UHD Review The Maltese Falcon UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[cda1143]

You can’t “hear” a digital filter. The filter removes the hiss and replaces it with nothing. All you hear is the original dialogue, and it sounds natural.

You can't hear a digital filter? How about a digital filter which removes all frequencies above 1khz, or a digital filter which compresses 70db of dynamic range down to 40db? While those filters themselves may be technically "inaudible", everyone can certainly hear the results of those filters.

plektret's concern was over wording used in the advertising of this disc. As RAH correctly noted, Warner typically does a good job with audio, so with any luck this particular disc will be fine. But this disc aside, the concern over audio manipulation is perfectly valid. Just as there are limits to how much film grain can be removed without loosing visual detail, there are limits to how much audio "noise" can be removed without loosing audible details.

This is an important and fascinating subject which deserves it’s own thread. As most of these posts have nothing to do with Maltese Falcon, it would be wonderful if they were ported over to a new thread.

Fortunately so far, no one has complained about the audio on this release.

 

[Robert Crawford]

My ears tells me the complete opposite

Have you watched this Maltese Falcon 4K/UHD? If not then continuing this discussion in this thread should stop and be shifted to a more appropriate thread.

 

[Lord Dalek]

My two cents...

Optical is already pretty compressed as is. It wouldn't take much "hiss removal" for something like CEDAR (which I doubt was actually employed here but whatever) to become quite audible, quite quickly.

 

[jayembee]

Probably the exact same issue people here have with DNR. Why do people like film grain but not tape hiss?

Probably for the same reasons that people want aspect ratios and color grading to be exactly the same as when originally released, and don't want digital "enhancements" to visual effects, but are thrilled by newer multi-channel audio tracks that didn't exist when the films were released originally. Audio just doesn't seem to be as sacrosanct as video.

 

[jayembee]

That’s it! Hey they both have kind of confusing plots. I still don’t know what happened in TBS.

Neither did Raymond Chandler.

 

[jayembee]

While getting the film on 4K should feel like a win, it feels like Warner dropped the ball on this release. It may be the last one this film gets on home video and should have been the definitive release of the film. The glaring omissions are the two previous adaptations of the film, both included in a 3-disc DVD set of the movie years ago. Ideally, those films would have been remastered/restored in HD and presented here as extras. Without them, this release feels like it's missing important pieces and feels like it falls short of what it should have been.

The elements likely weren't in good enough shape to remaster and restore in HD without a lot of time, money, and effort that was beyond them in the moment. Especially given the craziness that's been going on since Warner was taken over by Discovery.

 

[Lord Dalek]

The elements likely weren't in good enough shape to remaster and restore in HD without a lot of time, money, and effort that was beyond them in the moment. Especially given the craziness that's been going on since Warner was taken over by Discovery.

That and there really isn't much commercial value in a stinker like Satan Met A Lady.

 

[Robert Harris]

Cleaning up audio is a slippery slope, especially with the myriad of tools available.

A true story:

A number of years ago, the original stereo mag mix for Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines was sent to a sound facility I shall not mention for clean-up.

When the archivist overseeing the project stopped by the facility to listen to what had been done, one of the post team was absolutely gleeful that he’d saved the day.

He played a sequence in which James Fox and Sarah Miles are doing a walk & talk, and explained how hard he’d worked to clean up absolutely terrible audio problems.

The archivist knew the sequence well, and asked if the tech was viewing image whilst saving the day. He had not bothered.

It was requested that picture be put up sync’d to the audio.

The aforementioned walk & talk had occurred on a gravel path, with appropriate Foley.

Can anyone guess what had been cleansed?

 

[benbess]

Amazing that even back in 1941 that The Maltese Falcon could be made for $375,000. Even for a Warner Bros. production in that era this was unusual, since many of their movies were around a million or so. Meticulous preparation by John Huston was what made this possible:

"During his preparation for The Maltese Falcon, his directorial debut, John Huston planned each second of the film to the last detail, tailoring the screenplay with instructions to himself for a shot-for-shot setup, with sketches for every scene, so filming could proceed fluently and professionally.[17] Huston was adamant the film be methodically planned, thus ensuring the production maintained a tight schedule within their budget....Such was the extent and efficacy of Huston's preparation of the script that almost no line of dialogue was eliminated in the final edit.[19]"

"Director of Photography Arthur Edeson, who had a background that included Universal's monster films, used low-key lighting and arresting angles to emphasize the nature of the characters and their actions, such as the scene where Gutman explains the history of the Falcon to Spade, drawing out his story so that the knockout drops in Spade's drink will take effect.[14] Roger Ebert describes this scene as "an astonishing unbroken seven-minute take",[10] and script supervisor Meta Wilde remarked of this scene:

It was an incredible camera setup. We rehearsed two days. The camera followed Greenstreet and Bogart from one room into another, then down a long hallway and finally into a living room; there the camera moved up and down in what is referred to as a boom-up and boom-down shot, then panned from left to right and back to Bogart's drunken face; the next pan shot was to Greenstreet's massive stomach from Bogart's point of view.… One miss and we had to begin all over again.[23]"

The Maltese Falcon (1941 film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Robert Crawford]

What makes you think many movies were made for one million dollars? Most movies were made for less than that amount in 1941.

 

[Todd Erwin]

As noted in Todd's review, The Maltese Falcon is probably the prototypical private eye/detective film. Everything made afterward in the genre--and quite a bit made in other genres-- borrows from it.

Actually, that would be Cameron Yee.

 

[Paul Penna]

Can anyone guess what had been cleansed?

That's like the audio equivalent of the day-for-night scenes we see boosted to broad daylight.

 

[Bartman]

Thank you for your review. One of my favorite all-time movies. I received the 4K/UHD today, but haven't watched it yet. I did sampled the 4K digital last night when my iTunes HD digital upgraded to 4K/DV.

How did the 4K look streaming?

 

[Bartman]

I was hoping for a regular Blu-ray upgrade but no. Any conjecture as to the reasons why: cost?, encode performed but not enough visual difference with the VC1 2010?, any other reason?

 

[Bartman]

How did the 4K look streaming?

Vudu has this as a 4K purchase for $6.99, is that a good price?

If so, this will be my first 4K streaming purchase!

 

[Bartman]

How did the 4K look streaming?

I purchased the 4K from Vudu. While there is an uptick in definition there are two major problems (1) "soap opera" effect, the smoothing could not be changed with the Vudu imposed settings on my TV (LG B8 OLED) using the LG app; (2) sudden changes in brightness mid scene, very annoying and not present on Blu-ray or DVD. I'm not sure where the problem lay (Warner, Vudu, LG) but it needs to be fixed. I reported these problems to Vudu & asked for notification of an upgrade or a refund. I have not had this problem with Dolby 4K from Prime. Has anyone viewed this from Apple TV?

 

[Malcolm R]

(1) "soap opera" effect, the smoothing could not be changed with the Vudu imposed settings on my TV (LG B8 OLED); (2) sudden changes in brightness mid scene,

These both sound like issues with your display settings on your TV, not Vudu.

RAH gave reasons in his "A Few Words..." thread about why studios don't want to go to the extra expense of remastering these blu-rays.

 

[Bartman]

These both sound like issues with your display settings on your TV, not Vudu.

RAH gave reasons in his "A Few Words..." thread about why studios don't want to go to the extra expense of remastering these blu-rays.

I don't understand your comment. With 4K HDR streaming using the LG app, the source imposes the TV settings with limited adjustment available. With Prime I did find Technicolor Expert (an available change) looked better than the initial setting. As it stands, the Dolby 4K Maltese Falcon is unwatchable for the reasons I gave.

 

[Kyle_D]

I don't understand your comment. With 4K HDR streaming using the LG app, the source imposes the TV settings with limited adjustment available. With Prime I did find Technicolor Expert (an available change) looked better than the initial setting. As it stands, the Dolby 4K Maltese Falcon is unwatchable for the reasons I gave.

Both issues are likely to your display settings.

The "sudden changes in brightness" is likely attributed to the LG's automatic brightness limiter (ABL) which LG enables by default to prevent burn-in on OLED panels. It's much more aggressive with HDR and Dolby Vision content than with SDR content like blu-ray. The ABL can be turned off, but you need a service remote (available from Amazon) with a special code (I will not post it here, but it's easily located with a google search), and it will void your warranty.

The soap opera effect can be turned off in your LG picture settings.

 

[Bartman]

Both issues are likely to your display settings.

The "sudden changes in brightness" is likely attributed to the LG's automatic brightness limiter (ABL) which LG enables by default to prevent burn-in on OLED panels. It's much more aggressive with HDR and Dolby Vision content than with SDR content like blu-ray. The ABL can be turned off, but you need a service remote (available from Amazon) with a special code (I will not post it here, but it's easily located with a google search), and it will void your warranty.

The soap opera effect can be turned off in your LG picture settings.

You are correct about the motion smoothing, my bad, the app sets it to CLEAR but the picture looks better set to OFF.
I bought the service remote and disabled the ABL settings (TPC & GSR) last year, according to Vincent Teoh's YT instructions. The brightness changes are still occurring. I checked the service menu, the settings are disabled. Would an app re-enable them during the movie and disable them after the movie is over?