A Few Words About A few words about...™ Spartacus -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[trajan]

Check out the rave review at DVD Talk.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by trajan
After looking at the screen captions at dvdbeaver, all I can say is that the bluray blows the dvd out of the water. The sharpness on the bluray is amazing! A must buy for me.

Is this a joke. ?

 

[EnricoE]

well, i guess my criterion dvd will stay in the shelf.

thanks mr. harris for this insightful information on how universal screwed up spartacus once again

 

[Torsten Kaiser]

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/42398/spartacus-50th-anniversary-edition/#foot%204

It will never seize to amaze me how some people can determine with absolute precision the values, quality or deficiencies of a particular film element or the respective derived master without ever having layed eyes on it much less having a background in handling same.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Torsten Kaiser
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/42398/spartacus-50th-anniversary-edition/#foot%204

It will never seize to amaze me how some people can determine with absolute precision the values, quality or deficiencies of a particular film element or the respective derived master without ever having layed eyes on it much less having a background in handling same.

Gee i gotta say i had Zulu for rental last month and i thought it lacked fine detail, the exact opposite of what the reviewer you link to says, in fact Zulu is horrendous and i thought the fine detail was non-existant and i'm no expert but could see that clearly it was a poor release.

Is Spartacus as bad as Zulu. ?

 

[PaulDA]

/forum/thread/300552/a-few-words-about-spartacus-in-blu-ray/60#post_3692126

Gee i gotta say i had Zulu for rental last month and i thought it lacked fine detail, the exact opposite of what the reviewer you link to says, in fact Zulu is horrendous and i thought the fine detail was non-existant and i'm no expert but could see that clearly it was a poor release.

Is Spartacus as bad as Zulu. ?

He refers to a UK release (perhaps that accounts for the difference?).

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by PaulDA
In fairness, I don't think Glenn Erickson is making such definitive statements. He is careful to note that he is reporting what he sees on his equipment and that he is not an expert on the technical side of things (he also offers links to why, for him, an improvement over DVD is often "enough"). I'm not saying his view of the PQ in this case should be privileged over that of RAH (I find myself in agreement more often with RAH than Erickson re: PQ, where they differ, by a wide margin) but I do think it unfair to characterize Erickson's comments as a claim of "absolute precision".

What I do value from Erickson are his discussions of the films themselves (the content, not the technical elements). That is his strength.

He refers to a UK release (perhaps that accounts for the difference?).

I am UK and i am fully aware of how the transfer for Zulu came about as i researched this after watching it. The USA have a different distributor therefore i am hopeful a better transfer might eventually pop up.

I'm just wondering since both films were shot Super Technirama 70 if Spartacus has suffered as poor a blu ray release as Zulu.

 

[Steve Christou]

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder

Gee i gotta say i had Zulu for rental last month and i thought it lacked fine detail, the exact opposite of what the reviewer you link to says, in fact Zulu is horrendous and i thought the fine detail was non-existant and i'm no expert but could see that clearly it was a poor release.

Is Spartacus as bad as Zulu. ?

Was it on VHS? The Zulu I saw on Blu-ray looked fantastic, fine detail, gorgeous colours. One of the best Blu-rays I've seen. I find people's opinions here fascinating, and I never cancel an order, I want to see the film for myself, and than decide. /img/vbsmilies/htf/smile.gif

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Steve Christou

Was it on VHS? The Zulu I saw on Blu-ray looked fantastic, fine detail, gorgeous colours. One of the best Blu-rays I've seen. I find people's opinions here fascinating, and I never cancel an order until I've seen the film for myself. /img/vbsmilies/htf/smile.gif

My thoughts are posted here.

http://www.darkrealmfox.com/film_reviews/2010/04/17/blu-ray-screencaps-zulu/

You tell me if its the same film you saw, i watched on a 104inch screen, i saw no fine detail and the image looked very processed to me, detail was just poor, glad you enjoyed it though and i wish i had your eyes so that i could enjoy everything they give us on blu ray.

 

[John Hodson]

/forum/thread/300552/a-few-words-about-spartacus-in-blu-ray/60#post_3692183
I am UK and i am fully aware of how the transfer for Zulu came about as i researched this after watching it.

Oh? Do tell.

 

[John Hodson]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder

My thoughts are posted here.

http://www.darkrealmfox.com/film_reviews/2010/04/17/blu-ray-screencaps-zulu/

I've yet to see Zulu on BD yet myself, but a couple of points. The 6 channel magnetic track appears to be lost. Sheldon Hall author of Zulu: With Some Guts Behind It has lead the search to try and track one down for years now, but no luck (the fact that it may turn up - ever the optimist - has lead to my not replacing my SD copy with BD). A couple of years ago, Dr Hall said Paramount now held worldwide rights to Zulu (IMDB seems to agree with this), and claimed a US release of the latest restoration was on the way. But no news since - seeing as it's Paramount we're talking about here, that comes as no surprise.

Apologies for the OT comments.

 

[Steve Christou]

Those Zulu screenshots looked great! You don't mind if I grab a few for my website "Blu-ray for people with normal-sized screens" do you? /img/vbsmilies/htf/smiley_wink.gif

So wait, people are cancelling orders because some of these old films don't look so good on giant wall-sized screens? [wince]

 

[FoxyMulder]

has lead the search to try and track one down for years now, but no luck (the fact that it may turn up - ever the optimist - has lead to my not replacing my SD copy with BD). A couple years ago, Dr Hall said Paramount now held worldwide rights to Zulu (a fact IMDB seems to agree with), and claimed a US release of the latest restoration was on the way. But no news since - seeing as it's Paramount we're talking about here, that comes as no surprise.

Apologies for the OT comments.

Thats interesting, i was under the impression Sony/MGM held the rights, not such good news then. ( in my opinion since the same transfer will hit America )

Thanks for the info about the 6 channel magnetic soundtrack, i'll revise my blog with that info.

My information is the UK edition was done for Sky HD with the full involvement of Paramount.

I won't bring up Zulu again since it's off topic, although in a way since both were shot Super Technirama 70 it is also on topic. ( a little )

 

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by PaulDA
What I do value from Erickson are his discussions of the films themselves (the content, not the technical elements). That is his strength.

Could not agree more. Glenn's pieces always have something interesting to add to the equation.

RAH

 

[Paul Penna]

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder

My thoughts are posted here.

http://www.darkrealmfox.com/film_reviews/2010/04/17/blu-ray-screencaps-zulu/

You tell me if its the same film you saw, i watched on a 104inch screen, i saw no fine detail and the image looked very processed to me, detail was just poor, glad you enjoyed it though and i wish i had your eyes so that i could enjoy everything they give us on blu ray.

Wow! I had no idea that Michael Caine was made out of plastic.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by Paul Penna
Wow! I had no idea that Michael Caine was made out of plastic.

Imagine his wife's surprise...

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steve Christou

Was it on VHS? The Zulu I saw on Blu-ray looked fantastic, fine detail, gorgeous colours. One of the best Blu-rays I've seen. I find people's opinions here fascinating, and I never cancel an order, I want to see the film for myself, and than decide. /img/vbsmilies/htf/smile.gif

There are others, myself included that are happy with the Zulu BRD, but there are other people that feel the complete opposite. We've had this same discussion beforehand when the disc first came out. Anyhow, no use discussing Zulu in a Spartacus thread.






Crawdaddy

 

[taoyue]

If I may take the discussion back to Spartacus rather than Zulu or some other Techirama film:

Originally Posted by Robert Harris
If the reconstruction and restoration were to be performed digitally from scratch, and I see no reason to do so, as the cost would be well upwards of a million dollars, it would not be done in any of the ways mentioned in the above discussions.

RAH

Didn't Spartacus have some issues with the separation masters? I seem to remember reading about how the alignment had to be chosen on a scene-by-scene basis, depending on which part of the frame needed to be sharp. Or am I getting the details mixed up with some other film?



A digital restoration would allow any shrinkage of the separation masters to be corrected, which would considerably improve the sharpness.

 

[Bradley-E]

Originally Posted by LarryH
Just canceled Spartacus, along with Carlito's Way and Flash Gordon pending actual reviews.

Carlito's Way actually looks quite good.

 

[Robert Harris]

Quote:

Originally Posted by taoyue
If I may take the discussion back to Spartacus rather than Zulu or some other Techirama film:

Didn't Spartacus have some issues with the separation masters? I seem to remember reading about how the alignment had to be chosen on a scene-by-scene basis, depending on which part of the frame needed to be sharp. Or am I getting the details mixed up with some other film?

A digital restoration would allow any shrinkage of the separation masters to be corrected, which would considerably improve the sharpness.

You remember correctly. In shots over a certain length, positioning had to be corrected multiple times, as shrinkage became worse as one moved closer to the core of the film. This meant that the exposed stock had to be rewound for each successive exposure, a reference frame put back in place, and filtration changed. That extremely intensive work was performed by Paul Rutan, now of Triage in Hollywood.

Digital restoration would be performed in a totally different way.

RAH