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Robert Harris

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You're certainly welcome to disagree, but what I'm describing is not about the L&H "mythos". It's a matter of reality. These were shot on film, and L&H's images and the essences of their gags were captured and preserved by film grain. Take away the grain and you're taking away the essential record of their performances which is on the grain.

It's the same as transferring analogue sound, which is a sign wave, with lots of high and low range information, to the digital realm, which is a square wave, which only preserves the middle range, and then using an overly aggressive cleaning tool to get rid of the tape hiss. Yes, you can hear the voices and instruments without any impediment, and it may sound "better" to an untrained ear, but there's very little information left. What remains is a pale shadow of the original performance, so that many people hearing Maria Callas for the first time on CD might think her voice isn't all that impressive, because so much of what made that voice great is missing.

You talk as if there is only a choice between dupey, contrasy images and the overly clean ones, denuded of grain and reality, that are on this set. But it would have been easy, if perhaps a bit more time consuming, to use a cleaning program carefully, and preserve the grain while leaving the images even more crystalline and easy to see, as the grain would still be there, for taking out the grain softens the image considerably. That's the point Mr. Harris and others are trying to make.

I’ll try to post some representative samples, albeit compressed of a 1927 film, in 4k scan from OCN, scan of original print frames, 2k scan of 35mm dupe neg from print - all with zero processing or cleanup, which means that (within reasonable proximity per a .jpeg) they should show high frequency information, lost on these discs.
 

Tony Bensley

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To start on a positive note some of the shorts seem to look at least decent but film grain looks a bit funny in some of these caps even when it is there.

Sons of the Desert seems to be largely devoid of higher frequency detail, not sure how many generations from the OCN we are with this one.
It will be interesting to compare that to my 720p recording from German TV as I do not remember it as being that soft but I might be mistaken.

And unfortunately it looks as if Way out West should be renamed to Way out Wax.
The "Way Out West (1937)" screenshots don't look waxy to my eyes. Some of them just look somewhat soft.

CHEERS! :)
 

OliverK

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The "Way Out West (1937)" screenshots don't look waxy to my eyes. Some of them just look somewhat soft.

CHEERS! :)

While I stand by my (preliminary) impression I would really prefer for you to be right as my box is on its way and I want Way out West to look better than the caps indicate :)
 

Robert Harris

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While I stand by my (preliminary) impression I would really prefer for you to be right as my box is on its way and I want Way out West to look better than the caps indicate :)

It looks very much like the caps. Image is clean and two steps above being waxy.
 

jayembee

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I'm amazed that it would appear that so many people here are watching every DVD or Blu that they play, with their TV controls on one setting only (be it calibrated or not). My Panny OLED has a "Hollywood Calibrated" setting, but almost every disc has to be individually adjusted, even if only a little, to look just right. The controls that I adjust are not "Illegal places for the public", but easily accessed via the menu. They include Brightness (which is actually Black Level), Contrast, Color Saturation, Sharpness, and sometimes Gamma, Tint, and Color Temperature. Very few discs are all the same. I can make these adjustments in a few seconds, and I rarely watch a movie without first adjusting at at least some of them.

Some people don't want to put in the time and effort to tweak their TV settings every time they put in a disc. They just want to watch a damn movie. It's like listening to vinyl. Some folks will spend a few minutes spritzing the record with whatever flavor of cleaner they have, carefully wipe it with the cloth of their preference, before oh so carefully placing the needle down on the spinning disc. Others will slap the thing down on the player, and happily listen to every tick and pop that accompanies the music.

In the larger scheme of things, one practice is no better or worse than the other. It all depends on what each individual listener/viewer wants to bring to the table beyond a pair of ears and/or a pair of eyeballs.
 

Rob W

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The review at blu-ray.com says that the second half of Battle of the Century was sourced from the 16mm reel that Robert Youngson had printed, but says nothing about changes in picture quality throughout the second reel. I have seen this restoration several times at the TCM Festival and The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, (among others). My recollection is that for the pie fight sequence, the higher-quality 35mm sequences still in existence from Robert Youngson's compilation are used with the 16mm shots filling out everything else in between. The difference between the two is noticeable, but understandable. Youngson even trimmed the length of certain shots, so the 16mm to 35mm switch sometimes occurs at the beginning or end of several shots rather than at a scene cut. I assume this is the version transferred to disc .
 

Robert Harris

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4k Scan - Original Camera Negative

20120217_Arri.jpg
 

Rob_Ray

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The review at blu-ray.com says that the second half of Battle of the Century was sourced from the 16mm reel that Robert Youngson had printed, but says nothing about changes in picture quality throughout the second reel. I have seen this restoration several times at the TCM Festival and The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, (among others). My recollection is that for the pie fight sequence, the higher-quality 35mm sequences still in existence from Robert Youngson's compilation are used with the 16mm shots filling out everything else in between. The difference between the two is noticeable, but understandable. Youngson even trimmed the length of certain shots, so the 16mm to 35mm switch sometimes occurs at the beginning or end of several shots rather than at a scene cut. I assume this is the version transferred to disc .

The second reel is entirely 16mm as the constant back-and-forth between 16mm and 35mm was very distracting and took one's attention away from the comedy. The result looks very consistent and well-done.
 

Angelo Colombus

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The review at blu-ray.com says that the second half of Battle of the Century was sourced from the 16mm reel that Robert Youngson had printed, but says nothing about changes in picture quality throughout the second reel. I have seen this restoration several times at the TCM Festival and The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, (among others). My recollection is that for the pie fight sequence, the higher-quality 35mm sequences still in existence from Robert Youngson's compilation are used with the 16mm shots filling out everything else in between. The difference between the two is noticeable, but understandable. Youngson even trimmed the length of certain shots, so the 16mm to 35mm switch sometimes occurs at the beginning or end of several shots rather than at a scene cut. I assume this is the version transferred to disc .
Seeing Robert Youngson's films on tv when i was a kid like When Comedy Was King, Days Of Thrills And Laughter, and the 4 Clowns made me look into the silent comedy like Keaton, Lloyd, Chaplin, Charlie Chase, and Laurel & Hardy. I thought it was a great series and a nice introduction to the silent era.
 

Robert Harris

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Open the last comparison shot large, and even heavily compressed (there's a lot of data here), you'll see proper grain structure and a cohesive image. Each a 2k file derived from a duplicate negative derived from an original acetate print.
 

Colin Jacobson

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It's not just a chip. The TV's panel has to support 3D. Regardless of brand, most television panels are manufactured by LG, and LG does not make 3D panels anymore. Even if, say, Samsung or Sony wanted to make a new 3D model television, they couldn't get a panel for it.

Thanks for the correction. I thought I'd heard it was basically just a chip.

So what would the cost difference for a 3D panel be vs. one without?
 

Colin Jacobson

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I love my E6, the last 3-D OLED produced by LG!

I considered the E6 when I got my C6 3 years ago but the price difference was too much - would've been like an extra $1000.

I was a little nervous about the curved screen, as I thought it might look weird, but it's fine. I never even noticed the slight curvature!
 

Robert Harris

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That's incredibly fine grained. If that's truly representative of the average 1927 film stock quality, it would seem that over the next 25+ years, the fine grain of these early film stocks was sacrificed for increased film speed (and panchromatic sensitivity?).

Probably speed. Keep in mind that in 1927, the projection speed was a bit slower. This example, ran at 20 - 21 fps. The faster the speed, the more transparent the grain structure. Which means that running at 24 would make up a bit of the difference.
 

JoshZ

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Thanks for the correction. I thought I'd heard it was basically just a chip.

So what would the cost difference for a 3D panel be vs. one without?

It doesn't matter. It's not possible to get a 3D panel anymore. Nobody makes them.
 

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