A Few Words About A few words about... National Treasure (1 Viewer)

[Mike Frezon]

Peter: I agree with your sentiment...but I think there must have been some wacky conversion as your post crossed the border into the U.S.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I got this, Pocahontas, and The Chorus all at the same time and haven't had time to watch it (watched and have been writing reviews for the other two...to post soon!). I'll try to get this one up as well after Pocahontas is finished...at the very least I'll give it a spin tonight and respond about PQ...

Weeks of *nothing* and then all of a sudden three films at once...the trials of reviewing...

-dave

 

[MikeEckman]

Im actually a bit disappointed that the review says that both the audio and video are not anything spectacular. It seemed several years ago that one thing you could count on were big budget action flicks would always have excellent A/V quality, but with what seems to be a disturbing pattern recently, studios aren't giving their all in terms of A/V presentation, which I just think is sad.

I posted in another thread on here a couple months ago that I think that the studios are purposely downgrading first release DVDs so that future double dips, or HD versions look that much better. Many people disagreed with me, but it just seems like its making more and more sense.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

While I did not personally find the film very good, I did find it entertaining. My major complaint is in the picture-quality department:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...postid=2661394

Mike, I think you may be on to something. I make mention of that notion in my review.

 

[Robert Harris]

The information that I've been able to cull from the situation in a general sense is that there are (and have been) problems creating high quality transfers from DI elements, which have less than 2k resolution to begin with.

There is more research to be done on this subject, and I, for one, do not yet have the answers.

RAH

 

[DaViD Boulet]

RAH,

By D1 are we talking 1920 x 1080?

Isn't that what most other studios are doing right now while at the same time providing far superior results?

Given that 720 x 480 resolution DVDs can look so much better when properly done...wondering where the weak-link in this chain really is. My suspician is that's at the mastering/encoding stage...there seems to be a literal "filgering" of high-frequency detail far-beyond what is necessary for downscaling to 720 x 480P...along with a tad bit of EE as if an MPEG encoder were trying to compensate for the softness by adding a bit of ringing...

 

[Robert Harris]

DaVID,

Sorry, I meant DI, or Digital Intermediate.

We're seeing these same problems in a number of different films which went through the DI process. Think Cold Mountain.

RAH

 

[DaViD Boulet]

RAH,

is the DI (thanks for clarifying! all an education here...) a necessary step to get from an HD master to DVD? Are other studios (WB) not mastering for DVD this way or doing it but managing to preserve image-fidelity in a more effective way?

 

[Robert Harris]

We're talking apples and oranges.

A video element can be derived either directly from the digital files, or via transfer from a film element recorded out from those files.

What we're seeing seems to be something inherent in the digital domain.

RAH

 

[DaViD Boulet]

If it follows similarly to known models of processing digital audio (which it does), then "processing" at the higher resolution to produce a satifactory HD master and downscaling for DVD only at the end-step would be better than downscaling and *then* processing.


The best DVDs that we see probably follow a path similar to this:

Film --> 1080P HD transfer --> Image Processing (color timing, cleaning, scratch-removal etc.) --> HD Master --> 480P Downscaling --> MPEG compression --> DVD.


I'll bet that titles like Cold Mountain, Kill Bill, and Open Range are doing something more like this:

Film --> 1080P HD Transfer --> Image Processing --> HD Master --> 480P Downscaling --> Image processing --> MPEG compression --> DVD.


Ideally, if one can create an HD master that "looks good", then simply downscaling to 480P and applying state-of-the-art MPEG2 compression, without any additional image-processing, should render fantastic results.

I'll bet that Cold Mountain, Kill Bill Vol. 1 (and 2), and National Treasure all received additional image-processing *after* being downscaled to DVD resolution. That should not only be unnecessary, it should be AVOIDED.

This would also explain why directors get to see an HD master of their film that "looks gorgeous" inspite of an eventual DVD that ends up looking like soft-focus digital mess.

 

[Vincent_P]

Haven't we seen Digital Intermediate films that have looked terrific on DVD, though? THE RETURN OF THE KING was a 2K DI, yet the DVD (at least the "Extended Edition" DVD) looks superb- on the other hand, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING looks far softer and far "more filtered", and it's the only film in the trilogy that wasn't a direct DI conversion to home video as far as I know (only 70% of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING went through a DI process, the rest was direct production negative- the 70% that did go through a DI was recorded out to film in the Super-35 format and then optically printed to anamorphic for projection, and a S-35 IP was then transfered to HD video for the DVD release). Also, the overseas DVDs of KILL BILL Vol. 1 look far better than the domestic DVD, and yet they would've all come from the same DI source, no?

Vincent

 

[Philip Verdieck]

I just watched this movie last night. Something about it intrigued me from the start, and I decided not to wait anymore, and ordered it over Time Warner Cable (iControl). OK, so shoot me, they didn't have either HD or OAR available, and I watched a Foolscreen presentation.

Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed it. My love of history and archaeology was rewarded enough for me to recommend this movie, and hope there will be some nice SE version coming out later (picture quality).

 

[Chuck Bogie]

Hmpff... Those fellows stole my legacy!

(look at who first owned the land where Trinity sits today...)