DVD Review HTF REVIEW: The English Patient (2-disc Special Edition) (1 Viewer)

[Dome Vongvises]

27 inch crappy T.V.

Woo hoo!!!

 

[Walter Kittel]

I viewed the new release this evening and was reasonably pleased with the transfer. Yes, there was ringing present throughout the feature, but for the most part its presence was not that distracting. There were times that it called attention to itself, but I found those instances to be brief and mostly not that egregious. There are some other issues with the video that I am unsure how to categorize but their presence is brief as well. ( Hey man, I don't know all of the reviewer's lingo. )

Comparing it to the older R2 Japanese disc it has better color saturation, and deeper blacks, but it does have more ringing. I no longer own the original R1 release but my memories are that it was similar to the R2 release save for being presented in a flat letterboxed format vs. the 16x9 enhancement of the R2 release. To be fair, I haven't viewed the original R1 release in years so that assessment is suspect.

I am an ardent fan of this film:
- Viewed theatrically 11 times between December '96 and April '97
- Own the Criterion CAV LD.
- Own the DTS LD.
- Owned the original R1 DVD release, subsequently sold to a friend.
- Own the original R2 Japanese DVD release ( w 16x9 enhancement )
- Own the new CE release.

The point being that I have watched this film a number of times over the years ( 40 times ?? ) and am reasonably familar with how it looks and I believe that the current transfer does a reasonable job of presenting the film. It is a shame that the disc has as much ringing as it does have, but I found it to be ( for most of the disc ) unobtrusive. I'd give the video a slightly generous 4/5 rating with one point deducted for ringing. This was viewed on a Denon DVD-2200 driving an Epson PowerLite Home 10 on a 106" screen.

( The Region 2 disc was viewed on an older Pioneer DVL-909 to the same Proj/Screen combination. For purposes of comparison I viewed scenes from the R2 Japanese disc and the new CE release on the DVL-909. The new disc does provide benefits that are noticeable even on my much older player, but the real benefit, in my setup, is the ability to watch the new disc on the Denon player. )

- Walter.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

Wow-that's a lot of viewings! I'm kind of ashamed to admit that the only movies I've seen that many times feature characters with names like Skywalker, Solo, Kenobi, etc...

 

[Walter Kittel]

Yeah, it's a few.

- Walter.

( BTW, I've viewed those films with Skywalker, Solo, Kenobi, etc. a few times myself. )

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Walter,

Thank you for contributing your valuable comments/opinion and for sharing some of the details about your viewing system. Curious, is your projector LCD (no bearing on your impressions...just curious)?

 

[Felix Martinez]

Video quality thoughts...

I agree. Just saw this last night. I do see some ringing, but also found it only moderately distracting in a few scenes. Low-pass filtering was less than I was expecting - certainly no Kill Bill Vol. 1 to my eyes - detail was above average, but far from reference. Grain is visible, but the film has always been gritty, and this is fine with me. The noisy shots of K sitting alone on a sand dune looking at the stars has always looked pretty bad - even in the theater. I think it's a noisy optical effect to lay in the stars. And the dimmer areas and shadow detail have always been gritty. This has never been a slick film. And yet I did not see a lot of smearing in these troublesome spots, so this is a good thing.

*UPDATE* I do see quite a bit of smearing over the opening credits, as the brush draws the figures in black ink, but my Criterion LD looks the same, and upon closer inspection, the brush "trails" a bit when it moves, making me think this was shot in low light, with a slow shutter and/or wide open lens. Not sure, but it does not appear to be an encoding issue.

I'm viewing on a 92 inch screen with PLV-60 (LCD W-XGA 1366 X 768) projector. I think I'm sitting 8-10 feet back from the screen, but haven't measured in quite a while.

I'm a big fan of the film, own the Criterion LD, and have seen (and refused to buy) the prior non-anamorphic DVD release. This blows both out of the water. In fact, and this is a sad statement, the new DVD blows away the print I saw in the theaters. Sad but true.

On a 1-5 scale, I would rate the video somewhere between 3.5 and 3.75 and would bump it quite quickly to 4 if EE was not visible and less low-pass filtering was used.

Cheers,

 

[Walter Kittel]

David - The Epson PowerLite Home 10 is an LCD FP whose panel size is 854 x 480. I've been pretty happy with this projector although it does have noticeable line structure, even from my normal seating position of slightly less than 2x screen widths.

One correction to my previous post, the Criterion LD is of course a CLV pressing. A CAV release would have taken 6 discs at a minimum due to the running time of the feature.

- Walter.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Agreed.

 

[Enrique B Chamorro]

A comparison of the old US R1 single disc vs.
the new US R1 2 disc coming soon to www.dvdbeaver.com .
Being worked on at this moment.

 

[Ray H]

I just finished watching this disc about 5 minutes ago. I had forgotten what a strong film it is and my appreciation for it has risen greatly.

 

[Gary Tooze]

If anyone is interested I have compared the Miramax - Region 1 - NTSC "The English Patient" vs. Miramax (2 disc CE) - Region 1 - NTSC HERE

http://www.compare.dvdbeaver.com/

Cheers,

 

[Cees Alons]

David,

How many pixels does your projection system have?

That looks like a video stream problem. Are you sure it's on the disc?

It's imperative, if you want to find that out, to examine the images on a still-display (e.g. a PC) and make sure the display of the frame has no "better" resolution than 720 x 480 (for NTSC frames). You want to see the real pixels as recorded on the disc, not some blown-up version of them.


Cees

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Hey Cees,

My DLP projector is 1280 horizontal by 720 vertical. My Momitsu DVD player scales the image to the projector's native resolution and outputs the signal via DVI so there are not additional D/A/D conversions.

I have DVDs that are 100% PERFECTLY clean with absolutely no ringing. I selected the momitsu only after careful research that its scaling algorithm introduced no ringing artifacts (which it indeed does not). Some DVDs that exhibit no ringing also have very challenging material...like lots of film grain...so it's not a matter of video content affecting the outcome of the scaler in this case.

Agreed that looking at a native image is useful, and I can also do that on my system. I may reconfigure to check that later but I can assure you tha the ringing is on the disc.

It's a philosphical point for discussion, but it's worth considering that DVD at its "native" resolution of exactly 720 x 480 isn't optimized for viewing--because the quanitzation error of the pixels at that resolution become glaring at a 1.5 viewing distance. Proper scaling...just like oversampling digital audio prior to d/a conversion...can "smooth out" the waveform and render an image that more closely approximates the analog original. We consider oversampling digital audio an integral step of the d/a conversion process because it reduces the audibility of quantization noise (which is not part of the original sampled waveform)--scaling (oversampling) video should be considered no differently.

Bad scaling can introduce it's own artifacts to which you allude. However, proper scaling can not only reduce quanitaztion noise, but in doing so it can make fine detail represented in the original 720 x 480 frame more easily visible and produce an image that looks objectively more like the original continuous film-frame.

 

[Felix Martinez]

Gary -

Your comparisons are always fascinating. Another great job!

Cheers,

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Yes Gary,

I was actually going to post a link to your comparison here so thanks for doing that. Your efforts are always immensely valued.

BTW, glad (or not glad...however you want to think of it) that you saw the ringing on vertical lines as well. Something's going wrong over at Miramax I assume...given that I'm seeing very much the same "problems" with three of their DVD releases in a row. I hope that someone over there reads these reviews and takes the time to change things in their mastering department so that more beautiful films aren't needlessly marred for large-screen viewers.

-dave

 

[Walter Kittel]

Just to followup my prior impressions, I also saw ringing on both horizontal ( the first shot of the desert hills when the tribesmen find the burned Almasy, the shoulders of the men in their black tuxedos outside the restaurant ) and vertical ( the needle portion of the syringe that Moose is holding when Hana is playing the piano ) surfaces.

Some of the most noticeable ringing in the image ( from my viewing the other evening ) was at the truck crash site, for instance - around K's shoulders against the sky as she discusses Almasy's scrap book and her drawings, and in the same sequence the right rear wheel of the overturned truck also against the sky - which has a noticeable halo. The syringe shot, mentioned above, is also very apparent.

I still believe most of the disc is quite watchable, but when the ringing is noticeable it can be distracting. Pity such a beautiful film didn't get better treatment.

- Walter.

 

[Cees Alons]

David,

The equipment you have is certainly among the best. And I think that the decision to choose a player with DVI-out was a very good one.

However, for your projector each native pixel as recorded on a DVD has to be multiplied to 1.75 pixels in both directions. That's a difficult operation in itself, but even if it's done flawlessly (whatever that is), it means that every 9 pixels (square) you are watching on your screen actually contains the information of only 3 original pixels approx.

So if we assume that some ringing or other image faults are present on the disc (I gladly accept that, although I still would love to hear your findings from a look at the native images ), you must realize that those errors are "blown up" on your screen. They are multiplied with a factor of 1.75 in both directions and even if that is done without introducing any extra errors, it happens.

So, given the fact that a DVD has no more than 720x480 pixels in a frame (NTSC) - and we can regret that, but that is (or was) the state of the art at the moment of conception - your projector, as actually made for HD images, will show a DVD image that will be too "coarse" to sit too closely. Your viewing distance, when excellent for a true HD-image, must be multiplied by 1.75 for coarser images. Or else you will see all imperfections magnified, and perhaps a few new ones.


I mainly agree, but totally only if you change it slightly: DVD at its "native" resolution of exactly 720 x 480 isn't optimized for viewing in higher resolution versions at a 1.5 viewing distance -- because any error in the images will become glaring then.



Cees

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

OK... embarrassing moment #49,383,094

I posted a response to the wrong thread. :b:

Here is its...



[c]You will now be returned to your regularly scheduled program.[/c]

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Cees,

Your point about non-integer scaling is an excellent one and in theory your points make good sense. However, the proof is in the puddin'. Over at AVS these very issues have not only been discussed at great length for the past few years, but techno-gurus over there have taken pains to experiement with various scaling algorithms taking a 720 x 480 DVD and scaling it to various resolutions (some integer multiples, some not) and then compare to native HD images.

The real-world result is that good scaling, even non-integer scaling, can dramatically improve the quality of a 720 x 480 image by reducing quantization noise and even reveal more visible image detail in the process (not new detail that's been artifically created, just making extant detail that-much-more visible to the eye).

Such is the case with the 1280 x 720 image I'm seeing on my screen.

 

[Cees Alons]

David,

No doubt - it may make existent detail that-much-more visible to the eye sometimes - but it will still enlarge errors. You must sit back a bit.


Cees