28 Days later PQ - Please explain

[#Darren]

I don't own 28 Days Later on Blu ray but have read the many negative comments about how bad it looks, hardly worth upgrading from the DVD etc..

Now I know it was shot in standard def, BUT it was projected in theatres on giant screens... so how come no one said it looked awful in the theatres? And surely it benefited SOMEWHAT from the higher bandwidth of Blu ray ? Surely Blu ray gives us closer to the cinema look than the DVD release did?

[Slec]

Originally Posted by iDarren

I don't own 28 Days Later on Blu ray but have read the many negative comments about how bad it looks, hardly worth upgrading from the DVD etc..

Now I know it was shot in standard def, BUT it was projected in theatres on giant screens... so how come no one said it looked awful in the theatres? And surely it benefited SOMEWHAT from the higher bandwidth of Blu ray ? Surely Blu ray gives us closer to the cinema look than the DVD release did?

yea, It was shot in 576 (i think). It looks marginally better than the DVD, but most comments are made when comparing it to a normal Blu-ray, it won't look all that great (say 28 weeks later for a more direct example).

What this disc really benefits from is HD audio. If you have a setup that can handle the HD codecs, you will notice a difference in the that aspect of the film.

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by iDarren

I don't own 28 Days Later on Blu ray but have read the many negative comments about how bad it looks, hardly worth upgrading from the DVD etc..

Now I know it was shot in standard def, BUT it was projected in theatres on giant screens... so how come no one said it looked awful in the theatres? And surely it benefited SOMEWHAT from the higher bandwidth of Blu ray ? Surely Blu ray gives us closer to the cinema look than the DVD release did?

Actually, I remember very clearly a woman behind me in the theater complaining to her companion about it. I could hear her questioning whether it was the "film" or the theater and projector.

I never bought the DVD but grabbed the BD as soon as it was released. I was not disappointed. Not only is the AQ awesome (as mentioned above) but even the PQ benefits from less compression. What you get is "better" version of the source material without the added softness and artifacting of a standard DVD.

The best comparison to make is during the final scene which WAS shot on film. I'm willing to bet there is no comparison to the DVD.

[dgator783]

the people that say it looks terrible have no clue what on earth they are talking about and have lack of knowledge about this film.....it looks totally awesome and its the best its ever gonna loook period, blows the dvd out of the water.....

[lokus]

While I agree it doesn't look like your average BD, for me, the quality of the movie itself and its subject area are what interest me and I'll deal with the lack of HD like picture quality.

[CasualKiller]

Originally Posted by dgator783

the people that say it looks terrible have no clue what on earth they are talking about and have lack of knowledge about this film.....it looks totally awesome and its the best its ever gonna loook period, blows the dvd out of the water.....

Too funny, the original was shot on an SD hand cam. When they ported it over to blu ray they exposed every flaw and glitch in the movie.

The picture is absolutely horrible and pixelated, no amount of remastering or touch ups will ever make it look good.

[Col. Zombie]

Originally Posted by dgator783

the people that say it looks terrible have no clue what on earth they are talking about and have lack of knowledge about this film.....it looks totally awesome and its the best its ever gonna loook period, blows the dvd out of the water.....

+1

The BD is so much more vibrant and some images are amazingly crisp and sharp in comaprison to the SD-DVD. It's well worth the upgrade, IMHO.

Sure it's not reference material, but that's just the way it was originally shot.

Some people are just and need to get over it.

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by CasualKiller

Too funny, the original was shot on an SD hand cam. When they ported it over to blu ray they exposed every flaw and glitch in the movie.

The picture is absolutely horrible and pixelated, no amount of remastering or touch ups will ever make it look good.

In other words, it looks exactly like it's supposed to on Blu-ray.

[CasualKiller]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

In other words, it looks exactly like it's supposed to on Blu-ray.

Unless you're a 28 ____ fanboy it's not even watchable. My wife is far from an HD buff and 3 minutes in she asked if we got a bad disc.

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by CasualKiller

Unless you're a 28 ____ fanboy it's not even watchable. My wife is far from an HD buff and 3 minutes in she asked if we got a bad disc.

It's not about being a fanboy. It's about how the movie was intended to look. The movie wasn't supposed to look glossy or detailed or clean. You may not like how the PQ looks but that doesn't mean that the BD is a bad disc or that the transfer is bad. The movie looked like crap in the theater, and it's going to look like crap on any medium exactly as it was intended to by the filmmakers....which is why they chose to shoot it on mini DV.

I have no doubt if your wife watched Grindhouse that she would notice within 3 minutes that there are scratches, bad jump cuts, burns in the film and excessive grain, but that doesn't mean that wasn't the intention.

[CasualKiller]

Although the movie was to have that run down "post apocalyptic" feel to it, the overly bad video was because he only had a 15 million dollar budget for the entire film and he went with Canon XL-1 camcorders to save money.

Those cameras only have a native resolution of 720x576.

He passed it off as "the way he intended it to look" and people like you just gobble it up even though it looks like "______".

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by CasualKiller

Although the movie was to have that run down "post apocalyptic" feel to it, the overly bad video was because he only had a 15 million dollar budget for the entire film and he went with Canon XL-1 camcorders to save money.

Those cameras only have a native resolution of 720x576.

He passed it off as "the way he intended it to look" and people like you just gobble it up even though it looks like "______".

And if a movie doesn't have a high budget and doesn't look like Iron Man we're supposed to shove the movie to the side and expect that it never happened??? It's the best the movie has ever looked, and is showing itself true to how it was shot which is all HD is intended to be.

[CasualKiller]

Originally Posted by wormraper

And if a movie doesn't have a high budget and doesn't look like Iron Man we're supposed to shove the movie to the side and expect that it never happened??? It's the best the movie has ever looked, and is showing itself true to how it was shot which is all HD is intended to be.

No , the point I'm making is that for some movies it is a waste of time and money to port to Blu, if you know it was shot on crap equipment, it looked bad on DVD why on earth would you put money into exposing it even more.

Better yet , who the hell would pay for that?

And the standard DVD was the best it ever looked, if you think other wise:

http://www.allaboutvision.com/eye-te...FSMeDQodMnDFKw

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by CasualKiller

No , the point I'm making is that for some movies it is a waste of time and money to port to Blu, if you know it was shot on crap equipment, it looked bad on DVD why on earth would you put money into exposing it even more.

Better yet , who the hell would pay for that?

very simple. It does look better on blu, less compression artifacts for one, slightly more vibrant colors. And the audio, lets talk about going from crappy DD 5.1 to DTS-HD MA 5.1. Holy crap is the audio an upgrade!!! that alone is woth the price of admission. If you don't have the system to handle it that's fine but IMO I would pay sticker price for audio above video any day of the week.

[CasualKiller]

Here's a thread with actual comparisons in it, and I never complained about the audio in it...

http://www.hometheaterspot.com/fusio...hp?tid/138842/

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by CasualKiller

Although the movie was to have that run down "post apocalyptic" feel to it, the overly bad video was because he only had a 15 million dollar budget for the entire film and he went with Canon XL-1 camcorders to save money.

Those cameras only have a native resolution of 720x576.

He passed it off as "the way he intended it to look" and people like you just gobble it up even though it looks like "______".

Only had 15 million dollar budget?? LOL! Danny Boyle made Trainspotting for less than 4 million and shot that on film. So with his 15 million dollar budget, he could have easily shot 28 Days Later on film too. Not to mention that the final scene in the movie was shot on film...as intended.

Or did you think he shot that final scene first and suddenly realized he didn't have enough money so they better switch to DV?

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by CasualKiller

Here's a thread with actual comparisons in it, and I never complained about the audio in it...

http://www.hometheaterspot.com/fusio...hp?tid/138842/

you never complained about the audio??? that's fine when all you have is the DVD but the audio in the Blu version thrashes it easily. My twin SVS cylinders literally are shaking the room in DTS-HD MA track while they barely get a workout in the DD track. It's very simple. Many many people have stated that the audio is a huuuuuuge upgrade. Not trying to take a pot shot or anything (honestly) but it sounds (excuse the pun :P) like you don't have a capable sound system or aren't an audiophile at all. For most in here good video is only part of the equation, audio is just as important as video. and what studies do you have that show that the DVD looks "Better"??? I have both copies and while it's not leaps and bounds better the Blu is definitely a tad sharper and the lack of compression artifacts is rather obvious.

EDIT: I took a look at that link and the DVD does not look any better than the Blu Ray from those tiny little shots. seriously his final words are that they did a commendable job and the lossless audio was a great upgrade but that he was leary because it came out at a $40 msrp price tag (which has dropped considerably by now)

I’m glad Fox took the opportunity to release 28 Days Later on the format in honor of the sequel 28 Weeks…, also coming to Blu this month. And the effort they’ve given the title is commendable. Unfortunately, considering the innate limitations of the video and forty dollar price of admission, I’d have a hard time recommending an upgrade from the previous DVD. I’d personally, buy the BD for the lossless sound, but would probably hold out for a price drop as the format grows in the market or a store promotion.

[CasualKiller]

Originally Posted by Dotpattern

Only had 15 million dollar budget?? LOL! Danny Boyle made Trainspotting for less than 4 million and shot that on film. So with his 15 million dollar budget, he could have easily shot 28 Days Later on film too. Not to mention that the final scene in the movie was shot on film...as intended.

Or did you think he shot that final scene first and suddenly realized he didn't have enough money so they better switch to DV?

Actually his budget was almost 8 million dollars, and he could spend the money on equipment, he didn't need to close off entire city blocks and put 100 people in make up for Trainspotting.

And as for the ending he actually paid extra to have that done, there was actually 3-4 different endings shot, if he could have afforded it he would have done the entire film that way.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by iDarren

Now I know it was shot in standard def, BUT it was projected in theatres on giant screens... so how come no one said it looked awful in the theatres? And surely it benefited SOMEWHAT from the higher bandwidth of Blu ray ? Surely Blu ray gives us closer to the cinema look than the DVD release did?

People did complain about the movie looking awful in theaters. Some movie critics gave the feature's standard-def origins a pass, saying the crude look lended itself to the drama of the show.

I disagree with that on the stylstic point. If the SD video look was valuable they should have left the video looking exactly like video instead of muting the RGB color of the video tape with a photochemical film step during post production to try to imitate the film look. It doesn't work. It hasn't worked either on some other video-sourced movies, such as Collateral and Miami Vice. If "digital" is really that great, please leave the digital video camera footage looking like video. I guess they don't want the footage looking like something you would see on Cops, the "6 o'clock news," an average soap opera or a video-based documentary. HD video camera footage can look excellent [i]if it isn't altered with a bunch of "film look" processing steps in post. It's just going to look like something from a video camera rather than film. Perhaps the "film makers" just can't accept that. In some cases a video look would lend itself to certain stories.

At first glance there would seem to be little benefit of porting 28 Days Later over to Blu-ray. However, consider the nature of the DV and MiniDV camcorder formats. In standard definition, both record footage to digital tape at bandwidths far above what DVD can deliver. DVD-V has a maximum bandwidth of 10 million bits per second. MiniDV footage runs 3.7MB per second -in other words, 29.6 million bits per second. And that SD footage is already significantly compressed. Blu-ray allows the SD footage from 28 Days Later to look more identical to the original camera footage, even if it isn't high definition.

[Dotpattern]

Originally Posted by CasualKiller

if he could have afforded it he would have done the entire film that way.

Source please.

Edit: And I suppose if Spielberg had a bigger budget for Schindler's List, something closer to what he had for Jurassic Park, he would have shot the movie in color, right? Because obviously the black and white wasn't his intention, he just said it was.