Problems with 'Public Enemies' picture quality?

[Rhylliam]

The disc is fine. The poorly or low lit scenes will produce more grain, thats just how it works with HD cameras.

I DID however have an issue playing the film on my 1080i set, since it produced vertical lines in many, many shots. Switching my set's output to 720p corrected this & made it look fantastic actually. Had this issue with early HD DVD Paramount discs too.

[I_Luv_The_Blu'z]

Thanks everyone! I'm probably going to give it a rent or wait until it's cheaper. I do love the film, but I wanna see it for myself on Blu first.

[evnash]

I'm watching the extras on it right now after finishing the movie. i thought this blu looked great.

[truffleshuffle83]

It's not a matter of PQ, which looks great. The motion is what looks weird. It's essentially like if you turn on a frame interpolation algorithm on a bli Ray. It's the soap opera effect that looks like it was shot with a handicam

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by I_Luv_The_Blu'z

So what's going on with the 'Public Enemies' Blu-Ray? I'm really interested in purchasing it since I loved the film in cinemas, but I've been reading very polarized reactions in terms of the picture quality. Some say that it's incredible and that Mann's use of HD cameras really bring out the image, while others say that it is one of the worst transfers they have seen because of discolored pixels and grain. Are there some bad copies of the film flying around? Has anyone had any problems with the film? Finally, should I wait a little while to make a purchase? Thanks!

Welcome Junior member.
Beginning here -
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ts#post2639790

with the comments and associated links (including an interview with Michael M.), you can learn just anything you’d like about Public Enemies………….except for the Final Answer to the challenge.

You can skip all those boring ‘off-topic’ posts and just concentrate on the posts and links pertinent to Public Enemies.
Just for the record, for those that mentioned that they saw P.E. in the commercial theaters, the Digital Cinema version is the preferred (by the Director) vision of the motion picture for audiences to have viewed…….not the film theatrical presentation, although the later is close enough for those without extremely discerning eyes.

Why?
Primarily because the motion picture was shot in Rec.709 HD video color space from the very beginning and the film theatrical version thusly required a conversion to film colorspace……the conversion never being an absolutely perfect process.

[Blu-ray Fanatic]

Originally Posted by truffleshuffle83

It's not a matter of PQ, which looks great. The motion is what looks weird. It's essentially like if you turn on a frame interpolation algorithm on a bli Ray. It's the soap opera effect that looks like it was shot with a handicam

Turn off the motion-flow/auto-motion plus. It'll look like a real movie when its off.

[retablo]

Originally Posted by truffleshuffle83

It's not a matter of PQ, which looks great. The motion is what looks weird. It's essentially like if you turn on a frame interpolation algorithm on a bli Ray. It's the soap opera effect that looks like it was shot with a handicam

Parts of the movie LOOK like that... it looked like that in the theater. Mann's digital shooting looks more like digital than, say, Superman Returns or Apocalypto, which to me looked more film-like. I don't know if its the Viper camera he prefers or just how he uses the shutter. But certain scenes, like the dinner scene between Depp and Cotillard has video-like movement in it.

[King_Spade]

My netflix version seems pretty damn good

[truffleshuffle83]

Originally Posted by Blu-ray Fanatic

Turn off the motion-flow/auto-motion plus. It'll look like a real movie when its off.

Appearantly you didn't read what I wrote. I saw it in theaters and the cabin shootout scene was laughable. It looks like what amp/ motionflow does

[truffleshuffle83]

Originally Posted by Blu-ray Fanatic

Turn off the motion-flow/auto-motion plus. It'll look like a real movie when its off.

Originally Posted by retablo

Parts of the movie LOOK like that... it looked like that in the theater. Mann's digital shooting looks more like digital than, say, Superman Returns or Apocalypto, which to me looked more film-like. I don't know if its the Viper camera he prefers or just how he uses the shutter. But certain scenes, like the dinner scene between Depp and Cotillard has video-like movement in it.

I know ,what I was saying is it's not the pq that people are complaining about , it's the motion in parts of the movie

[singhcr]

This movie was not shot on film so there is no grain. What you are seeing is digital noise when the camera is in very low light conditions.

[repete66211]

I saw this in a theater that uses a film projector. The PQ was probably the worst I've ever seen. Granted, it's an older theater, so perhaps the equipment is partially to blame, but even the lettering in the credits was fuzzy. It was so bad I (for the first time ever) complained to management. There were a couple of scenes where you couldn't even make out basic facial features. Since this doesn't seem to be a very common complaint and because I've never seen anything this bad in that particular theater before, I think they may have had a bad film print.

[ryoohki]

Digital Camera are not the GOD OF THE SAVIOR... Not at all. They look good in Daylight but you have to boost the sensor sensibility (simulating the ISO from a Film Camera). That cause extreme amount of Noise..

I mean just take you're digital camera.. Put it in ISO 400 or 800, take a shot without flash in lowlight and it will look crappy...

[Fighter]

No issues on my part....not a big fan of hd photography, but it worked well in this film.

Great blu-ray

[thebluemax]

In the darker scenes, it is hard to explain but it looks like it was photographed through a Screen, the flaw is intermitten but is very annoying. Anyone else see this problem?

[M]

Is this what you mean?

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...PUBLIC+ENEMIES

[thebluemax]

Originally Posted by M

Is this what you mean?

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...PUBLIC+ENEMIES

YES, thank you. this horrible disc should be recalled!!! Have a link to Universal? and sound is terrible either to soft or to loud.

One my Sony 550 looks terrible, but on my S1 looks ok.

[thebluemax]

Originally Posted by M

Is this what you mean?

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...PUBLIC+ENEMIES

Could someone send that link to Universal. I'm not sure how to do it???

[rabbit]

this reminds me of peeps saying WM big screen edition ROTF was more silent that the regular release anyway! watched Fight Club b4, durden rocks. half way through watching Night at Museum 2, and gonna try PE post. lastly, Hangover out 2morrorw, slamming beers and br watching doesn't help, screen gets all distorted, Basterds should rock and yes wil try to get G-Force with the $10 off voucher

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by rabbit

this reminds me of peeps saying WM big screen edition ROTF was more silent that the regular release

And remember how that ended? The WM big screen version was dial normed, but adjusting the volume produced the exact same audio as the normal version. People went on and on about how it sounded weaker even after volume matching, but extensive objective testing showed that the output waveforms were identical.

Again for Raging Bull - people were convinced their copies were defective because they saw a white line that others did not report. Turned out their brightness settings were higher, and the white line is visible on all copies of Raging Bull going back to the very first DVD release.

My guess for this situation is that the odd picture quality is a result of player or TV settings - I don't think the motion enhancer / cineflow / whatever algorithms were designed for low-light heavy-noise video such as that in the scenes in question. Many people, including myself, have watched Public Enemies without any kind of problem, and "defective" discs do not react in the way you are describing.