Sunday, May 29, 2011

Coming soon...

1:07 PM / Blu-ray / Comments12 Comments

Click to enlarge

vs.

Click to enlarge

(Click images to enlarge.)

 
12 Comments

1. Phil Quail said:

It's fascinating to switch back and forth between the two - obviously from the same source, same colours. But then you notice the Arrow image is COVERED in blocky, clumpy patches of noise (rather like an old Tartan transfer). The more you look, the more you see. But on the BU it actually looks like film grain.

So, you're the technical man, tell us - is that DNR in action?

(Posted on Sunday, May 29, 2011 at 2:08 PM)

2. Author Profile Page Michael said:

You know, I can't for the life of my figure out WHAT it is. I originally suggested that it was poor compression, and to be honest that's what it still reminds me of the most... but there's something else going on too. The grain is, for want of a better word, STRETCHED - instead of individual particles it looks almost like vertical streaks. You can see from the softness around the letterboxing that this is some resolution loss too.

Honestly, if you think the difference is noticeable in these captures, you should see the two discs in motion. The difference is actually less pronounced in still frames. The BU disc is far from perfect - and after having discussed BU's Italian cult releases with a highly respected expert in the field of film restoration and preservation, I'm more inclined than ever to feel that all these releases, from the best (BIRD etc.) down to the very worst (CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE CAT O' NINE TAILS), could be substantially improved with the (no doubt expensive) creation of fresh masters - but it provides an almost immeasurable upgrade over the Arrow release.

(Posted on Sunday, May 29, 2011 at 2:51 PM)

3. David Mackenzie said:

Without seeing it in motion, it looks more like bad AVC encoding than pre-filtering.

(Posted on Sunday, May 29, 2011 at 3:52 PM)

4. Toecutter said:

Dragon Tattoo teaser:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kOFGI0p6SM&feature=player_embedded

(Posted on Sunday, May 29, 2011 at 8:02 PM)

5. Christopher D. Jacobson said:

That is some funkified grain on the UK transfer.

(Posted on Sunday, May 29, 2011 at 8:45 PM)

6. Kentai said:

I can't wait for this one. Any chance you could you show off the difference between the "Export" credits? I've heard it mentioned that Arrow used SD materials while BU didn't, but I've yet to see any proof of it.

Supposedly Arrow just delayed Tenebrae over bitrate concerns, among other things, so it's nice to know the few people willing to call them on their work isn't falling completely on deaf ears.

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 5:13 AM)

7. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Toecutter:

Thanks - I've written a post about it. :)


Kentai:

Here ya go:

UK disc opening credits
US disc opening credits
UK disc closing credits
US disc closing credits

By the way, I'll do my best to reply to your email later today. :)

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 10:00 AM)

8. Kentai said:

Ha-ha! There's dot-crawl and everything!

Thanks Michael. Looking forward to it.

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 1:35 PM)

9. Christopher D. Jacobson said:

Not to take anything from your eventual comparison, Michael—only to add to it, actually: caps-a-holic now have their own comparison:

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/index.php?vergleich=deep_red

Those shots you posted of the export version's credits... WOW! So glad BU sought out a film source.

(Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 7:35 AM)

10. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Chris:

Hah! Now I don't need to bother. :D

Just kidding, I'll have my comparison up at some point in the near future. It might be a few days, though - I'm pretty busy at the moment with a bunch of different things. It's not likely to show anything different from the Caps-a-Holic captures, but I'll try to at least choose different shots so you can get as broad an idea of the differences between the two discs as possible.

By the way, can anyone figure out where the notion that the two releases had different colours came from? I can't see any evidence of it, eitheri n the Caps-a-Holic captures or the ones I've taken myself. The only major difference (apart from the credits on the international cut) is the stabbing scene that interrupts the opening credits. On the BU release, it seems to have been taken from a completely different source from the Arrow: much brighter and with different framing:

Arrow
Blue Underground

(Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 12:59 PM)

11. FoxyMulder said:

It looks like Arrow have done some grain reduction to Deep Red, is this correct. ?

(Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 2:04 PM)

12. Christopher D. Jacobson said:

It seems more like an encoding problem of some kind than noise reduction (though I'm not a tech head and am probably talking out of my ass). It's a lot grainier than a lot of other Arrow caps I've seen and not their usual smoothie operation. It appears to be a good transfer, probably looks great in motion, but man does that grain look ultra wonky in still shots.

That opening murder scene during the credits looks so much better on the BU release. Glad they took the time to find better sources for some parts of the film, and for releasing a better looking disc overall than Arrow.

(Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 2:13 PM)

 
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