Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Can Steven Spielberg please supervise more film transfers?

10:32 AM / Blu-ray / Comments20 Comments

Saving Private Ryan

Minority Report

Seriously, I wish ALL catalogue titles looked this good on BD.

Source: AV Science forum (1, 2)

 
20 Comments

1. Kram Sacul said:

Whenever a catalog title with a bad transfer comes along and someone inevitably says "this is probably as good as this film is going to look" you should show them those screenshots and tell them this is how it's done.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 11:31 AM)

2. Author Profile Page Michael said:

"But... but screenshots are not an accurate representation of the disc!" :D

Funny how you never hear anyone say that when the shots in question look GOOD.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 11:37 AM)

3. Ronny said:

Great grain and fantastic details! Bravo!

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 12:37 PM)

4. FoxyMulder said:

I have Saving Private Ryan on order so this is good news.

I also have Armageddon and Dr Zhivago on order, i hope Warner give Zhivago a higher bitrate than they usually do as that damn VC-1 codec doesn't work well with grain lower bitrates ( my opinion )

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 1:09 PM)

5. gaeljet said:

i m not sure all titles would be remastered in 4k ;)

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 3:28 PM)

6. Bleddyn Williams said:

Pre-ordered the UK steelbook. Must admit - given how much seems to be on the 2nd disc of the US version, I'm wondering - if the UK is one disc, surely something has to give? It looks like the transfer might have survived intact based on the shots so far, but I wonder if some extras will disappear or the HD ones be relegated to SD.

Terminator Salvation seemed to not have a problem losing a disc from its US counterpart. I hope that it's true here too!

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 3:53 PM)

7. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Bleddyn:

Judging by the captures, the image quality of the European encode is actually superior to that of the US one, which has some unsightly ringing at the top and bottom of the frame. I'm definitely going for the UK release, though I suspect I won't bother with the steelbook - the standard edition is £3 cheaper and I'm saving as much money as I can for my computer upgrade.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 4:00 PM)

8. Bleddyn Williams said:

Thanks for the quick comments, Michael! This will be a great release for the bitrate watchers to argue about.

I'm going to keep my preorder and look forward to seeing what happens when people dissect these releases to the Nth power.

If the UK release pleases your eyes, it should definitely do okay for me.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 4:11 PM)

9. Bleddyn Williams said:

Forgot to mention - the Steelbook does mean you avoid the heinous new artwork being used both sides of the Atlantic.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 4:15 PM)

10. FoxyMulder said:

The UK one is also 2 disc isn't it ?

Amazon says it is 2 disc anyways. Why would there be a different transfer from the USA one ? Doesn't Dreamworks supervise just one transfer which Spielberg approves. ?

Why would there be ringing on the USA one if its not on the UK one as surely Spielberg supervised just the one transfer.

Any thoughts on this. ?

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 5:06 PM)

11. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Bleddyn:

Well, the UK release's bit rate appears to be significantly lower than that of the US one, although from the captures it appears that the UK one still manages to retain the grain more faithfully! So as you say, one for the bit rate watchers to argue about.


FoxyMulder:

It isn't a different transfer - just a different encode. Presumably, both came from the same 4K source and were downconverted differently.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 5:23 PM)

12. AlexBC said:

Michael,

I'm usually with you on your assessments, but in this case, I believe posters 'Patsfan123' and 'someone else' over at AVS have described it better.

The grain structure is better displayed on the US disc, whereas in the UK, it takes a slightly digital noise tone. This can be easily perceived on the background (the wood wall) for the 1st set of caps. Higher frequencies seem to have been sligthly filtered and turned to a more digital aspect noise.

For those having a hard time seeing it, I suggest turning up the brightness or gamma controls (for scientific purposes only ) on your display.

Anyways, one fantastic transfer that received great encode job from both parties. But while I'd say it's a great job from FOX, Paramount simply excells.

Now, if Spielberg could indeed supervise more transfers : )

If he would at least do it the movies he produced, I'm sure the likes of Gremlins and Goonies would have looked a million times better.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 5:58 PM)

13. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Alex:

Hmmm... on further reflection, you could be right. However (and this is not just me trying to save face, honest!), the difference is so slight that, if we're getting down to the level of playing with brightness and gamma controls just to see the difference in static screen captures, then it's fairly safe to say it's not worth worrying about. I doubt the differences are down to filtering - I don't see any reduction in overall detail, just a slightly different dispersion of the grain particles. Regardless, for me by far the biggest issue is the ringing at the top and bottom of the frame in the US captures, which means that either way the Fox encode is still preferable in my view.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 6:33 PM)

14. FoxyMulder said:

Gee guys i cancelled my UK order and then ordered the American edition from another site since i like the grain preserved.

Now ringing at the top and bottom of the frame....Is this likely to mean ringing within the frame as well...Opinions please as i can probably cancel again if my indecisive mind decides the UK is indeed the way to go.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 6:47 PM)

15. FoxyMulder said:

Looking all over AVS forums....Are they American BD screencaps or UK screencaps ?

Any links to both the American and UK caps so i can check this ringing out and the grain of both transfers.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 7:10 PM)

16. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Foxymulder:

The ones posted by eric.exe are the US ones, the ones posted by Thunderbolt8 are from one of the EU releases.

This post features a couple of examples of the same frame from each.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 7:16 PM)

17. FoxyMulder said:

Oh sorry i must be getting wires mixed up.

I was thinking the ringing was on Saving Private Ryan so i cancelled my UK order and went for the American release.

So Saving Private Ryan is the same encode ?

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 7:21 PM)

18. Author Profile Page Michael said:

As far as I know we've only seen US captures of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. However, Paramount owns the film in both territories so I think it's reasonable (not definite, but reasonable) to assume that the same encode will be used.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 7:24 PM)

19. AlexBC said:

Foxy,

like Michael said, there shouldn't be any difference on SPR, since Paramount handles it worldwide.

You also should be loosing any sleep over it if you're goint for Minority Report as well, the differences are minuscule.


Much to my satisfaction, I'd also like to point out that director Michael Mann also seems to take great attention to the ways his films are brought to Blu-ray.

Miami Vice, Collateral and Manhunter looks exceptional and really faithfull on BD.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 8:25 PM)

20. LGans316 said:

Please note that Minority Report US BD is Region Locked and the FOX UK BD won't be. The screencaps looks 98% identical with subtle differences in the grain structure, similar to Braveheart.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 10:50 PM)

 
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