Are our expectations for DVD transfers unrealistic? (1 Viewer)

[Dave Mack]

Accuracy to the source should be paramount. Alot of people harped about Spielberg's WOTW. I thought it was a GREAT transfer. That's how it's meant to look. I do think that they should use the most space possible on a disc. Many times this isn't the case. "Spiderman 2" the regular version should have looked as good as the superbit version since all of the supplements were on a second disc. But this way they can get people who really like the film to buy both versions. The regular to get all the supplements and the SB for the best presentation. Considering that it was a 2 disc set, Disc 1 should've been SB quality. (But this is Coumbia/Sony so...)

 

[MarkHastings]

I see Dave mentions this, but...

Why not look at it this way...even if HD-DVD doesn't IMPROVE the quality of the film over DVD, what about knowing that HD-DVD will have so much space available that you won't have to worry about compromising film quality to fit all of the special features that they cram onto some of these releases?

More space = more features with no worries about compromising data rates.

 

[Patrick McCart]

The Extreme Edition of Terminator 2: Judgement Day had an excellent essay on the retransfering/remastering of the film. Van Ling mentions that the conversion from the uncompressed HD transfer to the MPEG II NTSC DVD causes 98% of the image resolution to be lost due to compression, the lower resolution, etc. Still, the EE version is one of the most flawless DVD's I've seen. One interesting technique used on the HD transfer...

They used the 35mm interpositive to create a new HD transfer specifically at 2.35:1. However, they transfered the 2.35:1 image in such a way that it used 100% of the 16x9 HD resolution (during transfer, they stretched the image, allowing the area normally taken up by black bars to be utilized for even more resolution). They also used manual digital restoration (DRS) this time around. As a result, no DVNR smearing, beautiful film grain textures, and loads of fine detail.


A few innacuracies were in it, but I really like the attitude of Feltenstein and Co. When you take out the cel dust, reflections, and other imperfections... you're replacing it with picture information that was never there.

That's one thing you have to think about... the ethics of digital restoration. When you erase, you ARE removing parts of the original frames. It can be good or bad. For example, some parts of the 2K digital restoration of Metropolis utilized "mattes" where parts of the image were isolated and just used 2-3 frames to replace the static parts of the frame. That's nice, but you're not keeping the original look of the frames. On the other hand, there's often no choice. For example, Robert Harris had to re-create the opening titles of My Fair Lady by looping a few frames for each card and making new dissolves between them - because they only existed in grainy B&W separations. Of course, on the DVD commentary, it's revealed they even considered re-shooting them completely - Gene Allen threatened physical harm if they did.

There's touchy problems, too. I've gotten around to finally watching more of the comedy shorts on the Slapstick Encyclopedia box set (issued by David Shepard's Film Preservation Associates via Image Entertainment). One short, an Our Gang comedy "The Dogs of War" looks wonderful, in terms of photographic quality. However, near the end, there is some of the worst nitrate decomposition. It almost looks like something Stan Brakhage would purposely create in one of his works of art:



In a case like this, what do we do? It's probably possible to use interpolation to re-animate completely destroyed frames. Maybe after 200 hours in photo editing, you can fix the warped (but not crackled) frames. Or do you just cut out the frames?

 

[Brian Borst]

I'm sorry for kicking this thread .
It is a bit ignorance as well. Most people don't know that a 35mm frame has a higher resolution than HD. They also think that an image has to be as clean as possible, and that the 'noise' (which, most of the time is actual grain that's supposed to be there) shouldn't be there.
I had a discussion with someone who thought that the HD version of Spider-Man looked awful. It wasn't as sharp as the other two films. Of course the slight softness of the image (which was also apparent in the dvd) turned out to be an artistic choice of the cinematographer. Not every DP wants his film to look as sharp as possible, but that seemed to be difficult to understand for him.

 

[Alan Tully]

I think we're spoiled rotten these days, so many old films just look so good on DVD. If you want to see a soft image lacking in colour & shadow detail, just go to a cinema & see a new movie!

 

[Joe Karlosi]

I definitely think we're spoiled these days and expect way too much out of a DVD transfer. Just think of what films some of us used to enjoy watching on TV while growing up, not even in OAR and choppy and scratchy.

I just bought my first HDTV, a 46" Samsung -- so far I haven't gotten into Bluray (though I will by year's end) and my SD's look great on this set. And yet there I was last night watching 1962's CAPE FEAR with it looking absolutely magnificent -- and I was STILL occasionally playing with the TV settings for this black and white film, trying to get everything to look like I don't know what!

Yeah, we expect too much. Let's get those Bowery Boys films already, Warner -- and forget about waiting til each and every one of their 48 old films look like they were made today!

 

[MichaelEl]

Unfortunately, soft focus (like fog) doesn't seem to translate that well to DVD. Whether or not this problem will be corrected by Blu-Ray, I don't know, but the extra resolution certainly isn't going to make it any worse.

Russell G seems to think HD is unnecessary for older films, and I might agree if we're talking Academy Ratio or "flat" widescreen (and no soft focus or foggy scenes!) For Cinemascope and the like, the ultra-wide frame often places people and objects too far from the camera for SD-DVD to capture all the details, at least based on what I've seen. HD transfers are a revelation for these sorts of films, and definitely worth the extra cost and effort.

 

[Brian Borst]

I think probably every movie will benefit from HD, if put on BD correctly. Remember, film still has an higher resolution than HD. Even if the film itself maybe won't be sharper (They will. But if not, would that be a bad thing?), the DP's intended look will be transferred much better than on DVD.
And academy flat movies not good looking on HD? Have you seen Casablanca on HD-DVD? It looked tremendous.

 

[TravisR]

That's a quote from about two and a half years ago. I'm not trying to speak for him but releases like The Adventures Of Robin Hood and Casablanca have probably disspelled that myth for him.

 

[Vern Dias]

Upscaled DVD transfers can look extremely good. Anyone who doubts that can check out Moulin Rouge from Fox or (choke) New York Minute from WB.

When we see transfers like these, then we KNOW that the studios are not giving us all the quality on the other titles that they are capable of delivering on DVD.

However, HD transfers at 1920x1080 invariably will look better that DVD at 720x480 (NTSC).

Vern