Night of the Living Dead (1990) - Out of Print

[Mr Kite]

The new colour timing.

[HyperRealist]

quit trolling this thread. you obviously are just trying to start shit

[Joshinator1989]

Originally Posted by Moonpie

The new colour timing.

I LOLd

[vidjunkie]

Originally Posted by Moonpie

The new colour timing.

Yea I like it a lot myself as well obviously, if you are referring to what we did, I wish this is how it was released, I just cannot figure out why it was released like this, when I first watched it I was just ok with it, but when you actually go back and see what it did look like and then attempt fixing it and do a side by side like we did it really shows you clearly how bad it really is, I can see making it a little darker, its Horror after all, but that dark, and that blue, makes no sense, it takes away from a lot of the detail, but oh well what is done is done right?

*edit, I just read some of the previous posts before mine, so does he mean he likes the color timing of what we have in the TT release? the overly dark and blue video? if so scratch everything I posted above this lol.

[Mr Kite]

Originally Posted by vidjunkie

Yea I like it a lot myself as well obviously, if you are referring to what we did, I wish this is how it was released, I just cannot figure out why it was released like this, when I first watched it I was just ok with it, but when you actually go back and see what it did look like and then attempt fixing it and do a side by side like we did it really shows you clearly how bad it really is, I can see making it a little darker, its Horror after all, but that dark, and that blue, makes no sense, it takes away from a lot of the detail, but oh well what is done is done right?

*edit, I just read some of the previous posts before mine, so does he mean he likes the color timing of what we have in the TT release? the overly dark and blue video? if so scratch everything I posted above this lol.

IMHO yes i do like the TT release, just it doesn't appear overly dark or blue to me.

PS
I have just seen the post from the person above...........if i say i like the new colour timing of the film how is that trolling............so to post here i have to say i dislike it...........is that what you are saying?

[vidjunkie]

Originally Posted by Moonpie

IMHO yes i do like the TT release, just it doesn't appear overly dark or blue to me.

OH, wow, well I guess to each their own right? but it is cool you like it, but I can respect your opinion thinking it is not overly dark or blue, but you are definitely in the minority there.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by ROclockCK

Bottom line for me:

Despite the many recondite claims otherwise, unfortunately no absolute benchmark currently exists for this movie on home video. Previous DVDs (and earlier transfers) were too "bright and colorful" according to the DP as well as anyone who still remembers what this movie looked like during its brief theatrical run. On the other hand, this Blu-ray transfer contains stretches that are clearly darker and more monochrome...a revisionist choice for sure. But neither is correct. Somewhere in between lies the original coloration for NOTLD90.

Until a more faithful master is produced ("Lookee there, I see H3LL freezing over!"), the home video version someone prefers just comes down to personal taste. "Candy cane"? Or "Cool"? My first, best choice would be seeing this movie closer to how it originally screened in 1990, but barring that, this "cooler" version is the next best thing, and I still prefer it over the almost sitcom-y look of the legacy DVD.

You also learned another ‘bottom line’. What the *man in charge* is capable of doing by intentionally composing/signing off on statements like this (bolded) -

“As promised, we have discussed NOTLD at the studio and are able to verify via SPE's Mastering Department, that our Blu-ray is indeed the approved transfer from 2010, generated for the film's 20th anniversary, and done in consultation with the film's director of photography”…

When, in fact, plain and simple ‘the consulter’ says this to be the actual case of the matter –https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=6164

In neutral observers’ minds, this exposé in regards to *corporate speak* is of far greater significance than personal preference as to the original vs. blatant revisionist color correction of a solitary Blu-ray movie.

Sadly, there are no independent safeguards in place to prevent this practice from happening yet again in the future and it also calls into question the specific extent of past actual physical-presence filmmaker involvement in the transfer process when words like ‘consulted’, ‘supervised’ or ‘approved’ by the Director or DP were purposely used as an indisputable *stamp of approval* to 'officially' legitimize the color, brightness, contrast, etc. of other past titles which have been of forum debate and showed a *new look* as compared to the original theatrical presentation.

[Mr Kite]

Originally Posted by vidjunkie

OH, wow, well I guess to each their own right? but it is cool you like it, but I can respect your opinion thinking it is not overly dark or blue, but you are definitely in the minority there.

I think it has a more atmospheric look than the DVD, which is overly colour saturated and way to bright IMHO.

[vidjunkie]

Originally Posted by Moonpie

I think it has a more atmospheric look than the DVD, which is overly colour saturated and way to bright IMHO.

Now this I agree with, the DVD that I have and the HDX version Vudu is showing is way to bright for a Horror movie, I would love a middle ground.

Now I am probably in the minority there with you on the original being way to bright lol.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Moonpie

Some early pics of my tv are here:
http://forums.hdtvtest.co.uk/index.php?topic=7209.0

Quickly scanning some of the posts, you (tele1962) appear to be such a nice fellow on that forum as compared to here.

You’ve got me convinced that you’re getting an accurate home depiction of “the approved transfer from 2010, generated for the film's 20th anniversary” which, by the way, doesn’t mean that other viewers here who are unhappy with the color correction are not getting acceptably close to the same with their respective TV/projector set-ups during casual home viewing.

Anyway, seems you have yourself a fine consumer-grade monitor if it is not wanting in the brightness department so….what did you measure that to be (in nits)? I’m wondering if your model is a comparative consumer underachiever in that dept. and whether or not this TV would be useful at home for something other than in a very dark ‘man cave’.

Not interested in your subjective assessment as to brightness, or a pic of your TV in the room, I would like to know your objective measurement in nits or foot-Lamberts.

[Mr Kite]

Originally Posted by vidjunkie

Now this I agree with, the DVD that I have and the HDX version Vudu is showing is way to bright for a Horror movie, I would love a middle ground.

Now I am probably in the minority there with you on the original being way to bright lol.

I think this is maybe the point i was trying to make, people like bright overly saturated pictures a good example being stores selling LCD tv's and using Dynamic or Vivid mode to just that. When in truth when the tv is set up correctly some are quite shocked at first......but soon realise they can no longer go back to those modes of viewing.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Moonpie

tele1962.
Some early pics of my tv are here:
http://forums.hdtvtest.co.uk/index.php?topic=7209.0

b.t.w., David M. seems to be a technical mentor of sorts to you on that forum. Good man , brings back memories. I’m told that back in the early formative years of the Blu-ray format, he was that “Someone on another forum” who made this incorrect presumption about The Fifth Element….which was dead wrong, as I noted long ago here –

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...red#post352780

[Mr Kite]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Quickly scanning some of the posts, you (tele1962) appear to be such a nice fellow on that forum as compared to here.

You’ve got me convinced that you’re getting an accurate home depiction of “the approved transfer from 2010, generated for the film's 20th anniversary” which, by the way, doesn’t mean that other viewers here who are unhappy with the color correction are not getting acceptably close to the same with their respective TV/projector set-ups during casual home viewing.

Anyway, seems you have yourself a fine consumer-grade monitor if it is not wanting in the brightness department so….what did you measure that to be (in nits)? I’m wondering if your model is a comparative consumer underachiever in that dept. and whether or not this TV would be useful at home for something other than in a very dark ‘man cave’.

Not interested in your subjective assessment as to brightness, or a pic of your TV in the room, I would like to know your objective measurement in nits or foot-Lamberts.

I am a nice fellow here to and have an opinion that i am entitlled to which some seem to take offence at. I have never called anyone i liar said they are stirring shit or any other such nonsence............just posted what i feel to be the case and that is that this release looks fine to me.

As for lacking in the brightness department the Samsung D6900 holds it's own on that front.......i will see if i have my measurents stored for brightness (ftl) on this set. But i am sure it was pretty close to the test sample we reviewed.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

You also learned another ‘bottom line’. What the *man in charge* is capable of doing by intentionally composing/signing off on statements like this (bolded) -

“As promised, we have discussed NOTLD at the studio and are able to verify via SPE's Mastering Department, that our Blu-ray is indeed the approved transfer from 2010, generated for the film's 20th anniversary, and done in consultation with the film's director of photography”…

When, in fact, plain and simple ‘the consulter’ says this to be the actual case of the matter –https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=6164

In neutral observers’ minds, this exposé in regards to *corporate speak* is of far greater significance than personal preference as to the original vs. blatant revisionist color correction of a solitary Blu-ray movie.

Sadly, there are no independent safeguards in place to prevent this practice from happening yet again in the future and it also calls into question the specific extent of past actual physical-presence filmmaker involvement in the transfer process when words like ‘consulted’, ‘supervised’ or ‘approved’ by the Director or DP were purposely used as an indisputable *stamp of approval* to 'officially' legitimize the color, brightness, contrast, etc. of other past titles which have been of forum debate and showed a *new look* as compared to the original theatrical presentation.

That's the thing, they're just playing with words there. Some people took that statement to mean that the DP approved of the new transfer but that quote doesn't say that at all. Apparently it was approved by someone, which isn't stated, but not necessarily the DP. What it does say is the DP was consulted but the DP could have had little to no involvement and disapproved of the new color timing and it still could have been "approved" by someone else.

As we now know from someone who posted the DP's response to their question regarding the changes, the DP had little to do with the changes other than some form of phone conversation. He even mentioned he hadn't even seen the changes. Thus it wasn't approved by the DP but by someone else at Sony.

[Mr Kite]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

b.t.w., David M. seems to be a technical mentor of sorts to you on that forum. Good man , brings back memories. I’m told that back in the early formative years of the Blu-ray format, he was that “Someone on another forum” who made this incorrect presumption about The Fifth Element….which was dead wrong, as I noted long ago here –

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...red#post352780

That sir you will have to take up with David, but he is not just a mentor as you put it he also works on video compresion and transfer, advising OPPO Panasonic, Samsung amongst many others.

Also he was invited to the USA to take part in this years shootout attended by many of the experts in the field including Dnice, Kevin Miller, Dr Larry Webber (inventor of Plasma tv) and hollywood insiders such as your self.

A tiny snipet of the 2 day event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=YDX54Tbefbs#!

[David M]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

b.t.w., David M. seems to be a technical mentor of sorts to you on that forum. Good man , brings back memories. I’m told that back in the early formative years of the Blu-ray format, he was that “Someone on another forum” who made this incorrect presumption about The Fifth Element….which was dead wrong, as I noted long ago here –

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...red#post352780

Hey Penton-man,

Good to hear from you. My original claim was that the master was 1080i originally and IVTC'd, not that it was encoded at 1080i as you understood in that post.

The reason I said this was due to the aforementioned combing artefacts. If you go through it frame by frame, they are there. I would post a frame grab, but I don't have the Sony BD any more. In fact, I think the new version put out by Fox in the UK has similar mild issues.

However, since then I've handled other masters that have never touched an interlaced recording format, which do show similar artefacts. As far as I gather, they're actually dirt and scratch removal errors caused by some processing that's operating at the field level rather than frames. So, even if the master was done for 24p, another stage in the chain is still working at the field level. It makes sense for the default settings to do this; if these algorithms are fed interlaced content and start treating it as frames, the artefacts would be more severe than being fed progressive and treating it as fields.

Still, seeing combing artefacts on a BD and assuming it came from a 1080i master is an entirely reasonable assumption, I think. Educated guesses are the best we can do without actually speaking to the people involved.

[Mr Kite]

I wish we had conventions similar to what you guys have in the US......so as we could meet and maybe ask questions of the people involved in these horror classics.

[ROclockCK]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

You also learned another ‘bottom line’. What the *man in charge* is capable of doing by intentionally composing/signing off on statements like this (bolded) -

“As promised, we have discussed NOTLD at the studio and are able to verify via SPE's Mastering Department, that our Blu-ray is indeed the approved transfer from 2010, generated for the film's 20th anniversary, and done in consultation with the film's director of photography”…

When, in fact, plain and simple ‘the consulter’ says this to be the actual case of the matter –https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=6164

In neutral observers’ minds, this exposé in regards to *corporate speak* is of far greater significance than personal preference as to the original vs. blatant revisionist color correction of a solitary Blu-ray movie.

Agreed Penton-Man, and in an earlier post I referred to the whole thing as "FUBAR". I'm certainly not apologizing for the "revisionism" here...always a touchy subject for me. But "revisionism" compared to what? Unlike most posters here, I never saw the NOTLD90 DVD (or any previous home video versions) until after I saw this Blu-ray...before that my one and only experience with this film was on opening weekend back in 1990. In a theatre. On film. Projected.

My handful of recent posts on this subject have mainly been in response to the hundreds of pages comparing (often inaccurately) the colorization of this Blu-ray transfer to its previous home video versions...like those legacy transfers represented some kind of 'holy grail' for the look of this film. But unfortunately, that 'perkier' colorization everyone has become so familiar with is also [ahem] 'dead' wrong...and has been for over 20 years.

What I think we're actually witnessing here is a fairly recent phenomenon and growing trend...an entire generation of fans who grew up seeing this movie only on home video. They do not know it any other way, so they naturally believe that what they're accustomed to is more correct in terms of what the filmmakers originally intended. And yet it's well documented that Savini and company had to shoot this picture in brighter than expected daylight just to stay on schedule, and then trust the post-production lab work to print it down properly for release. Of course, 20 years later anyone going back to the original negative to rescan would see a raw image as bright and vivid as a seaside amusement park.

I mean, how many vintage 'day for night' shots have we all seen improperly transferred to home video because the original timing information was lost or ignored during the intervening 30, 40, 50, 60, years? My best example from one of my all-time fave films is the opening newsreel screening in Citizen Kane . On the Blu-ray, the face of a young Joseph Cotton is now clearly visible in the background filling in as one of the journalist extras...totally out of character...something never meant to be seen via the original chiaroscuro print timing for this scene. So in an otherwise superb home video presentation of this 70 year old classic, a once common print timing trick intended to hide a budgetary expedience has finally been revealed...simply because all of the creative principles who would have known better have since shuffled off and no one else in the production chain noticed it. As wrong as it is, that obvious transfer gaffe is actually kind of endearing to me...as film trivia.

So giving everyone on the production side of this NOTLD90 Blu-ray the benefit of the doubt, isn't it possible that this is more or less what happened here...only in reverse? When Sony "consulted" with the DP, wasn't it meant to be just that...an entirely good faith attempt to get this film closer to its originally intended look? The problem is, you can't do that kind of thing exclusively over the phone...or via e-mails...or tweets. Had Sony's anniversary release of NOTLD90 gone ahead as planned, I like to think that at least the Director and DP would have been shown a check disc before this new master was locked.

It's pretty clear now none of that follow-up occurred; when Sony's anniversary project was shelved, they just filed away this 'best guess' colorization as an 'approved master', and TT inherited that version when licensing it, with no cause (or legal right) to question the creative choices that produced it.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Sadly, there are no independent safeguards in place to prevent this practice from happening yet again in the future and it also calls into question the specific extent of past actual physical-presence filmmaker involvement in the transfer process when words like ‘consulted’, ‘supervised’ or ‘approved’ by the Director or DP were purposely used as an indisputable *stamp of approval* to 'officially' legitimize the color, brightness, contrast, etc. of other past titles which have been of forum debate and showed a *new look* as compared to the original theatrical presentation.

This is the crux of it Penton-Man. Such things happen because they can happen. That missing industry mechanism you speak of - whatever it would look like in practice - needs to be in place as a check and balance against such mercurial revisionism. DPs offering general guidelines via phone conversations or tweets, or 'Net based video clips, which a studio colorist then runs with in 'best guess' fashion, just doesn't cut it. In a better world, I'd like to see more pros like yourself with a little passion, and experience, and integrity invited to participate in that process...just for the sake of film history.

For movie fans and consumers though, we are pretty much left with only two choices in these situations: either totally reject a product, or somehow make our peace with it, with both responses being heard here. My own "bottom line" in a "FUBAR" situation like this where none of the home video versions are correct vis-à-vis the original film look, remains guardedly and pragmatically skewed towards the latter response. However sad to admit, this Blu-ray is still the best quality transfer we have of this half-forgotten cult horror film, or are likely to see of it for many years to come.

Made my peace.

[Mr Kite]

^^ well said that man.

Also thanks David for clearing up Penton Mans misinterpretation of what you said.

[prozacnation1978]

You guys still are *****ing about the color scheme still ??
Damm.