Phantasm II, an upscale? (1 Viewer)

[FanboyZ]

Kentai seems to think so.

http://www.kentaiblog.com/2013/05/phantamsagorier.html?zx=96e9be7310ba856c

Caps-A-Holic seems to corroborate that viewpoint.

http://caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/comparison.php?cID=1675


How is this possible?

 

[FoxyMulder]

Contrast boosted ugly mess of a release.

 

[bgart13]

Ahem...

Full disclosure: I don't own Scream Factory's new Special Edition Blu-ray release of PHANTASM II.

Next.

 

[Vincent_P]

So bgart13, I take it you think the Scream Factory Blu-ray shows more detail than the PAL DVD and caps-a-holic somehow got it all wrong?

Vincent

 

[FanboyZ]

My eyes and brain tell me (when viewing it in motion) that it's HD, but Caps-A-Holic's selection and Shout's prior history give me doubts.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Cliff of Shout Factory is posting again at bluray.com if anyone is inclined to inquire of him.

 

[Ruz-El]

I'm not registered at bluay.com but would love to hear from them. All publicity points to a new scan, I thought anyway. I picked it up cheapish but not had a chance to watch it. Shout/Scream FActory usually do pretty good work.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I'm not registered at bluay.com but would love to hear from them. All publicity points to a new scan, I thought anyway. I picked it up cheapish but not had a chance to watch it. Shout/Scream FActory usually do pretty good work.

Do they do new scans or do they take whatever the owners of the property give them like Olive and Twilight Time, an example is Halloween III: Season of the Witch, i put them in the player recently and my opinion is too much sharpening applied to it, small detail improvement and better encoding over the DVD but it looks like something from Universal to me, looks HD but looks more HD video than HD film like to me, it looks like the same master as the last DVD release.

No excuse for some of these not looking much better, i take what they did with The Evil Dead as being just one example, yes it's 16mm and not 35mm but they ( not Shout ) gave it love and careful attention and its one of my favourite blu ray discs.

Phantasm II.....contrast boosted which is done to give an illusion of greater detail, they do that to many releases to fool the brain and give more "pop" to the image, some people love the look, look at this cap and the loss of visible details from contrast boosting, oh and don't tell me it always looked this way, nope, don't buy it.

http://caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/comparison.php?cap1=21788&cap2=21775&art=full&image=9&cID=1675&action=1&lossless=#vergleich

 

[bgart13]

Vincent, I essentially commented it is difficult to take someone's criticism seriously if they don't even have the product and haven't seen it. Whenever I get concerned about differences between caps of different versions, I do my very best to wait to make a decision until I see it with my own eyes on my television. Plus I hope folks don't take my opinion too seriously...

 

[TravisR]

Do they do new scans or do they take whatever the owners of the property give them like Olive and Twilight Time...

My understanding is that they have to take what is given to them by Universal (or whoever is the owner).

While I haven't seen the Phantasm II disc, I find it all but impossible to believe that Universal would try to license an upconvert and Shout- no matter how bad they want a title- would accept it and try to sell it. That's not to say that the disc is great or that there isn't some serious flaw that should stop people from buying it but I can't believe that it in 2013, two companies are trying to pass off an upconvert.

 

[bgart13]

Has anyone compared the Uni dvd to the bd? And has the PAL dvd been sharpened? There's a lot of older dvds out there that were sharpened, leading some to think they are more detailed than their bd counterparts.

 

[FoxyMulder]

My understanding is that they have to take what is given to them by Universal (or whoever is the owner).

While I haven't seen the Phantasm II disc, I find it all but impossible to believe that Universal would try to license an upconvert and Shout- no matter how bad they want a title- would accept it and try to sell it. That's not to say that the disc is great or that there isn't some serious flaw that should stop people from buying it but I can't believe that it in 2013, two companies are trying to pass off an upconvert.

I think its using an older master or its been heavily degrained and lost a lot of higher frequency fine detail through that process, they then contrast boost and do other digital tweaks to try and make it look better, if that is a new film scan then its pretty poor looking and i can only assume they did extensive digital tweaks which have diminished everything, is this Universal again, no confidence in them at all despite last years Universal Monsters boxset looking very good.

 

[bgart13]

Got back to my office and took a look at the caps from Caps-A-Holic on my fairly old monitor (an NEC lcd 1550v). Not sure what other see, but the bd caps look much better than the dvd. The dvd has blocking and pixelation. The bd, while not in the league of something more modern and not significantly detailed, appears to be much better looking than the UK dvd -- on my little old monitor at work. Toggling back and forth shows more of just about everything here. Does it means it's an upscale or true HD? I don't know, I'm not a techie working in the field and am not capable of saying. The bd looks a lot better to me, though. Two caps that stand out with the diferrences are the crematorium shot and Liz standing in the hall shot.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Got back to my office and took a look at the caps from Caps-A-Holic on my fairly old monitor (an NEC lcd 1550v). Not sure what other see, but the bd caps look much better than the dvd. The dvd has blocking and pixelation. The bd, while not in the league of something more modern and not significantly detailed, appears to be much better looking than the UK dvd -- on my little old monitor at work. Toggling back and forth shows more of just about everything here. Does it means it's an upscale or true HD? I don't know, I'm not a techie working in the field and am not capable of saying. The bd looks a lot better to me, though. Two caps that stand out with the diferrences are the crematorium shot and Liz standing in the hall shot.

To me the differences you see in those shots can be attributed to boosted contrast, different colours, a little sharpening applied and better encoding and not extra detail that would normally come from a new film scan and blu ray HD release, age doesn't enter into the equation, older films can look stunning if handled correctly, yes even low budget older films.

 

[bgart13]

I know that, but I don't see sharpening in bd caps - just perhaps the UK dvd.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I know that, but I don't see sharpening in bd caps - just perhaps the UK dvd.

You don't always see sharpening with regards the traditional halo effect, mild sharpening results in none of that and is often applied to releases, i see the boosted contrast though and it looks like there is a lack of fine detail, possibly due to excessive filtering, at the end of the day its all theory.

If people are happy with it then who am i to tell them not to be, i'd sure like Shout to reveal more details about the release though and whether its an older master, newer master or simply looks this way because they used the best available materials and then Universal degrained and they thought ( wrongly ) a contrast boost would enhance it slightly to hide the fact the fine detail was now all gone.

The better encoding available via the codecs will mean artifacts visible on the DVD will be gone but if they mess up other aspects of the transfer due to overuse of digital tools and think contrast boosting is the answer then i disagree, by the way Kentai is a pretty reliable source and knows a helluva lot about these things, i trust the guy observations.

 

[FanboyZ]

It just worries me because Shout has a history of knowingly releasing SD upscales as the legitimate article, makes their work hard to trust.

 

[TravisR]

It just worries me because Shout has a history of knowingly releasing SD upscales as the legitimate article, makes their work hard to trust.

I know you're citing the truly damning and undeniable evidence of a random blog post and another site's screencaps but what is the rest of their history that "makes their work hard to trust" for you? I believe I remember one title but you're making it sound like it's what they do all the time.

 

[FanboyZ]

4 Jackie Chan movies, 2 separate releases within the last 5 months are knowingly upscaled.
One more so hard to imagine?

 

[TravisR]

One more so hard to imagine?

Yes because Phantasm II is coming out of Universal. They're far from perfect but I have never heard of them releasing an upconvert.