Gladiator (2000)

[Mokus76]

Originally Posted by Blu-Runner

Thanks, Paramount. You see what you've done now?

Yeah Paramount See What You Have Done???

I will call them and complain that Gladiator sucks on bluray, and then perhaps I will have my freedom!!!!

[Stoyanov]

They need to release Vanilla Sky already.

[Petri Teittinen]

Originally Posted by tau31

Yeah I have the Samsung 1500. I watched Shawshank last night and it ran perfectly, it has to be disc compatibility issues. Certain scenes just pause like if the chapter was changing, it must have something to do with the extended edition. I haven't watched the theatrical on Blu-ray. Only the extended. I'm guessing when the extended scene is comingup the system pauses to find the right file.

Does the US BD of Shawshank contain seamless branching? Do you have any other discs with seamless branching you could try on the 1500? If you do and it exhibits similar behaviour, well, there's your culprit then.

[Petri Teittinen]

Originally Posted by Jimbo976

It would be interesting to know the reason why they used an old one. Was it just the cost to make a new one or was there more to it than that?

One possible explanation: they had the theatrical version transferred in 2000, and only the extended scenes in 2005. In other words, they didn't transfer the entire movie in 2005. That would mean a complete new transfer made in 2005 does not exist.

[benricci]

Originally Posted by Petri Teittinen

Does the US BD of Shawshank contain seamless branching?

No it doesn't.

[Jimbo976]

Originally Posted by Petri Teittinen

One possible explanation: they had the theatrical version transferred in 2000, and only the extended scenes in 2005. In other words, they didn't transfer the entire movie in 2005. That would mean a complete new transfer made in 2005 does not exist.

This is what I have been thinking is the case. Someone might be able to tell if they looked at the 2005 DVD release and looked to see if there was much of a difference in PQ between the extended and theatrical scenes. Although it may not be very easy to tell on a low-def disc.

[Petri Teittinen]

Originally Posted by benricci

No it doesn't.

Cheers. OK, so that playing fine proves nothing wrt Gladiator hiccups with the P1500.

[aramis109]

Originally Posted by Petri Teittinen

One possible explanation: they had the theatrical version transferred in 2000, and only the extended scenes in 2005. In other words, they didn't transfer the entire movie in 2005. That would mean a complete new transfer made in 2005 does not exist.

Keeping that theory in mind, and knowing that Ridley Scott is working on Robin Hood right now, they may have gone with the 2000 transfer since he had previously approved it. They may also have done this for time or money reasons.

This is all just speculation but I can't imagine them intentionally putting out this product without a reason.

Of course, they also put 480p "advertisements" for their Sapphire series on the BD. Why in the HELL would they have chosen to do it in such a poor low-res?

[Mokus76]

Originally Posted by Petri Teittinen

One possible explanation: they had the theatrical version transferred in 2000, and only the extended scenes in 2005. In other words, they didn't transfer the entire movie in 2005. That would mean a complete new transfer made in 2005 does not exist.

You are correct they did not make a complete new transfer in 2005 and that is why this bluray sucks and I just realized that

[Jimbo976]

Originally Posted by Mokus76

You are correct they did not make a complete new transfer in 2005 and that is why this bluray sucks and I just realized that

So you've been in contact with Universal/Paramount about this and have confirmed this?

[Mokus76]

Originally Posted by tau31

Yeah I have the Samsung 1500. I watched Shawshank last night and it ran perfectly, it has to be disc compatibility issues. Certain scenes just pause like if the chapter was changing, it must have something to do with the extended edition. I haven't watched the theatrical on Blu-ray. Only the extended. I'm guessing when the extended scene is comingup the system pauses to find the right file.

wow look what I have found??

hiccups on a Sammy while watching Gladiator, hmmmmm now who's right and who is wrong.
Sorry back to Gladiator, I just had to get this in here.

[Petri Teittinen]

Originally Posted by Jimbo976

Someone might be able to tell if they looked at the 2005 DVD release and looked to see if there was much of a difference in PQ between the extended and theatrical scenes. Although it may not be very easy to tell on a low-def disc.

Exactly, it would be quite difficult, with all the pre-filtering done for the DVD encode.

[Mokus76]

Originally Posted by Jimbo976

So you've been in contact with Universal/Paramount about this and have confirmed this?

No I dont want to bug them, but it is true when you look on the back of the bluray it says the year 2000 and 2005 which seemed weird when I first saw it.

[Deadset]

Where's Beta when we need him?

[Petri Teittinen]

I'm sure most of you remember a screencap of the on-screen title GERMANIA, found at 00:02:41. The title looked pretty nasty on the screencap, with obvious jagged edges to the letters. In motion the title looks even worse; you can actually see how the various processing algorithms are playing merry hell with the letters' edges right then and there.

Have you looked at the ending credit scroll? Same story, although the black background helps a bit. But you can see the letters "squirm" while under assault from both blurring and sharpening filters at the same time. Ohh boy.

I noticed this while skipping to the end of the film; sometimes authoring shops slip their own logo in at the end of the disc. There wasn't one here, unfortunately.

[Bourne1]

I bought both movies after work at BB (last ones) and watched Gladiator as soon as I got home. For me, between the Theatrical version scenes and the Extended version scenes, it felt like I was watching two different movies in terms of the PQ. I can live with it, but I don't like.

If a company is going to slap a premium label and brand the product that way to the consumer market, then it should have that premium quality. For someone that is in marketing and advertising, I have to deal with branding on a daily basis. It is borderline false advertisement. Not only was Gladiator a great film and won many awards for that, it has also won awards for it's visuals. If you are going to transfer a prestigious move such as this one to the market's highest quality HD format, then do it the right way, not this half-a**ed slop that seems like it was rushed to the market. They either tried to hard or didn't pay attention to the details. This movie would have fully blown me away if the whole movie had the same PQ quality as the extended scenes had. This movie could have had the whole package: Epic film on an HD format, great SQ, and great PQ.

Originally Posted by jsub

This is hilarious. You don't even have the movie and haven't watched it, yet you're ready to write a complaint letter to Paramount.

[tau31]

I did some research, it has to be seemless branching. . I have about 80 blu-rays and I haven't gotten a single issue.

[robertc88]

just checked now after I recently rented The Last Starfighter which looked downright terrible and it also got a 3.0. I thought I was watching it an analog TV broadcast and I turned it off. Gladiator blows that BD totally out of the water!!!!

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by HAVOKK

Well, maybe if they made enough off this release they would throw down the dough to do it again right?

Well, it was released 3 different times on DVD. There will definitely be a double dip of this on Blu down the road..... after they feel they've sold enough copies of this release.

[Petri Teittinen]

Originally Posted by tau31

I did some research, it has to be seemless branching. . I have about 80 blu-rays and I haven't gotten a single issue.

Does your player have the latest firmware in it?