King Kong (1933) Blu-Ray (1 Viewer)

[JoHud]

Originally Posted by FoxyMulder
Its a worthwhile upgrade, the dvd had a lot of shots which were zoomed in and compression artifacts are everywhere, the blu ray is more detailed on a number of scenes and similiar detail levels on some others, more importantly the film grain looks far more natural with none of the compression issues seen on the dvd.
 
To check out some differences between the dvd and blu ray you can click the link below, i painstakingly did some mouseover comparisons which took an entire day to do.
 
http://www.darkrealmfox.com/film_reviews/2010/09/22/hd-comparisons-king-kong-1933/
 
The blu ray has also had additional cleanup work applied to it, personally i think if you like the movie or are a collector it's a must buy release.

Excellent reference points. The Blu-ray image with the finger pointing at Skull Island on the map shows a much more detailed grain compared to the fuzzier looking DVD image.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by JoHud
Excellent reference points. The Blu-ray image with the finger pointing at Skull Island on the map shows a much more detailed grain compared to the fuzzier looking DVD image.

Thanks, it's just a shame that Warner spent time and money doing this release justice and still some complain about film grain, it makes me groan all the time and i sure hope it doesn't put Warner or other studio's off from doing justice by their catalog releases, i'm not into revisionism just to make something look shiny and new and my fear for the future is that studio's will be more tempted to alter things and usually i always find the results disappointing.
 
I believe it's vital people calibrate their sets and turn DOWN the contrast and sharpness controls.

 

[Edwin-S]

@ FoxyMulder
 
Thanks for the link to your screencaps. They definitely show the difference between the BD and DVD versions. Your caps show that an upgrading to the BD will be worth it. The BD version of Kong looks much better than the DVD now that the film grain is being properly resolved. The picture might not necessarily have more detail but the overall quality looks much finer. The picture quality looks much coarser on the DVD.
 

Originally Posted by Steve Christou
 
 
Well that is a shame and I've had a look at FoxyMulder's screenshots. It means no Blu-ray Kong for me. DVD only.

This is just a bit of your sly Brit humour, isn't it?

 

[24fpssean]

Film grain is an absolute! Not liking film grain, especially if it's FILM, is like not liking the paper books are printed on!

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean
Not liking film grain, especially if it's FILM, is like not liking the paper books are printed on!

Think how much more shelf space we could claim be removing the paper and keeping just the ink...

 

[Steve Christou]

 

Film grain is an absolute! Not liking film grain, especially if it's FILM, is like not liking the paper books are printed on!

 
 
Codswallop. Yes it's my weird British humour Edwin, thats what it is. You know I have over 5000 screenshots from King Kong on my drive taken from the last DVD and none of them look as grainy as FoxyMulders. Weird.
 
 

 
 

 

[Ruz-El]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean
Film grain is an absolute! Not liking film grain, especially if it's FILM, is like not liking the paper books are printed on!

not quite, it's more like not liking the font the text is in. Which is why complaints of excess film grain over previously praised releases is still a valid point for the individual consumer.
 
I'm on the fence with this release, I have a great looking SD version, I'm not sure the added resolution of this Blu will make a huge difference on my set up. This will probably be a cheap bin release for me.

 

[cafink]

I think the analogy is apt, considering that digital delivery has become extremely popular recently for both books and movies. Reading a book on an electronic device is a different experience than doing so via a traditional ink-and-paper book, even though the story is exactly the same. Similarly, excessive DNR, grain removal, etc. yields a very "digital" image, and conveys the exact same story, but it's just not the same as watching a film. I agree with those who enjoy watching DVDs and Blu-rays whose transfer really does look like film, grain and all.

 

[TravisR]

Another grain vs. no grain debate? Those are always productive discussions.

 

[Steve Christou]

This one's more "grain vs excessive grain".

 

[RobertR]

It's not just that the grain is properly resolved on the BR. I also see compression artifacts disappearing. Good job Warner.

 

[FoxyMulder]

 

60#post_3731812
This one's more "grain vs excessive grain".

 
Your statement above is wrong, as pointed out thats NOT grain on the dvd release it's compression artifacts galore.

 

[warnerbro]

Everybody who loves real film grain cheer! Yeaaa! I think what we want to see is something as close as possible to the actual film frame. If it's grainy, so be it! There's nothing worse than the excitement of buying a blu-ray of a classic film (i.e. Spartacus) and seeing a smeared mess where all detail has been washed away. And I can just hear Martin Scorsese's voice: You lose some of the actual performance!

 

[24fpssean]

Film grain should never be in question, especially if it's from the film itself. Digital noise, often mistaken as grain, is utterly unacceptable - it usually makes the image hard and cold, or too clean, whereas film grain represents the stock, the actual image, of the film itself. And no I absolutely do not agree that film grain is like the font something could be written in. Would you erase the brush strokes of the Mona Lisa? Not everything can look like a bloody video game. And fortunately not everything does.

 

[Ruz-El]

 

Originally Posted by 24fpssean
Film grain should never be in question, especially if it's from the film itself. Digital noise, often mistaken as grain, is utterly unacceptable - it usually makes the image hard and cold, or too clean, whereas film grain represents the stock, the actual image, of the film itself. And no I absolutely do not agree that film grain is like the font something could be written in. Would you erase the brush strokes of the Mona Lisa? Not everything can look like a bloody video game. And fortunately not everything does.

Woaaaaaaah! Slow down there. No one is asking for the complete removal of film grain to create an un-natural smooth image. Why is it whenever someone mentions the potential of too much film grain, the reply is always "GRAIN IS GOOD!! IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE IT WAS MADE YESTERDAY! I'M A PURIST!!!"
 
Let's use your Mona Lisa example. Da Vinci was truly a master painter. If I recall the gallery exhibit that I attended, he would go so far as to mix his own paint. He had an absolute understanding of the technology of his trade (and dozens of others...). The palette of colours, the choice of canvas, types of brush, and how all those combined would work together to create the finished painting. Said painting was a portrait, designed to hang on a wall, and when hanged and viewed as it should be, you aren't assaulted by the brush strokes (which as shown with other artists, Da Vinci surely could of assaulted you with textures and brush strokes if he so chose to), but with a stunningly life like portrait that lives in a way that many modern photographs don't, and the his technique is done to the best of his ability to hilight the person he is painting within the limits of the technology. Can you see the brush strokes if you look closely? Of course you can, and no, I wouldn't want them scrubbed clean.
 
With movies, we have technology and a tool box of techniques that eclipses the imagination today, much less what the pioneers would of thought there would be. We can now extract information from film stock that was never before obtainable. My concern is; where do you draw the line? Warners has produced some amazing Hi Def discs of Three Strip technicolor films that have a regerstration never before obtainable that provide detail that really is quite amazing. These films look amazing, without the excessive grain that it could of pulled. Instead, you get a picture that (I imagine) looks like what it should of in 1939 (for OZ), with a natural looking grain structure, with bonus detail due to proper registration of the elements. I'm all for this.
 
With Kong though, is that in pulling all the information that is available within the film stock, it's bumped the grain level to an un-natural level. Like Da Vinci having a complete understanding of his tools, I want to believe that Cooper knew what he was doing with Kong. Kong was a huge leap forward in fantasy film making, I'm sure he was using every trick in his tool box to create it, and had an idea what the finished result would look like. Add in the fact that this is a film with process shots (rear projection and whatnot), there's already going to be a high amount of grain visabal. I'm ok with, and expect this.
 
My concern with Kong though isn't how it was made, it's how all the original elements are lost. Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, the current King Kong element is made up from numerous dupe prints. Dupe prints mean a potential of doubling the grain structure. Add in the original negatives process shots, and you have the potential of a quadruple grain structure from all the film elements adding on top of each other. So on King Kong on Blu-Ray, are we seeing EVERYTHING in the current Kong negative, made from dupes sourced from different prints, or are we seeing what it was always supposed to look like? if we are seeing EVERYTHING, is it really that wrong to dial down the grain structure to a point where you don't loose detail information, and still maintain a natural grain density based on what other films from 1933 look like?
 
In my perfect world, I'd like Kong to look like it was supposed to in 1933, and I don't think I've seen anything saying that this Blu is that. If I was a first time buyer, I'd buy this blu since I would take excessive grain over compression artifacts, which while minor, are probably prevalent on the upscaled SD version. I'm not a first time buyer though, this is a double dip over my current SD version. So I'm passing on this until I see it in the bargain bins I think. Unless someone like Mr. Harris announces that this is truly what Kong is supposed to be. Which he probably has while I was typing all this.
 
So yeah, no one is saying in this thread "no more film grain ever!" (well, Steve might of but I don't remember, he's odd...) My concern is "Is our current technology showing us more then we were meant to see?" I want to see the magic trick as it was conceived, not the guy behind the curtain.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Frankly I'll be less concerned with loss of film grain when the technology used no longer removes image detail along with it. I'm not *for* scrubbing grain from movies, but let's face it -- there's no sign that the process is going away any time soon.
 
Of course filmmakers use different film stocks intentionally to create certain looks, but IMO comparing it to the brush strokes of a painter is taking the analogy too far.

 

[FoxyMulder]

 

../../304178/a-few-words-about-king-kong-in-blu-ray#post_3731299
No intro needed.
 
I've just put Warner Bros. new Blu-ray of King Kong on screen, and taken a good, long look.
 
And I've come away very pleased.
 
The new Blu-ray looks far better than any 35mm print of the film that I've ever seen. Gorgeous black & white imagery, wonderful gray scale, and a perfect shading of what appears to be original, glimmering, glistening original nitrate grain.
 
This is a wonderful release. Packed with extras, inclusive of a multi-part documentary on the production, commentary, and a great documentary by Kevin Brownlow on Merian C. Cooper.
 
A treasure.
 
Very Highly Recommended.
 
RAH

 
I agree with his statement and wish people would stop nitpicking about the film grain.
 
I mean take a look at this scene as an example ( link below ) note the teeth on Kong or lack of them on the dvd edition, note the flower in his hand and the water in the background, note how the Fay Wray character now has eyes in that scene and it's all greatly improved on the blu ray edition, this is a major upgrade for fans of this movie.
 
http://www.darkrealmfox.com/dvd_bluray_comparisons/king_kong/dvd-bluray%20comparison%20-%20King%20Kong%20-%2024.html

 

[smithb]

 

Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman
Frankly I'll be less concerned with loss of film grain when the technology used no longer removes image detail along with it. I'm not *for* scrubbing grain from movies, but let's face it -- there's no sign that the process is going away any time soon.
 

I don't know, but it is quite possible we are already there (at least to some degree, I'm sure improvements continue). Except for certain experts with knowledge of the tools available and feedback from those who actually did the processing for a release, we really don't know when DNR has been applied to remove grain. Sure we know in the situations where it was used poorly because they stick out like a sore thumb. However, that does not mean that some of the highly praised releases have not had some DNR applied. It just may have been applied so well that we didn't notice or have anything to complain about. It is even quite possible that some DNR was applied to King Kong during the processing to remove some grain without loss to detail. Maybe Mr. Harris knows.
 

 

[kinzoels]

has anyone noticed the drop in image size (near the end of the first landing, watch the wall) on the blu ray?

 

[Johnny Angell]

has anyone noticed the drop in image size (near the end of the first landing, watch the wall) on the blu ray?

I just watched and didn't catch it. Can you be more specific? Like exact minute and second into the movie?