You are right. Compared to my old DVD (first edition), the Blu-ray image looks cleaner but less colorful. It looks like a DVD upconverted. Oh well! Still better than the DVD.

Next time I'll wait for reviews to decide to purchase.

Regards,

just got this in the mail. I think others have posted that the original elements of this film are/were in much rougher shape than The Robe so I'm not all that surprised at the pq comments so far. Also: Fox certainly put a lot of restoration effort into The Robe--one reason being that it was the very first film released in Cinemascope. It is also, of course, much more well known than its sequel.
Demetrius and The Gladiators has probably received next to nothing in the way of an actual "true" restoration compared to The Robe. This TT bd is probably more of a simple scan and print job than anything else. ;)

Someone might take that seriously...
I haven't received the disc yet. If the source materials were in such a bad shape I guess there's only so much they could do with it (unless Fox shipped the wrong master! hoho). It'll be interesting to see Robert Harris' opinion of this though. Personally I'll take these early opinions with a grain of salt until I see it myself.

I'm no PQ expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I will say this. I can see very little difference between the DVD and the BD. I am disappointed with this. It is still a trifle better than the DVD.

Normally, I always wait for reviews beforehand, but in this instance I wanted the movie so badly that I jumped the gun. I really wish I hadn't.

Why would the elements be in rougher shape - The Robe's negative had a lot more use than Demetrius. As you rightly state, Fox did major work on The Robe. Clearly they haven't on Demetrius and clearly Twilight Time can only issue what they are given.

exactly.
I think people's expectations are too high for this title because they are expecting the quality to be like The Robe and it just isn't.
It's not a bad disc for what it is.

"Demetrius" certainly begs the question of whether a title that is going to look less than stellar in HD should be released on Blu-ray. The transfer doesn't look terrible per se but neither does it look like an HD title (the dull colors made me think that an Eastmancolor print had been used for the transfer since it looks nothing like a movie originally shot in Technicolor).

After the first ten minutes or so I sat back and enjoyed the movie. But it's definitely not an HD showpiece. And the fact that Twilight is at the mercy of the materials provided it is no reason to overlook the flaws.

Thirty bucks plus shipping is a big bite even for a great looking BD. Sounds like buying stuff sight unseen from Twilight Time may not always be such a smart idea.

Yep, I think it's always best to read all the reports you can before buying. Fox did a fantastic job on The Robe & The Egyptian, but they're not going to spend all that money & effort on every title.

do I have to watch 'The Egyptian' before D&tG to understand or appreciate it?

D&G was a sequel to The Robe, but I'll leave it to the others who have seen this to answer the other part of your question, I'm guessing no though ... see review below for general storyline ....

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Ro...y/3439/#Review

Is there a difference in The Robe that Screen Archives Entertainment is selling on their website for $24.99 as opposed to say the one that Amazon is selling for $12.99? They're both marked as special editions.

"The Egyptian" takes place around 1292 B.C. and DatG takes place sometime between 12 and 41 A.D. As was mentioned above, "The Robe" would be the more appropriate film to watch since the ending of "The Robe" and the beginning of DatG almost go together with no breaks.

No difference; they are in fact the same BD!

Thanks!!!

Just watched it and would mostly agree with your statement. 3/5 on the PQ side (Maybe). The detail, colors, and overall appearance of The Robe is much superior to this one. A clean presentation with decent grain and colors...Once again not nearly as good (pq) as The Commandments, The Robe, Ben Hur...For the money TT better start doing better than this.

The Egyptian looks much better than this. I know about TT just giving what they receive, but if they want to continue with this pricing strategy the quality has to be better. I'll see what Bite the Bullet and The Roots of Heaven have to offer on the PQ side.

The comparison to the Robe on BD is not valid, even though Demetrius is the sequel to that classic. Fox and others spent over $1.5 million restoring The Robe for its Blu-ray release. Martin Scorsese personally got involved with the Robe's restoration because it is one of his favorite movies and raised part of the money himself.

It wouldn't surprise me if this BD was produced from the master used for the last DVD release of the film.

Ya kinda got it backwards there HiDefBear. CinemaScope movies were shot on single-strip Eastman stock, with processing and prints by Technicolor for some of the early titles like The Robe and Demetrius and the Gladiators. Most later CinemaScope movies (at least from Fox) carried the branding 'Color by DeLuxe', which meant an Eastman OCN plus Eastmancolor prints.

What you've recognized as image flaws in this Blu-ray edition sounds exactly like what happens when you go back to the Eastman OCN or IP vault elements, and rescan/remaster without significant restoration workflow. Schawn Belston's team at Fox probably only used a Technicolor print for a best approximation of their colour grading. Of course, since I haven't yet seen TT's Demetrius Blu-ray, I don't know any of this for certain. Just smacks of vintage Eastman colour problems, and what happens when the kind of dough required to surrmount them exceeds the studio's budget for a particular title.

From similar sentiments posted so far - here and elsewhere - I've really adjusted my expectations for this TT Blu-ray release. At this point, even if it just manages to squeak by as "okay" or "watchable", then so be it...still better than nothing.

I just think everyones used to top notch transfers from TT releases and this release is clearly not up to that level so it caught people a little off guard.

As much as I applaud TT for their work so far - rescuing former 'lost' titles and presenting them superbly - I basically agree with this sentiment Blu Titan. It's a slippery slope once you start settling for whatever is available from the studio, even if nothing better exists for a chronic problem title like Demetrius and the Gladiators. Despite the 'core fan demand, too many 'iffy' quality releases just aren't worth the potential erosion of buyer trust over those pre-orders.

I suspect (hope) that this one will turn out be an anomaly though...a high profile Fox title they just couldn't resist releasing when it fell into their laps. I hear Bite the Bullet is another bell ringer though...