Sony Black Crush on late-2014 / early-2015 BDs

[Sporkies]

Originally Posted by Blu-21

Black crush aside, My Girl looks damn good. Huge upgrade over the DVD.

I think that's exactly what is so infuriating about this issue: except for the black crush, all of these releases look fantastic.

[Pyoko]

Since with these someone at some point probably fed a full range stream where video range was expected, is it possible the clipped information still exists in the BTB/WTW (0-15/236-255) areas of the video? I figure it's extremely unlikely, but was just curious.

[ryanmj1993]

In my opinion Sony should have to issue replacement discs for these titles. They are defective.

[Blu-21]

At this rate if the trend follows, Sony's BD releases are going to look like this shortly:



I wonder if any of the supporters will defend that agienst the other versions...

[David M]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

He also says that the Sony BDs are being mastered according to a new spec.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topi...ray/?p=4211699



Even if that were the case, adjusting our monitors does not reveal the detail that was destroyed by the black crush.

Good suggestion from him, but not correct in this case. The black detail is actually missing.

[Bueller]

Originally Posted by Blu-21

At this rate if the trend follows, Sony's BD releases are going to look like this shortly:

[Show spoiler]

I wonder if any of the supporters will defend that agienst the other versions...

Ugh, black crash and DNR now?

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Blu-21

At this rate if the trend follows, Sony's BD releases are going to look like this shortly:

I wonder if any of the supporters will defend that agienst the other versions...

I've been hoping for YEARS that Sony would release PANIC ROOM on BD, but with this going on, that's exactly how that supremely dark film would look, so I find myself hoping that Sony does NOT release it any time soon, until this technical issue is corrected.

[BONKERS]

Originally Posted by Pyoko

Since with these someone at some point probably fed a full range stream where video range was expected, is it possible the clipped information still exists in the BTB/WTW (0-15/236-255) areas of the video? I figure it's extremely unlikely, but was just curious.

No. Because what happens is that detail is clipped away. Like using scissors. Or like with clipping in audio. That information is finito. If you try to re expand it, everything in that area becomes a grey blob in the low end instead of a black blob

[filmmusic]

Do we have any news?

[ryanmj1993]

Originally Posted by filmmusic

Do we have any news?

Not that I've heard and I don't think we are gonna get any either.

[amoergosum]

Keep sending those emails and ask if there are any news regarding this issue.

[asmodeux21]

"Hostel 2" on blu ray still has not been changed to the correct level even after Eli Roth had addressed the black crush matter years ago. That is one of the worst cases of black crush that I've seen.

[Liquid_Swords]

Why do I have a feeling this is going to be ignored
Hopefully I'm wrong. Hostel 2 was horrible indeed. That's been like that forever.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by Liquid_Swords

Why do I have a feeling this is going to be ignored
Hopefully I'm wrong. Hostel 2 was horrible indeed. That's been like that forever.

There's no way in hell the existing discs are getting recalled or whatever. The reason to bring this to Sony's attention is to save future discs from the same issue.

[amoergosum]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

There's no way in hell the existing discs are getting recalled or whatever.

I think so, too.
"The Interview" will be released in Germany in June for example. Hopefully the issue is going to be fixed for other editions.

[Early Memphis]

I don't pretend to understand this problem - what "technically" could turn one of the finest makers of Blu-rays on the planet into a purveyor of "black holes"? But, in order to support people I respect, I just called and added my name to the list of those concerned - and was politely told that they have no news regarding this issue but that I could check their website if/when they had any info. Email to follow.

[filmmusic]

Originally Posted by Early Memphis

I don't pretend to understand this problem - what "technically" could turn one of the finest makers of Blu-rays on the planet into a purveyor of "black holes"?

Someone explained this (i don't know if this is the case, because I'm not on the technical side too. But i can see the problem with my eyes. Now what caused it, I don't know.)

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...58&postcount=6

[EddieLarkin]

Originally Posted by filmmusic

Someone explained this (i don't know if this is the case, because I'm not on the technical side too. But i can see the problem with my eyes. Now what caused it, I don't know.)

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...58&postcount=6

This is almost certainly the issue that is causing the problem. Take any of your normal Blu-rays and apply the PC level colour space to them instead of Video Level and they'll come out looking just like these Sony discs; much darker with a ton of black crush.

[Geoff D]

I thought applying PC levels (0-255) to video level material (16-235) would make it brighter, not darker?

The Sony releases are the other way around, as if they've been created at PC levels first but then mastered at video levels (simulated in the quoted post above) which is clipping the relative black level by 16 points and absolutely nuking any shadow detail. And because it's baked in we can't just brighten the videos to bring the detail back, it's gone.

[Pyoko]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I thought applying PC levels (0-255) to video level material (16-235) would make it brighter, not darker?

Depends on what one means with "apply" but generally it would probably refer to the expansion/remapping of values from 16-235 (video range) to 0-255 (full range). This will make the blacks blacker and whites whiter, and is necessary to do when viewing video level material on a PC monitor for example.

Content is generally created/edited at full range (0-255 for 8-bit, 0-1023 for 10-bit etc.) then the image is compressed to a video legal range at the final output stage.

So the chain when viewing on a PC is something like this:

Source (full range) ---range compression---> Blu-ray (video range) ---range expansion---> PC output (full range)

What's happened with the Sony discs is that either the range compression between the source and the Blu-ray stream was never performed, or an extra range expansion happened between the source and the Blu-ray.

The result is the same and effectively means the Blu-rays were encoded in a non-standard full range. So if you watch these on a PC without doing the usual range expansion, what's there should actually look correct, the problem is of course that all the information outside the video range will be gone.