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A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Fury (Arrow UK import) -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

haineshisway

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Well, the grain or noise or whatever in the car scene is a moot point on The Fury because in order to compensate for it on the Arrow, the contrast has been turned to black to disguise it, rendering a lead actor almost unseeable - if people don't see that then I'm bowing out of this discussion. So, whether it's scanner noise or grain (to me it looks very similar to The Driver's pushed film low-lit sequences), in the PRINTS and obviously on the negative, the overt grain in that scene is there. So, even if the Twilight Time has some noise in it, it at least represents what that scene has always looked like. Had Arrow simply left it as is (and why wouldn't they have) and had all that lovely pushed film grain, which is still slightly visible even with the darkened image, then we might be able to have a meaningful side by side comparison. But we can't because they didn't. My suspicion is had they left it without darkening it we would be seeing similar things to the Twilight Time. Just my opinion.
 

Steen DK

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EddieLarkin said:
http://i.imgur.com/rLNHOSl.jpg

Zooms of the grain on The Driver, The Fury (TT) and The Fury (Arrow) (same zoom level, from accurate caps). I think a difference is obvious and I think the Arrow version of The Fury resembles The Driver far more than it does the TT Fury disc. But that's just me and this is completely unscientific and largely pointless.
:thumbsup: I think those pictures perfectly illustrate the problem with TT's Fury.
 

EddieLarkin

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Charles Smith

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True! :)

Anyway, great article. And I say that for the overall nice publicity as concerns Twilight Time, Arrow, and HTF ... and the slight kick in general awareness that there are better ways to watch (and collect) movies than so many people ever imagine.
 

John Hodson

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It also puts paid to the falsehood that Arrow somehow manipulated the film's darker scenes in order to achieve a smoother look; both transfers are what they are and while I haven't seen the TT version I'd imagine it and the Arrow version - which I have seen - are utterly faithful to their source materials.
 

JoshZ

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Glenn Kenny certainly knows the difference between a DVD and a Blu-ray. He's written many Blu-ray Consumer Guide posts on his blog. I have to assume that the headline was written by the NYT editor.
 

Charles Smith

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Right. And the series of articles is referenced "DVD" anyway. Hey, we'll take what we can get.
 

haineshisway

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John Hodson said:
It also puts paid to the falsehood that Arrow somehow manipulated the film's darker scenes in order to achieve a smoother look; both transfers are what they are and while I haven't seen the TT version I'd imagine it and the Arrow version - which I have seen - are utterly faithful to their source materials.
But it doesn't - here's the relevant paragraph. Note the words "looked problematic to me" - in other words, subjective and a subjective decision was made to darken that sequence hugely - and not the way it was on the negative or internegative or prints. I think Mr. White, who is obviously very good at his job, made a subjective decision. That decision rendered that particular sequence darker than it ever was intended to be. Whether folks like that or not, it is, in fact, revisionist. In other words, is it right for someone who's working on a transfer to make a decision to alter the look of a sequence because it's problematic to THEM? While those shots may have "suffered" -and note his words echoing exactly what I and a few others have said repeatedly about noise and grain in that scene - it was the way it was shot. "In the first half-hour of “The Fury,” there’s a car chase in which Cassavetes’s sinister C.I.A. officer pursues an on-the-run Douglas, who hijacks a police car. It’s a night scene, shot in low light, with a number of composite shots. To top it off, the climax of the scene takes place on a foggy pier. “That scene in particular, and some other night scenes, always looked a bit problematic to me, especially compared to the surrounding day shots,” said James White, a freelance DVD producer who lives and works in Britain. “They really suffered, on account of the ‘pushing’ of the film stock, the heavy noise-to-grain ratio, the process shots. None of it really fit in well with the rest of the picture.”
 

John Hodson

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Yes, on reflection I suppose it's possible (*anything's* possible); the only person that knows precisely what he did is the inestimable James White.
 

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" in other words, subjective and a subjective decision was made to darken that sequence hugely - and not the way it was on the negative or internegative or prints. I think Mr. White, who is obviously very good at his job, made a subjective decision."

I think I reality James White is the only one qualified to answer that. Even if that is the case a doubt it was anything to do with revisionism but more of a problem with the elements that Arrow were provided with, I trust Mr Whites opinion on this as he has no agenda to adhere to.

To be honest I have seen the movies that James White and David Mackenzie have been involved with and they have not put a foot wrong due to their tremendous knowledge of film Transfer/Encode.
 

FoxyMulder

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I agree with this point in the article. This argument over these two versions would be moot if Twilight Time were able to partake of the new transfer.

Mr. Redman said he now believes that better communication between international DVD and Blu-ray producers is essential to the survival of the formats. “As the studios back further and further away — and people are dreaming if they think the studios are not backing further and further away — from physical media,” he said, “it is going to totally default to the independent labels in each territory in the world to synergize and work together as best they can to make those libraries viable for those handful of people left who want them on disc.”
 

haineshisway

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tele1962 said:
" in other words, subjective and a subjective decision was made to darken that sequence hugely - and not the way it was on the negative or internegative or prints. I think Mr. White, who is obviously very good at his job, made a subjective decision."

I think I reality James White is the only one qualified to answer that. Even if that is the case a doubt it was anything to do with revisionism but more of a problem with the elements that Arrow were provided with, I trust Mr Whites opinion on this as he has no agenda to adhere to.

To be honest I have seen the movies that James White and David Mackenzie have been involved with and they have not put a foot wrong due to their tremendous knowledge of film Transfer/Encode.
I think Mr. White has already answered it and I quoted that answer above. You keep saying "problem with the elements" - there was no "problem" with the elements - they contained that sequence as it has always looked. Clearly, Mr. White made a subjective decision about how to handle it, based on his thoughts about it. While the results may not bother you and others, they certainly bothered me in that one sequence. Otherwise, the Arrow is a fine transfer and, as I've stated repeatedly here, I prefer its color palette. For that one sequence, I definitely prefer the Twilight Time as it represents the scene as it has always looked and as it is obviously looks in the camera negative pre-Arrow's work. Is it some "revelation" as compared to the Twilight Time transfer - not from where I sit. Both transfers are very nice.
 

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haineshisway said:
I think Mr. White has already answered it and I quoted that answer above. You keep saying "problem with the elements" - there was no "problem" with the elements - they contained that sequence as it has always looked. Clearly, Mr. White made a subjective decision about how to handle it, based on his thoughts about it. While the results may not bother you and others, they certainly bothered me in that one sequence. Otherwise, the Arrow is a fine transfer and, as I've stated repeatedly here, I prefer its color palette. For that one sequence, I definitely prefer the Twilight Time as it represents the scene as it has always looked and as it is obviously looks in the camera negative pre-Arrow's work. Is it some "revelation" as compared to the Twilight Time transfer - not from where I sit. Both transfers are very nice.
I prefer the colour, no sharpening and a better encode over the TT release but maybe that's just me.
 

Douglas R

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FoxyMulder said:
I agree with this point in the article. This argument over these two versions would be moot if Twilight Time were able to partake of the new transfer.

Mr. Redman said he now believes that better communication between international DVD and Blu-ray producers is essential to the survival of the formats. [/size]
That would be extremely sensible. The major studios still seem stuck in a mindset which thinks they can control and restrict releases by territory, which ignores the reality that nowadays widespread international purchase makes territorial restrictions irrelevant. More synergy internationally can only be beneficial for suppliers and customers.
 

haineshisway

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tele1962 said:
I prefer the colour, no sharpening and a better encode over the TT release but maybe that's just me.
Better encode? Whatever do you mean? Do you think the Twilight Time has a problem with its authoring because it most certainly does not. It is authored extremely well, as is the Arrow. I agree about the color and not about the sharpening. But that's just me :)
 

Steen DK

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haineshisway said:
Better encode? Whatever do you mean? Do you think the Twilight Time has a problem with its authoring because it most certainly does not.
I'm guessing that Barry is referring to something like this on the TT edition:

643d.jpg


'Cause that very much looks like compression artifacts.
 

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