The Royal Tenenbaums: How bad is the EE? (LARGE IMAGES) (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

[guilt]Have the rest of you who are bothered by the "edgy" look of some of these criterion titles bothered to email them and tell them about it? Am I the only one who actually told them what I think as a videophile about the issue of applying too much "ringing" to our DVD pictures?[/guilt]

Criterion / Voyager
578 Broadway, Suite 1106
New York, NY 10012
(212) 431-5199
Web site: http://www.criterionco.com
E-mail: [email protected]

[rally]c'mon people...be PROACTIVE about your DVD quality. Tell the guys who make them what you think. Don't take it for granted that Criterion is automatically just going to do things right by the videophile. Remember...they resisted 16x9 anamorphic like the plauge (actually saying things like they wanted to optimize their picture for 4x3 NTSC TVs rather than high-quality displays like 16x9 HDTV and front projection systems!!!) until we complained long and loud enough. Now it seems we have to convince them we want our DVDs optimized for large-screen displays rather than 19" uncalibrated monitors.[/rally]
[sigh]Sometimes you actually have to wonder if the guys mastering these discs have ever even SEEN a DVD properly projected on a decent front-projector. They don't seem to even realize just how amazingly film-like these little discs can look when done right. They probably monitor their transfers on a little 27" 4x3 480I Sony XBR and honestly think that's as good as it gets since it's "only" DVD and not HD (another reason Criterion used to down-play the importance of 16x9: ..."It's *only* DVD...it's not like it's HD or anything." Funny but the guys at THX said the same thing. Scary.[/sigh]
[optimism]Hopefully, since Criterion *claims* to be a videophile-oriented company...they'll care just a tad more than the ____s at THX.
Remember, Criterion is supposed to be a company by video/movie-philes *for* video/movie-philes. They are working for YOU. Tell them what you want. It's the only way you'll get it.[/optimism]
-dave

 

[Jean-Michel]

Can't say I found the EE too annoying. I even watched it on a 52" set (not mine, unfortunately) and only the text was distracting. I've probably got at least twenty titles in my personal collection where the EE was worse so they're not doing too badly if you ask me.

 

[Bjoern Roy]

Have now watched the whole movie (had previously only skipped through some parts) and have to revise my judgement. Its much worse EE-wise in may scenes than i thought.

And the colors are oversaturated like few others transfers i have ever seen. Only Last Mohican DTS comes to mind. In brightly lit scenes even faces are often clipped in the red channel, let alone things like the red suits. Only in the lowest possible setting for color saturation on my setup, does this look just about right, as i remember it from the big screen.

Oh well. With the lowered color saturation and in scenes with only little EE, i found the transfer to be quite good. Sadly, these scenes where few.

Like always, this is from the most anal videophile point of view. Do not base your purchase decision on my comments if you are still sane and have a normal setup :b

Regards
Bjoern

 

[DonaldB]

I iterate: The very warm, saturated color scheme is intentional, as Anderson acknowledges in the audio commentary. It isn't over-saturated and the reds do not clip on my TV at its normal settings.