Quality of transfer: Besson's "The Big Blue" (1 Viewer)

[Doug_L]

All in all I am very impressed with the quality of this transfer taking into account the age (1988) and original of the transfer (apparently a used print, as evidenced by scratches and "cigarette burns"). I have a rather pointed question for those with both this DVD (Columbia Tristar 03927)and a properly calibrated viewing system: is the contrast intentionally too high in nearly every scene on land, or is my TV mis-calibrated?

I thought that I had properly adjusted my levels (contrast and brightness specifically) to avoid blooming, but I found on a recent viewing of this film that background objects were often/typically pushed beyond the point of blooming, to the point where details were obscured. An example might be the outline of brightly lit rocks, the lapel in Arquette's white suit, detail within snow-covered peaks (but only sometimes).

The fact that the vast majority of these blooming occurences (sorry, not that great with the technical jargon) were:
1) in the background (and that the foreground/action seemed to be spot on),
2) always above water,
3) my set has never seemed this far off/out of whack,
4) and the origin of the print,

leads me to wonder about Besson's intent (or that this is merely a good, but not great, transfer).

Hoping others can confirm that it's the disc and not my TV, but either way I'd like to know so I can either relax or try to recalibrate. My (relevant) system is a Loewe Calida with automatic squeeze connected with AudioLink S-Video cables to a Pioneer 525 DVDP (480i only) (TV has non-defeatable line-doubler).

If helpful I can provide specific instances of this blooming, but it will require another viewing. In reality I saw them all over the place (ie: this is not isolated to 3 or 4 shots).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Doug_L]

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