What's your worst A-List Movie Anamorphic transfer? (1 Viewer)

[Joel Vardy]

If we are still talking A-List titles I thought that The Last Emperor was the worst I saw (though I also own Rob Roy). I'm not sure anymore if The Last Emperor is anamorphic (I don't believe it is). But this transfer is atrocious!! I hope it gets another release considering it's condition.
Joel

 

[Brian W]

The Apartment
Breakfast At Tiffany's
White Christmas

are three "anamorphic" transfers I eagerly wait to be released with improved transfers at minimum or spectacular transfers that they deserve at best. All 3 are almost unwatchable. Some of the others mentioned here more than once, like Sound of Music, I have been able to get around the artifacting with the RP91 by modifying the settings so it actually looks good on my set up ---but as for Apartment, Breakfast at Tiffany's and White Christmas, there isn't much manipulation I can do with the RP91 to improve their quality.

Also, just wanted to mention that probably one of the most underated anamorphic transfers that really is quite lovely, filmic (and an early MGM DVD release no less, like 1998 or 99) is West Side Story.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Any of you who want a decent anamorphic copy of the Last Emperor *theatrical* version, there's an NTSC-encoded R0 version available for order from Asia...it has both movies but the director's cut is the same horrid 4x3 lbxed version we already have in the US (but I bought it for the theatrical 16x9 version).

I must second that West Side Story has an amazing transfer. It looks very "columbia tristar" like it its film-like appearance despite being an MGM disc. Same is true for Lion in Winter.

I hadn't thought that White Christmas was that bad. I'll have to double check now that i've got my panny rp91.

-dave

 

[DeeF]

It's a little funny to me that some of you have mentioned getting new Panasonic RP-91s. I just replaced mine with RP-82, and I get a much better picture. The RP-82 has a Faroudja chip in it (not sure what it does) and almost everything on my plasma monitor looks better.

 

[Brian W]

David-

In particular check out the "Blue Skies" dance sequence with Bing and Kaye early on, also backstage with the chorus girls (a scene before they meet Clooney and V.Ellen)--- look how bad the alignment is, the 3 strip technicolor print is way out of alignment, you can see a blue shift -there and several other sequences through out the film. That said, and given that maybe that is the best they can do with un-restored film elements, the laser disc several years ago didn't exhibit such problems. Also the whites throughout are very noisy, contrast levels are bad, mostly just a harsh video transfer. Some sequences look better than others, some actually great which makes me even more disappointed because if this was given the NxNW/Lowry treatment (or even something less!) you can see the potential of how this transfer could sparkle...

(my typing/spelling is pretty bad today! had to edit this like 4 times)

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Thanks Brian,

Hey Dee,

does the new Panny offer the scaling for a 16x9 display that locks into native mode with progressive input? That was the main reason I got the rp91 and my understanding is that the scaling is actually a feature of the Gensis chipset and that the Faroudja lacks such a scaling feature...unless we're talking the new Faroudja chip which just came out.

thanks!

 

[DeeF]

does the new Panny offer the scaling for a 16x9 display that locks into native mode with progressive input? That was the main reason I got the rp91 and my understanding is that the scaling is actually a feature of the Gensis chipset and that the Faroudja lacks such a scaling feature...unless we're talking the new Faroudja chip which just came out.

I don't know the answer. My plasma does its own scaling -- I can scale every source except HD sources over the cable. I was able to do this with the RP-91, and with the RP-82, either in progressive mode or not.

 

[Declan]

I know Menphis belle is non-anamorphic but the grain on the image is just terrible, only watched the opening plane crash landing sequence to see what the 5.1 sounded like, did'nt sound like much it has to be said.

 

[Robert McDonald]

does the new Panny offer the scaling for a 16x9 display that locks into native mode with progressive input? That was the main reason I got the rp91 and my understanding is that the scaling is actually a feature of the Gensis chipset and that the Faroudja lacks such a scaling feature...unless we're talking the new Faroudja chip which just came out.

DaViD, the RP82 does not offer scaling, but offers a good picture, IMHO (although I haven't compared it against the RP91)

 

[Sean Patrick]

i agree about Face Off - sometimes very dirty print, and the ringing on this release is AWFUL!!!