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

[Konstantinos]

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film4/blu-ray_reviews_62_/operation_petticoat_blu-ray.htm

 

[JoshZ]

No new screener prior to the street date?

I received a screener and watched it last night. The new disc looks only minimally different than the 2014 copy. Olive (or Paramount) has added small letterbox bars to bring the aspect ratio to 1.85:1 (the prior copy was 16:9), slightly darkened the image, and tweaked the colors a little. Otherwise, it's clearly the same master. Still coated with scratches and heavy grain.

 

[Blimpoy06]

I received an e mail from Amazon this morning stating my copy of Operation Petticoat has shipped and will arrive tomorrow. I was concerned about my order since Amazon has it listed as currently unavailable. I'm looking forward to the new supplements on the disc, even if there is little improvement to the picture quality.

 

[commander richardson]

I received an e mail from Amazon this morning stating my copy of Operation Petticoat has shipped and will arrive tomorrow. I was concerned about my order since Amazon has it listed as currently unavailable. I'm looking forward to the new supplements on the disc, even if there is little improvement to the picture quality.

mine arrives tomorrow as well..I never purchased the original from Olive as there was no HOH so now I buy....the film is terrific entertainment and could not be re-made today as there are sadly no actors like Grant and Curtis anywhere to be seen........

 

[Mark Booth]

- Screener Encoding Errors -

It has come to our attention that our Blu-ray editions of Olive Signature Operation Petticoat and Olive Signature Father Goose, originally scheduled for release on November 7, were affected by encoding errors during replication. These digital glitches are present in Blu-ray screeners that you may have received already or will receive in the next few days. Because the final quality control does not meet our standards, we will be correcting these glitches before commercial release and resubmitting new discs for review. As a consequence of these fixes, please be advised we will also be postponing the street date for both titles. Stay tuned, and we will update you when a new street date has been determined. We thank you for your patience as we work to resolve these issues.


Thank you,
Olive Films

I watched my Olive Signature edition of 'Operation Petticoat' today. I am very disappointed to report the presence of two screen tears during the film. By screen tears, I mean digital glitches. The very thing that I believe delayed these Olive Signature releases.

I did not document the time stamp for the first glitch. It only lasted a second or so and I was too lazy to get the cat off my lap and get up to look at the time display on my Blu-ray player. However, later, when the second glitch occurred, I did repeat that section of the film several times and made note of the time. The second glitch was 100% reproducible each time I played it. This is what it looks like:

Near the bottom of the screen, extending from Cary Grant's chest pocket button to Joan O'Brien's shirt collar. It occurs at time stamp 1:37:05.

I have notified Olive customer service about this via email. I fear some of the defective discs got shipped to retailers by mistake. Either that or a re-press didn't correct all of the errors. I purchased my copy from Amazon and received it last week.

I haven't watched my copy of 'Father Goose' yet. I hope it doesn't have the same issues. I will let you know what I hear from Olive.

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

Olive Films responded very quickly. Here's the email I received:

Hello Mark,

Thank you for getting in touch. You're correct that these releases were delayed due to encoding errors, and that's exactly what you're seeing on the screenshot you've taken. Some of the faulty units must have fallen through the cracks, and we're very sorry to see that you ended up with one. We're more than happy to facilitate an exchange so that you can get a corrected copy.

If you'd like to check whether you received a faulty blu-ray of Father Goose, the error occurs at 0:05:37. If your Father Goose blu-ray has this error, we'd like to exchange both discs for you.

To exchange the disc(s), please give us your address and let us know whether you'll be exchanging both blu-rays or just Operation Petticoat. We will send you a prepaid mailer that you can use to send your disc(s) to us, and once we receive it, we will get your replacements on the way.

Thank you very much for your understanding, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

I checked my copy of 'Father Goose' at 0:5:37 and, sure enough, it has the glitch. Here's a photo of that spot:

I've requested that Olive replace both titles.

Mark

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Mark, thanks for posting this - it'll make it very easy for anyone buying the disc to check that they have the corrected versions.

 

[JoshZ]

For what it's worth, the "corrected" disc that Olive sent me plays through without these digital errors. (The transfer still looks awful, unfortunately.)

 

[Robert Crawford]

For what it's worth, the "corrected" disc that Olive sent me plays through without these digital errors. (The transfer still looks awful, unfortunately.)

I have the corrected discs. The video presentation is about what I expected so I can’t agree with you about being awful.

 

[ahollis]

I agree with you Crawfaddy.

 

[JoshZ]

I have the corrected discs. The video presentation is about what I expected so I can’t agree with you about being awful.

It's good that you set your expectations low. That's necessary to watch this disc. Nevertheless, the master is still sourced from a substandard film element covered in scratches from start to finish, and the alleged "considerable digital restoration" amounted to little more than slightly tweaking the colors and adding tiny letterbox bars to the previously full-frame 16:9 transfer. Seemingly no digital repair was attempted on the extensive damage at all, much less was a new scan performed on a better condition element (as is badly needed).

For the MSRP Olive is asking, this double-dip is a massive ripoff.

 

[Robert Crawford]

It's good that you set your expectations low. That's necessary to watch this disc. Nevertheless, the master is still sourced from a substandard film element covered in scratches from start to finish, and the alleged "considerable digital restoration" amounted to little more than slightly tweaking the colors and adding tiny letterbox bars to the previously full-frame 16:9 transfer. Seemingly no digital repair was attempted on the extensive damage at all, much less was a new scan performed on a better condition element (as is badly needed).

For the MSRP Olive is asking, this double-dip is a massive ripoff.

We all have our opinion, but I don’t agree with your opinion about my expectations. If you’re that unhappy with this release are you going to return it?

 

[PMF]

My sense is that Olive has produced the best that was available to them.
After all, they did address the issues that were in their control.
And they did get back to Mark Booth pretty quickly, too.
I'll take one of each, Olive.

 

[JoshZ]

We all have our opinion, but I don’t agree with your opinion about my expectations. If you’re that unhappy with this release are you going to return it?

I received a review screener. Regardless, I don't return discs that have been opened and played even if I'm unhappy with them, any more than I'd ask for a refund on a movie ticket after I'd sat and watched the whole movie. That just seems obnoxious to me.

However, the packaging explicitly promises a "New high-definition digital restoration," when the disc itself has no such thing and looks virtually identical to the crummy older Blu-ray from 2014. At Amazon's current price of $29.95, much less the full $39.95 MSRP, a strong case can be made that this is false advertising.

The only things this disc offers over the older edition (currently available for $15) are a commentary and small handful of featurettes, all of which IMO are one-time-only watches.

Had this been priced at $14.99 (possibly as much as $19.99) and didn't flagrantly lie about having a "restoration," I'd be more inclined to forgive it. Not like this, though.

 

[JoshZ]

My sense is that Olive has produced the best that was available to them.
After all, they did address the issues that were in their control.

At least some of the film damage could have been repaired digitally. From the looks of it, no attempt was made to do so. The only differences between this transfer and the prior Blu-ray are the tiny letterbox bars and slightly warmer colors.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Olive is in a tough spot here. I don't want to come across as though I'm apologizing for their transfer, and at this time, I've chosen not to purchase it at the price its being offered, as I have the existing Blu-rays already. But we don't expect labels like Twilight Time or Kino to do work with titles they license; we almost always say in reviews that it's up to the copyright holder to address these issues. So I don't necessarily understand why Olive is perceived as this cartoon super-villain with the twirling mustache, when Kino gets a free pass for doing the exact same thing. Twilight Time generally chooses to pass on inferior masters and release nothing for that title rather than something of lesser quality; on one hand, I commend them for their standards, but on the other hand, sometimes you just want access to a title in whatever condition it exists (particularly if there's no hope of it being fixed).

Olive limited this to 3500 copies - even if they sold each and every copy, and got a higher price at wholesale than film distributors normally get (and I'd be doubtful of both those things happening), that really doesn't leave a lot of money to perform the kind of cleanup and restoration work that a title like this might need. And Olive can only ever issue it on this disc. So they'd have no other source of revenue to use to try to recoup their expenses if they did decide to try to fund a restoration.

The rights holder, Paramount, should really be handling this. Paramount should have done the restoration work on their dime, which would have resulted in them owning a new digital asset which could be utilized in a multitude of ways. Paramount could have used a new master for repertory bookings in theaters, to license out to other distributors internationally, to license to television, cable and streaming, and to sell on streaming services. Olive can't do any of that.

This is one of my top Cary Grant films and I'd love to have a freshly restored, pristine version available. And I do think it's a little unfair for Olive to call it a new restoration, but to be fair to Olive, they're not the ones who started the dubious process of labeling anything and everything a restoration.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I received a review screener. Regardless, I don't return discs that have been opened and played even if I'm unhappy with them, any more than I'd ask for a refund on a movie ticket after I'd sat and watched the whole movie. That just seems obnoxious to me.

However, the packaging explicitly promises a "New high-definition digital restoration," when the disc itself has no such thing and looks virtually identical to the crummy older Blu-ray from 2014. At Amazon's current price of $29.95, much less the full $39.95 MSRP, a strong case can be made that this is false advertising.

The only things this disc offers over the older edition (currently available for $15) are a commentary and small handful of featurettes, all of which IMO are one-time-only watches.

Had this been priced at $14.99 (possible as even $19.99) and didn't flagrantly lie about having a "restoration," I'd be more inclined to forgive it. Not like this, though.

Like I previously stated, you're welcome to your opinion. When I first read your initial posts on my phone, I didn't notice your last name. I've been a fan of your reviews going back to your DVDFile.com days. Anyhow, my earlier post in October in this same thread I kind of agreed with your position that I have in bold. However, I kind of soften that initial take after reading some comments from Robert Harris.

 

[Mark Booth]

I received a review screener. Regardless, I don't return discs that have been opened and played even if I'm unhappy with them, any more than I'd ask for a refund on a movie ticket after I'd sat and watched the whole movie. That just seems obnoxious to me.

However, the packaging explicitly promises a "New high-definition digital restoration," when the disc itself has no such thing and looks virtually identical to the crummy older Blu-ray from 2014. At Amazon's current price of $29.95, much less the full $39.95 MSRP, a strong case can be made that this is false advertising.

The only things this disc offers over the older edition (currently available for $15) are a commentary and small handful of featurettes, all of which IMO are one-time-only watches.

Had this been priced at $14.99 (possible as even $19.99) and didn't flagrantly lie about having a "restoration," I'd be more inclined to forgive it. Not like this, though.

Josh,

Screenshot comparisons have proven that the Signature edition's image has been contrast adjusted and, IMHO, it *does* look better than the original Olive release. Yes, the heavy grain (particularly at the very beginning of the film) and dirt and scratches are still there. So, I agree that there is some misleading advertising going on here by Olive. However, the transfer WAS improved a little bit.

It's just not enough to justify the rerelease, IMHO. But since I didn't own the first releases and I was able to get these Signature releases for under $20 each, I pulled the trigger.

Mark

 

[PMF]

[...] And I do think it's a little unfair for Olive to call it a new restoration, but to be fair to Olive, they're not the ones who started the dubious process of labeling anything and everything a restoration.

The word, term and usage of "Restoration" must be jealously guarded and applied correctly by all who are involved.
That's the bottom line.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The word, term and usage of "Restoration" must be jealously guarded and applied correctly by all who are involved.
That's the bottom line.

Sure, no argument from me. The term is misused all the time. For instance, Criterion uses the word "restoration" to describe every new disc that they issue, including for relatively new movies. And yet, no one takes out the pitchforks against Criterion. I think the bottom line is that Olive has put out some less than stellar releases in the past, and as a result, people don't want to cut them any slack, which is fine, but at the same time, the term "restoration" has been used and misused in so many different ways that in and of itself, its now meaningless without further description of what its meant to entail. If every single other home video label feels free to throw around the word regardless of meaning, in my view it's not fair to be upset at Olive and only Olive for this.

In the case of Operation Petticoat, in the press release Olive clearly stated that it was going to be the same master as the previous Blu-ray, with some tweaks applied. That's what the disc ended up being.