Hannibal Lecter Anthology

[BluOrbit]

I watched the first disc in the Hannibal Lecter Anthology - Manhunter - last night and was highly disappointed, for several reasons:

- There are absolutely NO special features, not even a trailer
- The PQ was, for the most part, no more than a notch above SD quality. Except for a few scenes colors were drab, and the picture seemed hazy a good deal of the time. There were also quite a bit of speckles that appeared, especially early in the film.
- The DTS-HD was average at best
- There seemed to be at least 3 times where a frame was missing.

I watched Manhunter in HD on cable a few months ago and, from what I remember, the colors seemed more vibrant than on the BD.

I'll move on to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal next, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they did a better job on those discs than Manhunter.

Shame on you, MGM/FOX!

[Bruce Morrison]

Originally Posted by BluOrbit

I watched the first disc in the Hannibal Lecter Anthology - Manhunter - last night and was highly disappointed, for several reasons:

- There are absolutely NO special features, not even a trailer
- The PQ was, for the most part, no more than a notch above SD quality. Except for a few scenes colors were drab, and the picture seemed hazy a good deal of the time. There were also quite a bit of speckles that appeared, especially early in the filrm.
- The DTS-HD was average at best
- There seemed to be at least 3 times where a frame was missing.

I watched Manhunter in HD on cable a few months ago and, from what I remember, the colors seemed more vibrant than on the BD.

I'll move on to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal next, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they did a better job on those discs than Manhunter.

Shame on you, MGM/FOX!

I'd almost made up my mind not to buy this set anyway, since I already have 'Silence Of The Lambs' and don't particularly want 'Hannibal'. 'Manhunter' would have been the only reason to buy it, so your comments have convinced me to pass.

It's odd though, because MGM's DVD edition of 'Manhunter' several years ago was pretty good. I wonder just what's gone wrong with the BD transfer.

I came across the "missing frames" problem a while ago on MGM's Region 1 DVD of 'The One That Got Away'. Actually it seemed to be more than one frame that was missing each time - there were discernible "jumps" in the image, rather like extremely clumsy edits.

I did read somewhere that this missing frames problem can be caused if the film is mastered at exactly 24 fps, because the correct frame rate is supposed to be 23.997 or thereabouts (that's not the correct number but you get the idea).

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

they are coming out with crappy transfers because studios dont care, all they care about is the money and the sales they make,
they are getting lazy with the transfers cuz they know that most ppl are going to buy them regardless, lots of ppl dont look on blu-ray.com and are clueless
and then what happens when you see that its a crappy transfer? you cant return movies too most stores when they are already open, so you end up selling them and losing money, but in the end the studio gets all of theres

[aygie]

Originally Posted by iceman_mw21

they are coming out with crappy transfers because studios dont care, all they care about is the money and the sales they make,
they are getting lazy with the transfers cuz they know that most ppl are going to buy them regardless, lots of ppl dont look on blu-ray.com and are clueless
and then what happens when you see that its a crappy transfer? you cant return movies too most stores when they are already open, so you end up selling them and losing money, but in the end the studio gets all of theres

I once returned terminator 3 on DVD because i thought it was rubbish. I walked into the store and said "this is one of the worst films i have seen in my life, i haven't even watched all it and i want my money back."

They gave me the refund

[Adam_ME]

Haven't there always been frames missing in Manhunter? I remember some pretty bad edits in that film. I think one happens while Will Graham is watching the first tape in his hotel room near the beginning.

[TheZoof]

The other thing to keep in mind is it is a Michael Mann film! Hazy is the way it is supposed to look.

I own Silence of the Lambs and I am sorry to say it isn't a great PQ/AQ blu but it does get the job done. It is better than the Dvd which I also own.

I would expect Hannibal to look the best of the 3.

I would have considered the set if it had Red Dragon instead of Silence of the Lambs.

[Mr.White]

Originally Posted by BluOrbit

I watched the first disc in the Hannibal Lecter Anthology - Manhunter - last night and was highly disappointed, for several reasons:

- There are absolutely NO special features, not even a trailer
- The PQ was, for the most part, no more than a notch above SD quality. Except for a few scenes colors were drab, and the picture seemed hazy a good deal of the time. There were also quite a bit of speckles that appeared, especially early in the film.
- The DTS-HD was average at best
- There seemed to be at least 3 times where a frame was missing.

I watched Manhunter in HD on cable a few months ago and, from what I remember, the colors seemed more vibrant than on the BD.

I'll move on to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal next, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they did a better job on those discs than Manhunter.

Shame on you, MGM/FOX!

I'm glad I only bought Silence on blu, and still have my Manhunter DVD's from Anchor Bay!

[BluOrbit]

Originally Posted by TheZoof

The other thing to keep in mind is it is a Michael Mann film! Hazy is the way it is supposed to look.

I own Silence of the Lambs and I am sorry to say it isn't a great PQ/AQ blu but it does get the job done. It is better than the Dvd which I also own.

I would expect Hannibal to look the best of the 3.

I would have considered the set if it had Red Dragon instead of Silence of the Lambs.

Well, even if the missing frames are not specific to the BD, and even if the haziness is inherent in the way it was shot, it is still, in my opinion, a sub-standard release. Of course, I'm not an expert (and I'm not usually overly-critical - I was one of the few people who didn't think The Fugitive and Total Recall were that bad), so I look forward to the reviews to see if they are in agreement, but so far I haven't found a single review out there.

[Irrob]

Gotta agree about Hannibal, watching it now...not blown away by the PQ. There's just no hidef "pop". It's a flat, drab presentation. Silence actually looks beter, and that isnt saying much. Shameful packaging too. All three discs in a regular size case. Theyre overcharging for this set.

[Zen_Amako]

I didn't buy this set, but I noticed on the packaging that Hannibal is an MPEG-2 transfer with a low bit rate. The MPEG-2 makes me think they simply dusted off a transfer that was done a while ago.

I wonder how Hannibal compares to the German import.

[Stuart_Larkin]

I was thinking about buying this on release, but i kinda held back and right now i'm not sure if I will purchase it.

I've been very disapointed from the start about how they were releasing this.. It's already been complained that Why is it featuring Manhunter and NOT Red Dragon? It should have also included Hannibal Rising. Ok I personally think Manhunter was a MUCH better film then Red Dragon. Manhunter was a great film and one I wanted on Blu-ray more then Red Dragon, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising. However I kinda wanted it released on it's own given proper treatment etc.
I have already purchased Silence of the Lambs on blu-ray, I did like Hannibal and would be interested in getting it had it actually been given good treatment. Never seen Hannibal rising cause i was always waiting for it to come out on blu-ray.

So from the start of what we were being told of this release, I thought it was just a half-assed job...

I'm hoping for a better release in the future, giving proper treatments to ALL the films in the Hannibal series.

[Brad1963]

I just got home a while ago and popped them on to take a look. LAMBS I have already and thought it looked fine, same disc that was released earlier this year. MANHUNTER is very grainy and obviously not enhanced to look any better, I thought it actually looked about what I expected. HANNIBAL actually looks awful, it actually looks the worst of the three. Absolutely NO SUPPLEMENTS, for the price I would have expected more.

[retablo]

Originally Posted by BluOrbit

I watched the first disc in the Hannibal Lecter Anthology - Manhunter - last night and was highly disappointed, for several reasons:

- There are absolutely NO special features, not even a trailer
- The PQ was, for the most part, no more than a notch above SD quality. Except for a few scenes colors were drab, and the picture seemed hazy a good deal of the time. There were also quite a bit of speckles that appeared, especially early in the film.
- The DTS-HD was average at best
- There seemed to be at least 3 times where a frame was missing.

I watched Manhunter in HD on cable a few months ago and, from what I remember, the colors seemed more vibrant than on the BD.

I'll move on to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal next, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they did a better job on those discs than Manhunter.

Shame on you, MGM/FOX!

The missing frames (or at lease some missing frames) have always been in there. I remember watching this on The Movie Channel back in 1986 and, while I didn't know what missing frames were back then, I noticed the "jumps" and at the time thought it was just bad filmmaking. Dunno why they are in there, I have just come to accept them as part of the film. They were on the DVD versions as well.

[Bruce Morrison]

Originally Posted by Stuart_Larkin

I was thinking about buying this on release, but i kinda held back and right now i'm not sure if I will purchase it.

I've been very disapointed from the start about how they were releasing this.. It's already been complained that Why is it featuring Manhunter and NOT Red Dragon? It should have also included Hannibal Rising. Ok I personally think Manhunter was a MUCH better film then Red Dragon. Manhunter was a great film and one I wanted on Blu-ray more then Red Dragon, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising. However I kinda wanted it released on it's own given proper treatment etc.
I have already purchased Silence of the Lambs on blu-ray, I did like Hannibal and would be interested in getting it had it actually been given good treatment. Never seen Hannibal rising cause i was always waiting for it to come out on blu-ray.

So from the start of what we were being told of this release, I thought it was just a half-assed job...

I'm hoping for a better release in the future, giving proper treatments to ALL the films in the Hannibal series.

'Red Dragon' and 'Hannibal Rising' are owned by different companies, so there is no way they could have been included in an MGM set.

I agree though that this is an ill-conceived release, as SOTL has already been released separately. I'll wait for a separate release of 'Manhunter'.

[LazerTron]

Glad I cancelled my Amazon order in time as I really only want Manhunter on BD.

When Manhunter gets seperaterly released, hopefully they give this great film credit and add some nice bonus materials to the package. It's a Michael Mann film after all

[danyuld]

Originally Posted by Brad1963

I just got home a while ago and popped them on to take a look. LAMBS I have already and thought it looked fine, same disc that was released earlier this year. MANHUNTER is very grainy and obviously not enhanced to look any better, I thought it actually looked about what I expected. HANNIBAL actually looks awful, it actually looks the worst of the three. Absolutely NO SUPPLEMENTS, for the price I would have expected more.

Interesting comment - "enhanced to look any better"

how does enhancing or altering a piece of work improve it ?
when I watch Blu Ray - I want to get the impression i am watching a piece of projected 35 mm film.

[danyuld]

P.s. Manhunter is near perfect - trust me - i know what a piece of super 35mm transferred to hdcacm sr should look like.

Anyway trust me or trust me not - screen-caps are at :-

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post17203975

BluOrbit is simply wrong... (- no offense bluorbit)

[lgans316]

http://www.landofwhimsy.com/archives...vils/#comments

[GGX]

Originally Posted by danyuld

P.s. Manhunter is near perfect - trust me - i know what a piece of super 35mm transferred to hdcacm sr should look like.

Anyway trust me or trust me not - screen-caps are at :-

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post17203975

BluOrbit is simply wrong... (- no offense bluorbit)

Ya I'd have to agree with this post.

[SpotOn]

Watched Manhunter last night. Simply gorgeous. The grain structure alone (Super 35 w/blowup will be grainer then if it were shot with Anamorphic lenses) is worth the price. Beautiful.