Some bad news concerning the dvd release of the original "King Kong" (1 Viewer)

[Paul_Scott]

to go off the current topic for a moment , whoever suggested the inclusion of participation by Forry Ackerman, i would stand up and cheer and say bring him on!
the poor fellow is in his dusky twilight years now, is an INVALUABLE cultural resource for this kind of material, and has had a lifelong passion for it.
how i dearly wish he had been tapped to participate in many of these projects.
he's had it pretty rough lately too. if it was up to me, i'd give him free reign on a commentary and any other way he wanted to participate.

same with Ray Harryhausen. having carried O'Briens pioneering work even further, and having personally worked with the fellow he could be a great source of info, and above all, he's another life-long fan of the material.

i think Fay Wray may be a little too old and not very mentally alert for much more than a few interview snippets (anyone catch her appearence on the Oscars a few years back? she was looked like a deer caught in the headlights when Billy Crystal spotted her and asked her to take a bow)

another feature i would love to see, is how Kong has pervaded pop culture in the last 70 years. kind of like an irreverent or offbeat documentary that is the video equivilent to what The Girl In The Hairy Paw was to print.
Kong is a classic to be sure, but that doesn't mean that every supplement has to have a somber reverential edge.

i'd also like to see material that strongly addresses what the film was like to audiences in the context of 1933- an era of pulp entertainment, depression, with plenty of the world still unexplored, uncharted and mysterious.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Paul:

Great ideas!

Ackerman would make a great interview...I've always liked how he describes films and talks about those little nuggets of information.

And Fay Wray needs to be contacted for SOMETHING on this DVD.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

No, there are others here who acknowledge that older films can be reference quality and aren't expecting a Moulin Rouge or The Fellowship of the Ring. In fact, they ADAPT their analyzation to fit.

If you have to adapt to make it fit, it ain't reference quality. This isn't about whether something looks as good as possible. Oh, I give up - this is going nowhere...

 

[Damin J Toell]

It's not as if they "digitized" the image and completely recreated it in CGI. The films look very clean, but we certainly agree a clean print is a good thing, right?(!)

A clean print is a good thing. But if you scrub something too hard, you can also clean off the original finish. And that's not a good thing.

DJ

 

[Eric Peterson]

No he's not. I agree with Patrick & Jim's definition. However, I don't see how there can be one definition for the term "Reference Quality". This is a highly speculative term and similar to the use of "Mint" in collecting coins or sport cards. Every person that you talk to is going to have a different opinion of what "Mint" is. For example in baseball cards, the original tobacco cards were printed on cheap card stock and had no gloss and probably had rounded corners when they were originally removed from the cigarette pack. However, some of these cards are still referred to as mint even though they lack gloss, premium card stock, razor sharp corners, and 3D embossed logos.

Your defintion of "Reference Quality" essentially means "New", and that any "Reference Quality" DVD that is released today, may very well not be "Reference Quality" tomorrow and I simply can't buy into a defintion that is so narrow in scope.

Sorry to continue this off-topic discussion, but I wanted to show support for the defintion that nobody uses.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Ok everyone, here's the problem:

Kevin and Patrick are both representing 2 distinct ideas and using the same word. No can do and I don't think anyone could dissagree that in language we need to have shared meaning for semantic communication to be valid.

I've thought about this many times and even tried to get some well-known internet review sites to adopt this approach with no success. Here's the solution (which, IMHO, all internet review sites should accomodate):

(just talking about image quality to keep it simple...also applies to audio quality as well)

DVD Quality should be given 2 distinct ratings:

1. Absolute image quality. (Kevin's use of the word) This is the term "reference" that Kevin is using. It means, in abosolute terms, how does the image from this DVD look compared to the best the DVD format can offer. There is no concern here for print damage, restoration efforts, or artistic use of elements like "film grain" as all of these things detract from absolute image quality in absolute "reference" terms. This approach to quality goes hand in hand with whether the disc would serve as ideal "demo" material in a front-projection show room.

***IMPORTANT*** This places no value judgement on the validity of a directory choosing to use a grainy film-stock (Cameron Aliens), muted colors (Matrix), or mono audio (Woody Allen). These may all be perfectly valid artistic decisions, or reflect a technological limitation of the source prints. However...such artifacts (even film-based) do mean that in absolute terms the image from the DVD is not delivering the level of image purity that the format is capable of delivering.

Which just goes to show how important it is to *also* have the 2nd category of image quality:

2. Relative Image Qualty. (Patrick's use of the word) This reflects the image quality of the DVD determined by its level of transparency to the source. If the source is grainy, the DVD should be grainy. If the source has muted colors, the DVD should have muted colors (these source characteristics should first be determined based on the best surviving elements and the director's intentions, naturally). If the source image is soft-focus and lacking in detail, so should the DVD.

It should be obvious that a DVD could score the highest score on the "Relative" image quality scale and not on the "Absolute" image quality scale. This is true for theatrical presentations as well. I often see movies in the theater that are grain-ridden or soft-focus and so do not warrant an A+ on the "abosolute" image quality scale but the prints look exactly as the director wanted and so the prints *do* get an A+ on the relative scale (Gosford Park is a perfect example of such a film print *and* DVD).

The problem is that no review site makes a distinction between these 2 disperate image quality categories and often mix these 2 distinct and separate judging scales in their discussion and final score. How many times have you read a review complaing about "grain" in a DVD only to sigh with frustration that the reviewer didn't see the film projected as the director *wanted* that grain there as it was present theatrically as well (A.I.)??? If reviewers would first educate themselves to the director's artistic intentions for the image of a film, and *then* rate the DVD on 2 distinct categories, much of this confusion and mis-representation would be a non-issue. We could all know that in absolute terms A.I. isn't the ideal demo-disc in that it shows much film-grain. However, we'd also all know that the DVD scores an A+ for being true to the original film-prints and the director's artistic intentions all at the same time.

Win-Win:

Absolute Image Quality,
Relative Image Quality

The term "reference quality", without giving further clarification, refers to *absolute* image quality. However, the term *could* be linked to "relative image quality" if the distinction is made clear (ie: "in terms of faithfullness to the source film elements...this DVD provides a reference standard")

Certainly we can see the same philosphy applied to sound recordings. I can have a CD that does not sound good in abosolute terms, but is 100% faithful to the sound of the master tape and so is excellent in relative terms. Same thing.

How does this sound??????

 

[oscar_merkx]

David

great way to explain what is essentially the same thing

great job

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Anyone know how good the quality is on the Region 2 versions?

Jeff

 

[RobertR]

Anyone know how good the quality is on the Region 2 versions?

In "absolute" or in "relative" terms (per David's excellent post)?

 

[Kevin M]

As I clearly stated in all of my posts I would not give a mono soundtrack or a film older than ten years an "F" rating simply because they are mono or old, so don't assume that I will automatically dismiss a transfer as being inferior simply because of age, I wouldn't.

However...

1. Absolute image quality. (Kevin's use of the word) This is the term "reference" that Kevin is using. It means, in absolute terms, how does the image from this DVD look compared to the best the DVD format can offer. There is no concern here for print damage, restoration efforts, or artistic use of elements like "film grain" as all of these things detract from absolute image quality in absolute "reference" terms. This approach to quality goes hand in hand with whether the disc would serve as ideal "demo" material in a front-projection show room.

***IMPORTANT*** This places no value judgement on the validity of a directory choosing to use a grainy film-stock (Cameron Aliens), muted colors (Matrix), or mono audio (Woody Allen). These may all be perfectly valid artistic decisions, or reflect a technological limitation of the source prints. However...such artifacts (even film-based) do mean that in absolute terms the image from the DVD is not delivering the level of image purity that the format is capable of delivering.

David makes a good point here but I wasn't really referring to artistic choices rather that natural aging and technological limitations of the time.
IMO Reference Quality pretty much freely translates as "State Of The Art" but this can apply to modern films or not so modern, for example I personally consider Suspiria(1977) to be a transfer of "Reference Quality" because it is a nearly flawless (to my eyes at least) transfer of a pristine print and the 5.1 soundtrack is outstanding...well aside from a missing thunderclap that was in the original 1977 track. So would that missing thunderclap remove this DVD from the "Reference Quality" list? I'm unsure. I would say that the image is Reference Quality but the soundtrack is flawed in a very minor way that the director didn't intend....it still sounds great though.
Saving Private Ryan is an excellent representation of the artistic narrative that the director wanted to present...but would you use it as a reference disc to show off audio or image? The Soundtrack is undoubtedly outstanding but the image is less that perfect as per the director's choice....simply because the DVD properly represents the director's choices does that make it Reference Quality? IMO no.

You see, this is where all the semantics fall apart for me because I clearly see the term Reference Quality as being something mostly technical and not really artistic, something you would refer to as an example of "The State of The Art" (not necessarily the artistic) because this is the way the term has been used in the HT world for years and this is the way I understand it. You want to change the common usage & meaning of a term but I think this is a pointless waste of energy and a meaningless exercise in semantics.

Reference Quality = State of the Art. For as long as I have seen the term used in HT it has always meant that.
But hey, knock yourselves out, for me this serves no purpose any longer except as a venue to repeat myself & I have said all that I needed to say on the subject.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Hey Kevin,

that's pretty much what I meant to say too.

The reason I made mention of "artistic" considerations was to try to avoid people mis-interpreting the meaning of such an "objective" absolute-reference-quality review...

My fear was that if such an explanation wasn't offered, that some would take issue with saying that Saving Private Ryan wasn't "reference" by assuming that the reviewer was passing judgement on the artistic decisions of the director to film in a certain style when, in fact, the reviewer is simply responding to an objective level of perceived image quality (that has no bearing on subjective/relative issues like choices of film-stock or limitations of a given film technology)....

Hence, of course, the need for *two* rating categories that are explicit and distinct to handle these two disperate kinds of concerns.

-dave

 

[Kevin M]

No, I understood what you were saying David, and you have a good point but to me any good reviewers would pretty much clear that up in their reviews most of the time I.E. "This isn't exactly Reference Quality when compared to a modern film but it is certainly an outstanding transfer nonetheless.."
,or in the case of Saving Private Ryan I actually read this quote "Is the transfer of Reference Quality? Well that depends on what you mean. Is it an accurate presentation of the directors wishes? Yes. Is it something you would use to demonstrate the sharpness & clarity of DVD? No."
,to me that is pretty clear and basically what Reference Quality is intend...man I've said all this before!!.

Just when I'm OUT they pull me back IN!!

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Kevin,

agreed that any good reviewer should be able to clarify their ranking of PQ as you've explained.

However, I do feel that a dual-rating system would still benefit the reader of a DVD review. For instance, depsite all good intentions with "the grain in this transfer is faithful to the director's intentions and source elements" is it really fair to then give the PQ rating a simple "4 out of 5" when the DVD is, in fact, 100% faithful to the source? Since the DVD is a *replication* of a source print...I think it's imperative that it be rated as such...*how faithful to the source* the DVD is being is actually *more* important to a film-lover like me than it's "objective" Picture quality in absolute terms.

I think that the Aliens DVD should get 4 out of 5 on the "objective/absolute" quality scale, but get 5 out of 5 on the relative/faithful-to-the-source scale....To see one simple 4 out of 5 picture-quality rating in bold text at the top of a review, despite all caveats and conditions stated in the body of the text, just isn't giving a fair or complete picture.

For sites that don't provide a numeric value or bar-graph representing picture or sound quality this is a non issue as the body-text needs to be referred to directly. And I'd always expect any serious reader to take the time to read the full review text. But for any site using a simple "4/5" picture quality rating that's prominently displayed in the review summary...I think it does a disservice to have such a numeric system that only responds to one type of criteria.

Having one rating for "Overall Picture Quality" (abosolute/objective) and one for "DVD encoding faithfullness to the source" would help to legitamize an entire area of encoding/mastering criteria that is largely ignored by review staff in general. It would also help to educate the wider audience of readers that DVD picture and sound *should* be faithful to the source and that the source isn't necessarilly live-cam-HD or 5.1 Dolby Digital.

If anyone doubts that there is some serious misunderstanding about the relevance of these issues just take a look at any one of the dozens of threads on this forum that argue about grain removal or the reprocessing of historic sound-mixes for home-video presentation. All of these issues "hide" behind the problem statements like "Audio, 2/5, undistinguished mono" from review sites like widescreen review. It's a real problem and even at HTF many enthusiasts here still look at the grain in a transfer of a film like Aliens as "bad" not understanding the distinction between absolute and relative picture quality criteria.

In any case, since the *first* priority of a DVD transfer should be to be faithful to the source, it seems odd that the picture-quality rating system employed at every review site I've encountered only refers to absolute/overall picture quality. That doesn't seem the best way to legitimize to both the DVD-buying public and disc-producing studios the importance of a transfer being faithful to the source!

 

[Kevin M]

Look guys, this is off topic, start a new thread with all the relevant posts here and I'll join you there to discuss but let's stop highjacking this thread.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

good call...

 

[Kevin M]

I'm serious, start up a new thread dedicated to exactly what "Reference Quality" means....it sounds so absurd when I read that....and I'll join you there.
I think it is rude & childish to annex the thread starters original topic to our little argument/conundrum.

 

[Jim Peavy]

You mean 71...:frowning: ()

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Hey Kevin:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...hreadid=123354

see ya there!

 

[Ed St. Clair]

But movies have been made for many decades.

O' Good!
The Model-T, is 'still' a "reference quality" automobile!

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Mint means; the finest condition the 'item' was ever offered in.
Mint & Reference Quality, are not the same definition of condition.
Just because something is "mint", does NOT mean that 'item' is "RQ".
Case in point, the tobacco baseball cards. There are indeed TC's that rate a "mint" status.
However, not one TC, would ever be "RQ" for baseball cards in 2003.