Criterion Press Release: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[dpippel]

Thanks. Here's my theory:

It's also worth noting that, according to Criterion, Heckerling signed off on everything regarding this release, including the framing.

 

[Dave H]

As I speculated earlier, I leaned on the new release being correct in framing if we are to believe Criterion (which I do as I do not believe Amy wouldn't have not seen or noticed this) . Although many prefer "more is better" in a frame/shot, a case could have been made that there was too much room in at least some of the older disc shots - and I suspected, Amy was not involved in that prior disc according to Criterion.

I have projected the old BD (pro-cal'd JVC RS440 paired with a 9 foot wide Stewart ST100 scope screen) and the disc is rather poor and very digital looking; blown out highlights, digital noise that doesn't resemble film grain, edge enhancement, overly saturated colors, very mediocre detail. It wouldn't shock me if it was an old 1080p telecine transfer from the DVD era.

It is possible Universal could release this on UHD BD, but on the other hand a number of Universal remasters have still not reached UHD BD including The Breakfast Club, The Thing, 12 Monkeys, and maybe others I am not thinking about.

 

[Vern Dias]

Heckerling is a director, not a cinematographer. She might not have noticed it. Only some of us are anal-rententive .

 

[Dave H]

Heckerling is a director, not a cinematographer. She might not have noticed it. Only some of us are anal-rententive .

Pure speculation, Vern. I don't believe Criterion is lying to us.

 

[Vern Dias]

I have projected the old BD (pro-cal'd JVC RS440 paired with a 9 foot wide Stewart ST100 scope screen) and the disc is rather poor and very digital looking; blown out highlights, digital noise that doesn't resemble film grain, overly saturated colors, very mediocre detail.

Not what I am seeing on my JVC RS57. Are you watching the disc from the double bill or an older release?

 

[Vern Dias]

Pure speculation, Vern. I don't believe Criterion is lying to us.

Did you read my post? Criterion would not have seen the issue if it was caused by a error that was created before they started the actual mastering.

 

[Dave H]

Did you read my post? Criterion would not have seen the issue if it was caused by a error that was created before they started the actual mastering.

if...if...if

 

[Dave H]

Not what I am seeing on my JVC RS57. Are you watching the disc from the double bill or an older release?

The highlights are actually better on the DVD! The edges of her hair look almost on fire. I'm watching from the original BD. Did they release another transfer after that on BD?

Fast Times at Ridgemont High • US Blu-ray vs. US Collector's Edition DVD

caps-a-holic.com

 

[AlexNH]

large

Thanks. Here's my theory:
Whoever initially scanned the film elements and created the DI (digital intermediate) file flat out screwed up and mis-framed the image. (Although, I suppose there could have been some damage to the film element or other extenuating circumstance requiring this.)

Since Criterion can only work with the files supplied to them by the studio, and the right side of the image was already missing in the source they used to author the disc, they would not have realized that the scan they were using was already compromised by whoever performed the transfer from the film elements.

Granted, while it's not a big thing to be missing some of the right side of the image, it's disingenuous for Criterion to say it's no different from what you might see in a theatre.
It's common for theatres to crop the edges of the image to a slight degree, but it's a very shoddy theatre operation that would only crop from one side of the image, leaving the image on the screen off center.

Still, since Criterion can only work with the source materials they are supplied, and it probably would not have been obvious during the authoring process, we should definitely cut them a break here.

To those who remarked on the previous bluray image quality, I would only comment that the version included with the Fast Times / Dazed double bill, was VC1 minimally compressed (24 GB stream) and looked just fine on a 50" x 100" projection setup viewed from 8 feet distance.

I don't understand your first sentence. When you say "initially scanned?" When was that? Like right before the materials were sent to Criterion? Or back years ago?

 

[TravisR]

As I speculated earlier, I leaned on the new release being correct in framing if we are to believe Criterion (which I do as I do not believe Amy wouldn't have not seen or noticed this) .

Is there literally anyone on the planet who would have noticed this without the AB comparison? I hope the only way that the DVD Beaver folks noticed it was when they looked at the new and old caps.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Is there literally anyone on the planet who would have noticed this without the AB comparison? I hope the only way that the DVD Beaver folks noticed it was when they looked at the new and old caps.

Gary whining about the most minute (or in this case not really major) cropping has been his raison d'etre for 20 years now. This is why I finally lost interest in his clickbaity word salad ("The image is tight and HD sourced!") reviews and wildly inaccurate caps some time ago.

 

[Vern Dias]

I don't understand your first sentence. When you say "initially scanned?" When was that? Like right before the materials were sent to Criterion? Or back years ago?

Who knows? Universal and maybe the facility that was contracted to do the scan from the film elements to the digital master file.

There are two distinct steps in creating the physical media we purchase when the original source is motion picture film.

The first (scanning) involves creating a file containing the digitized frames from the film. The scanner operator determines the area of the film frame to capture and store in the file, which is significant to our discussion.

The second (mastering) involves manipulating the digital image stored in the file (color correction, exposure, and a host of other factors) adding chapters, etc to create the file(s) that reside on the physical media.

 

[AlexNH]

Who knows? Universal and maybe the facility that was contracted to do the scan from the film elements to the digital master file.

There are two distinct steps in creating the physical media we purchase when the original source is motion picture film.

The first (scanning) involves creating a file containing the digitized frames from the film. The scanner operator determines the area of the film frame to capture and store in the file, which is significant to our discussion.

The second (mastering) involves manipulating the digital image stored in the file (color correction, exposure, and a host of other factors) adding chapters, etc to create the file(s) that reside on the physical media.

Then I feel like your theory is pretty weak.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Scanning is generally performed at full aperture to capture the entirety of the image on the camera negative or other film element, and then those scans are cropped as needed during mastering.

 

[Mark-P]

Posted without comment.

 

[AlexNH]

Posted without comment.
View attachment 95674

So you don't buy their explanation?

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I've got the Criterion in my player right now and it looks very good.

The colors in the screen caps make the hues seem more pale than they are on my TV.

Unfortunately, I don't own the Uni BD so I can't directly compare - I reviewed the Uni but that was years ago.

All I know is the Criterion looks very natural to me! I wouldn't want to see colors that're "hotter" than on the Criterion, as they'd be overdone.

 

[Lord Dalek]

I've got the Criterion in my player right now and it looks very good.

The colors in the screen caps make the hues seem more pale than they are on my TV.

Yeah as I said Tooze is infamous for using the wrong colorspace for his caps.

 

[Jeffrey D]

I've got the Criterion in my player right now and it looks very good.

The colors in the screen caps make the hues seem more pale than they are on my TV.

Unfortunately, I don't own the Uni BD so I can't directly compare - I reviewed the Uni but that was years ago.

All I know is the Criterion looks very natural to me! I wouldn't want to see colors that're "hotter" than on the Criterion, as they'd be overdone.

Did you see any egregious framing issues?

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Did you see any egregious framing issues?

I saw the framing in the caps presented earlier.

I freeze-framed - froze-framed? - in a bunch of the shots capped on the other site and what I saw accurately matched what they showed (even if the caps' colors looked weaker than what I saw).

Whether that's "egregious" or accurate I'll leave up to others to decide, as I don't claim to know the correct framing.

The Uni and Criterion versions offer different framing, but as others have noted, that doesn't make the Uni correct.

So let that bickering continue!