Is "The Greatest Story Ever Told" BluRay a dissapointment? (1 Viewer)

Was going to pick this one up (may not be a great movie, but it is a great looking movie) and it's from the Ultra-Panavision days, but a friend told me today that none of the extras were carried over from the 2 disc DVD, and that he expected a better image. Was this an Easter rush job, or an indifference to the new format?
Paul

Originally Posted by mercyflight
Was going to pick this one up (may not be a great movie, but it is a great looking movie) and it's from the Ultra-Panavision days, but a friend told me today that none of the extras were carried over from the 2 disc DVD, and that he expected a better image. Was this an Easter rush job, or an indifference to the new format?
Paul

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It only has the trailer as an extra. but I think the image is very good to stunning in parts. I will say that I do not think they used 70mm elemements to make the transfer. I have the 2-disc set and will replace the movie disc in it with with the Blu-ray and keep the other extras.

Thanks!

This bluray is trash and looks like a 480i upconvert. I'm not sure how Allan arrived at his "very good to stunning" evaluation. The thing is overun with digital garbage. EDIT: for whatever reason the HTF software will not let you look at the full 1080P image below. Save the image to your computer and open up in whatever picture viewer you have at look at it at full resolution.

Originally Posted by ahollis
It only has the trailer as an extra. but I think the image is very good to stunning in parts. I will say that I do not think they used 70mm elemements to make the transfer. I have the 2-disc set and will replace the movie disc in it with with the Blu-ray and keep the other extras.

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I think there will be a difference of opinion here in which some will think the video is quite good while others will vehemently disagree. I do have some concerns with all of these MGM blu-ray releases coming out in the next couple of months as I think many will have severe issues with the video quality of these BRDs.







Crawdaddy

Originally Posted by Robert Crawford

I think there will be a difference of opinion here in which some will think the video is quite good while others will vehemently disagree. I do have some concerns with all of these MGM blu-ray releases coming out in the next couple of months as I think many will have severe issues with the video quality of these BRDs.







Crawdaddy

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For the most part I've been very happy with MGM blurays. They don't have the money to do a lot with their transfers which usually means less opportunity to screw things up. I'm not sure what happened here though. Total fubar.

Scott - It's all in the eye of the beholder and it sure is better than the DVD to me. And as I said they evidently did not use 70mm elements for the transfer which would have given a much better picture. It is more of a possibility that MGM is using their HD transferees they made three or four years ago for their HD channel, but I am very happy with TGSET.

Now on to see what SOME LIKE IT HOT is going to look like.

The blu-ray makes the film look like it was shot through a screen door. nothing about the transfer even looks remotely like a 70MM image. The Blu-ray of "the Bible" on the other hand looks great, better than I have ever seen it look. To bad about GSET the picture image is really the best thing about the film and without that, it's not very good

So, if they didn't use 70mm elements, did they crop the picture to obtain the ratio on the disc?

Originally Posted by ahollis
Scott - It's all in the eye of the beholder and it sure is better than the DVD to me. And as I said they evidently did not use 70mm elements for the transfer which would have given a much better picture. It is more of a possibility that MGM is using their HD transferees they made three or four years ago for their HD channel, but I am very happy with TGSET.

Now on to see what SOME LIKE IT HOT is going to look like.

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It doesn't matter what film element they used because the problems with this bluray are electronic. If they used 70mm elements with the same equipment in the same shoddy manner it would look just as bad.

Originally Posted by ahollis
It is more of a possibility that MGM is using their HD transferees they made three or four years ago for their HD channel

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I'm quite certain this is the case. In most cases these will be definite improvements over their DVD counterparts, but don't expect the absolute best Blu-ray can deliver.

I've never seen a bluray that wasn't an improvement on it's DVD counterpart. That's no measure of success.

Originally Posted by Brandon Conway
I'm quite certain this is the case. In most cases these will be definite improvements over their DVD counterparts, but don't expect the absolute best Blu-ray can deliver.

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That's the key point. if your quality standard is DVD, you'll probably be happy. But if your quality standard is the original film, you may not be.

Originally Posted by Brandon Conway
I'm quite certain this is the case. In most cases these will be definite improvements over their DVD counterparts, but don't expect the absolute best Blu-ray can deliver.

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I guess my remarks were pretty well not defined. I was more or less comparing the transfer to the DVD. Since that is what the poster questioned. Is TGSET up there with 10C or KofK? No it's not and it is not any where near as good as CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG, but it is much better than the DVD and stunning in some scenes compared to the DVD. My mistake and sorry it was miss-interpreted.

I suppose it comes down to a money issue, and perhaps the film companies are not going to invest for the best right now, but it's a drag that this version will most likely be THE version we will be "blessed" or "stuck" with for who knows long. The sad thing is when one knows a better version exists, and we don't have it! I'm happy for whatever we get I suppose!

With MGM releasing so many Blu-rays this week along with Fox's own release of Black Swan, I just haven't gotten to the review of The Greatest Story Ever Told yet, but I should get to it this weekend.

Originally Posted by MattH.
With MGM releasing so many Blu-rays this week along with Fox's own release of Black Swan, I just haven't gotten to the review of The Greatest Story Ever Told yet, but I should get to it this weekend.

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With MGM releasing so many Blu-rays this year (almost 30 in six months compared to Sony's 6 catalog titles) I would expect the image quality to be low - how much care could be taken in such a short time frame?

MGM/UA is difficult to guage : "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" looked great as did "Goldfinger. "Bull Durham" and "Greatest Story Ever Told" not so good.

Been holding off on "Moonstruck" which has gotten an average rating by reviewers. "Dances With Wolves"? seems like a safe bet but I haven't ordered it yet.
Still waiting to read the reviews of "Fiddler on the Roof" (which WAS shot through a woman's stocking - so I won't expect the best). Will wait to see how "The Big Country" fares before ordering it.

Of course my wish list of UA titles includes the often trashed film of ..."[COLOR= #daa520]Man of La Mancha[/COLOR]"
But also "One, Two, Three", and [COLOR= #ff0000]"It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" [/COLOR]70MM (which looked great at the Cinerama Dome 6 years ago, should be right up there with "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in image quality)

Originally Posted by Scott Calvert
I've never seen a bluray that wasn't an improvement on it's DVD counterpart. That's no measure of success.

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For some people, it is.





Crawdaddy

I think this was definitely sourced from a 35mm. 65mm Ultrapanavision should be far more crystal clear and full of detail from foreground to back. Here, you can get a sense of the detail that was once there, but is now buried by an extra layer of grain courtesy of the reduction/squeezing process to get the frame onto 35mm.

A shame, really.

Regarding "The Big Country," the first question I will have is the copper wash over the opening credits. It's in the original picture and it was there in all the VHS releases. But on the DVD it ended up BLACK AND WHITE! You can see a hint of it during the dissolves from one scene to another, but otherwise it's gone. My original thought is that someone let the computer color-correct it out of existence, but a Richard Harris post assured me this was not so. For whatever reason, it's something that could not be missed if anyone was paying any attention, as it's not buried in the middle somewhere; it's right at the start with that terrific Jerome Moross main title theme.

Someone who knows, please tell me they fixed this!