Universal Blu Ray Catalog Releases - Quality Control Issues (1 Viewer)

[Paul_Warren]

Mine arrived today. I agree with FoxyMulder on several points its not a great transfer on JP1 at all. If anything I can take an educated guess its the cancelled HD-DVD master if its a brand new HD transfer then something went seriously wrong & I doubt Spielberg personally signed-off on this as he has been busy with Tin-Tin (which launches in Europe next week way before US release) & is currently shooting Lincoln in US. Someone else obviously approved the master where would SS find the time in his schedule to watch his 2 x JP movies frame by frame to ensure they are pristine!! Some of it maybe down to the digital compositing ILM used at the time as remember this was an early CGI film when the tools were still being refined to be fair it maybe on the actual source & need ILM to recomposite which is never going to happen is it! I do not expect most mainstream reviews to pick any faults as like with Star Wars no-one wants to rock the apple cart & lose the clickable adverts or future studio co-operation. But the issues are there, frozen grain, halos, DNR & EE. Universal have a poor reputation for catalog releases on Bluray I hope someone somewhere gets ET & Hitchcock right but after this & BTTF last year I think we will sadly see the same criteria applied to future catalog releases. Why do they even bother including 3 x physical digital copies on the basic set (packaging is appalling its going to wear out quickly its so cheap n nasty the discs even rattle around when you pick it up which means some will get damaged when shipped) + so many pointless extras spend the time/money on the video transfer the audio is outstanding as expected so needed little attention but the video is lacking. I read about this 2 weeks ago when it started to turn up in EU early & some got hold of it & posted some detailed screencaps but did not want to bring it up thinking its the usual screencapture police hysteria but now I have seen with my own eyes the people moaning about this here & on other forums have some valid reasons to complain I would go as far to say this could well be one of the most shoddy looking transfers for such an important studio blockbuster seen to date on Bluray! Other studios seem to produce more natural looking catalog releases Universal are doing something very different here & now I am no longer blind buying anything from them until I see with my own eyes these issues are a thing of the past. Bluray is without a doubt the last physical home media format & more & more catalog releases are getting shoddy low budget rehashes instead of the care & attention filmes like: Blade Runner, Alien Quadrology etc etc received. Maybe its viewer setup & sitting 6ft+ away you will not see any issues but they are there if your eyes/equipment/viewing position allow. JP3 looks the best JP2 looks quite good but JP1 is the worse looking of the lot despite being the best movie. Extremely disappointed in JP1 is an understatement it should have got a pristine 4K transfer not a rehashed HD master encode!!!!!

 

[Kevin EK]

Well, based on your quoted statement, I think your housing situation should be fine. You're correct that Spielberg was involved and that these guys did not use a master from 2000 for the release. In fact, the only time I'm sure I've seen that happen was Out of Africa, where I was able to confirm this by checking one scene about 1 hour and 45 mins in (a post jitter that was way magnified on the Blu-ray).

Your arrowed screencaps 1 & 3 show a very, very mild haloing - which is just noticeable for me when you point it out, but nothing that would take me out of the scene. I can understand that if you see that, you're having the nails down the chalkboard effect, but for me, this is a very mild iteration of it, as you said above.


Your arrowed screencap 2 shows heavier haloing, and in all the places I would expect it for the addition of the CGI dinosaur. I think you're dealing with what is an obvious compositing of the CGI element into the live action shot. Even at the time I saw this in 1993, I could tell the live action and the CGI were disparate elements being combined - mostly due to the lighting on the CGI brachio, which isn't quite the same as the live action. There's also the obvious separation area made by using the trees as a divider. But the detail on the CGI brachio is still breathtaking even today, and I also see some grain in the shot. I think the more pronounced halos here are due to the compositing, which is made more obvious by the high definition transfer. Again, this is nothing that takes me out of the movie since it's a VFX element shot.

BTW I believe the following wide shot of the dinos coming out of the water or drinking at the shoreline is likely free of these issues since the cast is confined to the bottom area of the frame, and the ILM people could use the upper grassline and their generated water as a divider between the cast and the dinos.


So yes, I am seeing what you are talking about, but it is so minor for me that it doesn't detract from my appreciation of the scene. I understand that it is giving you problems the same way that the noise in the other titles irked me.


I should also say that I can appreciate the position that for any of these movies (be it Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future), I would always prefer a Criterion Collection treatment and a brand new restoration done from the OCN. It's why I so appreciate Robert Harris' work on the Godfather movies. But let's be honest here. The studios simply aren't going to do that, and I am not expecting or demanding that they do so. The results we have seen from the Blus in question is that some people, particularly those of us who are noticing these elements more, are going to have some PQ issues that could have been addressed had, essentially, more time and money been spent specifically in that area. In some cases, we're talking a lot more time and money. Given that the issues are much milder and aren't at a level that will cause problems for something like 19 out of 20 people who see them, it's understandable that the studios are not doing a Wizard of Oz or Gone With The Wind restoration for these movies. Maybe in 30 years, we'll see something like that for whatever generation of home video exists then, and when these films are enjoying their 50th and 70th anniversaries, etc. But I'm very happy with what has been done for these releases at this point. I don't anticipate anything further happening with them for another generation, if that - aside from individual disc releases - but with that you have to believe that the first JP movie will always sell well, and the other two, not so much...

 

[Kevin EK]

Paul, I'm sorry you don't like this release. I recommend you return it for a refund and stay with the earlier release if you are this unhappy.


But you are also proceeding from a series of assumptions that we've already dealt with.


I appreciate that you don't like the transfer, but in my opinion the issues you are having are much, much smaller than they are being presented as being.


Yes, Spielberg was involved. Universal would never release a flagship title of his without keeping him onboard, and I don't believe he'd allow it anyway. Was he looking frame for frame? Of course not. But I would say that he watched discs of each of the movies in an appropriate setting to determine that the look and sound was what he wanted. And that could easily be done at any time over a weekend within the last 6 months, while he was posting Tin Tin and War Horse.

You're correct that expecting ILM to recomp the movies is an unreasonable expectation. It also goes against what Spielberg said this year about that kind of thing - he said he'd rather present the movies as they were made, warts and all. (Note that this doesn't have anything to do with preparing the movies for home video - just that he wouldn't redo effects or make a CGI shark for Jaws.)


The idea that I would write a good review just to save the website advertising is ridiculous on its face. I'll go out on a limb and say that the same applies to all the reviewers here. If I see problems (as I did with Scarface and Fast Times), you'll hear about it.

Where are you seeing frozen grain and DNR? Or are you simply lumping this release in with the complaints about the Star Wars set, which wound up being of less concern to me when I actually watched the discs? Your citation of Back to the Future is unfortunate - I appreciate that you don't like that release, but we've already gone over that here a year ago, and there is not a consensus that BTTF is a bad Blu. The packaging for BTTF, on the other hand, absolutely was a pain. I don't have any such issue with the US set of the JP trilogy.

I appreciate that you may not like this release, but calling it one of the most shoddy looking transfers is really going a bit far for me. As I said above, of course we'd love to see a new 4K transfer from the OCN. Let me know when you believe the studio will be spending the additional time and money to satisfy the 1 in 20 of us who would wait for that before buying.

Your last point I do agree with - never do blind buys if you have a concern. I think we'd all agree about that.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Universal is kind of a double edged sword. Their catalog title blus typically suffer from problems like DNR and EE (however as of late its been more the latter than the former) and pale significantly when compared to another studio like Warner or Paramount, HOWEVER, those blus despite their deficiencies usually still manage to look far superior to their SD equivalents (I'd buy Jurassic Park only because the 2000 dvd looked like hell). I think its a long standing problem that their somewhat less-than-capable technical team has never fully worked out.

 

[AaronMK]

If only we occasionally had the kind of insight as to what goes on at Universal that this post provided for Terminator 2: Skynet Edition. I think the closest we have would be a report on a visit by The Digital Bits in the 8/18/10 post towards the bottom of the page. This was as they were finishing Back to the Future. At that point, we knew they were aware of people's complaints.

Back to the Future Blu was supervised and approved by Bob Gale, and we established last year that it was not a bad Blu-ray by any means. There were some people who felt there were issues, but we were able to establish that it was actually a quite satisfying package.

Going back through the threads, I would not agree that "we established last year that it was not a bad Blu-ray by any means." I think the consensus was that Universal did a better job with the "digital cleansing" than in the past, a much better effort than indiscriminately "turning the DNR knob", but it still suffered from the process in many of the same ways as previous Universal titles. On the other hand, Aliens went through a similar digital "restoration" process to bring it "up to date", and the results were widely praised, even by people who "know better" than to let those digital tools ruin a transfer. Bob Gale was pretty open about his collaboration with Universal's technical people (including an outside consultant) and his rationale for what he wanted done with BTTF on blu-rays in interviews. I would agree that it is "established" that Bob Gale was very much a part of the process, and does have an understanding of film, but have to wonder if the technical people at, say Sony, would have led Bob in the same direction when it comes to going from film to digital video. Even if the "video" look and digital processing were what was called for by the producer/writer of one title, that does not mean it should be studio policy. From the Digital Bits visit, and the BTTF Blu-rays, I had the impression that Universal was walking a line between preserving integrity and appeasing the "clean HD" crowd, and that still stands today. I definitely appreciate that reviewers will lean more towards the "will this cross the threshold of being distracting at recommended viewing distances" line when making final recommendations, and that fewer Universal titles are crossing that line. That is better than Universal's Spartacus and Out of Africa days, but still misguided and detrimental to the quality of many of their releases. There is no reason for catalog blu-ray to not be faithful and look great, even for people like FoxyMolder viewing on his 100+" projection system. It happens on a regular basis, even on titles where the studio did not break the bank on the masters they use, and without pissing off the "grain haters" who leave the EE and DNR settings of their TVs in the default "on" position anyway. In summary, it's not so much a "quality control" issue at Universal, it is more their mindset of "walking a line" instead of being faithful to their source material.

 

[Kevin EK]

Aaron, I agree with you that there's definitely a "walking a line" issue here, although I think it's more widespread than simply at Universal. I don't think any one studio has a monopoly on this idea - more that they all deal with it in different ways.

I thank you for your comment about the reviewing standards I try to maintain. To be honest, I couldn't sit and watch a movie within 6 feet of a 65" screen. That's physically uncomfortable for me, and if I'm trying to watch something in 3D that close, it really hurts my eyes.

As for BTTF, I think we'll agree to disagree on whether Universal doing a much better job on those Blus meant that the set wasn't bad by any means. Maybe I'm overstating it. I believe the consensus we got to both here and elsewhere is that these were good transfers that some people had issues with - but to a much, much smaller extent than what has happened with other titles like Spartacus and Out of Africa. Granted, you could make a case that the transfers could have been done better, that the movies could have been restored from the OCN and more time could have been taken with them, but I could say that about practically every catalogue release that comes out. So I try to focus on what I have in front of me to see if it works or not.

What I initially objected to here was a pair of opinions that were being stated as facts. One was that BTTF is an example of "yet another bad Universal blu-ray release" when that's not what was said last year. The other was that "Steven Spielberg must not know what transfers are on these blus and Universal left him out since he's been busy with his new movies" when that assumption would require us to believe some outlandish things - that Spielberg doesn't care about his home video releases or that Universal would somehow leave him out of the process on one of their prize titles. There's a further assumption at work here - that Spielberg (or Peter Jackson or George Lucas for that matter) has an obligation to address the Home Theater community to discuss the specifics of the transfer he approved for blu-ray. As though he had done something wrong for which he needed to answer to the fans. The one thing he has done in the past year has been to address the controversy of making changes to movies on home video, as he did with the E.T. DVD release. He's said that he will no longer do anything like that, and he's pointed to the fact that he insisted that Universal change up that DVD release to make sure that anyone who bought his 2002 version of E.T. could also have the original version in the same package. (I remember him making Universal change up the 2-disc and 3-disc sets when they were going to keep the 1982 original only on the 3rd disc so that you'd have to pay more to get it. Spielberg made certain that it was on all the 2-disc sets.) The fact that Spielberg took that action is what tells me he's quite aware of what's on the JP Blu-ray set, from the picture transfer to the sound mix to all the extras included.

 

[Paul_Warren]

Paul, I'm sorry you don't like this release. I recommend you return it for a refund and stay with the earlier release if you are this unhappy.


But you are also proceeding from a series of assumptions that we've already dealt with.


I appreciate that you don't like the transfer, but in my opinion the issues you are having are much, much smaller than they are being presented as being.


Yes, Spielberg was involved. Universal would never release a flagship title of his without keeping him onboard, and I don't believe he'd allow it anyway. Was he looking frame for frame? Of course not. But I would say that he watched discs of each of the movies in an appropriate setting to determine that the look and sound was what he wanted. And that could easily be done at any time over a weekend within the last 6 months, while he was posting Tin Tin and War Horse.

You're correct that expecting ILM to recomp the movies is an unreasonable expectation. It also goes against what Spielberg said this year about that kind of thing - he said he'd rather present the movies as they were made, warts and all. (Note that this doesn't have anything to do with preparing the movies for home video - just that he wouldn't redo effects or make a CGI shark for Jaws.)


The idea that I would write a good review just to save the website advertising is ridiculous on its face. I'll go out on a limb and say that the same applies to all the reviewers here. If I see problems (as I did with Scarface and Fast Times), you'll hear about it.

Where are you seeing frozen grain and DNR? Or are you simply lumping this release in with the complaints about the Star Wars set, which wound up being of less concern to me when I actually watched the discs? Your citation of Back to the Future is unfortunate - I appreciate that you don't like that release, but we've already gone over that here a year ago, and there is not a consensus that BTTF is a bad Blu. The packaging for BTTF, on the other hand, absolutely was a pain. I don't have any such issue with the US set of the JP trilogy.

I appreciate that you may not like this release, but calling it one of the most shoddy looking transfers is really going a bit far for me. As I said above, of course we'd love to see a new 4K transfer from the OCN. Let me know when you believe the studio will be spending the additional time and money to satisfy the 1 in 20 of us who would wait for that before buying.

Your last point I do agree with - never do blind buys if you have a concern. I think we'd all agree about that.

Not possible to return it once opened unless faulty that's how the UK consumer laws work your stuck with it or a like for like replacement! Its obviously still way better than the DVD's & I am pretty certain its unlikely to get a better transfer now when Bluray is the last home media format before downloads take over its not hard to imagine if the Bluray did not get enough frame by frame attention future versions will fare any better unless Spielberg can find the time to frame by frame revisit this! I made some notes on the following issues I could easily spot: 1: Hammonds face in most of the movie was a salmon pink colour to me when the other actors looked different skin tone wise. 2: Lots of compression artifacts/frozen grain especially on the greens in the background on the scenes where Hammond/Ellie talk when eating the thawing out ice cream in the cafe. 3: Same artifacts/frozen grain on the greens when Tim/Lex are eating the cakes in the same cafe a little later. Its a green dinosaur painting hung on the wall causing it. 4: Compression artifacts in the form of pixel blocks on several other green scenary backgrounds outside. 5: Unnatural skin tones on most the actors up to the 1st t-rex attack then its quite telling you look closely at a quick scene with Alan Grant/Ian Malcom in the jeep & the skin tones look perfect the difference sometimes scene by scene is very noticeable to me. They went OTT on the DNR a lot of the faces are waxy looking especially some scenes with Ellies pink shirt seems to cause the encoding process major issues. 6: Mr DNA cartoon again lots of compression artifacts in the form of large pixel blocks moving around. 7: Several scenes on the tour jeep doors where the colours meet on the greens again compression artifacts in the form of large pixel blocks moving around. 8: Opening scene where the lawyer is greeted on the canoe before entering the mine has a strange pink tone to the entire frame not sure what that's all about. What is so strange is that some of the transfer looks very good & DNR free but most of it has IMO OTT DNR applied which destroys the fine detail its so variable & shoddy looking considering the prestige of this film which still stands up very well today. Some of it even looked closer to DVD than BD to me a few brief scenes really looked tragic due to the transfer. If they made it in 3D audiences would still be enthralled I am sure of that! So the source material has aged very well its just a crying shame someone could not have looked at this a little more closely & put more effort into the transfer as its nowhere near being good enough considering how popular this title will be on BD (it will most likely be after Star Wars the biggest selling catalog release). We are stuck with this transfer now for a long time to come I just hope someone @ Universal reconsider future catalog release in relation to DNR & perhaps use zero DNR as that would give us a more natural looking image. JP1 to me looks quite unnatural in many places due to the choices made in the transfer. To clarify what I am complaining about here is that JP1 is such a popular & enjoyable film this should have gotten the same level of treatment as North By Northwest & IMO its not had anything special which has produced a very poor looking transfer which although much better than DVD is not what you would expect of a Spielberg Bluray. If they ran JP1 through the encoder again with no DNR applied it would have looked much better/more consistent!!!!!!

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK



Your arrowed screencap 2 shows heavier haloing, and in all the places I would expect it for the addition of the CGI dinosaur. I think you're dealing with what is an obvious compositing of the CGI element into the live action shot. Even at the time I saw this in 1993, I could tell the live action and the CGI were disparate elements being combined - mostly due to the lighting on the CGI brachio, which isn't quite the same as the live action. There's also the obvious separation area made by using the trees as a divider. But the detail on the CGI brachio is still breathtaking even today, and I also see some grain in the shot. I think the more pronounced halos here are due to the compositing, which is made more obvious by the high definition transfer. Again, this is nothing that takes me out of the movie since it's a VFX element shot.

I did put this position forward for that scene, what concerns me though is the mild halo on the car and Jeff Goldblum which is obviously a live location shoot with no compositing or green screen, no matter how mild it is it points to sharpening of the image, Spielberg doesn't usually do that, in fact there is no reason to do it on a normal 35mm film shoot, so really you have to question the transfer because this mild sharpening effect is on a number of scenes, oh i'd even say its not so mild on the Laura Dern shot which takes place around the point of the velociraptor being fed, its more medium to approaching thickish there, its on a number of other outdoor shots, usually seen on the medium to long distance shot.


So really my question is why with all we know about Spielbergs high standards would he approve a transfer with edge sharpening, yes we can say any dino CGI scene may be compositing and thus possibly take that out of the discussion but what about all the other instances, even mild sharpening is strange on a Spielberg film, i don't see this on any other Spielberg blu ray, i see it on plenty of Universal transfers though, so isn't it logical to assume that Universal did this and Spielberg either doesn't care for these films and approved it or Spielberg didnt approve it and instead approved the master, Universal then work on the blu ray from this master and decide to apply some additional processing, that sounds more likely to me based on the fact no other Spielberg release has halos on non effects shots.


Some of those daytime shots really do look poor to me, if the entire transfer had looked like that i would be selling these on ebay, the night scenes though tend to look much better and probably hide compositing issues but its likely those night scenes hide some halos too because a black outfit like Goldblums against a dark night sky hides a halo better than a daytime shot where the black against a light background can show a halo all too obviously.


I actually think its very reasonable to expect a 4K film scan, the gate weave suggests it was a telecine and not a new transfer, unless of course those opening titles move that way intentionally, i wouldn't rule it out although it looks like gate weave to me, so what would a new 4K film scan from the original negative cost, oh lets see how about under $50,0000, pretty cheap really and i see no reason why they wouldn't do that, if they did do it then someone at the encode stage added sharpening, you can see it on non-effects shots.


Sony do 4K now as standard for their catalog releases and it pays off, i blind buy Sony/Columboa releases and so far i have not been disappointed in their quality and film like appearance, now Universal typically use edge sharpening on many of their catalog releases, thats what i am seeing with this release.


Whether Spielberg signed off on this or not it's not a great release, it has issues, not all to do with the compositing scenes but i'll tell you this, perhaps there was originally mild halos on those compositing shots, i believe Universals sharpening has made them worse, thats my take.


You object to statements as facts, well Kevin, people will read your review and if its saying how great this now looks on blu ray then many will take your review as a fact, i wish to present a different opinion and state this transfer is average, better than most Universal catalog releases but still having edge sharpening applied and in my opinion some scenes have had grain reduction as i see the soft focus blur effect and detail reduction that happens when they do that and of course the sharpening to compensate, indeed Roger Deakins who does cinemtaography for many Coen Brothers films talks about this softening and blur effect in an interview, i am well versed in it and well up to spotting it.


So in summary i would say that yes we should expect a minimum 4K film scan from the original camera negatives and we should expect no edge sharpening that introduces halos, no matter how mild you think they are, they are a sign of unnatural sharpening and its not presenting the film as shot and thats a fact.


Look how much money Star Wars made on its first day release on blu ray, was it something like $80 million dollars, now Jurassic Park may not make that but it will be huge, so $50,000 for a new film scan is nothing and should have been done for all three films, if this is a new film scan then why is there gate weave and why the edge sharpening which even you admit is there ( albeit grudgingly and with the words mild )


Nah it doesn't add up, no other Spielberg film has edge sharpening like this, believe what you will Kevin, but either Spielberg didn't approve this or he doesn't care about them, have a Spock moment for one second and just think about it all, why would Spielberg approve a transfer with edge sharpening, that makes no sense.


Can't say i noticed the frozen grain but some edge enhancement and some dnr, yes, frozen grain is not something i easily notice but i know it does happen as a result of grain reduction and i do see that on this release in some scenes, there were two scenes where i thought faces looked slightly waxy and film grain was notably absent but i was unsure about it so didn't bother reporting this as an issue, since Paul sees it too then perhaps there is an issue there but i couldn't say for sure, can't say the colours bothered me though and they looked okay to me but then again colours aren't my strong point.


If you doubt how pervasive the edge sharpening is then say so and i will painstakingly go back in and take a lot more screencaps, because its there in a lot of daytime scenes.


So 19 out of 20 people will be happy, so what, that doesn't mean anything to me and is no comfort, and there should be no issues on such a major high profile release. ( other than compositing issues or issues present on the negative ) it should look like film on blu ray, it doesn't, it looks like high definition video with processing applied and only some scenes resemble film, if Sony can do it right then Universal can, if they wanted to, which they don't.


When you publish your positive review i will be sure to pop in to the thread and maybe just copy what i wrote here, saves me the time of writing it all again.

 

[Kevin EK]

Paul, I'll look over those specific examples, but I can already say that I didn't see a pinkish tone around the scene with Martin Ferrero arriving at the mine.


Malcolm, you're absolutely entitled to your opinion, and I'm certainly not saying anything otherwise. I'd be very happy for you to contribute to the review thread.


But I'll say one more time here that it's a strange idea to think that Universal would break their relationship with Steven Spielberg in order to issue a subpar Blu-ray of one of his most popular movies for them. It's also a strange idea to think that Spielberg didn't care about the release, and neither you nor I are qualified to make such a statement. I'm happy to go out on a limb and say he is quite concerned about how his movies come out on home video. My point about the E.T. DVD release should speak volumes about that.


As for estimating how much money a new transfer would cost, I can only say that none of us here are qualified to tell Universal Home Video what budget they should be assigning to their releases. I acknowledge that I had a complaint with Scarface where I felt that more effort looked like it was going into the packaging than into the movie, but I didn't begrudge them for what budget they assigned to it. As I said, I would always prefer the Criterion treatment, but there's a reason they are a small boutique operation - not every movie is going to get that treatment. If anything, Criterion has pushed the majors to do better work particularly with regard to extras, and they have consistently raised the quality bar. Now, in the future maybe these movies will get the treatment that our classic films have been thankfully receiving - and I'll be celebrating with you when that happens. But for now, I'm pleased with what I've been seeing from releases like this.


Further, it is not really appropriate any reviewer to decide that Universal doesn't want their blu-rays to look like film or any other wide-ranging statement like that. That's an extreme opinion and I don't share it. I think you can argue that the studios constantly walk a line in doing their transfers, but it's going over the top to start accusing them of not even caring about the product. And all the studios differ in their emphases - some do more titles with less work, some do less titles but take more time with them.


I don't regard my reviews as facts, by the way. My reviews express my opinions about the various releases, including their histories and my reaction to their transfers and extras. If there are any facts in my reviews, it's where I try to pinpoint what all the extras are and from whence they come. (I figure that people who still have the laserdiscs or earlier DVDs may find this useful.) Given that Universal did a lot of good Signature laserdiscs in the 1990s, there's a lot of content that continues to carry over from those releases, and from the Collector's Edition DVDs that initially ported the material over. My point regarding the attempt to establish facts not in evidence is that there is always a chorus of people who will chime in on any forum with their opinions that Universal's work is always bad, or that the filmmakers weren't consulted, or that a release like BTTF is evidence of this bad work. And once you have enough people chiming in saying that, you hit a critical mass where the crowd opinion sounds like a fact, particularly to someone reading the page without knowing the rest of the story. We just had the same thing happen with the Star Wars Blu-ray release. You would have thought that the release was going to be a disaster, based on the angry statements found around the web, particularly after the stolen rips popped up. And it wasn't. And if I didn't write in a correction here, some people would assume that BTTF was a disaster on Blu, when it wasn't.

 

[Dave H]

Fair enough but at least tell me you see the halos i discuss in some of the screencaps and then can acknowledge that if its in the screencaps then its on the transfer, even if there may be a disagreement between us on whether its there because of grain reduction and the need to sharpen detail because of that.

 

In fact, here is an idea, put the disc back into your Oppo ( i too have an Oppo ) pause one of those scenes in the screencaps i provide and go up to your plasma screen, i guarantee its there and you will see it, the screencaps are not in any way manipulated, they are 100 percent faithful to the source, once you see the halos you can then examine the scene closer and you will see the grain structure is there but not fully intact and it looks poorly defined grain, not totally film like, manipulated film grain, thats grain reduction and a loss of detail = edge enhancement sharpening and halos.

 

Now screencaps may in some circumstances be no good for showing contrast/colour/brightness changes since displays will be different ( especially true of computer displays ) but as long as you have your sharpness switched off in your graphic cards control panel then you should see the edge enhancement on my provided screencaps as it is on the disc and screencaps are useful for seeing EE, if you trust the source has not applied sharpening or knows what they are doing when taking caps. ( I Do - Know what i'm doing )

Have you had your projector ISF calibrated by a well experienced professional and what brand/model projector are you using? I haven't seen these yet, but I do see some EE on the screencaps you posted.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK
and neither you nor I are qualified to make such a statement.

I think you can argue that the studios constantly walk a line in doing their transfers, but it's going over the top to start accusing them of not even caring about the product. And all the studios differ in their emphases - some do more titles with less work, some do less titles but take more time with them.

I am qualified to state there are edge halos on this transfer, i am qualified to state those edge halos are the result of sharpening, either at the time of the original cinema release ( unlikely ) or specifically for this blu ray release or because they are using an older HD telecine master with gate weave and its baked into the master.


Oh and yeah, i am going to say that Universal should be assigning a decent budget to a film series that will make them over $50 million dollars over the course of this week. ( if not more )


How can they care about the product when they care so little about preserving the original filmed look, too many Universal catalog releases are poor, thats not a wide ranging statement, thats a fact, i will not go along with your opinion because something is either right or wrong, i refuse to toe the middle line in this, edge halos have no right to be on this transfer or any modern film release, they exist because a studio sharpens the release hoping it is catering to a wider audience, thats why some transfers get contrast boosts, it makes the image "pop" for those that like torch mode on their televisions.


Spielberg is lowering his standards if he approves of this release and that is not an extreme statement, that is a fact, we have established edge halos are on the transfer, we know they exist on parts of the film which contain no green screen or CGI effects

( the film only has 60 CGI scenes ) and we know Universal have a track record of applying edge sharpening to their releases, so why keep defending this release Kevin, it just seems to me that you do your readers no favours in trying to say this isn;t an issue or try to say that Universal have the right to go cheap on us and make their "own budgets" for their releases.


You say the crowd chime in and then suddenly everyone is calling a release bad, well consider this opposite opinion, when a reviewer glosses over an issue and then gives a blu ray release 4/5 or 5/5 scores and says how wonderful it is and really it isn;t wonderful at all, consider that end of the spectrum and people then spending money on the release and seeing the same issues i see, i consider that far worse than calling a release bad, personally i'd call it average, i'd call a number of daytime scenes poor.


Also consider this, why do you think so many people badmouth Universal, its their track record on releasing catalog titles, too many are poor or contain less than stellar transfers when compared to what Sony or even Warner are capable of with their older releases, people will stop badmouthing Universal when they actually start consistently putting out quality catalog releases.


You say its a strange idea that Universal would break their relationship with Spielberg, well its also a strange idea that i am spending all this time and effort writing these posts for no reason, i am not prone to hyperbole, i am fair with my assessments of a film on blu ray, i wouldn't be here writing all this if there wasn't an issue, don't you think its a little strange that one of the biggest releases of the year has edge halos on it, why defend that, what purpose comes from defending it, its there, it shouldn;t be there, the gate weave is there, logically if this was a new transfer then that wouldn;t be there either, so, maybe, just maybe, you might want to consider i am right with my opinion and start treating it as fact rather than fiction.


Do studios care about their product..........In Universals case, or rather the people who run Universal i would say they do not care much about their back catalog or spending money on restoring old classics or making new film scans, so no, they care about the money they can make from the product, if they cared about the product then we would have seen a new release of Spartacus by now, thats a classic film, any other studio would have treated it with respect, even Paramount, but Universal screwed it up with excessive DNR to smooth out the noise from the old master they had and treated the audience for the film with contempt, so no, i have no time for sitting on the fence and not having an opinion, i'll state it, i'll always talk straight and from the heart and not try and be diplomatic, i have no one i need to please and i don't follow any crowd, not saying you do either but i sure wish you would stop defending Universal as their track record with catalog releases saddens me a great deal.


Star Wars may not have been a disaster but just like this release of Jurassic Park it was not a great quality release, The Phantom Menace in particular was poor, the original trilogy had issues and really they make $80 million dollars in one day and i'm supposed to think they deserve that for all the effort they put into it, we now know the three years spent working on it was the soundtrack mixes, and it shows since thats the best aspect of the Star Wars releases on blu ray, the image quality, apart from Clones and Sith was just average to what it should have been if they had spent money and made new film scans, sure, thats time, money and effort, but hey they only had three years to do it and the money made would have justified it, but hey you say they care about their films, they care about the product, okay well if you say so.


I'll also go out on a limb and say that if Spielberg is truly concerned with the way his films look on blu ray, then this film will get a silent re-issue, if he is concerned, i will also say i am most disappointed in you Kevin, i'm disappointed full stop with reviewers at all the big sites, too many gloss over things and defend releases like this, i can't understand it, it troubles me, sure you saw wrong with Scarface but then miss things with this release, and to boot your whole defence of the release seems to centre around Spielberg approving it, as if that makes edge halo sharpening all right, if you want the film as shot, warts and all without digital tampering and blu ray is capable of that, then you shouldn't defend any release just because the director approved it, and i'm still not convinced he did approve it, there is still a niggle about the gate weave pointing to an older master being used.


They shot on Hawaii and the cars leading up the hill to the first dino scene, thats Hawaii, now tell me why non CGI shots in the lead up to that scene have some halos, thats not green screen or CGI, its location shooting, same with the scene where Bob Peck is introduced to the cast, location shooting and halos, detail is down in those scenes, those scenes look more processed than other parts of the film, thats just two examples. Do you not think it strange that an academy award winning cinematographer and director would want halos around these scenes and others, i find that strange, therefore i have to point the finger at Universal for doing something negative at the encode stage.


Do we have a different release, did Universal provide screeners with a perfect image. ?

 

[Kevin EK]

Malcolm, the first thing I really need to ask you to do here is calm down a little.


You've misconstrued my statements, so I'll be very clear. Neither you nor I are qualified to tell Steven Spielberg that he doesn't care about the release of his films on video. And nobody is in a position to demand that he answer for choices with which you disagree. Neither you nor I are qualified to tell Universal how to spend their money. In the same way that I'm not qualified to tell you how to invest in your home theater. It's not my money in your home theater, and it's not either of our wallets involved in anyone else's investment. You are certainly entitled to not buy the product (to vote with your wallet), and you're certainly entitled to state, as you've done here, that you don't approve of the work that has been done.


Having looked over multiple scenes again, I can confirm seeing very mild EE, but nothing that would take me out of the movie or would have presented itself were I not actively seeking it. You yourself have acknowledged this is a mild situation and not a major case, so I'm a bit confused by your vehemence here. I can confirm seeing the three opening title cards exhibit a slight wobble, in the same way that I remember seeing a more pronounced title wobble on the video releases of Poltergeist. Nothing that took me out of the movie, and nothing that I would have jumped at if I wasn't looking. (Well, with Poltergeist, it becomes more and more noticeable each time you watch the movie...)


Your statements about Universal's level of caring and EE reflect an admirable level of passion about this issue, but it still doesn't get us past the fact that just because someone doesn't do things the way you would like them to doesn't necessarily make one of you absolutely right and one of you absolutely wrong. Telling them they need to spend more money to do it your way will not make it so - if you'd like to convince them otherwise, I'm happy to see if that will help. Again, the criteria that I personally use is whether the PQ issues pull me out of the movie. If I have to go hunting for problems in the movie, then I'm looking for a problem and creating a self-fulfilling situation. If I'm aware that there can be issues (EE, noise, DNR, etc) but watch the movie with that awareness and am not distracted by them, then I don't think we're looking at a disastrous release. And, again, you have said that you'd rate this release a 3 1/2 out of 5 on PQ, so the anger level is perplexing. If you really believe that so much of the release is poor, I have to ask why you would rate it so high.


You should know from my earlier reviews that I don't gloss over issues when I find them. And since this is an open forum, you're free to chime in, as I hope you will. There may well be people who see the same issues you do, and there may also be a lot of people who do not. This doesn't make one group of people right and the other wrong. It just means that some issues pop more for some viewers than others. The same argument applies to why I tend to notice hard digital noise in a shot more than other people do. Doesn't make me right and someone else wrong. It just means that it announces itself more to me and becomes more distracting than it might be to someone else for whom it's just part of the background of a shot.


Spielberg already approved this release, or we wouldn't have it going on shelves in two days. Asking whether he did is a moot point. Assuming that he did not is only tenable if you believe that either Spielberg doesn't care about his releases (and he's made clear that he does) or that the studio would risk their relationship with him by putting out what you believe is substandard product and not telling him about it while it holds his name as director and producer. From a simple business perspective, that position does not make any sense.


Your use of hyperbole does not tell me that opinion is fact or that either of us is right or wrong. It only tells me that we've hit a nerve, and if so, I'm truly sorry about that. We're discussing a matter I happen to enjoy greatly - the release in high definition of movies I have enjoyed in the movie theater in years past. I believe the same must apply to you or you would not be expending this level of energy trying to convince me that what you said was a mild situation is more serious.


Again, it's not up to either of us to tell any studio "you just don't care" about their releases. That may be a great position to take on a blog or in an opinion column, but it doesn't help when trying to actually deal with the studio in question. I completely understand and respect the integrity of a stated personal quality standard, but when we get into what are mild levels of these issues (as you have stated), life winds up being more of a compromise. We don't always get the ideal quality - in this case a brand new scan at 4K, etc. Sometimes we get a new transfer that doesn't do everything, but still looks quite good to me, and that's looking at it with a large screen plasma at the proper settings at the proper distance. If we take the position of "Give me the Criterion level of quality or nothing", then we'll just have the Criterion discs on the shelf. On the other hand, they'll all be of A+ quality. Rather than, say A quality or even B+.


I won't argue with you about the Star Wars Blu-ray release. That position has been stated here plenty of times, and I'm not necessarily in agreement with it. I would just say that if you did not like it, I'd recommend returning it for refund or reselling it. There were a bunch of people on the forum who cancelled their pre-orders.


I noticed that Saving Private Ryan got a quick recall when that audio glitch was discovered with the initial pressing. I also recall Universal doing an exchange on the original DVD release of the Back to the Future trilogy, in which I participated to get the corrected discs. In this case, I'm seeing nothing at the level of either recall situation. What I'm seeing is that some fans are not pleased with everything in the transfer. I don't honestly believe that we'll see a recall looming for it.

I hear you when you say that you're concerned about the issues you have raised. But since you've been writing your reviews for some time, you must know that releases like this don't go out without the director and the director of photography getting to see them - including the encodes. (Of course, once it's shown that they have approved it, the crowd then goes after them, saying that they're wrong to make those choices, and the situation just continues.)


My position with my reviews is that if I see a problem that is so jarring that the movie experience is ruptured, then I'll start making noise about it. If I see something more minor, I'll note it without letting it completely overwhelm the review. And as we've noted, different elements distract us in different ways.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK

Malcolm, the first thing I really need to ask you to do here is calm down a little.


You've misconstrued my statements, so I'll be very clear. Neither you nor I are qualified to tell Steven Spielberg that he doesn't care about the release of his films on video. And nobody is in a position to demand that he answer for choices with which you disagree. Neither you nor I are qualified to tell Universal how to spend their money. In the same way that I'm not qualified to tell you how to invest in your home theater. It's not my money in your home theater, and it's not either of our wallets involved in anyone else's investment. You are certainly entitled to not buy the product (to vote with your wallet), and you're certainly entitled to state, as you've done here, that you don't approve of the work that has been done.


Having looked over multiple scenes again, I can confirm seeing very mild EE, but nothing that would take me out of the movie or would have presented itself were I not actively seeking it. You yourself have acknowledged this is a mild situation and not a major case, so I'm a bit confused by your vehemence here. I can confirm seeing the three opening title cards exhibit a slight wobble, in the same way that I remember seeing a more pronounced title wobble on the video releases of Poltergeist. Nothing that took me out of the movie, and nothing that I would have jumped at if I wasn't looking. (Well, with Poltergeist, it becomes more and more noticeable each time you watch the movie...)


Your statements about Universal's level of caring and EE reflect an admirable level of passion about this issue, but it still doesn't get us past the fact that just because someone doesn't do things the way you would like them to doesn't necessarily make one of you absolutely right and one of you absolutely wrong. Telling them they need to spend more money to do it your way will not make it so - if you'd like to convince them otherwise, I'm happy to see if that will help. Again, the criteria that I personally use is whether the PQ issues pull me out of the movie. If I have to go hunting for problems in the movie, then I'm looking for a problem and creating a self-fulfilling situation. If I'm aware that there can be issues (EE, noise, DNR, etc) but watch the movie with that awareness and am not distracted by them, then I don't think we're looking at a disastrous release. And, again, you have said that you'd rate this release a 3 1/2 out of 5 on PQ, so the anger level is perplexing. If you really believe that so much of the release is poor, I have to ask why you would rate it so high.


You should know from my earlier reviews that I don't gloss over issues when I find them. And since this is an open forum, you're free to chime in, as I hope you will. There may well be people who see the same issues you do, and there may also be a lot of people who do not. This doesn't make one group of people right and the other wrong. It just means that some issues pop more for some viewers than others. The same argument applies to why I tend to notice hard digital noise in a shot more than other people do. Doesn't make me right and someone else wrong. It just means that it announces itself more to me and becomes more distracting than it might be to someone else for whom it's just part of the background of a shot.


Spielberg already approved this release, or we wouldn't have it going on shelves in two days. Asking whether he did is a moot point. Assuming that he did not is only tenable if you believe that either Spielberg doesn't care about his releases (and he's made clear that he does) or that the studio would risk their relationship with him by putting out what you believe is substandard product and not telling him about it while it holds his name as director and producer. From a simple business perspective, that position does not make any sense.


Your use of hyperbole does not tell me that opinion is fact or that either of us is right or wrong. It only tells me that we've hit a nerve, and if so, I'm truly sorry about that. We're discussing a matter I happen to enjoy greatly - the release in high definition of movies I have enjoyed in the movie theater in years past. I believe the same must apply to you or you would not be expending this level of energy trying to convince me that what you said was a mild situation is more serious.


Again, it's not up to either of us to tell any studio "you just don't care" about their releases. That may be a great position to take on a blog or in an opinion column, but it doesn't help when trying to actually deal with the studio in question. I completely understand and respect the integrity of a stated personal quality standard, but when we get into what are mild levels of these issues (as you have stated), life winds up being more of a compromise. We don't always get the ideal quality - in this case a brand new scan at 4K, etc. Sometimes we get a new transfer that doesn't do everything, but still looks quite good to me, and that's looking at it with a large screen plasma at the proper settings at the proper distance. If we take the position of "Give me the Criterion level of quality or nothing", then we'll just have the Criterion discs on the shelf. On the other hand, they'll all be of A+ quality. Rather than, say A quality or even B+.


I won't argue with you about the Star Wars Blu-ray release. That position has been stated here plenty of times, and I'm not necessarily in agreement with it. I would just say that if you did not like it, I'd recommend returning it for refund or reselling it. There were a bunch of people on the forum who cancelled their pre-orders.


I noticed that Saving Private Ryan got a quick recall when that audio glitch was discovered with the initial pressing. I also recall Universal doing an exchange on the original DVD release of the Back to the Future trilogy, in which I participated to get the corrected discs. In this case, I'm seeing nothing at the level of either recall situation. What I'm seeing is that some fans are not pleased with everything in the transfer. I don't honestly believe that we'll see a recall looming for it.

I hear you when you say that you're concerned about the issues you have raised. But since you've been writing your reviews for some time, you must know that releases like this don't go out without the director and the director of photography getting to see them - including the encodes. (Of course, once it's shown that they have approved it, the crowd then goes after them, saying that they're wrong to make those choices, and the situation just continues.)


My position with my reviews is that if I see a problem that is so jarring that the movie experience is ruptured, then I'll start making noise about it. If I see something more minor, I'll note it without letting it completely overwhelm the review. And as we've noted, different elements distract us in different ways.

My score of 3 and a half out of 5 is low for a blu ray release, at least on my scoring system, it represents average, a release with issues, there should be no issues with a high profile release like this, and i'm calm, very calm, i have to be to be able to put my thoughts into such a long worded reply, some scenes are poor to me from a perspective that the film look is not there and halos are present in the image, but there are also some scenes which i think look very good, the poor scenes though make the transfer inconsistent in my eyes.


You see the problem is you now say you see the mild EE, this means Universal sharpened the film, Spielberg approved a sharpened up release, isn't that dubious and unlikely, does that really make sense to you, Spielberg is a perfectionist, he has stated that John Hammond ( in the film ) is just like him ( also a perfectionist and uses that line in the film ) Now perfectionists do not add edge halos however mild to their blu ray releases, that does not make sense to me.


You see my whole point is that whether it takes you out of the film or not isnt the issue at here, its a question of why would Spielberg who has never approved a sharpened release of his films, (that adds mild halos) in the past now suddenly approve such a release, that doesn't make sense to me, you also see the gate weave, thats a sign of using an older telecine and not a newly minted film scan.


It doesnt matter that you had to look for it, others dont have to look for it, we see it straight away, the fact this issue is there speaks volumes about Spielberg not approving it, it speaks volumes about Universal applying it and it shouldn;t be there, that alone should see reviewers crying foul and making a bigger issue of this, to just say "oh well it didnt bother me" well, if all the bigger review sites take that stance then we will just get more of this type of release from Universal.


You know its there, i know its there, do you really think Spielberg would approve of it, i have serious doubts about that.

 

[Kevin EK]

Malcolm, I think we have different criteria for our scoring. For me a 3 1/2 out of 5 is a good, even quite good score, akin to a "B+". It's a standard score that most Blu-rays will be able to achieve. A 4 takes it to an "A-", and higher gets us into the higher regions of getting an "A+" on a test. When I've rated things lower, I'll get down into the 2s and at times even lower when a movie is of really poor quality. (Like a Norbit or A Perfect Getaway)


I stand by what I've said. This is a release that Steven Spielberg approved, as is the normal process for high profile titles under his banner. If he thought there was an issue here, he would have had Universal do more work on it. The issues you're discussing are ones you are acknowledging are mild, which belies the tone you have been taking here.


Your point now seems to be that you want a perfect release, where a frame-by-frame restoration is done from the original camera negative. You have said that you want the title recalled. And yet you also say that the issue is mild. These positions are inconsistent. If this is a serious issue, that's one thing. If it's a mild one, I just don't see that this is a battle that will be won by online reviewers telling Spielberg or Universal that they don't care about these movies.


What Steven Spielberg approved in the past is interesting but doesn't get around what he approved here. What I see is a good transfer with minor issues, some of which you've already acknowledged are due to the compositing process, and some of which are due to digital processing of a high definition master. I could make a giant issue out of three slightly wobbly credits, but why?

You dismiss the point that any of these issues need to be a pretty large distraction for anyone but the most discerning PQ analyst to notice without someone actively pointing them out. At 65", my screen is already larger than most home viewers will have - and if I'm barely seeing these issues, people with smaller monitors will have a harder time at it - that is unless, they're actively looking.

I suppose I should ask you if your preference would be for every reviewer at every website and every publication (like Entertainment Weekly and the rest) to give this release a bad review. Are you trying to have a situation where every reviewer demands a recall and demands that Steven Spielberg explain why there are minor halos in some shots and why three opening credits have a slight wobble? If I see a PQ issue that is more serious, like Spartacus, I can understand a review pointing that out.

If you really do think that this release was somehow snuck past Steven Spielberg, then I honestly recommend you call his office or his agent and ask for comment about the issue.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK

Malcolm, I think we have different criteria for our scoring.

Your point now seems to be that you want a perfect release, where a frame-by-frame restoration is done from the original camera negative. You have said that you want the title recalled. And yet you also say that the issue is mild. These positions are inconsistent.

What I see is a good transfer with minor issues, some of which you've already acknowledged are due to the compositing process, and some of which are due to digital processing of a high definition master. I could make a giant issue out of three slightly wobbly credits, but why?

If you really do think that this release was somehow snuck past Steven Spielberg, then I honestly recommend you call his office or his agent and ask for comment about the issue.

Ok first point.........I actually dislike the scoring system but understand the need to have one, i base my scoring system not on image quality as in "does this film look pretty and pop on my display" instead i base things on how good i think the transfer is and whether i personally believe we are getting an approx version of how it was shot without severe digital manipulation when being transferred to blu ray, at times i rate highly despite colour changes or a slight contrast boost, all depends on the film and its history and whether colour changes or boosts were done with the cinemtaographer or directors approval, i would never give a film with EE or distratcing DNR high marks even if approved by the filmmakers but can forgive colour changes far more easily as long as it isn't too detrimental to the image, Its all flawed as is any system but i have a reference list, minor issues list, medium issues and major issues list.


So if i score something 4.5 it gets on my reference list, a score of 4 gets on my minor issues list, 3 to 3.5 gets on my medium issues list and 2.5 and lower is on my major issues list, as an example i have The Evil Dead on my reference list, Ghostbusters on the minor issues list, i have Jurassic Park on medium issues, and i have Basic Instinct on my major issues list, a film like Vera Cruz, ugly looking film but confirmed by an expert at this forum as looking as good as it possibly can gets on my reference list, thats because i do not base it on pretty images but how good i believe it replicates the filmed look, not always easy to figure that out but i spot ee, dnr or bad artifacts then something is wrong and i score accordingly.


Your second point, no one is asking for perfection, i am asking for a relaxation of the digital tools and a level of competence when making the blu ray, restoration is not needed, just make a new master from a 4K scan and then do the encode and lay off the digital tools, a film from 1993 should not have edge sharpening applied, halos should not be in this image, bringing up the compositing scenes is a red herring because even those scenes which may have had some minor halos to begin with now look to have been "enhanced" by digital tools. You say you could make a giant issue of the wobbly credits but why, because we know that a new film scan would not have wobbly credits, wobbly credits aka gate weave are on the old DVD edition, if this is a new master then why is gate weave still present, they would take the old 2K master and simply cut off a bit of information from the top and sides to make the 1920x1080 image rather than scale which can introduce artifacts, thats why this release has slightly less information visible than the old DVD, the gate weave is a pointer to using an old master, do you know of any new release which has had a new film scan which has gate weave, i don't.


Your last point, i have already emailed Universal asking for clarification of this release and whether a new film scan was created, whether Spielberg approved it and more, no reply so far, i'm a small person, i doubt i'll get a reply.


There is a lot more than just halos on the transfer, and i'm talking on a number of outdoor scenes and highly likely on some night scenes but obscured by the night which hides edge sharpening quite well, i think day time scenes have a number of processed looking moments, grain reduction looks likely to me, as already mentioned, just because you think you see that film grain it does not mean it hasn't been tampered with, but i already mention this above, halos are a result of excessive sharpening and why would Spielberg allow that when he hasn't allowed it on other releases, thats a point you might like to consider, if halos are present then its not a minor issue, now the halos themselves are minor but they are visible hence excessive sharpening.


Its a little more than a minor issue and thats why i have it on the medium issues at my site, your take on it is different to mine, i look at the gate weave and i see evidence of an old transfer being used, you dismiss the gate weave as it would ruin your Spielberg theory and the gate weave ruins your theory about it being a new film scan too.

 

[Paul_Warren]

I have 1 more fairly obvious EE example to throw into the mix: Early scene when the cow is about to be lowered into the raptor pen to feed them you can clearly see a massive red halo outline on the underside of the cow against the blue sky. Its so obvious to me as the master shot before the cow is lowered from another angle there is no red halo outline against the sky then the very next shot its fairly noticeable! As I said before JP1 (and I am only complaining about JP1!!) is obviously way better than the DVD but if Spielberg approved this I would be amazed he would have done so considering the stellar work done on War of The Worlds, AI, Minority Report, KOTCS & CE3K why the sudden drop in standards which made his previous (video reference's for the era) releases blind buys regardless of studio as we all knew he took a very keen interest & overview of the transfer being a massive Bluray fan: 1: Where would SS have the time when juggling so many in production movies as both director/producer/studio exec. 2: Allow such a shoddy inconsistent transfer which is variable from scene to scene. To me that is a telltale sign it is either a much older transfer or excessive DNR/EE has been applied instead of allowing the natural look of the film to be retained on Bluray. The giveaway is certain before/after scenes have no DNR so the beautiful Dean Cundey photography/set lighting is very apparent & a wonder to look at even 18 years later!! I seriously doubt Universal will ever talk indepth about the JP1 transfer & how closely Amblin were involved in the transfer.............. but hope ET does not get the same treatment in 2012 as that would be a travesty against the movie!!!!!!

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Paul_Warren

I have 1 more fairly obvious EE example to throw into the mix:
Early scene when the cow is about to be lowered into the raptor pen to feed them you can clearly see a massive red halo outline on the underside of the cow against the blue sky. Its so obvious to me as the master shot before the cow is lowered from another angle there is no red halo outline against the sky then the very next shot its fairly noticeable!
As I said before JP1 (and I am only complaining about JP1!!) is obviously way better than the DVD but if Spielberg approved this I would be amazed he would have done so considering the stellar work done on War of The Worlds, AI, Minority Report, KOTCS & CE3K why the sudden drop in standards which made his previous (video reference's for the era) releases blind buys regardless of studio as we all knew he took a very keen interest & overview of the transfer being a massive Bluray fan:
1: Where would SS have the time when juggling so many in production movies as both director/producer/studio exec.
2: Allow such a shoddy inconsistent transfer which is variable from scene to scene. To me that is a telltale sign it is either a much older transfer or excessive DNR/EE has been applied instead of allowing the natural look of the film to be retained on Bluray. The giveaway is certain before/after scenes have no DNR so the beautiful Dean Cundey photography/set lighting is very apparent & a wonder to look at even 18 years later!!
I seriously doubt Universal will ever talk indepth about the JP1 transfer & how closely Amblin were involved in the transfer.............. but hope ET does not get the same treatment in 2012 as that would be a travesty against the movie!!!!!!

If the halo has colour in it then chromatic abberation but red isn't a colour i would usually associate with chromatic abberation, thats a lens related issue.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

I didn't vote in the poll, because while I think they have titles with issues, overall they do a better job than not, so I would vote for:


Mostly yes but occasionally they fall flat on their face.


I just watched the first film and will be weighing in with my thoughts later today.

 

[Kevin EK]

Paul and Malcolm, you're both entitled to your opinions about whether Steven Spielberg was involved here. Feel free to believe that he was too busy or that Universal would leave him out of the process. I can tell you with assurance that this is not how the business works. You may feel otherwise but it's really not that complicated. It's not a theory, and it's not an opinion.

Malcolm, just sending an email to Universal Home Video will not likely get you a response. You operate a website where you regularly write reviews of Blu-ray titles coming to the UK from the states. You could call the offices at Amblin or at Dreamworks to reach Mr. Spielberg's staff if you would like to see if they have an answer for you regarding how much work he did on this set. I strongly recommend that you don't make comments about whether you believe he cares about his movies or if you believe that there is a "sudden drop" in his standards for home video transfers. You could also try to contact Dean Cundey via IA 600 in Los Angeles, if you believe his work has been misrepresented. I wouldn't be surprised if he checked the color timing.

I have already made clear this was not a new scan, and I don't believe anyone expected them to do that.

I appreciate your explanation of your scoring system.

Your accounting of the wobbling credits is an interesting theory, and may be correct. I wouldn't know. I only know that it doesn't bother me, and if we're talking about 3 wobbly credits as an example of issues with a transfer, I strongly doubt you will see a recall. If we're talking about what you've acknowledged is a mild case of EE that people have to hunt to find, I strongly doubt you'll get a recall. Saving Private Ryan was recalled because the audio went out of sync with the picture - that's a significant problem which they acknowledged and quickly fixed. (And that significant issue was not on a Universal title, by the way. This stuff happens with all the studios at one point or another, as you can see from the many threads on this forum about it.) Watching this movie on a 65" plasma is not causing me to repeatedly point to EE or other digital issues. Which tells me this will be a complaint held by a very small minority even in the home theater community - and as we all know, there are people who will always find an issue with any release.

I'll repeat my other question to you: Are you asking that every reviewer pan this title and demand a recall? And do you believe that will be a successful approach to your issues here?

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by Kevin EK

Paul and Malcolm, you're both entitled to your opinions about whether Steven Spielberg was involved here. Feel free to believe that he was too busy or that Universal would leave him out of the process. I can tell you with assurance that this is not how the business works. You may feel otherwise but it's really not that complicated. It's not a theory, and it's not an opinion.

I have already made clear this was not a new scan, and I don't believe anyone expected them to do that.
Your accounting of the wobbling credits is an interesting theory, and may be correct. I wouldn't know. I only know that it doesn't bother me, and if we're talking about 3 wobbly credits as an example of issues with a transfer, I strongly doubt you will see a recall. If we're talking about what you've acknowledged is a mild case of EE that people have to hunt to find


Watching this movie on a 65" plasma is not causing me to repeatedly point to EE or other digital issues. Which tells me this will be a complaint held by a very small minority even in the home theater community - and as we all know, there are people who will always find an issue with any release.

I'll repeat my other question to you: Are you asking that every reviewer pan this title and demand a recall? And do you believe that will be a successful approach to your issues here?

Kevin, please don't take my words out of context, the gate weave does not bother me, it actually reminds me of being at the cinema back in the nineties, that isn't an issue for me, i mentioned it as it shows this was not a new film scan and is proof of that.


You say no one expected them to make a new film scan for what is one of the biggest films in history, for a film series that in all likelihood is going to make them well over $100 million dollars, within a month of release, you say this was unrealistic, can i ask you why you feel its unrealistic to expect a new film scan. ? I don't understand why you say that, we're not talking about Fright Night here which has a 3000 copy limited run ( although they did a new 4K scan for that title ) in fact lets think about that, they did a new 4K scan for Fright Night and 3000 copies only, yet Universal will not shell out for new film scans for a series that will sell hundreds of thousands of copies on day one of the official release, don't you think its actually realistic to expect a new film scan in that scenario, so why do you think its unrealistic to expect a new scan. ?


I already said, even if Spielberg was involved, it doesn;t change the fact that edge sharpening is on the release, perhaps baked into an old master but its there, we talked about Spielbergs high standards earlier, this is a fall of those standards, no two ways about it, no other Spielberg film released on blu ray uses an older master which has edge sharpening.


You say people have to "hunt to find the issue" well actually, no they don't, i didn't have to and i bet you many others don't have to, it sticks out, its obvious, now YOU may have to hunt to find it, thats the difference, i don't expect Adam to back me up, you are his reviewer and i imagine he will back your comments up before he backs what i say up, no problems there.


I'm asking that reviewers acknowledge the edge sharpening, call it minor if you wish but acknowledge it and then question why a Spielberg film ( knowing his high standards ) has this "minor" issue, ask why a new film scan for one of the highest grossing films of all time was not forthcoming, its realistic to expect a new scan, i don't know why you say it isn't.


I would also ask this, is the sharpening of some scenes on the master or was it specifically applied to this release, if Spielberg was involved then i suspect the former.


The thing is Kevin, if Sony are giving old catalog titles new film scans then its realistic to expect Universal to do it, its especially realistic to expect them to do it on such a high profile blockbuster like Jurassic Park, to say otherwise just doesn't make sense to me.


You should pan the decision to not use a new master, you and other reviewers should question such a decision, but how can i realistically expect you to do that when you originally failed to even acknowledge any halos, and even when you reluctantly did, you state its such a minor issue that it is irrelevent, but then you talk about Spielbergs high standards, well that doesn't add up, high standards would see a new film scan done, high standards would see no edge halos, now the compositing or chromatic aberration errors, thats fine its part of the release, sharpened up video that adds edge halos, bad and not originally on the release, see what i am saying here, thats not a high standard, it should be looked down upon and frowned upon, but you seem to be defending it.


For me the bottom line is this, does the release have edge halos due to sharpening up some of the video, yes, you seem to now acknowledge that, so, that being the case, its not to the same standard as any other Spielberg release on blu ray to date, that my dear Kevin is a fact, now its your review, do as you wish, but stop trying to defend this by saying 99% of the people won;t notice an issue, that is irrelevent, blu ray is about more than that, on the best releases it is about giving us the film look in our home, that look has no sharpening halos attached to it, if Sony can love their films and treat them right and spend money on a title like Fright Night or The Deep then Universal can sure as hell spend a bit of cash on a new transfer for Jurassic Park, a film that is going to make them a fortune on blu ray.