A Few Words About A few words about...™ Dial "M" for Murder (Take Two) -- in Blu-ray (2 Viewers)

[Charles Smith]

I wish I could make Bob glad to hear it from me, too, but I went through my Panasonic's 3D settings menus, and adjustments along those lines were nowhere to be found.

I did find a few things of interest:

The picture setting for 3D was "Cinema" instead of "Vivid" which I might have expected. I tried Dial M for Murder on the vivid setting, and a few scenes looked pretty decent with it but others looked overblown and it greatly exaggerated those shots with the "halo" around Ray Milland. (I know someone has mentioned those, probably above, but I forget what they derive from.) Anyhoo, even for the "dark" Dial M, I left that setting as is.

Overscan was turned on (as it originally had been in the regular menus), as was a DNR switch. Ouch! (Fixed!)

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Charles, the "halos" are Mackie Lines and are present in all WarnerColor opticals. It's a flaw in the early intermediate stock.

 

[Charles Smith]

Oh, right! Thank you!!

 

[Reed Grele]

None of my Panny plasmas, or LCD projectors (despite tweaking the various settings) would play nice with Dial 'M'..... Want ghost free?.... Buy a DLP!

 

[Doug Otte]

I wish I could make Bob glad to hear it from me, too, but I went through my Panasonic's 3D settings menus, and adjustments along those lines were nowhere to be found.

I did find a few things of interest:

The picture setting for 3D was "Cinema" instead of "Vivid" which I might have expected. I tried Dial M for Murder on the vivid setting, and a few scenes looked pretty decent with it but others looked overblown and it greatly exaggerated those shots with the "halo" around Ray Milland. (I know someone has mentioned those, probably above, but I forget what they derive from.) Anyhoo, even for the "dark" Dial M, I left that setting as is.

Overscan was turned on (as it originally had been in the regular menus), as was a DNR switch. Ouch! (Fixed!)

Although my Panasonic allows me to copy picture settings to all inputs, it doesn't copy to the 3D settings. So, I had to manually input all my picture settings separately for 3D. Also, I made two changes over the 2D settings to improve brightness (although it's still a bit dim). I can't remember them at the moment, but will post back from home when I remember to check it.

 

[Doug Otte]

Although my Panasonic allows me to copy picture settings to all inputs, it doesn't copy to the 3D settings. So, I had to manually input all my picture settings separately for 3D. Also, I made two changes over the 2D settings to improve brightness (although it's still a bit dim). I can't remember them at the moment, but will post back from home when I remember to check it.

Sorry for the delay. For 2D, I used D-nice's settings (as found over on AVS Forums). However, I reduced Contrast from his recommended 79 to 77.

For 3D, I moved Contrast back up to 79, and I changed Panel Brightness from Medium to High.

These two changes mitigate the dimness w/ 3D somewhat.

 

[RolandL]

None of my Panny plasmas, or LCD projectors (despite tweaking the various settings) would play nice with Dial 'M'..... Want ghost free?.... Buy a DLP!

My Panasonic AE8000 projector plays it fine in 3D. There are a few scenes where I see a little bit of ghosting but its minor.

 

[Reed Grele]

My Panasonic AE8000 projectors plays it fine in 3D. There are a few scenes where I see a little bit of ghosting but its minor.

There are so many variables that affect whether or not you see ghosting. Projector and glasses settings, brightness and contrast settings, seating distance, right eye or left eye dominance....etc.

It's similar to the DLP "rainbow effect". Some people see them all the time. Some hardly at all.

The RBE doesn't plaque me. But I'm terribly allergic to ghosts!

 

[Osato]

.

 

[Nelson Au]

"Oh Roger, pay the $2.00."

 

[Osato]

"Oh Roger, pay the $2.00."

Just read a review of the title again. Going to pass on it.

never mind my rant.

Thanks.

 

[Mark-P]

I guess its just a matter of overpaying for the film. I'm ok with $20, but $30 seem kind of excessive.

WB should make a 2D blu ray or there should be a price cut as the title has been out for 16 months now and remains the exact same price of when it was released.

It doesn't make sense, IMO.

About a month ago Amazon UK had the box set with Dial M, Strangers on a Train and North by Northwest for £14. Even though I already owned North by Northwest, it still would have been a bargain to get the other 2 for about $13 each. But I waited too long and the price jumped back up to £22.
But I agree it can be frustrating that a lot of 3D Blu-rays never seem to go on sale. It costs no more to press a 3D disc than a 2D one, so why not give us a price break on 3D movies once in a while?

 

[Moe Dickstein]

Because some category of film has to retain its value from discounting.

 

[Geoff_D]

I know I'm late to the party but I finally picked up Dial M, and it looks incredible on my passive Sony 55X9 (which has been calibrated for both 2D and 3D). The image is stable and clean and quite beautiful - aside from the opticals, natch. I saw no ghosting/crosstalk whatsoever, nor did it appear to be too dark, with bright interiors and excellent shadow detail in the darker shots. The 3D itself isn't too elaborate for either depth or popouts, but the overall sense of immersion is excellent. Bravo, Warners!

My thoughts on 3D home viewing in general:

I had terrible problems with crosstalk on my previous active LCD set, a Sony 55HX823; one movie would look amazing while another would be plagued with ghosting. I tried different BD players, different glasses (inc. the monstervision max ones), tweaked all the settings I could find, nothing made a major difference.

The almost random nature of what exacerbated the crosstalk on whatever movie was incredibly frustrating - and I'm not the only one who feels that way, judging by the comments/reviews of Dial M and House of Wax - but after hearing about the drawbacks of passive I thought 'well, I don't want to lose half the vertical resolution' so I avoided it for the longest time. Then I got a demo of the Sony passive 4K set, and I was floored by the lack of crosstalk. I decided there and then that I had to have one, and I've never looked back.

It's a shame that the hardware manufacturers have never cared about reducing crosstalk on active TVs, because it means that 3D reviews have become a very subjective affair, highlighting three separate issues: active TVs are prone to obvious crosstalk but are full res, passive TVs are largely crosstalk-free but are half-res (aside from Sony's 84"/65" 4K TVs), and active DLP projectors are technically completely free of crosstalk AND are full-res but may have issues with brightness, depending on the source material. (Heck, if Dial M is too dark then Thor 2 must be unwatchable on a projector. They weren't kidding with the 'Dark World' subtitle!)

I honestly feel that I have the best of everything with my TV. It's got less than 0.5% crosstalk in each eye (measured with Spears and Munsil 2nd edition), the half-res image still looks wonderfully crisp and detailed (until it was revealed that the 55X9 is only half-res 3D, I thought it WAS full 1080, it's that good!) and there are no problems with brightness.

As always, your mileage may vary.

 

[Mark-P]

My thoughts on 3D home viewing in general:

I had terrible problems with crosstalk on my previous active LCD set, a Sony 55HX823; one movie would look amazing while another would be plagued with ghosting. I tried different BD players, different glasses (inc. the monstervision max ones), tweaked all the settings I could find, nothing made a major difference.

The almost random nature of what exacerbated the crosstalk on whatever movie was incredibly frustrating - and I'm not the only one who feels that way, judging by the comments/reviews of Dial M and House of Wax - but after hearing about the drawbacks of passive I thought 'well, I don't want to lose half the vertical resolution' so I avoided it for the longest time. Then I got a demo of the Sony passive 4K set, and I was floored by the lack of crosstalk. I decided there and then that I had to have one, and I've never looked back.

It's a shame that the hardware manufacturers have never cared about reducing crosstalk on active TVs, because it means that 3D reviews have become a very subjective affair, highlighting three separate issues: active TVs are prone to obvious crosstalk but are full res, passive TVs are largely crosstalk-free but are half-res (aside from Sony's 84"/65" 4K TVs), and active DLP projectors are technically completely free of crosstalk AND are full-res but may have issues with brightness, depending on the source material. (Heck, if Dial M is too dark then Thor 2 must be unwatchable on a projector. They weren't kidding with the 'Dark World' subtitle!)

I honestly feel that I have the best of everything with my TV. It's got less than 0.5% crosstalk in each eye (measured with Spears and Munsil 2nd edition), the half-res image still looks wonderfully crisp and detailed (until it was revealed that the 55X9 is only half-res 3D, I thought it WAS full 1080, it's that good!) and there are no problems with brightness.

As always, your mileage may vary.

I think some crosstalk is inherent in active glasses technology because liquid crystals cannot block out 100% of the light. So it really comes down to how much contrast there is in the doubled images as to whether or not they are fully cancelled out. I've been lucky with my Panasonic plasma TV that the ghosting is pretty minimal on everything I've watched so far. Every once in a while there will be something so bright in the picture that it will leak though the shuttered lens.

And by the way, the spatial depth in Dial M is incredible!

 

[Doug Otte]

The almost random nature of what exacerbated the crosstalk on whatever movie was incredibly frustrating - and I'm not the only one who feels that way, judging by the comments/reviews of Dial M and House of Wax...

Agreed. It can be very frustrating, especially when it seems so random. The first time I watched House of Wax, I saw no issues. Then I watched it again a few weeks ago, and had a lot of issues w/ ghosting. The setting I found to mitigate the issues on Dial M didn't seem to help w/ House.

Last night I watched most of Prometheus in 3D (a second viewing didn't make it any better than our original theatrical viewing, and the 3D was very subtle). The 3D was flawless, however. I wonder what would happen if I develop the fortitude to try to watch it again?

 

[Michel_Hafner]

I finally watched it in 3D and it looked superb. I'm very impressed. It was not too dark on my JVC X700 projector on a 3.5m wide 1.0 gain screen. That projector is plenty bright with superb contrast and black levels. People with a Sony 4K projector get an even brighter picture. I could always use more brightness but it was far from a disaster in 3D. Loved it.

 

[JoeDoakes]

I had the opportunity to view what I think was the blu-ray of this film last night at my local movie tavern (it's a national chain and they license their ability to show classic films). I lack the knowledge to compare what I saw to the theoretically perfect image, but over all I thought it looked quite good (I did experience some small eye strain). For me, what's really significant about it is that the 3-D experience of even a set bound film like this really blows away most of the modern 3-D I have seen. Conversion to 3-D is pointless.