A couple of surprises from Clerks II - HD-DVD (1 Viewer)

[ppltd]

I have always enjoyed Kevin Smith's films, but I certainly did not expect a lot from the quality of this little low budget film, but what a surprise I had when I viewed the movie. PQ quality was very good, considering the source material, and low and behold, it was mastered with a Dolby TrueHD sound track. Weinstein is doing the HD world well.

In addition, a second disk is included with a very good 90 min. HD documentary. I am not one who normally like many of the special features included on releases, but in this case, the documentary was not only informative, but also, very interesting.

As far as load up times, a problem with earlier released films from Weinstein, my new XA2 loaded the film within 10 or 15 seconds. I have not tried my earlier releases to see if they will load as quick, but will sometime this weekend.

Good job all around on this release.

 

[Geoff_D]

Thomas, I wish I could say the same. My HD-D1 has had the odd stutter here and there with my 30+ HD discs, but Clerks II is a glitch-ridden mess. Additionally, the documentary on disc 2 suffers from some terrible deinterlacing problems which made that a chore to get through too.

Strangely the movie played much better when listening to the DD+ commentary tracks, with only one hiccup each time. With TrueHD enabled it won't go for 15 minutes without skipping.

 

[ppltd]

I no longer have my XA1 so I can not try the disk on it. I know I had numerous problems with Weinstein disks on the XA1 (surprisingly not on the 360 HD Add-on). I have tried other Weinstein disks in the XA2 and all performed flawlessly. Hope they can get an upgrade out for earlier Toshiba players.

This is another sign the the HD formats are still not ready for the mass market. These bugs have got to be ironed out.

 

[Ron>E]

I enjoyed the movie and love kevin smith movies, but I find the video transfer only 3 out of 5 stars. Extras and audio are what I think makes Clerks II HD DVD a recommend.

 

[Vincent_P]

What did you find faulty about the video, Ron? I know for a fact that Dave Klein was intentionally going for a desaturated*, somewhat grainy look to help tie it in with the original CLERKS. He even shot on fast 500-speed Kodak film stock and pushed it one stop in the processing to accent the grain. Is it the grain that bothers you? Or the desaturated colors*2? Because both of those image-quality attributes are completely intentional.

Vincent

* Except for the dance sequence, where they OVER-saturated the colors to give it an almost 3-Strip Technicolor look, again intentionally.

*2 They achieved said desaturation via a Digital Intermediate, which was also used to overly saturated the colors in the dance sequence mentioned above. I believe they also used the DI stage to further bring out the grain in the final film.

 

[ppltd]

I agree about the extras. They made this movie a must buy for me.

 

[Adam Tyner]

The documentary (and all of the extras) are in standard definition unless I need to get the prescription on my glasses revisited. It's 16x9-enhanced, without a doubt, but it doesn't come close to approaching even lousy HD quality.

 

[Tim Glover]

Does one need to see Clerks before Clerks II? I must confess that I've never seen these but now that Clerks II is on HD DVD it has my interest.

 

[TravisR]

You won't have any problems keeping up with the movie if you've never seen the original. So it's not the same as seeing The Empire Strikes Back before Star Wars but I think you'll enjoy Clerks II much more if you get to 'know' the characters by watching Clerks.

Plus, Clerks is a hilarious movie. Check it out!

 

[Tim Glover]

Thanks Travis. Added Clerks to my Blockbuster Queue.

 

[Brent M]

You definitely need to watch Clerks, Tim(even though it's not crucial that you see it before Clerks II). It's a comedy classic and something you definitely need to see.

 

[ppltd]

 

[Adam Tyner]

Quoting Peter Bracke isn't the strongest evidence.

It's so far from looking HD to me that I can't fathom how anyone could think that it is. Maybe it's just me. :shrugs:

 

[Jeremy Little]

Dayum Vincent, talk about setting Ron straight.

I thought that the image quality on the HD DVD was outstanding. Basing it off the three times I saw it theatrically, I'd say the image is EXACTLY as I saw it in the theater. Maybe better, even. I remember having all these questions on image quality after I walked out of the theater. Those were laid to rest whenever I listened to the commentary tracks on the DVD prior to this HD disc coming out. They touch on a lot of the technical stuff in the commentary and it does echo what I quoted above. Not that anyone should doubt Vincent_P on these matters.

 

[ppltd]

The quality of the documentary certainly looked HD to me.

 

[Adam Tyner]

I'm fairly positive that the documentary was produced in high-definition, but my personal impression is that the HD DVD doesn't present it that way. (...or if the documentary is in 1080p on HD DVD, The Weinstein Company did something bizarre like downsample it to standard definition then scale it back up.)

I'd be interested in hearing other reactions. We can't be the only two people here with this disc, can we?

 

[ScottJH]

Does anyone have the SD release to compare the two documentaries? Didn't buy it because I knew about the HD release.

I think it is just SD also. The interview segments look like they were shot on HD video. If they were downconverted for the disc then upconverted by the player itself, they would still look close to HD video. An example would be the new interviews/doc on the Star Trek movies 2 disc versions.

Another thing to take into consideration is that the documentary on the HD version was encoded in MPEG2. I haven't seen any HD extras on HD-DVD encoded this way.

 

[ppltd]

I would certainly like verification on this. It certainly has the detail of HD, and it is not being upconverted by my Tosh XA2 as I am currently connected component, not HDMI.

 

[Adam Tyner]

I believe the inability to upconvert over component is exclusively for material on DVDs, not HD DVDs.

 

[Geoff_D]

The documentary looks like crap (to use a technical term) on my set-up. As far as the movie's PQ goes, I was also a little disappointed. The desaturated colours I have no issue with, but the flick has an un-natural, 'digital' look to it IMO. The grain resembles video noise rather than film grain. The naturalistic subtleties of the grain structure seem to have been lost during the tightly budgeted all-digital post-production.

Dave Klein mentions on the commentary that the theatrical prints turned out a little softer than he would've liked, and I can't help but feel that his intentionally grainy photography hasn't quite been done justice. Hey, the film-makers are happy overall, as Smith also points out in the commentary, so I'm not arguing the point. Just saying that it doesn't sit quite right with me.

Given the problems I've had playing the damn thing, maybe it's just a shitty disc messing with my player.

"Ooh, cake!"