ATTENTION WARNER BROS... (1 Viewer)

Please, Please, Please, Please STOP using INTERLACED transfers on your DVD releases of shorts and cartoons!

You are ruining and tarnishing the quality of your products and making the content very difficult to enjoy! Customers would not accept this from feature films and I do not understand your insistence on transferring and mastering films this way for your theatrical shorts. Is it a cost issue or what??

Either way, it has got to STOP!!!

What's the point in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore films if you are not even going to properly present them on disc and force viewers with certain display devices or hardware to view these films through terrible artifacts, motion blurs, horizontal lines and image breakup, pixelization, etc.

EVERY SINGLE TRANSFER SHOULD BE A PROGRESSIVE SCAN MASTER ONTO DISC; THERE'S JUST NO EXCUSE TO DO OTHERWISE!


Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope it gets taken into consideration and properly addressed.

It would be nice if you list which titles you're talking about.

all three volumes of Tom and Jerry have had some
The Complete Tex Avery Droopy has Some,
LTGC V2 D4
Popeye, Volume 1
just off of the top of my head, that also doesnt take in consideration the issue of DVNR, removing actual art work by believing it is a scratch

Robert,

I purposely avoided that as to not draw further negative attention to an otherwise wonderful release...

But there is evidence of interlaced transfers in the new Popeye Vol. 2 film set and in the past, releases such as the Tom & Jerry collections have (especially) been ruined by such practices. I find it odd that the same company would issue replacement discs for their Looney Tunes GC V.2 for such mistakes, yet continue to transfer their theatrical cartoon library onto DVD like this. As many here at HTF are already aware on my stance regarding T&J and how I've long given up on those sets... it's sad to see this problem appearing in newer releases of which much higher quality standards have clearly been set. There is NO need to ever master any discs interlaced; Frankly, I find it frustrating when watching supplements on my projector and notice this... but for the main features of a disc, it has no place!

This is not at all entirely exclusive to WHV as other studios have been guilty of similar practices in the past, but I'm addressing it to this company because they seem to be at fault in issuing interlaced theatrical animation titles more frequently than any other. From the initial Looney Tunes mistake to Tom & Jerry, Droopy, and now... Popeye unfortunately (though the results here are not a fraction as severe as they have been on previous sets).

It's just unfortunate and unnecessarily brings the quality of otherwise excellent releases down a notch. Especially when so much time, care and effort have gone into film restoration. Nobody else seems to be drawing big attention to the problem... but next to the dreaded DVNR issues that plague animation releases in general, this is next on my list of offenses and one that I'd like to see corrected and an end put to such practices!

I just don't understand why this is even done at all and if there is any significant cost added to flagging progressive transfers of films when mastering to disc?

Marco,
You can't make a post like yours without specifically mentioning titles because you leave those of us not aware of the problem guessing as to which titles you were talking about.

Also, if the release is so wonderful then why are you making such a post to attract attention to this release's problem? It's a rhetorical question so don't bother answering it. Which toons are affected by this issue?

Because it IS a problem and how do problems ever get resolved if nobody draws attention to them?


Isn't that a major part of HTF's history and existence; bringing to light such issues for the betterment of home video product and preservation of film on DVD?


I will have to get back to you on which specific shorts are the problem (as far as the new Popeye release) because I unfortunately do not recall off hand.

The fact that past Droopy, Tom & Jerry Collections (severely!) and other releases are marred by this issue points to an as yet unacknowledged and recurring internal problem at WHV, that needs to be looked at and hopefully amended to save future releases similar fates!

I agree it's a major issue which is why I question you sugarcoating the issue with your "wonderful release" comment. If I didn't think it was a major issue I wouldn't be asking you to name the specific toons being affected by this issue.





Crawdaddy

By the way, this is the second PQ problem with this release.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...-disc-1-a.html

Marco,
I believe that you and I are the most adamant on the state or treatment of the MGM cartoons on this forum, and this is not a bash at WB, just would like for them to change one of their practices. As a matter of fact I am happy that I have something to be somewhat upset about. The fact that WB does at least release these shorts, usually in the correct format, and normally uncensored, as the way that they were intended to originally be seen. That includes a complete Chronological set of all the Theatrical Tom and Jerry, all complete and Uncensored.

What we are dealing with her is an entirely different medium of the filmed image, hand drawn art in its most practical form. Forget which one of the Disney animators that made the statement, but after one of the recent restorations, said yes it’s beautiful but it’s not what we drew.

Same as always this will be treated with a replacement if enough complains come in, or another issue arises, but the fact that most of these characters have more face value, Popeye, Bugs, Tom and Jerry, than most of their filmed counterparts of the same era, should attest to how high they are held by the public. Yes the public knows Bogart, Cagney, both which get lampooned in the animated shorts of that same era.

How important is animated shorts, next time you pose this question to yourself , just remember that Disney Co. traded Al Michaels to NBC/Universal for the Oswald shorts created and released by Disney; Something that Disney had been trying to get back in there possession since the early split with Universal.

And since Marco brought it up, the biggest issue is the removal of the drawn image from the frame, basically you may be watching the cartoon, but there is elements missing.

Thanks Robert and I am aware of the other issues too, but I must applaud WHV for identifying and correcting them so early on. The replacement program (yet again!) was put into place before the official release date of the set.


As to the transfers affected on this past release, I know that "Wimmin Hadn't Ought to Drive" is one that is definitely a problem, and just about all of the disc one shorts too!


PS - Thanks for adding your comments as well Dana.

Hopefully this issue will be addressed or at least looked at and reviewed by the good folks at Warner Classics now, who will hopefully keep this in mind when it comes to future releases. Let's try to keep this thread relevant strictly to the use of INTERLACED transfers on Warner's DVD products and push for a change!

I've already called in for the Popeye Volume Two replacement, and it would be wonderful if the interlacing issue is solved as well.

don't we need to know what titles are affected so when we cal WB to complain we can tell them what we are complaining about?

"Hello, Warners.
i have a complaint about interlaced transfers of some of the animated shorts and film collections.
I would love to tell you what shorts specifically but i can't because i don't know.
I do know there is a problem because someone told me there was."

What's the problem with those transfers? Saying they're "interlaced" is not enough. Almost all NTSC and PAL DVDs are "interlaced". That in itself doesn't degrade the image one bit.

Is there an additional deficient treatment of some of those images? Please be more specific!


Cees

"Hello How Am I" shows some flicker and motion artifacts; There is slight flicker in a bunch of the other shorts as well.

As I stated earlier, it's not nearly as BAD as the Tom & Jerry discs (which to me are nearly unwatchable - at least the cartoons affected) but it is still unnecessary and I'm not sure what you mean by saying that almost all DVD's are interlaced...

99% of feature films released in NTSC standard are progressive scanned. Could you imagine the response if an upcoming release such as LA Confidential or The Picture Of Dorian Gray were interlaced transfers?

It would never happen... and I wish WHV would be more careful in transferring and flagging their animated films to DVD progressively.

George Feltenstein and his group have nothing to do with the animation releases. There is a separate animation group that oversees their releases.





Crawdaddy

Marco,

ALL films on ALL your SDVDs are interlaced. That's what the "i" in 480i stands for. Interlacing is just a technique to enhance the viewing experience on traditional CRT screen TV sets.

"Interlaced" vs. "non-interlaced" tells you the order in which the horizontal lines are transferred. But the resultant images are the same. So there has to be something else with your problem images.

FWIW, I have posted the next two images once before. One is interlaced, one is progressive. I wonder if you can see which is which. (And a few colour artifacts are caused by the file being translated to .gif first, to allow for this display).

I'm stressing this point, because, if TonyD is going to write a letter to WB or anyone else, he'd better demand the proper measure.


Cees

Those artifacts are the result of the GIF format only supporting 256 colours. You should save them in JPEG format.

Thank you Simon, there is indeed a difference in how the image is flagged to display each frame and unfortunately Cees, your example doesn't really work here as you cannot draw comparison between moving images/frames and a still photo. It's apples and oranges. Horizontal scan lines become apparent in motion sequences and artifacts are introduced into the frame. That is not to say that every transfer is equally problematic as we've already decided that this latest release from WHV is not the worst offender in this department, but it is still noticeable and detracts from the extensive work that goes into restoring these films. All transfers/files should be encoded progressively before being mastered and pressed to disc to avoid these problems.

Fortunately, my example works: to demonstrate that it's not "enough" to say that these films were interlaced and "hence" have problems. The difference (in this respect) with moving images only exists if the original source was real time (like a TV- or video-camera) and the resulting frame order on screen would be improper (caused by the odd/even seqencing).
But were talking film here and animated drawings, which are always scanned (one may hope) in the proper frame order - be it progressively or interlaced. Thus there are no motion artifacts resulting from the choice of the p/i-scan order.

Please note that I'm not saying that the DVDs you mention don't have a problem: I think however that it would be necessary to identify the exact technical nature of the problem to address it properly.
(As well as helping to get rid of the eternal "interlaced is not as good as progressive" urban, or perhaps marketing, legend.)


Cees

Warner has already replaced a disc once before due to several cartoons presented non-progressively, that was with the Looney Tunes.