Important Announcement regarding 60th Anniversary Edition of A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Alastair Sim) - Page 2

Shoot, now I think I understand --- that sounds more like bad compression issues, doesn't it? Like what people were saying about the Our Gang box set a few years ago, where part of the image is stable and another part dances around? I hate that. Well, I own the disc now, and I'll be watching it in the next few days, and if I see that, I'll be sure and post about it here.

Todd

It's not like a ghosting trail. It's a hard jump, almost a cut. I've never seen anything like it before. If you pause and slow step, the jumps aren't there.

i have the standard dvd, and i've noticed something like this as well, in 3 or 4 spots in the film, parts of the image seem to do a slight shift. not too distracting though.

The blu ray has the jumps in every scene starting with Marley's ghost appearance. For some reason, it doesn't seem quite as bad as the first blu ray but it may be because I knew they were coming.

Received a rental copy from classicflix.com.last week and wached the SD-DVD on my 60" LG plasma. Very good quality print, although a bit grainy which is to be expected. The documentaries and featurettes on this release are of exceptional value and worth the purchase for their content alone, especially if you can get this release for $10 or less. I'm a fan of the director, Brian Desmond Hurst, a Gallipoli veteran, and his biographical documentary was excellent. Several of his titles are available at classicflix, although Theirs Is The Glory about the British airborne at Arnhem is still missing in action on DVD here in the U.S.

I've possibly mentioned this before, but on the documentary pertaining to Brian Desmond Hurst, there's a quite gorgeous clip of The Black Tent which shows that, when it's released on Blu by VCI, we are in for a real VistaVision treat.

I ordered the 60th Anniv. Blu-ray when it was on sale, but opted to leave it in the States when we were there for Thanksgiving. Reading the discussion now, I wish I would have brought it back with us to Honduras because I really want to see it on Blu. I have the DVD, so that will have to do until next year when we will be in the States for Christmas.

I was looking at this just a bit last night, and was relieved to find that the forced previews are defeated by the Top Menu button on my Panasonic BD player, and the ones on the DVD are likewise defeated by the Top Menu button on my Oppo DVD player.

 

That's the good news.  The bad news is their handling of what's already a strange intro by Leonard Maltin.  FIVE CHAPTER STOPS IN A 5-MINUTE MONOLOGUE?  And the final one isn't even placed with any precision -- you get the last second or two of Maltin, on both discs.  And it's a bizarre, unbalanced little piece anyway, with a strange emphasis and a weak ending.  POORLY DONE ALL AROUND.

 

As for the jumps, with the little checking I did before calling it a night, I'm not certain I'm seeing the same thing others are, except for some extraordinary weirdness in one place:   At approximately 13:50 or 14:00, as the bells and clocks are chiming like crazy before Marley's entrance, especially in the lengthy final shot of Scrooge in the chair, watch the floorboards at the far left side of the picture.  They do the most amazing little dance, on both the BD and the DVD.  Is this an example of what's being observed here?

 

You know, I noticed the same thing as I was checking through the Blu-Ray, spurred on by this thread. (I've still not watched the movie in full - that's coming in the next day or so.)  But yeah, behind Scrooge's chair before Marley enters, the floorboards seem to skew left and right while the rest of the picture is rock solid.  An I too wondered if this was part of the criticism.

 

The other thing I noticed was when Scrooge in on his knees and shaking his head, there seems to be a jump as if a frame were missing, and I wondered if that was another thing that others noticed.

 

Harry

 

Edited by Harry-N - 12/23/11 at 6:09pm

Re: the floorboards..no, that is another problem. ;) The jumps are just that....hard jumps. Say a person is shaking their head. The picture would cut from their head being in one spot, to being in anothre...like a frame is missing...only it isn't.

Having finally watched this Friday night, I have to agree that it's pretty much a mess; I wouldn't buy it again if I had it to do over. I might paraphrase Leonard Maltin by saying this movie is "Too Good to be Distributed by VCI". Those digital jumps mentioned by Eric are all over the place; I thought they were at their worst in the first scene with Jorkins and Fezziwig, for anyone who wants to take a look. Also, Mrs. Dilber is missing a line of dialogue, on both the mono and 5.1, during the scene at Old Joe's.

I dug out my 2007 DVD edition this morning, just to compare, and it's a shame, because the blu-ray has so much more detail and much better contrast, yet the old DVD at least didn't have those digital glitches that become so distracting, and Mrs. Dilber's line was complete (though parts of that scene on the 2007 DVD almost appear at times to be from, perhaps, a video source rather than a film one --- just an uneducated guess here).

I assume VCI will have a new version of this out in another 2 years, telling us all that it is "New and Improved", and inevitably that one will be flawed as well --- Jorkins, at least, would be proud.

Todd

I wish some other company could get a hold of this title. Too bad that Criterion can't. These re-releases are a joke. VCI has been claiming for over a decade that the most recent release has been restored from original 35mm elements, and yet none are without major flaws. I mean, how many times does it take to get it right? It's embarassing.

Having finally watched it through myself today, I have to agree with that; it's not so much the jumps, there are brief passages during fast action where there's some unaccountable ghosting; it's very odd and pulls you out of the moment.

It certainly does demand a better transfer - and parts are undoubtedly breathtaking - but, despite this huge lost opportunity, I would buy it again.

Eric -- do you have a Samsung player by any chance? I've been unable to watch the 60th Anniversary edition because the entire film is jumpy/jittery -- as if every second or third frame has been removed throughout. The Maltin intro and other extras look great - it's just the film itself that has this problem. A reviewer on Amazon reported the same problem and theorized it was an incompatibility between VCI titles and Samsung players because he had the same problem on another VCI bluray.

EDIT TO ADD: The firmware on my player is fully up-to-date, so if it is a Samsung issue, they haven't fixed it. I don't have access to another brand player on which try the bluray out as a comparison.

I submitted an inquiry on VCI's website and received the following (very prompt) reply:

=========================
Hello,
Thank you for your email. I had forward this on to two directors
here at VCI to see what they had to say. Some of what they said was
this; they believe the problem may be with Samsung. We are authoring to
the Blu-ray spec, and there should be no other special tweaks that we
have to perform on our Blu-ray discs. This is a known issue with the
Samsung BD players. We have submitted our Blu-ray disc for testing and
there is no authoring or encoding bugs that we are aware of that would
cause this problem, only on Samsung player. We will continue to monitor
this situation, however at least for now; I think this is more of a
Samsung problem.

Thank you,

Penny Brokaw
VCI Customer Service Rep
800.331.4077
www.vcientertainment.com
=========================

It's a shame - I was really looking forward to this release.

Ghosts? In A Christmas Carol? Unbelievable! Merry Christmas.

I regret that the glitches are indeed real, but don't regret the upgrade at all.  I've spent the usual $10-$20 upgrading this, as I have in many years past.  It's almost been a lifelong hobby of its own trying to obtain the best that this film can be, and it seems that each year there's at least a new package design, and every couple of years a new remastering job.  

 

Knowing what I know about the movement glitches, i'd buy it again in a heartbeat to get the upgrade in image quality.

 

Harry

Yeah, I'd buy it again to get it right, but VCI ought to be excoriated for releasing this very odd mess more than once.  Speaking of which, I don't "know" VCI -- I think I have a couple of their DVDs, but this is the only BD.  Is this typical for them?  I'd say this film, especially, needs to be in someone else's hands.

 

Wish I hadn't given away my Roan Group LD of Scrooge a few months ago, thinking I'd never have reason to watch it again.  I'm usually much more careful than that about letting things go, and it's the only Roan I've let escape from my clutches.  Hardly the end of the world, but I'd sure like to pop that in again now for whatever comparison value there might be.

 

I've had all manner of releases of this title - an ancient LD that had to be the worst example of movie mastering ever, and I had that Roan title too.  Every time I bought one, I'd bring it home, hoping against hope that *this* one would be that pristine, sharp print that I'd been looking for all of my life.  But VHS after VHS, LD after LD, and then DVD after DVD continued to improve only slightly from the edition before it.

 

That first LD looked like a bad 16mm print being shown on a third-rate TV station's film chain, with the worst audio I've ever heard on any film title.  There was so much noise-reduction applied to get rid of hiss that it actually got rid of some of Richard Adinsell's score in the quieter moments.  Miserable!

 

This 60th/Diamond Blu-Ray edition is so superior to some of those early releases I've slogged through, that I'll be able to live with these glitches.  And yes, should they come up with yet another version that fixes these glitches, I'll be there.

 

Harry

 

I have a Sony player. And the Mrs. Dilber line missing is distressing...seriously.