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A PEEK AT JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH REDUX (1 Viewer)

dpippel

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Dr Griffin said:
We are getting way off topic, someone start that video terms thread, it could actually be educational.

Agreed. It would be great if we could all get back to the discussing the film/Blu-ray in the thread title and move the terms discussion to it's own venue now.
 

Virgoan

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haineshisway said:
Inky blacks is so yesterday :) I am now actively loving this thread for all the reasons you might suppose. But, and it's a big BUTT - I do feel there's a teal push to this thread and I really don't live revisionist coloring of threads.
I'm going to agree with you on priniciple because the teal aspect you mention certainly seems applicable here.


:P
 

MichaelEl

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Rory*M said:
You mock the term "crushed blacks," well, all that means is an area of black in an image that so darkened down (i.e. "burned-in") that all "shadow detail" is lost. In photography, whether it's prints or slides, too burnt-in blacks are not a desirable thing. It's also referred to as "blocked-up blacks" and are generally characteristic of overly contrasty images or "duped" images. "Duped" images are from copies of an original image negative or slide rather than from the original light exposed element, and every time you dupe an image, you begin to lose detail first in both the highlights and the blacks or shadows. "Thin" is a general term in photography usually referring to a negative that was underexposed, but it can also be used in discussing faded negatives that over time lose their light exposed "fixed" yellow, magenta and cyan silver-halide crystals and move from having dense grain to having "thin" grain.

There must be a lot of faded negatives out there, given the number of Blu-Rays that suffer from "crushed blacks." The JTTCOTE remaster is nowhere near the worst in that regard, and in fact there are any number of Blu-Rays of later films that have it much worse.
 

ROclockCK

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Don't suppose those legacy standard rez VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD transfers might have had their luminance 'spiked' to compensate for analogue CRTs? I've seen lots of DVDs which look w-a-y too bright now. :wacko:


All I know is TT's remastered Journey Blu-ray is not only the best this picture has ever looked on home video, but also very much like what was seared into memory via my sole big screen viewing 50+ years ago. In some respects, it actually looks better than what I recall since this transfer was right off the original negative, presumably with original studio timing, plus stabilization. One of my personal benchmarks for Journey has always been that giant chameleon in the Atlantis sequence. Unlike previous home video releases where this creature was pretty much a stop sign-red blob, this Blu-ray captures the subtley different shades of red in that shot, leaning toward deeper ruby/crimson/firebrick hues...much more menacing:


WAUFUX.jpg



In any case, "Where's the crush?" I don't see any...just an overall richness never possible before.
 

haineshisway

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Crushed blacks is an easy term to use and most of the people using it are using it incorrectly, IMO, just like all the other terms referenced in this thread.
 

EddieLarkin

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Yes, there is a big difference between an image being darker than it was before, and thus obscuring some detail (which is fine and can be completely legitimate), and an image that has been subjected to an actual fault somewhere along the chain, and has come out with its black level set incorrectly (which is never OK).


These are crushed blacks:


http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/multi_comparison.php?disc1=4526&disc2=2273&cap1=42076&cap2=21035&art=full&image=5&hd_multiID=533&action=1&lossless=#vergleich


These are not:


http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/multi_comparison.php?disc1=3450&disc2=3452&cap1=31827&cap2=31844&art=full&image=6&hd_multiID=1438&action=1&lossless=#vergleich
 

Rory*M

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ROclockCK said:
Don't suppose those legacy standard rez VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD transfers might have had their luminance 'spiked' to compensate for analogue CRTs? I've seen lots of DVDs which look w-a-y too bright now. :wacko:


All I know is TT's remastered Journey Blu-ray is not only the best this picture has ever looked on home video, but also very much like what was seared into memory via my sole big screen viewing 50+ years ago. In some respects, it actually looks better than what I recall since this transfer was right off the original negative, presumably with original studio timing, plus stabilization.
I think it's very much the case now that JOURNEY looks better in this transfer than it did in its original release, and most certainly in re-issues. I don't know what kind of a memory most people here have, what the average age is here, but I'm old enough to remember the look of the average release print going as far back as the late sixties when I was around nine years old, and almost to a tee, most theatrical prints were lacking. They were made on the cheap and fast. If you wanted to see a really good release print, it had to be from a major studio, a premium title that the producers wanted shown at its best and if you weren't in a major city, forget about it.


This transfer would look slightly better if it were not from a faded negative, but they've managed to make it look nearly as good anyway. I have a friend and this is his favorite childhood movie, and he always felt it looked too bright in previous DVD transfers, including the first TT blu-ray. Now, he really appreciates how much darker the subterranean portions of the movie are, and he's actually disappointed there's not more of a teal push -- because he likes that blueish hue of old Eastman Color stock.


Someone mentioned back at the beginning of this thread a 4K transfer of PLANET OF THE APES, which is my favorite childhood film. I think the current transfer for that on Blu-ray is too bright, so whomever was in charge of this restoration, when they eventually get around to a 4K APES, I hope they do exactly with it what they've done with JOURNEY.
 

ROclockCK

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I was a child of the 60s...and the boonies...and the Canuck boonies at that. So typically we got not only cheap but also well-worn prints. Don't get me started on our drive-ins*.


Never knew any better though. It wasn't until the mid-60s when I began hopping on the train to Toronto or Montreal for the roadshows that I learned how 'last-chance-saloon' our small town exhibition truly was. Which is one of the reasons why Journey had such an impact when I saw it in Toronto in early '66 ...I'd never experienced CinemaScope either looking or sounding that rich.


* Probably on a par with contemporary Soviet Belorussia.
 

ChromeJob

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Thought I'd revisit this...

haineshisway said:
It's not "dark". It may be slightly darker than the previous transfer, although I did not find it such, but to say MUCH darker? Not for my eyes.
Rory*M said:
... The shot I chose was in the lecture hall at the beginning of the movie, a shot with James Mason standing next to Alan Napier. Napier is wearing a black coat and on the settings I would assume most people have their displays set to -- at least me anyway -- I at first could see no detail in the coat, folds and such. Okay, so with the image frozen (on my Panasonic plasma TV) I first drain the color out of it so I'm just looking at a black and white image, then I turn up the brightness to see if there is detail in Napier's black coat, and guess what? There is, but turning up the brightness blows out the white areas a bit, so I have to also reduce the contrast. I go back and forth between brightness and contrast settings until I get a balance I'm satisfied with, then I slowly turn the color back up to a level I find acceptable. I then found the rest of the movie played out fine. Others may find shots they prefer to what I used, but this is what I recommend doing before you sit down to watch the entire movie.

So, why are the blacks darker in this transfer? I suspect it's the faded original camera negatives. The dark areas are probably very thin now and when the image is reversed yield "milky blacks" that have to be darkened down. You can see that this may be the problem in a shot with Pat Boone and Diane Baker when they are sitting on a bench in the hallway of the Professor's home. Boone is on the left of frame and the area of his body in the lower left seems dark while at the same time "thin." ..
ChromeJob said:
Might be the nature of your plasma screen. Even with all the HDMI dark settings to "darkest," I can see the folds of Napier's great coat just fine. Nothing but the glint off some test tubes on the lab bench behind Mason and the student (Bunsen burner?), nothing white appears blown out to me. What do you mean by "thin" in Boone's dark velvet jacket when he's talking to Diane Baker?
Rory*M said:
Yeah, my plasma TV is a 2008 (bought in Feb. 2009) Panasonic TH-46PZ80U (If that means anything to anyone?), so it's getting long in the tooth now, and even though I keep it (and my Panasonic BD player) on the "Light" setting you speak of, I still suspect the set pulls down the blacks a bit anyway. Luckily I also own a 37" LCD, though it's just a Vizio, but it actually has more advanced picture setting controls than the Panasonic. Anyway, most everything looks better of the smaller LCD, but then that works with backlight which Plasma doesn't. So, the detail in Napier's coat, folds and buttons too, are easily seen on my LCD set, but have to be brought out on my plasma. It's frustrating, but I like the bigger picture of my plasma, so I live with it. My next BIG TV will not be plasma though, not that I'm going to have any choice now.

Anyway, the shot of Boone and Backer on the bench.... this shot begins at 8 minutes, 52 seconds on the film's BD running time, and ends at 9 minutes, 8 seconds. If you turn up your brightness all the way, you'll see nothing more than milky blacks in Boone's jacket and no detail, even of the hairs on the back of his head. When Boone leans back on the bench some detail then comes into the jacket. My contention is that any further detail (known in photography as "shadow detail") there might have been in the blacks of that shot are lost to the fading of the original negative. There may not have been much there to begin with, but now there's even less and that's what I mean by "thin."

So I readjusted my screen this afternoon with AVS HD 709 disc, and also revisited the HDMI color mode of my BD player (was RGB Standard, now YCbCr 4:2:2). Easier to set the brightness and contrast (reference black, reference white, respectively) in this color mode. Then put in a couple of discs I like to test with these days. These references are my own opinion, not authoritative fact!


It Happened One Night (Criterion, BD), the first night Ellie and Peter spend in a motel, he turns out the light, she changes into his pajamas and gets in bed, asks him his name. Tells him she doesn't like it. You should see the light from the windows reflecting off Colbert's and Gable's eyes (reference white I think)... especially when she lies back and is looking at the "Walls of Jericho" (the blanket he's strung up between the beds). She's essentially in shadow with very faint light leaking in from the window. With my LCD set adjusted to reference black and no darker, you can just make out the details of her face, and the pajamas, her bed's blanket, etc. Adjusted too dark, and you miss these details in this remarkable shot (1934). This shot always takes my breath away; must look fabulous in a theater.


Then From Russia With Love (remastered, BD). The opening scene of Grant stalking "Bond" through the Pinewood Studios garden. Not lit as well, the black of Robert Shaw's pants and black turtleneck disappear into reference black regularly. When he snaps a branch to terrorize his prey, you can see some of his turtleneck's fabric, but some of the black disappears. Any brighter to bring out more, and the frame starts to seem bleached. The rest of the scene, Connery's tuxedo, and Shaw's black clothes, play in and out of the light. It's a tough scene to adjust for, and I suspect part of the problem is the original source. What you describe as fading resulting in lost black detail has almost certainly happened here before Lowry's digital cavalry could ride in and save the day.


Then ... put in this new BD of JTTCOTE. The scene of the college profs and students giving Lindenbrook (James Mason) his inkwell, Alan Napier's jacket has lots of detail between the fabric, cuffs, lapel, etc. It's a very well lit scene, almost too much so...?


The first scene with Pat Boone and Diane Baker, Boone's jacket is apparently deep black velvet, with contrasting cuffs and some detailed threading in the buttonholes. Light keeps playing off the velvet texture. In the moment when he says to her, "Wh-, couldn't I sit next to you?" the studio lights play off the velvet just a wee bit, can definitely see it. This continues as they sit down (less so, he's not moving as much), and starts again when he's tinkling some piano keys. The jacket on my screen now looks reference black but some light reflection off the velvet continues to appear (watch his shoulder) and disappear (naturally) with the lighting.


To quote those old Zenith TV ads (?), "If you're not seeing these colors...."
 

Alan Tully

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I've just watched this, & it looks so good, I always really enjoy it, it's been a favourite film for 55 years! I did post that some of it looked a bit dark, which was rubbish, the picture looks great with lovely rich solid colours. I must have had my telly set too dark, I've since bought some calibration discs & give it a weekly check up. The studios seem to be getting pretty good at recovering pictures from faded negatives these days. I wonder if Warner could go back to the negative for The Searchers?
 

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