A Few Words About A few words about…™ To Catch a Thief (redux) – in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[lark144]

Things are getting more and more interesting.

What I'm learning is that there is more than one way to look at film, or in this case a Blu-ray. And we must be open to the opinion of others.

I heard, late last night, that the new restoration of Paramount’s To Catch a Thief, has received one of the most prestigious awards in the international archival field – the Cecilia Giménez Parchment – awarded for special recognition by the University of Turino.

I reached out early this morning and was able to speak with Professor Antonio Sfocato. While we had just a few problems in translation – he’s far more fluent in English than I am in Italian – he was able to bring an interpreter in for our brief chat.

A transcription is as follows:

RAH: Good evening, professor, thank you so much for taking my call.

AS: My pleasure, Robert, I have with me, my aid, Annette, who can help us.

RAH: Can you explain what you seek in deciding to give out this prestigious award?

AS: We look for, how you say… pretty. We see the ancient cinema of the twentieth century as something very much (speaks with Annette), very much stuck in manners of times gone by. We seek glorious images, bright colors, but never painful to the eyes. When we look at our own cinemas of the past, like The Stolen Bicycle, we see the huge moving silver pieces, how you call…

ANNETTE: Grain?

AS: Yes, grain, as interrupting the flow of art to the brain through the eyes. When we see something like Mr. Hitchcock’s film, finally as he meant it to be seen, without all the interruption, we said, “yes!” perfection.

RAH: I’ve seen it, and came away disturbed because it appeared overly soft, grain-less, and blown out—

AS: Sorry, what is this “blown out…”

RAH: An overall loss of bright areas, basically going clear, and without detail…

AS: Ah, but this is what we love. You have been to Morano?

RAH: Sorry, Morano?

AS: Near Venice, where glass is an artform.

RAH: I’ve not.

AS: You must visit. Please understand that clarity is most important to us in art. One can add colors, and in the cinema, can make it appear to move, but clarity is essential.

RAH: So, you’re looking for a more transparent image?

ANNETTE: I believe he’s looking for “clean.”

RAH: Did you see the new Blu-ray of the Michael Curtiz film, King Creole?

AS: Of course, we preview all of the American Blu-rays. And there are many fans of Mr. Presley here in Italy.

RAH: And no award for—

AS: No, no. It was very sharp, and beautiful. You could slice prosciutto with the main titles, they were so sharp, but not good. Too much grain. Not for us.

RAH: But Thief was perfect?

AS: In every way.

RAH: Will the award be shipped over, or—

AS: We will present the award at the Venice Festival this fall. And now I must go.

RAH: Thank you for speaking with me.

You should get the Obscuro award--in English "cheek in tongue".

 

[tenia]

“digital clean-up”

That looks like a fairly accurate description.

 

[Nick*Z]

Looks like the whites are also blown out on the new disc.

Many specular highlights lost too. The new disc is a fail in my not so humble opinion for all of the reasons being discussed here - framing, DNR, color density, incorrect day-for-night, etc. The only thing Paramount improved here was the integrity of the main titles, and even then, there was some minor gate weave in the credits that was not present in the original mastering effort. So, sorry. Whatever the studio 'stands by' - its' not anything like it should look and that's a sincere disappointment and a shame. A sham too.

 

[Douglas R]

That looks like a fairly accurate description.

Somehow I doubt that “Digitally Cleaned-Up Version” is going to cut it as a purchasing incentive

 

[AlexNH]

Summary below provided by Bill Hunt, thedigitalbits on July 20, 2020:

In a Zoom call last week, Paramount’s Senior Vice President of Archives, Andrea Kalas—joined by film historian Leonard Maltin....

She was also asked about the studio’s treatment of film grain on its recent catalog BD restorations, and acknowledged the difficulty of this issue. Apparently, when the film is scanned, digitized, and compressed, a certain percentage of that original grain becomes digital noise, so they have to figure out how to address it on a case by case basis. [Editor’s Note: My suggestion is that Paramount should contact the restoration teams at Warner Bros., Sony, and Criterion to see how they approach the grain issue, because those companies almost always do it right. No more excessive grain removal with DNR, please! And static “fake grain texture” added back into the image afterwards is also a big no-no.]

Paramount sets a sets a restored Roman Holiday for Blu-ray in September, plus The Bits is a Zavvi affiliate!

We’ve got some great announcement news for you catalog fans today, but first we also have another new Blu-ray review for you to check out... Our own Tim Salmons has just turned in his thoughts on the 4-disc Laurel & Hardy: The Definitive Restorations BD set from Kit Parker Films and MVD Visual,...

thedigitalbits.com

 

[Nelson Au]

Reading over that article, in addition to what is quoted above, it’s great to see Roman Holiday is coming and the other titles coming from the Paramount Present label. But there’s no discussion of the work done on To Catch A Thief. I was hoping the color issues was discussed, but I guess not. Did they discuss that?

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

Summary below provided by Bill Hunt, thedigitalbits on July 20, 2020:

In a Zoom call last week, Paramount’s Senior Vice President of Archives, Andrea Kalas—joined by film historian Leonard Maltin....

She was also asked about the studio’s treatment of film grain on its recent catalog BD restorations, and acknowledged the difficulty of this issue. Apparently, when the film is scanned, digitized, and compressed, a certain percentage of that original grain becomes digital noise, so they have to figure out how to address it on a case by case basis. [Editor’s Note: My suggestion is that Paramount should contact the restoration teams at Warner Bros., Sony, and Criterion to see how they approach the grain issue, because those companies almost always do it right. No more excessive grain removal with DNR, please! And static “fake grain texture” added back into the image afterwards is also a big no-no.]

Paramount sets a sets a restored Roman Holiday for Blu-ray in September, plus The Bits is a Zavvi affiliate!

We’ve got some great announcement news for you catalog fans today, but first we also have another new Blu-ray review for you to check out... Our own Tim Salmons has just turned in his thoughts on the 4-disc Laurel & Hardy: The Definitive Restorations BD set from Kit Parker Films and MVD Visual,...

thedigitalbits.com

That was in response to my question posed to Andrea Kalas on the call.

 

[Robert Harris]

Summary below provided by Bill Hunt, thedigitalbits on July 20, 2020:

In a Zoom call last week, Paramount’s Senior Vice President of Archives, Andrea Kalas—joined by film historian Leonard Maltin....

She was also asked about the studio’s treatment of film grain on its recent catalog BD restorations, and acknowledged the difficulty of this issue. Apparently, when the film is scanned, digitized, and compressed, a certain percentage of that original grain becomes digital noise, so they have to figure out how to address it on a case by case basis. [Editor’s Note: My suggestion is that Paramount should contact the restoration teams at Warner Bros., Sony, and Criterion to see how they approach the grain issue, because those companies almost always do it right. No more excessive grain removal with DNR, please! And static “fake grain texture” added back into the image afterwards is also a big no-no.]

Paramount sets a sets a restored Roman Holiday for Blu-ray in September, plus The Bits is a Zavvi affiliate!

We’ve got some great announcement news for you catalog fans today, but first we also have another new Blu-ray review for you to check out... Our own Tim Salmons has just turned in his thoughts on the 4-disc Laurel & Hardy: The Definitive Restorations BD set from Kit Parker Films and MVD Visual,...

thedigitalbits.com

What's noted above is true, but goes back to 1997 when there were compression artifacts involving grain, which needed to be reduced.

With HD, and now 4k, grain is no longer a problem.

So, yes, the above statement is accurate.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

So basically, nothing particularly useful about the issue(s) that yielded the kind of subpar results for To Catch A Thief... and we're still in the dark re: expectable transfer quality for future Paramount catalog releases...

_Man_

 

[Noel Aguirre]

It’s on TCM tonight and looks overly bright w edge enhancement at the car picnic scene. This must be the new transfer? The room is green but the sky blue during the fireworks?

 

[Gary16]

It’s on TCM tonight and looks overly bright w edge enhancement at the car picnic scene. This must be the new transfer? The room is green but the sky blue during the fireworks?

I checked the color of the sports car which should be blue. This must be the earlier transfer because the car is definitely not blue.

 

[Worth]

It’s on TCM tonight and looks overly bright w edge enhancement at the car picnic scene. This must be the new transfer? The room is green but the sky blue during the fireworks?

There's no edge enhancement on the new transfer. Just the opposite - it's downright fuzzy.

 

[Nelson Au]

To me the Sunbeam Alpine always looked blue in every iteration from laserdisc to blu ray.

And I know everyone sees colors differently and their monitors are not showing the exact same colors.

The same is probably true for what is considered a soft image or overly sharpened image.

 

[Robert Harris]

Sunbeam Alpine (

Sunbeam Alpine ("Grace Kelly" car) for hire in CA 94960. This is your opportunity to show that your style and class is up there with the likes of Princess Grace Kelly. This “Grace Kelly” car known from the Alfred Hitchcock film, "To Catch a Thief", took 4 years to be restored in the...

cars.drivevinty.com

 

[Nelson Au]

Spooky! I was looking at that site earlier today before your reply and was going to post one of the car photos there.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I’ve ordered this because I like to judge for myself regardless as to who or how many say it’s not worth buying. From what I can see, with some exceptions, the vast majority have judged it on screen caps - something I won’t do. Of course if I prefer it to the 2012 release, you can rest assured that I won’t say so here!

Now that I've watched the movie in its entirety on iTunes in 4K/Dolby Vision, I concur with your opinion and that going forward watching this 4K stream will be my preferred method. I thought the stream looked gorgeous on my 65" OLED.

 

[Nelson Au]

Guys, I don’t have a 4K monitor yet, so I’ll be curious to see this 4K stream of TCAT. I’m curious about what the color looks like in the night shots of the cat on the roof and other day for night shots? Are those shots tinted in green or tinted on the blue side? Maybe I’ll buy the regular iTunes HD version to see. The last time I looked, the copy streamed on CBS All Access was from the 2012 source, so day for night is green.

I posted screen caps from the LD and DVD and Blu Rays on post 354 to illustrate that. I believe it was said the blue tint is correct and that’s on the ib.

The 2020 disc was criticized for being overly processed to remove grain and so it’s not as sharp as the 2012 blu ray. I’ll be very interested to watch The 4K stream for that too.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Guys, I don’t have a 4K monitor yet, so I’ll be curious to see this 4K stream of TCAT. I’m curious about what the color it it ing looks like in the night shots of the cat on the roof and other day for night shots? Are those shots tinted in green or tinted on the blue side? Maybe I’ll buy the regular iTunes HD version to see. The last time I looked, the copy streamed on CBS All Access was from the 2012 source, so day for night is green.

I posted screen caps from the LD and DVD and Blu Rays on post 354 to illustrate that. I believe it was said the blue tint is correct and that’s on the ib.

The 2020 disc was criticized for being overly processed to remove grain and so it’s not as sharp as the 2012 blu ray. I’ll be very interested to watch The 4K stream for that too.

It’s not green tinted!

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks Robert!

Well, this new 2020 mastering is not green anymore and the 2020 blu ray is not as sharp as the 2012 blu ray.

 

[Gary16]

Guys, I don’t have a 4K monitor yet, so I’ll be curious to see this 4K stream of TCAT. I’m curious about what the color looks like in the night shots of the cat on the roof and other day for night shots? Are those shots tinted in green or tinted on the blue side? Maybe I’ll buy the regular iTunes HD version to see. The last time I looked, the copy streamed on CBS All Access was from the 2012 source, so day for night is green.

I posted screen caps from the LD and DVD and Blu Rays on post 354 to illustrate that. I believe it was said the blue tint is correct and that’s on the ib.

The 2020 disc was criticized for being overly processed to remove grain and so it’s not as sharp as the 2012 blu ray. I’ll be very interested to watch The 4K stream for that too.

The IB prints are green