Roman Waxy Holiday, in HD (1 Viewer)

[The Obsolete Man]

I stand to be corrected but didn't Paramount also get criticized for their HD blu ray transfers of Hatari and Funny Face for excessive DNR? Perhaps this transfer of Roman Holiday was done at the same time.

IIRC, Funny Face was only an issue on huge screens. On a normal, say, 40 or 50ish inch screen, things are fine. But when you blow it up for projection, there are issues.

Edit: here's the RAH review that backs that up. He watched it first on a 42-incher and liked it, but when watched on a larger screen, it fell apart

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/a-few-words-about-™-funny-face-in-blu-ray.331055/

 

[Alberto_D]

In my country the signal it's probably much more compressed than in USA and Europe. Netfix here it's probably worse too, since average internet speed for consumer here it's slower than USA and Europe..

Sorry for the hyperboles...

I base my comment on screen captures. If it was useless DVD Beaver would not be famous.
See the washed out details : http://notonbluray.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Roman-Holiday-DVNR-2.png

And the article did a critic too : http://notonbluray.com/blog/roman-holiday-itunes-review/
The moderator will probably remove the links. again...

 

[Tino]

DVD Beaver is hardly famous and have been wrong plenty of times in the past.

I looked at the ONE picture you linked to and that’s hardly proof of anything. The copy I own on Vudu looks nothing like that. It is bright and has proper grain.

As for that “review” that’s ONE persons opinion from a website I’ve never heard of. If you want to believe that as Gospel have at it.

I have not seen the iTunes version so I cannot comment on it.

Imagine that. Me not commenting on something I haven’t seen. What a novel idea.

 

[Tony Bensley]

In my country the signal it's probably much more compressed than in USA and Europe. Netfix here it's probably worse too, since average internet speed for consumer here it's slower than USA and Europe..

Sorry for the hyperboles...

I base my comment on screen captures. If it was useless DVD Beaver would not be famous.
See the washed out details : http://notonbluray.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Roman-Holiday-DVNR-2.png

And the article did a critic too : http://notonbluray.com/blog/roman-holiday-itunes-review/
The moderator will probably remove the links. again...

Just looking at the side by side screenshots, the HD images appear soft and almost muddy to my eyes. If they weren't marked, and somebody asked me which screenshots were from the HD source, I would have incorrectly guessed the DVD images!

While I agree that going solely by screenshots for visual evaluation can represent a slippery slope, that isn't my impression, in this case. At the very least, in my opinion, this demonstrates a streaming pitfall.

As it happens, our Netflix does have ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) in HD, although our package only allows for 720p resolution, as does our TV. Nevertheless, I'll try and persuade the Mrs. to check that version out, as she also has the DVD.

OK, I've just checked a bit of the opening sequence from the Netflix HD presentation that is represented in the Not On Blu-ray review. Very disappointing, to say the least!

Based on Tino's decidedly more positive report, it would appear that some HD versions of ROMAN HOLIDAY wildly differ in visual quality! Perhaps HDX or Vudu are the way to go with this title?

CHEERS!

 

[Tino]

You have to ask yourself first Tony

How were the shots taken?
What equipment was used?

One picture from some blog site is hardly proof of any kind.

 

[Tino]

Also the “review” refers to the iTunes version, NOT the streaming Netflix version.

 

[Tony Bensley]

You have to ask yourself first Tony

How were the shots taken?
What equipment was used?

One picture from some blog site is hardly proof of any kind.

Also the “review” refers to the iTunes version, NOT the streaming Netflix version.

To be fair, the review of the iTunes version includes three screenshots, not one.

Also, as I pointed out, it appears that there are a number of differing HD versions out there. While I totally get that variable factors enter into the final visual appearance, what little I viewed on the Netflix presentation wasn't even what I'd call decent DVD quality. Please understand that I'm not arguing that ALL streaming versions of ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) are of poor visual quality.

CHEERS!

 

[Race Bannon]

All this talk made me discover there was an HDX version of Roman Holiday (my fave of my fave) on Vudu, and I checked and it was only $6.99. Purchased while reading this thread.

We shall see.

 

[Tony Bensley]

To be fair, I did compare the 2002 DVD with the HD Netflix presentation, and the latter does look sharper.

CHEERS!

 

[OliverK]

You have to ask yourself first Tony

How were the shots taken?
What equipment was used?

One picture from some blog site is hardly proof of any kind.

Looking at his Blu-ray screenshots they look very similar to what is on blu-ray.com for example so he probably also knows how to get caps from itunes movies. This guy is knowledgable and he also comments on his screenshots as they do not tell the whole tale, he also comments on other movies a lot more favorably, for example on Auntie Mame from itunes.

The problem with streaming is that you have to have everything in the right place and you better also use the correct provider and then things might work out very well for you, if not disappointments are guaranteed. As an example I have just checked movies that due to movies anywhere are now available on vudu, itunes, amazon and the movies anywhere apps on several devices and it seems to me that I get the best playback quality for the 1080p movies via Amazon. The big disappointment is itunes which looks much worse and should be avoided at the moment as they seem to filter out all fine textures and film grain even at very high bitrates.

 

[Tino]

Sorry Oliver I disagree as I think Amazon has the worst quality while iTunes has the best.

On my LG 65” OLED my iTunes film look and sound great in 4K Dolby Vision as do my Vudu films in UHD.

Race please check in after you watch Roman Holiday and let us know what you think.

 

[OliverK]

Sorry Oliver I disagree as I think Amazon has the worst quality while iTunes has the best.

On my LG 65” OLED my iTunes film look and sound great in 4K Dolby Vision as do my Vudu films in UHD.

I cannot comment on 4k UHD and HDR as I have as of yet not tried any 4k UHD from itunes and I cannot watch UHD vudu so my comments were about 1080p movies only. I am pretty sure that you would agree with me here on my system for 1080p but this is the trouble with streaming, not everybody is looking at the same quality of streaming, there are so many variables. I used to also have very very bad quality with Amazon which was due to extremely low bitrates and now it has gotten so much better that I now prefer to watch movies that I bought on itunes and vudu on Amazon - crazy.

 

[Tino]

Crazy indeed.

 

[Alberto_D]

The problem it's not necessarilly screen captures, but the vide compression (the curse of digital age). Abusive video compression (extremelly often on broadcast and web) kills a lot ode details, and the MPEG-4 it's quite like if not in very rit bitrate.
MPEG-4 works better than MPEG-2 in some terms, and worse in others. While MPEG-2 (DVD era) had a more overal appearance from motion to quite stopped camera moviment, MPEG-4 differ a lot in quality from motion to stopped camera. MPEG-4 compress much more than MPEG-2, and it's a advantage in many cases, but it took much more information out in the process.

Digital processor got faster in olast 10 years, but image resolution also increased, got 4x larger areas, 4x more pixel, more data, and so the compression algorithn could get a lot more sophisticated since the amount of image and pixels to process in real time it's much wider.
So in this case a screen capture with very low motion to a given scene can render a almost detailed image, while a screen capture in a scene with motion can result in crap waxy look (plus waxy from grain reduction which also works bad in motion).

One problem is that people are used to iphone, low quality, and sometimes watch something just slight better than a DVD, but "dressed as 1080p" and think it's ok.
Honestly, people pay for a lie. It's like I sell a JPEG image claiming it's 2000x 1200 pixels wide, but use a extremelly low quality setting to render the JPEG.
Also, if you move away from TV a DVD and HD don't differ much. If youy watch close enough to see all details of a prime 1080p, the TV image don't get even, the light got distortion, the center got brighter than the edges and side (LCD curse...)

If you take 4K it's a huger problem, you can't see all 4K details unless you sit very close to the TV.
And there are people talking about 8k.,.. A TV manufacturer would try to convince you that it's required a larger TV to solve that... Butake a 80 inchs TV and the distance required to avoid a lot of uneven light on screen will be even bigger, and so ir this "solution" ends in nowhere.

Sorry to say that, but 8K for LCD technology (or should I say crapnology) it's a lie. LCD needs to end. I hope this technology end soon.
I will never approve LCDs !

 

[Alberto_D]

If you think this is true HD details you need to see a doctor...

http://notonbluray.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Roman-Holiday-Screenshot-21.png

I honestly believe people associates low resolution too much with a squared edges, larger pixels, much more than true details and textures. Bad comrpession often results in a image with no "squared" pixelated contourns, but with poor textures and poor details. A bit similar to interpolate a low resolution image to a higher resolution.

 

[OliverK]

If you think this is true HD details you need to see a doctor...

http://notonbluray.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Roman-Holiday-Screenshot-21.png

I honestly believe people associates low resolution too much with a squared edges, larger pixels, much more than true details and textures. Bad comrpession often results in a image with no "squared" pixelated contourns, but with poor textures and poor details. A bit similar to interpolate a low resolution image to a higher resolution.

You can be very sure that what Tino watches does not look like that. There is a reason that there are not too many forums and threads discussing the picture quality of a particular movie in its streaming version - too many variables.

 

[Race Bannon]

I checked it out on the big projection screen this morning, and it looks very good. Nice grain, sharp picture. Certainly blu-ray quality. (This is the HDX off of Vudu).

 

[Tino]

Well I don’t think The OP is listening to what any of us are saying nor do I think he wants to. He seems to have his own agenda to push his opinions and hyperbole and I’m done trying to reason.

Carry on.

 

[OliverK]

I am almost tempted to get the vudu version but then I watched Roman Holiday very recently and I would probably not rewatch it before a Blu-ray gets released. Sometimes it is hard not to buy even more movies that I will not watch before I upgrade them again to something even better

 

[Robert Crawford]

Well I don’t think The OP is listening to what any of us are saying nor do I think he wants to. He seems to have his own agenda to push his opinions and hyperbole and I’m done trying to reason.

Carry on.

I don't agree with the OP either.