it out. Otherwise, I think Warners just tried an odd experiment that I suppose some people appreciate. Lord, knows why.

I've seen a few films long ago on Cinerama screens but was not able to see true movies shot in the process such as, HTWWW or Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (another Cinerama film I believe) in the theater on such a screen. Must have been something...
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post #23 of 63
9/10/08 at 12:50pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

It has been a good number of years since I first saw How The
West was Won on a Cinerama screen.

I owned the sDVD but never opened it because I heard the image
quality was poor and the promise of a new edition one day.

Today I watched the film on Blu-ray. I could not believe my eyes.
I tell you this honestly, after the first 10 minutes I stopped the film,
ejected the Blu-ray and put in the sDVD because I had to see what
this film looked like on the former format.

I was horrified at finding a tiny windowbox image not only with the
original seams in all their glory, but littered with film dirt, scratches
and artifacts. What a piece of shit!

I popped the Blu-ray in once again to continue my viewing,
completely amazed that this film looked as good as it did. The
fact that WB spent so much time erasing the seams is a testament
to the amount of care the studio put into this project. The image
quality looks so superb that this film looks as if it was recently lensed.

It's no wonder that Warner Brothers continually receives praises
from members of this forum. The amount of respect that studio
shows for its product is rewarded with the same respect from their
consumers. No other studio I know continually puts this kind of
effort into the restoration of their film library.

The smilebox version is absolutely the way to see this film. It really
brought me back to the Cinerama experience I so much enjoyed. For
anyone who has never experienced Cinerama, this is the closest
replication that can be offered on the home screen. It will not look
"goofy" on a flat screen. Actually, what it does, is place objects in
a very unique perspective so that it actually looks as if the image
is surrounding you. Hard to explain, but the smilebox was very
realistic for me on my 65" DLP.

What a beautiful film this is only magnified in all its glory through
the Blu-ray format. Thank you Warner!
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post #24 of 63
9/10/08 at 1:02pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles_Y
Mine is coming from Amazon this week.

Could someone clear up the WS vs. "smilebox" controversy? Since, noone I know has a curved Cinerama screen in their home, what is to be gained with an artificially curved image? It will just look goofy on one's flat screen LCD/Plasma and spoil the viewing experience in my view.

NOW, if somehow more screen image or some other factor is coming into play here that is NOT present on the generic Widescreen presentation, please let me know now and I will check it out. Otherwise, I think Warners just tried an odd experiment that I suppose some people appreciate. Lord, knows why...
Smileboxing is just another way of presenting a film formatted for a certain geometry of display on a monitor with a different geometry of display, just like letterboxing. Cinerama films were shot with three cameras sharing a single shutter with three wide angle lenses set at angles to each other. It was then shown with three projectors on a curved screen. The smileboxing is just a geometric approximation of the curved screen, but since the three images constituting each frame were photographed by cameras at angles to each other, it also is closer in geometry to how they were captured on film.

Regards,
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post #25 of 63
9/10/08 at 1:09pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

It must have been a headache to keep those cameras in sync with each other.
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post #26 of 63
9/10/08 at 1:29pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Edwin-S
It must have been a headache to keep those cameras in sync with each other.

I was thinking along the same lines...but of the projectors.
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post #27 of 63
9/10/08 at 1:31pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Not such a headache when they were shooting (although you're tripling the likelihood of the camera jamming or otherwise malfunctioning.)

But a big headache for exhibitors. If there was a film break or print damage, the three separate strips had to be repositioned at PRECISELY the same frame. If damage caused the loss of even one frame, that frame had to be removed from the other two strips, too.
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post #28 of 63
9/10/08 at 1:49pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Bob: How did they sync-up the three projectors?

Was there a technical way to do it? Had to be.

It couldn't have been "best guess"?!
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post #29 of 63
9/10/08 at 2:34pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
Today I watched the film on Blu-ray. I could not believe my eyes.
I tell you this honestly, after the first 10 minutes I stopped the film,
ejected the Blu-ray and put in the sDVD because I had to see what
this film looked like on the former format.

I was horrified at finding a tiny windowbox image not only with the
original seams in all their glory, but littered with film dirt, scratches
and artifacts. What a piece of shit!

I popped the Blu-ray in once again to continue my viewing,
completely amazed that this film looked as good as it did. The
fact that WB spent so much time erasing the seams is a testament
to the amount of care the studio put into this project. The image
quality looks so superb that this film looks as if it was recently lensed.

It's no wonder that Warner Brothers continually receives praises
from members of this forum. The amount of respect that studio
shows for its product is rewarded with the same respect from their
consumers. No other studio I know continually puts this kind of
effort into the restoration of their film library.

What a beautiful film this is only magnified in all its glory through
the Blu-ray format. Thank you Warner!
Is the BD sourced differently than the SD DVD?
If not, this must have been very heavily processed.
To go from "shit" too "superb".

EDitEDbyED:
I just re-read RAH's thread on "HTWWW":
"The three negatives (each 50% larger than a standard 35mm frame) were scanned at MPI, Warner's digital facility, with further work done to soften the blend lines of the three panels."
I'm thinking that wasn't done for the SD DVD release.
Thanks, RAH!
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post #30 of 63
9/10/08 at 3:58pm

Re: How The West Was Won - Blu ray

Does anyone know why the SmileBox version didn't have the audio commentary that the WS version has? Did the SmileBox version take up SO much space that there was not room for an audio commentary?
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How the West Was Won (Blu-ray Book) [Blu-ray]
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