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

[bkhage01]

Originally Posted by dsman71

::opc orn:

this was like an epic tale, told through emoticons. Somehow it accurately describes the journey of this thread.

[donidarko]

WHOA!

I just hope someone, anyone with knowledge of what went on with this transfer makes a statement soon.

If you like your NOTLD darkened to blue black go with the 2012 version.

If you like the 20 year old NOLD warmly lit, detail oriented, and don't need night glasses to view it version go with the existing dvd.

I for one am sticking with the DVD until we know, if anything, will be done about this. I think everyone better pick the version they prefer and go with it.

I doubt Sony of TT are going to put anymore money into this title.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Whirlygig

My laptop & phone are certainly not calibrated at all, and most peoples' probably aren't. My HTPC/TV connection, however, is, since I use Windows Media Center as my DVR. So I can view frame grabs on there whenever I want to see what they will look like in real life. If people are really curious and aren't set up like that, another thing they could probably do is either put the images on a thumb drive/SD card and view them with their Blu-ray player (if it supports it), or their Blu-ray player may even have a rudimentary web browser that could get them there.

But really, this video is so ridiculously dark at times that you can pretty much conclude so no matter how your display is calibrated.

Agree. Regardless to whether or not an individual's display/monitor is calibrated, and that some may see the images as a little bit darker or a little bit lighter or a little more blue or little less blue, what the comparisons do show, without a doubt, is that there is a drastic change with this blu-ray when compared to how this film has been presented in the past.

[odriley]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Agree. Regardless to whether or not an individual's display/monitor is calibrated, and that some may see the images as a little bit darker or a little bit lighter or a little more blue or little less blue, what the comparisons do show, without a doubt, is that there is a drastic change with this blu-ray when compared to how this film has been presented in the past.

Well said.

[Member-167298]

It looks like the people responsible for the transfer took the title of the film far too literally.

[ChristmasFnatic]

Originally Posted by PrestonXI

It looks like the people responsible for the transfer took the title of the film far too literally.

And the fact that its BLU-ray.

[bboisvert]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Agree. Regardless to whether or not an individual's display/monitor is calibrated, and that some may see the images as a little bit darker or a little bit lighter or a little more blue or little less blue, what the comparisons do show, without a doubt, is that there is a drastic change with this blu-ray when compared to how this film has been presented in the past.

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^

The rest is just trivia and bickering. The fact is that this transfer is radically different than we have seen in the past -- including the theatrical presentation. (This isn't an ancient film -- I saw it in the theater and have owned it in several home video formats.)

I would argue that this presentation is also "wrong", given the pretty obvious transition dissolve from "day" to "sun about to set" that occurs at roughly the 21-minute mark. Anyone who has seen more than 5 movies knows what that means -- it's shorthand for "all this previous stuff happened during the day... now more time has passed and it's almost night." That makes the dark black/blue crap going on for a lot of stuff from 10-20 minutes in pretty obviously incorrect.



If people love this, great. If they want to rationalize their "rare" 3000 BD, great. But all this talk about screencaps not being accurate or mis-calibrated monitors is just distracting from the obvious -- someone at Sony started messing with the knobs when transfering this to BD.

I don't know why. But they did. And the results are... well, honestly, they're terrible. Regardless of the increased resolution, this film looks like garbage on this BD. (And I'm hardly a TT basher... I own every BD they've ever released and most of their DVDs too.)

[JYokogawa]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Agree. Regardless to whether or not an individual's display/monitor is calibrated, and that some may see the images as a little bit darker or a little bit lighter or a little more blue or little less blue, what the comparisons do show, without a doubt, is that there is a drastic change with this blu-ray when compared to how this film has been presented in the past.

And that's what is most important. You can deny all you want (not you specifically rdodolak) that it looks fine, or not that bad, but in comparison to what has been released prior? Absolutely altered. I don't see how people can sit here and say that our TVs aren't calibrated correctly. And no one to my knowledge has never said the clarity is off, it certainly is, but when you lose so much of the color, it's just not what we want (for the most part).

[JaseT]

Holy crap! This thread has grown nearly 50 pages since I checked it yesterday....link to the cliff notes version?

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

I just don't know about your screenshots you have there HDGoofnut. Are you sure those are accurate? I have on good authority that "there is no way an image that dark ... is on the blu-ray". Hmm.

[Show spoiler]

My quote regarding poor screenshots were mostly targeted at the very poor split-screen ones posted very early on once the BD got released, and that kept sprouting like wildfire on this and other forums. Psicon's caps and the ones in your latest post are largely representative of the Blu-ray transfer, though people still have to make allowances for the fact that most PCs aren't calibrated.

When the NOTLD90 Blu-ray is watched on a perfectly calibrated display, there's actually very little crushing going on of the shadow detail. There is some inside the house, but if the intention was to darken the overall transfer the colorist stopped short of seriously hurting the black levels. If someone is seeing crushing on their display as it looks on those caps on my uncalibrated PC display, it means their viewing display is not properly calibrated.

[HyperRealist]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

I have now watched this BD. The audio is a real surprise, I had forgotten how well-designed the mix on NOTLD90 is for a 1990 production. It sounds great in 5.1 DTS-HD MA. The original theatrical trailer has also been included.

The 88 minute movie is encoded in AVC on a BD-25. Given how dark this film is in many scenes, I would have wished the AVC encode had averaged closer to 30 Mbps than what we get here, which is likely closer to 20 Mbps. It's not common, but a few walls in the house produce chroma noise, which is usually a compression problem. Spots of banding in one or two shots are also evident.

If you've seen any of Sony's catalog Blu-rays released between 2007 to 2010, you'll have a pretty good sense of how the transfer looks. There is a modicum of edge enhancement, though I doubt most will be bothered by it, especially on smaller screens under 50". Grain is largely left untouched, though some of the establishing shots are clearly second-unit stuff with heavier grain. My guess is the film elements were scanned at 2K by Sony, around 2006 to 2008. There's virtually no sign of print damage or debris.

What impressed me the most was the visible resolution for a catalog title. Every ounce of the horror effects can be plainly seen, from the oozing blood to white pus. The inky black levels help to establish the mood, though the contrast is a bit limited. It appears the color timing has remained similar to the original DVD. If I had my druthers, I think this might have been a case where marginally brightening the image (changing the gamma or something else) would have slightly improved clarity and definition.

Overall NOTLD90 looks better than I expected and a substantial increase in video quality over the DVD. This is now the definitive version of the movie and fans will be upset they missed out on the pre-order. Under a 10-point scale for picture quality, I'd assign it a 7.5 or 8.

are you sure about that?

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by JaseT

Holy crap! This thread has grown nearly 50 pages since I checked it yesterday....link to the cliff notes version?

Sorry, you'll have to work your way through all of the pages like the rest of us if you want to full story. Otherwise, just skip to the end but you'll miss some juicy morsels in the saga.

[KenHurd]

I received my copy and just got through watching it. From what I've been reading here and seeing from the screenshots, I was fearing the worst. I was expecting to see something that was so dark I wouldn't be able to make out what was going on at all. However, watching it on my tv it definitely wasn't as dark as I was expecting; I could make details out just fine. From what I saw on my copy, I am certain that this wasn't an error. It's obviously not the transfer that everyone has been watching for the past 20 years, and it sounds like it's not what Twilight Times expected to receive from Sony, but this definitely looks intentional, not something that could have happened during compression for the disc. Once Barbara gets attacked, and even slightly before it, the image slowly starts to get darker and the blue stars creeping in. For it to work in the way that we're seeing, someone would have had to color corrected it this way; it hits the all the right scenes to be unintentional. This would have had to come from Sony; they would have had to color correct it, render the new look of the film, and then export the video out into the transfer that was sent to Twilight Times. There's no way this could have simply been an authorization error.

It's different, yes, but at the same time, I can see what the color corrector - or whoever signed off on this - had in mind at the time. It gives it more of a descent into night effect. The interiors have a moody look to them that gives it an overall darker atmosphere. It's been a while since I last watched my DVD copy, but I do remember the look of it, and I find this new look to be more than watchable. But, I can definitely understand everyone wanting the film they've been watching for the past 20 years. This whole situation just reminds me of the Halloween release, with the lack of blue. Different situation, and the filmmaker's for Night probably weren't the ones to sign off on this, unlike Halloween, but this type of color correction looks to me like what happened.

[ChristmasFnatic]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Sorry, you'll have to work your way through all of the pages like the rest of us if you want to full story. Otherwise, just skip to the end but you'll miss some juicy morsels in the saga.

This. I spent 2 hours reading all, and its worth it. Almost as good as watching "Avengers"!!!

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by HyperRealist

are you sure about that?

I stand by what I wrote in that abbreviated review, though there were differences in the color timing between the DVD and the Blu-ray that I failed to note. This transfer is clearly not faithful to the timing of that DVD, but it's not wrong per se until we find out the identities of the parties behind this color correction. If it comes out that the changes were made at the behest of Romero or some other involved party, some of the hyperbolic commentary in this thread is going to look quite silly and juvenile. The transfer on the BD is such a major deviation that I can't believe an unnamed colorist at Sony decided to mess that much with a 1990 movie out of the blue, without guidance from production notes or some other authority.

[xxBachelor1981xx]

So I just watched this and it was a blind buy for me and my first Twilight Time movie. It’s a little dark but not bad at all. I don’t get what the big deal is. You want to see a movie that’s to dark go watch Alien VS Predator Requiem or Cabin in the woods which has scenes that are so dark you can barely see what is going on. I have seen the images from the DVD which does look bright but my opinion is they made it darker on purpose and I don’t really see anything wrong with the transfer. To me it is pretty decent and I will def keep my copy. People are making a way bigger deal out of this than what needs to be.

[bboisvert]

Originally Posted by KenHurd

this definitely looks intentional, not something that could have happened during compression for the disc. Once Barbara gets attacked, and even slightly before it, the image slowly starts to get darker and the blue stars creeping in. For it to work in the way that we're seeing, someone would have had to color corrected it this way; it hits the all the right scenes to be unintentional. This would have had to come from Sony; they would have had to color correct it, render the new look of the film, and then export the video out into the transfer that was sent to Twilight Times. There's no way this could have simply been an authorization error.

It's different, yes, but at the same time, I can see what the color corrector - or whoever signed off on this - had in mind at the time. It gives it more of a descent into night effect.

The filmmakers themselves already took care of that, with a cutaway dissolve at 21:xx to show the "descent into night". It was never intented to start in the cemetary.

The "color corrector" is altering what the film is supposed to be -- to its detriment.


I know you aren't specifically defending (just explaining), but I'm at a loss when I read people actually trying to defend this. It is terrible. There's no way to rationalize this -- it's a mistake and it really ruins the entire movie. Some transfer jockey decided to go all Felini on the control knobs and make the film more "moody".

I realize this is only NotLD90, but it still deserved better. Especially when you're asking fans to shell out $35 bucks for it before this "rare collectible" sells out.

[DMRI2006]

Originally Posted by KenHurd

I received my copy and just got through watching it. From what I've been reading here and seeing from the screenshots, I was fearing the worst. I was expecting to see something that was so dark I wouldn't be able to make out what was going on at all. However, watching it on my tv it definitely wasn't as dark as I was expecting; I could make details out just fine. From what I saw on my copy, I am certain that this wasn't an error. It's obviously not the transfer that everyone has been watching for the past 20 years, and it sounds like it's not what Twilight Times expected to receive from Sony, but this definitely looks intentional, not something that could have happened during compression for the disc. Once Barbara gets attacked, and even slightly before it, the image slowly starts to get darker and the blue stars creeping in. For it to work in the way that we're seeing, someone would have had to color corrected it this way; it hits the all the right scenes to be unintentional. This would have had to come from Sony; they would have had to color correct it, render the new look of the film, and then export the video out into the transfer that was sent to Twilight Times. There's no way this could have simply been an authorization error.

It's different, yes, but at the same time, I can see what the color corrector - or whoever signed off on this - had in mind at the time. It gives it more of a descent into night effect. The interiors have a moody look to them that gives it an overall darker atmosphere. It's been a while since I last watched my DVD copy, but I do remember the look of it, and I find this new look to be more than watchable. But, I can definitely understand everyone wanting the film they've been watching for the past 20 years. This whole situation just reminds me of the Halloween release, with the lack of blue. Different situation, and the filmmaker's for Night probably weren't the ones to sign off on this, unlike Halloween, but this type of color correction looks to me like what happened.

Ken, yours is IMO the sanest post in this thread. My friend and I watched it tonight and thought the same -- that once she's attacked, the transfer intentionally descends into darkness as if night is falling. It is not an error, it is clearly an intentional thing. Is it possible Savini or someone wanted this all along, and it wasn't ever implemented on prior video releases? None of us can say for certain, but frankly, I thought it worked fine. There's still plenty of detail in the transfer, it's not ridiculously dark and unless you knew it was darker than the DVD, you wouldn't have known there's an issue with it. If it turns out it's completely wrong, so be it, and I expect TT to correct it if so.

[Kentai]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

This transfer is clearly not faithful to the timing of that DVD, but it's not wrong per se until we find out the identities of the parties behind this color correction...

Oh, please - even if someone involved in production "approved" this thing (which I find incredibly unlikely for a "limited edition" product like this), there's day-for-night timing 15 minutes before we see the sun go down.

I don't care WHO signs off on a screw up that obvious; it's sloppy revisionism at best, blind ignorance at worst. Of course the color timing is intentional; the question is who approved it, when, and just how familiar with the "look" of the film were they to start with.

[Lacenaire]

I bet if only 1500 of the 3000 discs had the blue tint they would be selling for $500 and up.

But given all 3000 are "defective" they aren't worth so much any more.

Funny how collectibles work.