ZULU - On Bluray ( UK ) (2 Viewers)

[willyTass]

was it michelangelo or copernicus that was branded a "lunatic" for saying the world wasn't flat? i can never remember

 

[OliverK]

was it michelangelo or copernicus that was branded a "lunatic" for saying the world wasn't flat? i can never remember

I think it was Galilei and that was indeed a good one

 

[Robert Crawford]

Nothing like a good argument, but it appears some of you are going around in circles with your points of contention. Can we say "agree to disagree".

Crawdaddy

 

[OliverK]

Nothing like a good argument, but it appears some of you are going around in circles with your points of contention. Can we say "agree to disagree".
Crawdaddy

I am feeling a bit dizzy myself and I definitely can agree to disagree.
Please let us hear back from you when you have gotten and watched your copy.

 

[Cassy_w]

My God. I want to scream. This BD is an abortion. It is just like the UK cable broadcast. It is layered with DVNR and how anyone can say otherwise defies all logic.

Remove the DVNR and this release would look vastly superior. Can anyone argue with that? Hardly!

 

[Danny_N]

Can we say "agree to disagree".

No problem, you won't hear me about Zulu anymore. And just to be clear, I value both Michel's and Oliver's opinion very much and don't consider them to be video lunatics myself.

 

[Mark Anthony]

My God. I want to scream. This BD is an abortion. It is just like the UK cable broadcast. It is layered with DVNR and how anyone can say otherwise defies all logic.

I was just so incensed at the quality of Zulu I put my foot through the TV and sent Michael Caine the bill!!!

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

I have the UK SD-DVD of Zulu, which I feel looks very good, though the R1 MGM may be better. I acquired a chipped region A-B-C Blu-Ray (with multi-region SD-DVD) this week and have the Zulu Blu-Ray on my online rental list. The screencaps of the Zulu Blu seem to have mild EE in places, but is it DVNR'd? The detail seems amazing, but I'll wait for the actual disc before I draw a definitive conclusion. Great film and the extras on the UK DVD are amazing.
I should have the Blu of Ipcress File by the end of the week, btw. I'm crazy for that movie!

 

[norrisMc]

Great film and the extras on the UK DVD are amazing.

Does this new UK bluray have ALL the extras from the UK SD version ?

 

[OliverK]

Does this new UK bluray have ALL the extras from the UK SD version ?

Let me know what the extras are and I'll check.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

I think it was Galilei and that was indeed a good one

It was not about flat but that the world was not in the center of the universe: E pur si muove. E pur c'è DNR!

 

[OliverK]

It was not about flat but that the world was not in the center of the universe: E pur si muove. E pur c'è DNR!

I see you know your classics both in the cinema and in astronomy

 

[Michel_Hafner]

Quote:

I say little to nothing about 95% of all releases. When I'm supposed to shut up about the 5% others which are the worst offenders or the least understandable in the context, including favourite films of mine, sites like this become useless water holes for bla bla instead of tools to get messages across so future product avoids the pitfalls. If well founded criticism in itself means responsible people will stop listening and prefer to gloat about all the good reviews instead then the only conclusion can be to send a message they can't ignore: No sales, no profit. Maybe that gets their attention again. I don't expect that to happen, though. Videophiles are a tiny minority and the only real hope is that the film makers themeselves see to it that their work reaches the discs as intended, and that the situation is reconsidered in time as better mastering procedures are available and more people are serious about home cinema and the screen sizes and viewing habits that come with it change.
Of all released discs the majority looks good or better than good. There is no current crisis of quality. But on some titles things really went wrong and it must be said so clearly.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Does this new UK bluray have ALL the extras from the UK SD version ?

I don't know yet - no websites list the spec. The disc should have arrived today, but it should be here on friday. I have held onto my SD edition, in any case.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Watched it a few days ago and it looks much better than Patton. There is some DNR but not so much that fine detail is totally gone as is the case with Patton. I could easily spot fine detail in the red tunics and the actor's faces for instance (beware that the make-up is quite heavy on some actor's faces which makes their faces clayish but that's not because of DNR). Although it does look artificial to a degree, I never had the feeling that I was watching a videogame instead of film. I enjoyed the disc despite the flaws.

After watching my BRD of it last night, I agree with you that it looks better than Patton and The Longest Day. There is still a lot of detail in the actors faces compared to those other two BRD titles. When I have a little more time this coming weekend, I'll take a closer look, but from watching the movie from beginning to end last night, my initial impressions in comparison to viewing Patton and The Longest Day is closer to your opinion than those that are totally negative about its video presentation. There is no doubt that the disc has a loss of some film grain which shouldn't happen, but unlike The Longest Day and to a lesser extent Patton, this BRD still has more fine detail on it than those other two BRD releases.
Crawdaddy

 

[OliverK]

After watching my BRD of it last night, I agree with you that it looks better than Patton and The Longest Day. There is still a lot of detail in the actors faces compared to those other two BRD titles. When I have a little more time this coming weekend, I'll take a closer look, but from watching the movie from beginning to end last night, my initial impressions in comparison to viewing Patton and The Longest Day is closer to your opinion than those that are totally negative about its video presentation. There is no doubt that the disc has a loss some film grain which shouldn't happen, but unlike The Longest Day and to a lesser extent Patton, this BRD still has more fine detail on it than those other two BRD releases.
Crawdaddy

Thanks for posting your impressions. Yes it does look more detailed than Patton, but it also is more edgy, which of course is less of a problem with a bigger relative distance from the screen. Patton is a transfer that will look about the same relative to a very good transfer whether you sit 3 or 1.5 screen widths away while Zulu will look significantly better at 3 screen widths than at 1.5.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

If I would have to compare it to another recent transfer I would compare it to Salo. It has similar digital manipulation but is still perfectly watchable to my eyes while Patton isn't.

Salo is another transfer which I find to be quite alarming in the context. It's a NEW transfer and it's released by the British FILM institute. BFI should really know what a film like transfer is and what is not. And being a new transfer it should be state of the art. Instead we get sharpening halos, DNR smearing and scratch removal flickering. Yes, there is still grain so some people figured there can't be any DNR (see, grain!). DNR is not the absence of grain. And no DNR is not the presence of grain. It's a bit more complicated than that.

 

[OliverK]

Salo is another transfer which I find to be quite alarming in the context. It's a NEW transfer and it's released by the British FILM institute. BFI should really know what a film like transfer is and what is not. And being a new transfer it should be state of the art. Instead we get sharpening halos, DNR smearing and scratch removal flickering. Yes, there is still grain so some people figured there can't be any DNR (see, grain!). DNR is not the absence of grain. And no DNR is not the presence of grain. It's a bit more complicated than that.

According to the BFI it is all in the master they got. IMO they should have refused to release it then. Especially the EE on Salo is about the worst I have seen so far on Blu-Ray, the DNR is also bad but the halos on this one are really over the top.

 

[Stephen PI]

If "Song of Summer" is anything to go by I would say that the BFI don't know what a good transfer is.

 

[OliverK]

So basically due to their inability to chose projects where they can get proper transfers their releases will be hit and miss - too bad.

Black Narcissus was quite nice.