Parent Trap is a WONDERFUL transfer (1 Viewer)

[Brian W]

Saw Parent Trap over the weekend (the original, 1 of the 4 Disney Vault Series released last week). I was surprised to read another thread started by a member expressing disappointment!

The quality of this vintage transfer IMHO is in the league of North By Northwest, very filmic and resurrects that early 60's Disney quality that has been lost on video. The colors, clarity, depth of field ...just a stellar transfer all around. The only areas where it does look a little rough are segments where there is use of split screen, naturally those scenes were always a little rough. And the use of filmed backgrounds (the director in his commentary regrets those scenes, they do look crude).

Just look at Maureen O Hara's mahogany hair color, the lime green outfit she wears, the detail in her green eyes and Hayley's blue eyes.

I suspect that by putting the bonus features on a separate disc that this just adds to the hi-bit that is dedicated to the resolution of the transfer. I hope to continue seeing more of this occurring with other studio's treasures, not just "5-star" treatment for the big box office or top name vintage titles as is usually the case.

Disney did not skimp on anything here, the bonus features but more importantly the transfer.

 

[D. Scott MacDonald]

I gave this to my wife for mothers day, and was surprised at how good it was. It's hard to believe that a company that could put together such a nice package is contemplating pan-and-scan-only releases.

 

[Jefferson]

The other thread ended up saying really positive things about Vault Disney releases. I ended up emailing them with my positive comments, something I've never done before.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Exactly everyone.
Be sure and email/call Disney and express serious praise for the super 16x9 WS releases from their vault collection. If your wife or kids enjoyed the titles be sure and mention that. Disney needs to know that "families" enjoy quality transfers and widescreen as much as the single HT enthusiast. (Be sure and put a plug for a widescreen muppet treasure island before you hang up the phone )
But I do have to say that inspite of the great effort here for Disney, that at least the transfer of the Parent Trap is a dissappointment. It's dull, dark, soft-focus and low in contrast. It makes all the day time scenes look like they were filmed on an overcast day. The minute I saw the "THX" logo I knew were were in for some trouble. So much detail has been filtered to minimize grain and entropy to ease compression that it has that "heathers" look.
Other than that the transfer is great. Very clean and steady and solid. But the lack of detail and dark, dull appearance are a real let-down. It looked better on TV!!!
-dave

 

[LarryH]

Help! Aside from the question of the image quality on this disk, my question is: Is it OAR or not?? Some posters are implying that it is 16x9 like the other vault releases while on the following thread it is being described in a way that makes me think not:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...ht=parent+trap
IMDB (for whatever that's worth) gives the OAR as 1.75.

 

[george kaplan]

The Parent Trap is definitely OAR and anamorphic. I think in that other thread, the point was that on the Parent Trap dvd, there is a widescreen preview of Snow Dogs, but the Snow Dogs dvd is p&s.

 

[LarryH]

I understand. My confusion. Thanks.

 

[TedD]

Brian,

If it's such a wonderful transfer, then why do the scenes from the movie used in the supplemental materials look so much sharper and have much better color than the feature itself?

Ted

 

[Peter Kline]

Is Haley still sticking her tongue out on this film? (She later got rid of the habit). This is a guilty pleasure for me. I"ll be purchasing it in a few days to show my nephew. He likes Haley.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

If it's such a wonderful transfer, then why do the scenes from the movie used in the supplemental materials look so much sharper and have much better color than the feature itself?

Ted, my thoughts exactly.
Some others have posted here being a tad dissappointed with the "dim" or "dull" nature of some of the Vault discs (Yeller, Polly, Swiss, Parent Trap).
So far I've watched Parent Trap and Pollyana. They both seemed dim, dull, with subdued color and contrast.
They also both seemed overly-soft and lacking in detail/resolution.
What's astonishing is that when you view the suppliments on both of these discs, you see film clips in the documentaries that exhibit rich, saturated color! What's more disturbing to me is that when watching the documentaries for Pollyana, I almost fell out of my chair because the film clips (4x3) in the documentary were also razor-sharp and just laden with detail. So much resolution that I when I switched back to the feature discs, and skipped to the same scenes to do a comparison check, the feature film looked so blurry, out-of-focus, and lacking in resolution I could hardly belive I had just watched the movie and survived!
Here's my fear:
To reduce film-grain (to aid in compression or just to make the image look cleaner) in the feature film the transfers were over-filtered which also reduced apparent detail. Do you guys remember the THX approved 16x9 "Heathers" DVD? It is so filtered that the old image 4x3 lbxed DVD actually has more detail and looks better!
I would have thought Disney wouldn't make a mistake like this but the suppliments just look so razor-sharp (with superior color saturation too...especially on parent trap), clear, and detailed that it really makes me think something has gone seriously wrong with some of these DVD transfers.
The next problem to fight after OAR and EE is overfiltering I think the philosophy at the studios is the more dials and buttons you push while doing the transfer the better the results will be. The same mentality of "now let's eq and compress everything" you get in some recording studios. The results often are that the original, unprocessed image looks (and sounds) best.
-dave

 

[Brian W]

DaVID-

Did a comparison check last night and honestly do not see any "improvements" in the quality of the special feature clips when compared to the transfer of the movie presentation itself. Just that the clips had, naturally, video artifacting while the film presentation is a lovely anamorphic transfer, grain is there but not enhanced (actually there is very little edge enhancement noticeable-another plus!), smooth, film-like images -though sharp in detail, and what seems to be very accurate color saturation for how the film probably originally looked matching the technicolor process/look that was used at that date. I see no evidence of over-filtering or softening of the transfer, or that the bonus feature clips look any sharper, more saturated or detailed than the film transfer. Only problems are what I already noted regarding the segments where there was use of split screen and blue screen, inherently crude especially by today's standards and the transfer during these segments represent how these scenes always looked.

I think Disney deserves major kudos for this one. The polarity of responses here really baffles me, at least the transfer really looks phenomenal on my calibrated set up (RP91 prog. scan, Elite 510) and that is all I can compare this to, to how good transfers look on my set up and how decidedly inferior transfers look on my set up . This one, taking all factors regarding how the film elements must have originally looked gets an A+++ from me.