A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Longest Day -- in Blu-Ray (1 Viewer)

[Stephen_J_H]

[Dick Grayson/Robin]Holy wax figures, Dave Mack![/Dick Grayson/Robin]

 

[Dave Mack]

I know! The men in the background look like CGI!

 

[Edwin-S]

I think indiscriminate removal of grain is bad, but I also think that exaggeration does not help the issue. In no way could that image ever be mistaken for cel animation or an oil painting.

It would have been nice if the image hewed more closely to the original film look, but it still looks much sharper and more detailed than the SD DVD version that I currently own.

 

[Dave Mack]

I disagree. When I've used Photoshop there are certain filters (like say, watercolor) to make a photo look more "painting" like for effect and that's almost exactly what the above image looks like to me. Doesn't look like film at all IMHO. Looks EXACTLY like an image processed to look like anything BUT film.

[url=https://static.hometheaterforum.com/imgrepo/e/e3/htf_imgcache_31684.jpeg] [/url]

 

[Robert Crawford]

I disagree with your disagreement. In all seriousness, Fox needs to redo this release, but probably won't anytime soon, however, it still looks much better than any of the SD DVDs I own of this title.

 

[OliverK]

Quoted for thruth.

It is only speculation but we could probably make the biggest impact by buying AND complaining about those not so good looking old movies AND praising transfers that are done right, at least for a while that is. If after that they continue to release these DNR'd to death transfers there would obviously not be any further point in trying to go that way.

Of course it is ridiculous that to get more and better releases of classic movies I should have to buy something that I cannot bring myself to watch anyway, although a Patton vs. Passage to India or The Sand Pebbles comparison is great for educating people.

 

[OliverK]

I am not so sure that the lack of grain in Patton and The Longest Day is really due to a decision to pander to the lowest common denominator. Judging by the other releases from Fox it looks more like a slipup to me.

If Transformers, Casino Royale, and 300, all movies with visible to heavily stylized grain, are the hottest sellers in both HD formats so far we can see that grain is not the problem with the general public. On those small displays that most of them use a normal amount of grain it is not even noticable to the untrained eye. To add to that all those transfers have also gotten praise from these buyers with complaints mainly about the stylized look of 300 that despite these complaints sold very well which is also encouraging.

So there has to be an outrage but I think it should be going in the right direction which is a careful quality control of every master and every transfer - we videophiles got away with black bars and I think grain in most cases is much less visible than those so this is something that can be done without too much resistance. In fact education of the right people, as has been stated many times before, is a very important thing and I do think that these people are those that at the moment are making the decision, maybe even without thinking about it, of applying the DNR and those that let the resulting product pass quality control, IF there even is such a thing in all cases. About educating reviewers and customers: Would be nice to do, but it would be such an enormous amount of work that I cannot see how we are to accomplish this.

And last but not least: IF there are really some people in the wrong places at the studios that think grain is bad for sales and has to be removed for that reason just point them to some of the biggest sellers so far - that should tell them that grain is not an issue and that excessive DNR and grain removal is not needed for excellent sales.

 

[ahollis]

It looks like we are going to have a hard time getting the novice Blu-Ray owner to understand what all the fuss is about. Friday's USA Today gave Patton, The Longest Day, The Sand Pebbles glowing reviews. Below is a quote from the review:

"But 70mm Patton was still superbly served by Schaffner and looks the best of this bunch: It was shot in Dimension 150 (advanced for the day, the process was basically Todd A-O with bells and whistles), and the colors are crisp. The other movies look impressive for their age. Pebbles gave underrated cinematographer Joe MacDonald, a film noir specialist, a chance to snake around awesomely inside its boat's belly, while The Longest Day, an Oscar winner for cinematography, affirms that a black-and-white movie can pass the stringent Blu-ray test."

I think they need to find a reviewer that understands what film should look like.

 

[OliverK]

At least there was no mentioning of the grain in the Sand Pebbles which looks as it should which basically means both the look of The Longest Day and The Sand Pebbles is accepted.

Patton is probably mainly praised because the reviewer knows that it is filmed in Dimension 150 and supposed to look better than the other two, plus in many scenes it is truly eye candy, kind of like a showcase for the Dimension 150 process.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I haven't read that article, but if it's written by Mike Clark, he is a long-time respected reviewer that has been around long enough to have seen those films in a movie theater.

 

[Robert Harris]

Dimension 150 was less a process and more a set of very high quality optics designed by Dr. Richard Vetter and Carl Williams.

The widest, supplanting the old Todd-AO "Bug-eye" gave a nominal coverage of 150 degrees.

The glass and design of these lenses was truly state of the art, and a film photographed through them would be sharper and higher resolved.

It would look nothing like Patton on Blu.

RAH

 

[OliverK]

I look forward to see this for myself in october when I will be able to attend a screening of the new print of The Bible: In the Beginning.... I am hopeful that this print will be followed later on by a quality Blu-Ray transfer.

 

[Dave Mack]

Another shot. Click on the bar to enlarge.

Looks alot like an acrylic painting to me. No pores...

 

[john a hunter]

From memory, The Bible did not use D150 as well as Patton which really exploited the super wide angle lens and wide angle photography in general.I've only seen it flat but there are only a few times I can recall that lens being used.Let us know whem you have seen it.

 

[OliverK]

Will do - it was shot several years earlier than Patton and others told me the same about the photography of the movie. Seems they did not make the best out of the possibilities of the special lenses. The format would probably have brought us more than two movies if Patton was released earlier.

 

[RobertR]

It may look better than the DVDs, but we're long past the point where we should be using DVD as our reference for how good something looks on BR. FILM should be the reference.

 

[RobertR]

Here's a screen shot which dramatically shows how much better the image is when grain structure is preserved:



Compare that to Dave's posting of the John Wayne shot. It's a huge difference.

 

[Robert Crawford]

What this Blu-ray should be, hasn't happened with this Blu-ray release and probably won't happen with another Blu-ray release for a good while.

 

[Paul Arnette]

Amen! I can't tell you how sick I am of that cop out 'Well, it looks better than the DVD' comparison. :rolleyes

That being said, I too doubt that any of theses recently lamented titles will see a re-release, and I will just have to make sure I do some bargain-basement shopping if I want to pick up any of them.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Are you accusing me of being a cop out?





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