Possession (1981) UK BD (1 Viewer)

[schan1269]

Don't know what happened, loaded three pics in three posts and the first two disappear...but they "are there" when I go to edit...

 

[schan1269]

Last tidbit, then I "give up on this for the night"(pictures...whatever is wrong).

I know the difference between film grain and the flecking.

The scene when she "sees Jesus" (banding evident in the dress, not so bad as the beginning apt scene) and then goes berzerk in the subway (lots of grain but looks fabulous...one of the best looking scenes in the entire movie)

 

[bgart13]

Could it be your bd player's processing the disc poorly?

 

[schan1269]

I added an edit to the originating post that when I have time tomorrow, I will move the player.

The plasma in question is an interlacer that has a penchant for exaggerating banding. Yay.

The OM of the Orei frankly sucks. I looked again at the picture settings it gives you and any enhancements are off and all color/saturation/sharpness are all "flat".

But every other movie I've put in it have been fine. But, nobody has ever said banding occurred in any of the other movies(I checked review sites for all, Possession is the only one where banding has been mentioned). Have a distinct feeling that the problem lies mostly* with the Hitachi.

*As in there is banding present. Should it be? I'm not one that has a technical answer for that. I just have a display that has a poor handling of it.

 

[David Mackenzie]

Hi Sam,

These "flecks" are film grain particles which are being exaggerated by in-TV edge enhancement. Your Sharpness control is set too high is going to make the grain (and there is a lot of it in some of the darker scenes) exaggerated. How is it set?

I think also that your plasma is an ALIS model? If so, you shouldn't be using that to evaluate transfers. I haven't dealt with these in a long time, but my understanding is that they use temporal interleaving tricks to simulate a Full HD image.

Did you say you had the display professionally calibrated by an ISF tech? They may have chosen to put the Sharpness control high to compensate for a resolution deficiency inherent to ALIS displays; this is the flipside.

By the way, you don't need to defend the disc just because I worked on it. I'm all game for constructive criticism - very few transfers are perfect. But, I think its 'important we differentiate imperfections on the disc to display issues!

 

[David Mackenzie]

Actually, I say "in-TV" edge enhancement, but it could be the player.

Check out the Sharpness pattern on the Spears & Munsil or AVSHD709 discs, or DVE HD, or something similar.

 

[schan1269]

ALIS, I had completely forgotten about that. I did say it was an interweaving plasma. (in these days of 1080P sets and "no, plasma were never interlaced..." that some people tend to believe...)

Anyway, I get the point where it is inherent with the ALIS that edge enhancement(even after calibration) is over-cooked.

What made Fujitsu-Hitachi panels "so nice and smooth" then, is their Achilles heel now.

For those not "up" on ALIS..

Back in the day(before Blu Ray/HD-DVD), ALIS made a huge difference in picture quality on 480i/P conversion and when showing 720P and 1080I, as it could reproduce 720P and 1080i natively(at a time nothing else could).

All of the(at the time) drawbacks...
1. Out of the box "purple blacks"
2. Lacking contrast
3. Ghosting

Were solved with calibrating(which was promoted by Pioneer and Panasonic as well).

But, anytime you see a P resolution anything with banding...it gets exaggerated.(which wasn't a problem

 

[David Mackenzie]

Here are the pictures Sam sent me via email:

Did you say this display was calibrated? These look awful, to be blunt. The aspect ratio is wrong, for a start. It's also difficult to tell much from pictures taken of screens (too many variables to consider), but it does look like there's detail being scrubbed out. The overall colour temperature is way too blue as well - unless that's just a feature of the camera (doesn't look like it though).

Was this calibrated by an ISF tech? If you're reviewing anything in a professional capacity, you should definitely have your display checked out.

 

[schan1269]

Funny you mention that...looking awful....

There are two reasons for that(will add a 2nd edit to the originating post)...

1. This Orei likes to brick itself when going into standby(started that when watching this movie, have already contacted Bombay for a replacement). When you unplug it it goes back to factory default. Of course when your BD players is playing games...

2. The ALIS panel has a lot of this blame. I just tried it on a Panny 42" 1080P and, while the blue is still pronounced, nowhere near this bad. And looking at the pics(on here) vs on the plasma itself...the blues are more pronounced "here" than there. (Camera? Fact the computer I am currently on is a 2yo Acer LED monitor? Who knows. The pics might have been taken when Full RGB was set. I didn't discover the Full RGB reset till this morning.)

Anyway there are ways to mitigate the weird look of an ALIS panel(beyond finding out all the stuff you turn off gets reset to auto when you unplug the BD player from bricking itself).

For those of us with an ALIS(and this goes for all "1080P movies with banding") panel...

Set your BD player for 1080I or 720P. I also set the Orei for YCbCr. Factory reset(maybe part of the bricking itself) takes it to Full RGB. Full RGB is a mess.

My apologies for having a BD player playing games...and not catching it.

 

[David Mackenzie]

Definitely have your displays calibrated, and put them in their most accurate preset modes (Movie/Cinema/THX/Professional etc.) That'll get you most of the way to accurate video.

 

[David Mackenzie]

By the way, assuming once again that it's not related to the camera, I totally understand what you mean by the "green screen" look. The chroma resolution there is atrociously low.

Can you just confirm, in the picture of Sam Neill sitting with the briefcase, where in the photograph the blue wall is blurring into his face - does it seriously look like that on the actual TV screen? That's hideous... either the display, the player, or the setup is bad. The chroma resolution on the disc is as sharp as a tack (as far as 4:2:0 allows, anyway).

 

[schan1269]

By the way, assuming once again that it's not related to the camera, I totally understand what you mean by the "green screen" look. The chroma resolution there is atrociously low.

Can you just confirm, in the picture of Sam Neill sitting with the briefcase, where in the photograph the blue wall is blurring into his face - does it seriously look like that on the actual TV screen? That's hideous... either the display, the player, or the setup is bad. The chroma resolution on the disc is as sharp as a tack (as far as 4:2:0 allows, anyway).

Yeah I don't know what is going on with Chroma or anything else. I fired up Pillow Book again and it still looks fabulous(which would be the other hard test of my 4 EU discs).

This disc looks millions of magnitudes better on the Panny 1080P. Depending if Bombay gives me grief on an exchange on the BD player, I may just never turn the thing off. I had to reset everything when I connected it to the Panny(which took maybe 2 minutes).

You'd think factory reset on a BD player would be to "Auto", not "everything on" and Full RGB.

For what it is worth, I got it watchable on the Hitachi. Still it was nowhere near the Panny. First BD I've run into this problem with...on either Hitachi.

 

[FoxyMulder]

If you are seeing issues and the BD player or display is at fault then you should see issues with all the blu ray discs you put in, it doesn't make sense to see issues on only one disc, something weird is going on, if i was you i would check the disc on another player and display, perhaps someone you know has the equipment and you can take the disc over and check it at their place, i think the bottom line is that either your display or BD player or indeed both of them are messing up here.

 

[schan1269]

If you are seeing issues and the BD player or display is at fault then you should see issues with all the blu ray discs you put in, it doesn't make sense to see issues on only one disc, something weird is going on, if i was you i would check the disc on another player and display, perhaps someone you know has the equipment and you can take the disc over and check it at their place, i think the bottom line is that either your display or BD player or indeed both of them are messing up here.

The primary issue is the ALIS display and banding.

That was the major flaw with ALIS(but back before 2007, there was no "progressive banding"...unless it was 480P, then it didn't matter). When you get progressive banding(which this disc does have)...ALIS can't handle it.

 

[David Mackenzie]

It won't necessarily apply to all discs. The specific look of one film could just be a bad match for the issues in the system.

 

[FoxyMulder]

It won't necessarily apply to all discs. The specific look of one film could just be a bad match for the issues in the system.

That's stretching it a bit David.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

That's stretching it a bit David.

Foxy mate I have the disc and the issues reported I can not see. It can only mean that whatever Sam's system is doing is exaggerating the look certain scene takes in the film, which might be mistaken for a flaw IMO. It is not perfect but what ever flaws are there are not the ones Sam is seeing and are I think mainly down to the age of the film.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Here are the pictures Sam sent me via email:

Did you say this display was calibrated? These look awful, to be blunt. The aspect ratio is wrong, for a start. It's also difficult to tell much from pictures taken of screens (too many variables to consider), but it does look like there's detail being scrubbed out. The overall colour temperature is way too blue as well - unless that's just a feature of the camera (doesn't look like it though).

Was this calibrated by an ISF tech? If you're reviewing anything in a professional capacity, you should definitely have your display checked out.

Foxy mate I have the disc and the issues reported I can not see. It can only mean that whatever Sam's system is doing is exaggerating the look certain scene takes in the film, which might be mistaken for a flaw IMO. It is not perfect but what ever flaws are there are not the ones Sam is seeing and are I think mainly down to the age of the film.

If some of the problems listed above are due to the BD player or display then they are going to be obvious on more discs than just this one.

 

[schan1269]

OK, let me reiterate again.The blue was probably the fault of full RGB. I haven't replicated that much blue since. (and it still could be over-cooked camera)ALIS panels cause exaggerated banding.

The "green screen look" is nowhere near as bad with the Orei set...1080i/60. (instead of 1080P/24)

 

[schan1269]

Will write a new post later. Currently using my phone in a fringe area...anyway...What a difference a properly functioning Blu Ray player makes. Watching a bit of it now and it looks fabulous.Currently using the Orei with a Denon AVR connected to a garage sale find Polaroid LCD. Possession looks better on this 720P LCD than it did on a calibrated Panny 1080P plasma...Won't be back at the other house (where the plasmas are) for 2 days. Tree split in half over the corner of the house with the master bedroom...tree people won't be there till some time in the afternoon.