A Few Words About A few words about...™ Hawaii -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[johnmn]

While an upconvert is less than ideal in my eyes, I don't think it's necessarily sacrilege - there are occasion where that's the only option. For "Into The Woods" I think that was originally shot in standard definition, so it was never going to look glorious and brand new. But I think in the case of the Blu-ray release, that there was a potential audio benefit to be gained going from compressed DVD audio to lossless Blu-ray audio. I have some concert Blu-rays that are the same story - the video portion was shot in SD, so whether it's on the disc as SD or whether the label has upscaled it, the video is what it is. Where those releases shine is the improved audio.

One of the downsides that TT would have likely faced if they had upconverted Hawaii would be that the upconverted version would take up much more space on the disc, and yet, be of about the same quality. The roadshow version fits on the disc because it's in SD, which takes up much less space than HD material. If they include it in SD format, it fits on the disc fine with the shorter HD version of the movie. If it's upconverted, both versions probably don't fit on the same disc anymore, and if they add another disc, that raises costs.

And depending on which player you use at home, your player may do better upscaling than whatever equipment the studio or label uses anyway.

Thanks for your response. Just for the record, though, I wasn't wishing that TT had upconverted the roadshow Hawaii from SD 1:33 letterbox to full HD, but only to SD 16:9 anamorphic (DVD quality, but enhanced for 16:9 displays). I would assume that that upconversion wouldn't take up much more disc space than the letterbox version, and so it would have fit on the Blu-ray disc along with the HD truncated cut. But your final statement may be the bottom line: my player probably does the upscaling well enough, so perhaps there wouldn't have been much difference in quality anyway.

 

[Robert Harris]

In a general sense, if one has room in the bucket being filled with data, to do an upconvert, and feel that the conversion can be better handled in post than via player software, that's fine.

But as Mr. Steinberg has noted, in the case of Hawaii, it would entail an additional disc, and all of its associated costs. To make matters worse, the SD transfer of the Hawaii roadshow was a tiny proportion of image, within a huge black box.

Not a good starting point, unless there's a method to the madness, as well as a means of at least partially, creating a higher quality image. This is what we were able to do with Mad World, in extracting that tiny image, and using it for a specific purpose, which in the case of MW was merely the chroma channel.

While I understand the desire to have a higher quality, and more screen filling roadshow, costs and potential quality upgrades played against it.

I believe that TT made the correct call, in adding the Roadshow, technologically unaffected, as an extra.

If the original footage survives, and I've done no research on the subject, the creation of a higher quality element should fall to MGM.

If such an element existed, and was supplied to TT, as licensee, the Hawaii release might have been not only different, but more expensive.

I'm pleased that we have a record.

RAH

 

[Robert Harris]

Thanks for your response. Just for the record, though, I wasn't wishing that TT had upconverted the roadshow Hawaii from SD 1:33 letterbox to full HD, but only to SD 16:9 anamorphic (DVD quality, but enhanced for 16:9 displays). I would assume that that upconversion wouldn't take up much more disc space than the letterbox version, and so it would have fit on the Blu-ray disc along with the HD truncated cut. But your final statement may be the bottom line: my player probably does the upscaling well enough, so perhaps there wouldn't have been much difference in quality anyway.

There is very little image in the roadshow with which to work, and a final result could look to be of lower quality than what was released, with added distortion and correction. There is simply no meat on that bone.

 

[RolandL]

Caps-a-holic has a comparison of the Blu-ray to the DVD. The Blu-ray looks pretty bad to me.

 

[Dr Griffin]

DVD master on Blu-ray with the higher resolution as the only improvement. Not the way it was supposed to be with Blu-ray. I don't expect a title like this to get the meticulous attention that Lawrence of Arabia did, but do a new transfer for cryin' out loud.

 

[usrunnr]

Did anyone see "Hawaii" on TCM this week? Wondering what they showed?

 

[Ed Lachmann]

I, for one, would jump on a newly transferred Hawaii, if it were to become a reality. Many companies like Olive are upgrading titles that never looked bad to begin with. I'm on the fence about those, but a new Hawaii, day one purchase for me.