British Film Institute (BFI) Discussion Thread

[pedromvu]

Don't know if anybody else noticed or since when this happened, but BFI's Birth of a Nation is quite cheaper than Amazon's price on base.com:

Birth of a Nation

12.59 GBP

[IanSchultz23]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

There's a current discussion on Threads over on the North American boards at the moment.

I've got the DVD release, but I've been hoping BFI might see its way to giving us an upgrade. Agreed it's a very bleak film -- even more so than The Day After.

Ya it totally shits all over The Day After

[Chouan]

Originally Posted by pedromvu

Don't know if anybody else noticed or since when this happened, but BFI's Birth of a Nation is quite cheaper than Amazon's price on base.com:

Birth of a Nation

12.59 GBP

Thanks!
Not only is the disc much cheaper, but they're charging less for sending it over to Belgium as well. Result; £13.88 (postage incl.) through Base, compared to what would have been £20.97 through Amazon.

[manicsounds]

It looks like the 5 individual BFI releases and the MoC release of the Cassevetes films.

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Originally Posted by muchogris

Yeah, I guessed that was true because it didnt show artwork, but I expected something extra or at least a bundle within a cool box design due to the high price...

£65 for 6 releases by BFI and MoC isn't that high. Their listings for individual movies is often closer to retail price.

[oddbox83]

Watched Shooting Stars last night. Wasn't sure at first, seemed to take its time setting itself up but wow so worth it. 100 years of film language under the bridge but this one still has it. It deserves to be up there with the well known silents.

[jacobvongunten]

Did anyone else preorder the Ken Russell sets from HMV online? Was just wondering if people were having the same problem - I received The Great Composers and Culloden/The War Game on day of release, but am still waiting for The Great Passions to be shipped. Their site says 'in stock soon', but three weeks after release is taking the mickey a bit. My MoC Man With a Movie Camera hasn't shipped either, but I hear there might be a slight delay with most stores for this one.

[BarnDoor]

Just realized we're due the third quarter announcements in the next couple of weeks (most will probably leak onto Amazon within the next 7-10 days). Akenfield was delayed until July so that should be among them, along with Shakespeare in Silent Cinema. Someone on CriterionForum also spotted that the BFI will be releasing the Pioneers of African-American Cinema set over here, but that might be a fourth quarter title:

https://www.kinolorber.com/film/pion...americancinema

Fingers crossed for more archive BBC TV releases.

[rapta]

Very cool that BFI are doing that Pioneers of African-American Cinema set. I hope they upgrade some Charles Burnett and Melvin Van Peebles titles sometime soon (if Eureka or Arrow don't best them to it).

[FinnishFilmFan]

What is the packaging like for the Pasolini set? Different cases for each six films or more like the Herzog set?

[FinnishFilmFan]

Originally Posted by muchogris

Its six different slim cases.

Thank you!

[parklife]

Sat down to watch the recent BFI Birth of a Nation disc tonight, but after about sixteen minutes of viewing, I had to pause it and ask you folks - is anyone else seeing some extremely unsightly macroblocking in the black parts of the image? I've actually noticed it here and there throughout the film so far, but can someone check out around 16:26-16:32? That shot seems really bad!

I also noticed macroblocking in the middle of the image during the "Where did you get that hat?" intertitle (10:04), the "Over the plantation to the cotton fields" intertitle (11:30), during the iris-in at 11:45 (especially in the bottom left and right corners), the "By way of love valley" intertitle (11:59) and the iris-in/out shot that follows. It's a real shame because the other parts of the image look great.

I can't keep watching it if it looks like this. I'd compare it to the problematic first-pressing Battleship Potemkin BFI discs.

I own the MOC but I don't have it with me, so I can't do a direct A-B comparison. However, I don't remember anything so egregious on that disc. I threw in the MOC Intolerance for something comparable, thinking the issue might lie with my television, but I'm not seeing anything of order on that one.

[parklife]

I don't have any screen-capturing software, but I took a photograph of my television to illustrate the problem (it's super distracting in motion):



Now, I realize that that photograph makes it look like I've got the brightness cranked on my TV - I assure you, it only looks like that because of the way the image was captured by my camera with no flash. Here's another a picture of the same frame with the flash on my camera to give you a better idea of what the brightness level on my TC set is (it's actually a touch brighter in person). The flash masks the macroblocking:

[David M]

I didn't encode this particular title (I think it was done by Deluxe), but is the Black Level ("Brightness" control) set correctly on the TV? You can set it with a disc like Spears and Munsil, DVE, or the THX Optimizer.

[EddieLarkin]

I'm pretty sensitive to this particular sort of issue, but I didn't notice anything like it on my calibrated PJ (despite noticing it on genuinely problematic titles like Criterion's Mulholland Drive)

[EddieLarkin]

I'm looking at that frame now and can only just make out the compression blocking within the blacks. To get it to look anything like your picture, I have to completely lower my gamma correction (or change my input level from 16-255 to 0-255). That's perhaps where you need to be looking.

[CZDK]

Originally Posted by parklife

Might anyone be able to play-test the disc just to double-check?

I just had a look at both the BFI release and the MoC release during the first shot you mention and I can definitely see the macroblocking you're talking about. I have captured a screenshot of the scene from each release with VLC Media Player. I don't know if it would look different on my TV - I have only played the discs on my computer through VLC.

BFI release:



MoC release:

[parklife]

Thank you, CZDK. That screenshot clearly illustrates the issue and that's pretty close to how it looks on my television. I played around with my settings for a while last night, but the macroblocking was still evident with every configuration, so I just put everything back to the way it was (which took me a lot of tinkering to get to in the first place). I played it in a screening room at my workplace this morning (using a projector) and the macroblocking was still extremely visible and distracting to me.

I'm confused as to why no one else has noticed this problem yet. That screenshot certainly seems to indicate that something is up with this disc. I don't know what I should do with my copy. Is it unrealistic to expect BFI to look into it, since no one else seems concerned about it?

As it stands now, this edition of Birth of a Nation is unwatchable for me personally. It's a shame, because clearly the restoration work is superior to the MOC version. I don't want to return by disc to base.com just yet, because I know there's an off chance of a "fixed" version, but I definitely won't be watching this one again.

[filmmusic]

I see many replied to your issue about your TV settings, gamma, brightness etc.
The thing is I think that macroblocking shouldn't be evident even if you change brightness, gamma etc. in a screen.
If it is, it means that the disc isn't encoded properly.
Macroblocking masked by a dark picture is still an issue.

[Rich Pure Doom]

Is the entire movie like this or just this scene? I am extremely sensitive to macroblocking too and this is disapointing.