Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker!

[Bird Boy]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

The World's Finest admin who originally posted the terrible mock-up over at toonzone made a post in response to the cacophony we made over here.

Hello, tis I the terrible mock-up maker. Just wanted to clarify a few things rather than bouncing posts back and forth between forums.

Of first note the mock-up I made was never intended to represent the animation in the center of the image. It was merely a mock-up to show what, if what WHV was telling us was correct, the black borders around the animation would look like. In the post with said terrible mock-up I even denoted:

"The animation quality is in no way reflective of what the actual Blu-ray will look like; I expect that what animation we get out of that black abyss will look great."

Now, moving on:

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Of special note:

He misuses the word "print" to refer to a HD raw master. There probably isn't a "print" of this movie in 4:3 and uncut. If it was ever printed for theatrical exhibition anywhere, it almost definitely would have been done in 1.85:1.

Yes, I did misuse the word in a way that a lot of people refer to their computers as CPUs. The wording was incorrect but the intent was the same--I was referring to whatever copy of this film WHV has on file that may exist in high definition.

Originally Posted by Afrobean

He re-iterates the idea that they would use the DVD encode. He didn't seem to understand how laughable it is that they would use a 480i encode. No matter how this thing were to be released, they would definitely go back and use a MASTER rather than using an already-prepared DVD encode.

Actually I didn't. I even said "in that case there's no way they'd use that because...well, then it'd look exactly like the image I mocked up and I don't care how loopy we think WHV is, we will not end up with a 1080p image that was upscaled from a 480i source."

Basically I love the hell out of this movie and was the main reason I even got involved in The World's Finest to begin with. I know the films history. I know the uncut version never made it to DVD in 4x3 that wasn't letterboxed. This was my basis for believing that WHV may not have a non-letterboxed version of the uncut film laying around; I'm not saying it doesn't exist, it just may not have been something WHV had readily available in their vaults as they've only released the edited/cut version of the film in 4x3 1.33:1.

Also because I've been working on this stuff for the past decade or so (a depressing thought), I know how WHV operates with their animated catalog, DC animation in particular. And they aren't always the most careful or knowledgeable about what they're doing.

Originally Posted by Afrobean

He admits that it may have been available in HD on Netflix in 4:3. I don't know why this is so difficult to understand. If it was made to the same technical standards as Justice League season 1 (it was apparently), then why wouldn't there be a HD master at 4:3 around? And why would they not bother to have a 4:3 master of the original version archived?

It's not difficult to understand, I just didn't know it ever appeared on Netflix as I don't have Netflix. And I don't know if ROTJ was made to the same technical standards as JL S1 because ROTJ pre-dates JL S1 by over a year.

You're right, by all logic WHV has all of this in the vault and ready to go. The problem is WHV is not always logical when it comes to lower profile series or releases like this, especially with DC Animation. My logic was based off what WHV told us and that it was 4x3 matted widescreen. Following WHV's own history of using such terminology lead to that mocked up image. When I heard that I basically assumed they had an HD master that was matted and that's what we were going to get.

Originally Posted by Afrobean

He admits that we know what's up when it comes to this stuff, but still thinks it's possible WB will use a 480i DVD encode on this BD release. I don't think the guy understands any of the technical aspects of resolution or the differences between DVD and BD.

I do understand and as I mentioned above, I never believed a 480i transfer would be used. That is both moronic and completely impossible. As you and many others have said, this isn't a "special feature"--this is the main focus of a Blu-ray release, so they aren't going to use anything below a high definition source for the film.

Originally Posted by Afrobean

He claims that WB would just slap together whatever is fastest and cheapest. That's not an entirely incorrect assumption. They are keen on taking the easy way out, as that's an effective way to maximize profits. But what he neglects to notice is that a DVD encode would NEVER fly on Blu-ray. Studios (WB included) have done PLENTY of Blu-rays which use old transfers and old masters, but they are ALWAYS HD. They use the same transfer as previous DVD releases, but they encode them at higher bitrates and in HD. That's something he doesn't seem to realize happens: the picture as it appears on DVD is NOT how it is in the archive masters.

Again, I never thought they'd use a low-resolution transfer and I never did. I'm well aware of how this format works and its history. The issue of how this all started was the back of the box says 4x3 and WHV says widescreen inside of a 4x3 frame. I've absolutely no reason to make any of this up or stretch the truth or embellish it with my own opinions. I never thought the animation would be anything less than HD, I just was unsure of how they were going to frame it.

This is all going off the notion the back of the box isn't wrong; the back of the ROTJ Uncut DVD box was wrong on a few things, so that's why I don't have the greatest faith in their graphics.

Originally Posted by Afrobean

#3: "widescreen" would refer to the encode. Blu-ray supports 16:9 and 4:3 frames. Saying it is "widescreen" is telling us that it'll be encoded at 16:9 with hard "mattes" on the side.

That would make the most sense out of all of this.

As I said in the post you quote, I (as in my opinion) don't believe we'll be screwed over by this release but my experience with WHV in the past says to remain skeptical. I understand your side in that you want to believe the logical outcome of it all and I wholeheartedly want you to be correct, but I can't side definitely with either side because I know WHV is capable of doing very stupid things.