TPM edge enhancement? (1 Viewer)

[Artur Meinild]

The only explanation to this must be, that George Lucas wanted the film to look this way!
The question is, will the rest of the Starwars movies (new and old) have the same "look" with lots of edge enhancement???
Well, Lucas has never been my favorite director, and this is not helping the situation at all!
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~ Stud. Polyt. ~ Artur Meinild ~

 

[Bjoern Roy]

Great news everyone, i am excited!
And even more disappointed at the same time...
Several people asked me whether the R2 version has less EE. I am going to get my R2 version on Thursday 25th, where it is released here in germany. Its very likely that all PAL releases have the same transfer, so the german DVD should be equal to the UK, etc....
Some people (like Neil, see above) claim that the R2 has exactly the same EE, others reported it to be better (not perfect, though).
Well, i will post a detailed comparison once i have the disc this week, but a fellow reader from the UK (Tom Sperling) took some shots from the UK PAL disc for me in advance.
Thanks again for the UK shots, Tom!
The vertical EE is considerably reduced!
Have a look:
Link Removed
Again, to look for vertical EE, look at horizontal edges. The improvement is especially noticable on the horizontal edge in the statue crop. The horizontal EE (on vertical edges) in most shots is almost identical, though. But as you have read in my review, i found the vertical to be the most distracting on this particular title.
Great!
Out of the hundreds of DVDs that i own, only 4 are PAL R2. 1 is german and 3 are UK. But if the improvement EE wise is this big, i will certainly keep the german DVD! Even though i am really bothered by the 4% PAL speedup. But in this case i would take speedup over EE.
I will let you guys know how i rate the improvement on the PAL disc as soon as i have it, probably with more pictures. Also, lets hope that the PAL disc doesn't have other flaws...
So why am i disappointed? Well, the improvement in vertical EE on the PAL disc (which happens to have a higher vertical resolution as we know) shows that the vertical EE is VERY likely indeed applied ON PURPOSE! The PAL and NTSC transfer were probably prepared at the same time and they figured "heck NTSC has less vertical resolution, so lets bump up the vertical sharpness a bit to compensate". Bah!
Best regards
Bjoern
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"Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity" (Bullet Tooth Tony in 'Snatch')
Bjoern's Place (my HT in action, DVD reviews, SPL measurements...) | 'Edge Enhancement' Guide
[Edited last by Bjoern Roy on October 21, 2001 at 05:04 PM]

 

[Mark Zimmer]

quote:
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So, the question is, are the Fox reps reading this, and if so, what are they going to do about it????
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Let's not get on Fox's case. Lucasfilm had a lot more to do with this dvd than FOX. I mean, When the filmmakers come in and say this is how it should look, what are they to do?
If anyone should be brought to task here I would suggest it be the folks over at THX and Lucasfilm.

My comment was directed to Fox since we know that they read the HTF. Whether anyone at Lucasfilm reads it is an open question, as far as I know. Fox apparently had something to do with the compression, since Peter Staddon talked to the people who claimed that no EE was added. It's not clear to me whether those were Fox or Lucasfilm people. I can envision the video master being done by Lucasfilm and then compressed or DVD at Fox---which would explain the Die Hard III type results. Does anyone know for certain who did what on this disc?
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"This movie has warped my fragile little mind."

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Bjoern,
Wow. That R2 vs R1 comparision shows a pretty dramatic difference! I hope that puts to rest any doubt for the "it's in the elements" crowd out there.
Peter,
We know that you (and your studio) aren't personally responsible for this transfer. But since you are our real-world liason to THX/Lucusfilm...what can you do? Can you tell these guys to look at Bjoern's web site and offer us some explanation? Is THX still in the mentality of mastering for the average Joe's 4x3 27" NTSC TV (as they were when they argued with me for an hour why Titanic and Abyss were just fine without 16x9 encoding) or have they joined the world of high-fidelity video that the rest of us want to enjoy?
Honestly, with the almost sick levels of hype revolving around this title for months and months on the internet and on this forum, I think the HT community deserves some answers.
If Universal could talk about DTS Jurrasic, and Warner could talk about Willy Wonka in WS, it just seems fair.
-dave

 

[Bjoern Roy]

I updated my TPM R1 review with a detailed R1 vs. PAL R2 screenshot comparison, plus some modified comments in the conclusion. It is up on my homepage now (DVD Video Analysis -> TPM).
Have fun.
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"Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity" (Bullet Tooth Tony in 'Snatch')
Bjoern's Place (my HT in action, DVD reviews, SPL measurements...) | 'Edge Enhancement' Guide

 

[Jeff Kleist]

These are still bad photos from your screen. I did direct captures from the disc, and I just don't see it
If you really want to show these things, do captures directly from the source, don't take pics with a digital camera of your screen
Jeff Kleist

 

[Bjoern Roy]

Jeff,
as others have already pointed out, these ARE screenshots from the actual disc and NOT from my screen. Both the captures of the NTSC DVD (720x480 native) and the PAL DVD (720x576) are scaled to 1920x1080 mimicing a high-end setup like i am using.
If you don't see why looking at screenshots at an upscaled resolution is more accurate than simply looking at the 720x480 shots, read the part i called 'Screenshot 1-0-1' on my DVD Analysis page.
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"Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity" (Bullet Tooth Tony in 'Snatch')
Bjoern's Place (my HT in action, DVD reviews, SPL measurements...) | 'Edge Enhancement' Guide
[Edited last by Bjoern Roy on October 24, 2001 at 06:16 PM]

 

[Bjoern Roy]

Jeff,

No one has yet answered the question of why I couldn't see it on the 20ft ScootScreen

While it is a lot of fun to put a Sony W400, if i am not mistaken, outdoors on a large screen, i wouldn't call the resulting picture reference quality, especially at that size (20ft wide). I know, i had a W400 from 1997-1999 and also used it outdoors.
A 400 lumen projector on a 20ft wide screen results in approximately 1.8 ft-lamberts. Everything under 7.5 ftL is considered not bright enough by most viewers, 1.8 is just plain dim. Bright enough to have fun with friends, but simply not adequate for critical viewing or even judging all aspects of a DVD transfer.
Excessive EE is most likely not the only flaw that you wouldn't notice with that kind of brightness. MPEG blocking, mosquito noise and DVNR are basically a non-issue at that level, because the eye isn't sensitive enough.
And only because the screen was huge isn't really relevant anyway. More important is, how close you were sitting to it. 2 x screen width? More, less?
Regards
Bjoern
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"Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity" (Bullet Tooth Tony in 'Snatch')
Bjoern's Place (my HT in action, DVD reviews, SPL measurements...) | 'Edge Enhancement' Guide

 

[Francois Caron]

I checked the transfer on my computer and can see the problem everyone is describing. Initially, I did see that one uneven edge just below the top black bar, but I overlooked the vertical EE in the picture itself. However, What I saw here looks more like a bug. More specifically, a possible MPEG encoder bug.
I've seen a lot of DVD transfers over the years and the one thing I noticed more than anything else is that there's a lot of 2.35:1 aspect ratio images with ghosting and edge enhancement problems. I don't recall seeing as many 1.85:1 aspect ratio images displaying the same problems, which begs the question. Has anyone verified if the black bars of a 2.35:1 aspect ratio transfer aren't accidentaly inducing artifacts in the image? Fox/Lucasfilms may have started out with the intention of creating a transfer without EE, but the MPEG encoder got confused and added the supposed vertical EE in the image unintentionally.
I know this point of view goes against everyone's desperate urge to blame someone for this, but could we consider the possibility that this is simply a bug-induced mistake? If we can work at finding the exact cause of this particular problem, we'd have a better chance to find a practical solution that would make everyone happy, and produce better looking DVDs in the process.
Right now, all I'm reading in this thread is constant mud-slinging at various companies and no practical solution.
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The Milnoc
News, Views, DVD Reviews.

 

[TedD]

Jeff, by any chance are you using a Hollywood+ or other hardware decoder card?
Ted

 

[Tom J. Davis]

You have to get the companies to admit to it first. Which seems to be one of the biggest problems at this time.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

what I see in those screen shots is exactly what I see on my TV, like somebody drew a line around every object. It is inexcuseable that we have been given this kind of quality after waiting a year for this release.
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Link Removed | Burt Lancaster is Link Removed | dOc

 

[Kevin Coleman]

The reason it bothers me so much is it gives the picture a almost VHS look. YUCK! Not film like at all. I really don't think this would piss near as many people off if this movie didn't come from MR. Quality THX presentation man himself. It is an insult to the very people who have paid alot of money to show quality presentations in their homes.
Kevin C.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Looking through the credits on the disc, I find that the MPEG compression was done by DVCC. Perhaps they are where the problem creeps in?? Did someone different do the R2 compression? I don't have the R2 disc so I can't check....the compression credit on the R1 disc is in the gag reel Easter Egg.
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"This movie has warped my fragile little mind."
[Edited last by Mark Zimmer on October 25, 2001 at 08:49 AM]

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I've seen a lot of DVD transfers over the years and the one thing I noticed more than anything else is that there's a lot of 2.35:1 aspect ratio images with ghosting and edge enhancement problems. I don't recall seeing as many 1.85:1 aspect ratio images displaying the same problems, which begs the question. Has anyone verified if the black bars of a 2.35:1 aspect ratio transfer aren't accidentaly inducing artifacts in the image?

Any 16x9 encoded aspect ratio wider than 1.85:1 would actually aid in compression because the black-bars represent static picture area, reducing the pixel array of motion the encoder has to concentrate upon.
If there's more "ringing" in 2.35:1 16x9 transfers it's more likely that those transfers were "tweaked" with some EE because the studio/whoever wanted to boost detail as a 2.35:1 lbxed movie has a pretty small image when viewed on a standard 4x3 27" TV. The philosophy is most likely that boosting the sharpness a bit will make the relatively small picture look better to the average viewer.
Besides, it doesn't matter where in the chain the ringing was introduced. The studio mastered the disc. THX approved the end result. This is why we have a right to criticize the studio and LucusFilm.
-dave

 

[Michael Dueppen]

I updated my TPM R1 review with a detailed R1 vs. PAL R2 screenshot comparison

Damn. I almost never get R2 discs any more (used to when R2 or R4 were anamorphic or correct AR when R1 wasn't but that's a non-issue at the moment; and let's hope it stays like that).
I should probably have got the R2 of TPM. Saw it today at a lokal B&M on a decent front projection system and on a couple different Plasma displays. The picture looks quite a bit better than the R1

I really hope somebody figures out what's going on here. This can't have anything to do with the print etc.
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- Michael
My DVD collection

 

[Charlie_M]

Uppers.

 

[nousername]

I realize that I'm jumping into the fray a little bit late here but, there is definitely some edge enhancement, ringing, MPEG artifacting, or whatever you want to call it. The picture simply isn't right.
SW:TPM is the only disc in my collection that makes me want to grab the remote and turn the sharpness almost all the way down. And yes, I do have an ISF calibrated set, and it's not even very big (Sony KV-36XBR450). Even my friends, who are in no way, shape or form videophiles like me remarked that the picture looked "too sharp". By contrast, the trailers on Disc 2 look far more filmlike than the movie itself.
Whoever did the transfer for TPM really dropped the ball here. I blame Lucas himself, since he oversees everything. Yes, another company probably did the transfer, but Lucas has the final say on everything, since it's his empire. I guess his staff doesn't venture into HTF at all.
Perhaps they should do a recall if enough people complain.
But seriously, this easily could have been a reference disc, but it's clearly not. I just hope when Episodes 4, 5 and 6 get released, they won't have this same problem...

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I was watching it at about 15-20ft from the screen
I use a Pioneer DV-414 DVD player on my 27" screen. I realize that kind of setup is not perfect for judging EE
If those are direct screencaps, then you need to adjust the levels because they are incredibly dark and dim. If you have a problem with the picture at scaled HD res, then bring it down to normal, and see what shows up then. I'm sure scaling only aggravates what you're seeing
Jeff Kleist

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Letter to Donald Kum at THX:
Hello Donald,
It's been a long time since you've heard from me. Hope things are going well and you're still happily employed at THX. If you're not and the person reading this is the network administrator, please forward this message to the appropriate people.
There's a thread discussing the (poor) transfer quality of the 'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' DVD going on which every THX decision maker should read:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/...ML/031894.html
If you'd like to see a great visual demonstration of just how poor this transfer is, please see this amazing review at:
http://home.t-online.de/home/bjoern....TPM/TPM_01.htm
Bottom line is there's so much ringing in the DVD image that it's unwatchable on most videophile systems (especially projection systems). After years of waiting because this disc was supposed to set new standards of quality and content...this is what we get? What's especially disappointing is that the HT community begged that no EE would be applied to this transfer...apparently in vain.
The home-theater community would appreciate it if THX/Lucusfilm would review the two links I've provided and make an official comment. Please review these links yourself and forward them on to others at your organization.
Warner responded to the HT community when we criticized them for releasing Willy Wonka in Full-Frame only by issuing a new WS 16x9 disc. Universal repressed and replaced Jurrassic Park DTS DVDs with new copies from a new sound mix.
Please let me know anything that you can regarding this transfer and how THX/Lucusfilm plans to address this issue.
Best Regards,
David Boulet
[Edited last by DaViD Boulet on October 26, 2001 at 04:32 PM]