The Official Network Thread

[Spiderwalk]

I watched Bad Timing last night and it's a very good transfer, but there's one caveat. Throughout pretty much the whole film when there's a frame transition a thick light or dark band appears for a fraction of a second at the point of an edit. You can only see this occurring if you freeze frame the image, but the effect this has is every time scene changes there's a slight flicker.

I did find it to be quite distracting, and it somewhat spoiled my enjoyment of the film. It's a real shame because the print is very nice, with lots of detail and good colour.

[tenia]

What do you call "frame transition" ? At every edit within a shot ? A sequence ? The equivalent of a film stock (every 12 min, I believe) ?

[Spiderwalk]

Originally Posted by tenia

What do you call "frame transition" ? At every edit within a shot ? A sequence ? The equivalent of a film stock (every 12 min, I believe) ?

Forgive me if frame transition is the wrong terminology, but it happens during edits within a scene. Of course it doesn't happen at every single edit, but it occurs with enough regularity to be distracting. I definitely noticed it more in the first hour of the film, bright daylight scenes were less obvious.

The weird thing is when you watch the interview with the producer of the film, it inter-cuts with scenes from the film and the edits are seamless.

I'm not an expert but it could be splice marks, I can't say I've noticed this on any of my other Blu-rays.

[Dickieduvet]

Hmmm, that's odd. I didn't notice anything when I watched it and I was particularly scrutinizing it to put my thoughts up on here lol!

I'll give it another spin later and see if I can spot it.

[rapta]

Could it be a faulty disc? Didn't Network have one or two releases that they had to do a replacement programme for?

[Spiderwalk]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

Hmmm, that's odd. I didn't notice anything when I watched it and I was particularly scrutinizing it to put my thoughts up on here lol!

I'll give it another spin later and see if I can spot it.

Some people probably wouldn't even notice it, it's quite subtle. It's not a deal breaker or anything, for me though I found it distracting. Basically there is print damage during the edits throughout the film, but they're so quick it looks like a brief flicker.

I could easily show people what I'm talking about if I had a way of taking screen grabs, but I don't own a BD-Rom drive. It's definitely not a hardware issue, it's the actual film print. Maybe I can take some pics of it playing on my TV with my camera tomorrow.

Also it could be part of the original camera negative and Network didn't want to tamper with it... who knows.

[Spiderwalk]

Originally Posted by rapta

Could it be a faulty disc? Didn't Network have one or two releases that they had to do a replacement programme for?

I'm hoping it's a faulty disc, but I'm leaning towards the presentation of the film rather than a disc error.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Spiderwalk

Forgive me if frame transition is the wrong terminology, but it happens during edits within a scene.

Actually, it is not a wrong description.

You have frame transitions everywhere -- in the beginning, middle and at the end of a sequence. If it is some unevenness, then you have the issue I think you are describing.

If you have an entire missing frame -- as it is often the case with plenty of silent films that have transitioned to Blu-ray -- then you have an obvious jump.

If you are describing transitions from one sequence to another, then this is another matter entirely.

You can also see some reel defect, depending on how the film was transferred a long time ago. There are a number of old masters that have these issues, but most of the time they are extremely easy to tolerate.

Pro-B

[Spiderwalk]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Actually, it is not a wrong description.

You have frame transitions everywhere -- in the beginning, middle and at the end of a sequence. If it is some unevenness, then you have the issue I think you are describing.

If you have an entire missing frame -- as it is often the case with plenty of silent films that have transitioned to Blu-ray -- then you have an obvious jump.

If you are describing transitions from one sequence to another, then this is another matter entirely.

You can also see some reel defect, depending on how the film was transferred a long time ago. There are a number of old masters that have these issues, but most of the time they are extremely easy to tolerate.

Pro-B

Unevenness would be a good description, usually transitions are seamless in movies but on the Bad Timing Blu-ray they are a fraction off in places.

[fdm]

I think, it's been a long time, that the Criterion Blade Runner LD had a similar thing going on. (I watched it enough, so it's probably the one I'm thinking of). I've also since seen it a couple times elsewhere, but no idea for which films, or on what format for that matter (could even have been cable).

My theory is that it was due to the material (or technique) used to splice the film together at certain points.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Spiderwalk

Unevenness would be a good description, usually transitions are seamless in movies but on the Bad Timing Blu-ray they are a fraction off in places.

I see

Pro-B

[fdm]

Uneveness, brings to mind a film or two I saw on tv where it seemed like it would get a little stuck during some of the edits. Sort of jumped a little bit.

[Spiderwalk]

I managed to take some pictures of the recurring problem I found with the Bad Timing Blu-ray. Sorry if I'm being a little bit anal about it.

[Aclea]

It looks like either a negative cutting issue - which wouldn't necessarily be visible on a cinema screen depending on the masking - or a problem with printing from A and B roll negatives.

[fdm]

The Blade Runner LD, I remember those being brownish colored, like the one at Art Garfunkel's foot, or the one on the stairway. So same thing presumably. Bad Timing 1980, Blade Runner 1982.

(Still have the LD, but player broke several years back.)

[CinemaScope]

Bad Timing (literally!)

I've seen this before, it's a film printing machine error. Presumedly this was mastered from an interpositive, & when the interpos. was printed (from the original cut negatives), the light change timings on the printing machine were a bit off, the film is running through the printing machine quite fast, so the timings have to be spot on. So that flash (light or dark) is the printing light for the next scene, if the grading corrections are very similar, then you won't notice it, but when the lights are way different, that's when you notice the flash. The interpos should never have passed any quality control (but then it may have been made some years ago). They could fix the HD transfer, just replace the flash part of the frame with the bit of the frame before, but that's time & money.

Features aren't cut A & B shot to shot, they only go A & B on dissolves & fades, they're cut single roll, so the timing on the printing machine has to be spot on.

[Spiderwalk]

Originally Posted by CinemaScope

Bad Timing (literally!)

I've seen this before, it's a film printing machine error. Presumedly this was mastered from an interposative & when the interpose. was printed (from the original cut negs), the light change timings on the printing machine were a bit off, the film is running through the printing machine quite fast, so the timings have to be spot on. So that flash (light or dark) is the printing light for the next scene, if the grading corrections are very similar, then you won't notice it, but when the lights are way different, that's when you notice the flash. The interpos should never have passed any quality control (but then it may have been made some years ago). They could fix the HD transfer, just replace the flash part of the frame with the bit of the frame before, but that's time & money.

Features aren't cut A & B shot to shot, they only go A & B on dissolves & fades, they're cut single roll, so the timing on the printing machine has to be spot on.

Thanks a lot for the very informative answer, what you are saying makes perfect sense.

Would I be correct in suggesting that Network are not being entirely honest when they state the transfer was taken from the original film elements. Or would an ineterpositive be classed as an original element.

[Dickieduvet]

They said Capricorn One was taken from the original elements and look what happened there, new encode of an old master - Network tells porky pies!

[babybreese]

I've got BAD TIMING en route to me in the US, so this discussion & solid technical information offered in the recent posts is most appreciated.

[CinemaScope]

Originally Posted by Spiderwalk

Would I be correct in suggesting that Network are not being entirely honest when they state the transfer was taken from the original film elements. Or would an ineterpositive be classed as an original element.

Yup, I think you're right, original film elements could mean anything. I think it's a very small amount of films where they go back to the original cut negatives, as it could be a real can of worms with the state of the negatives & splices (& faded dupes), & then you have to colour grade the pictures right from scratch (& if you're licensing films from a studio, you don't have the choice, you have to work with what you're given). Very expensive, but can look great (Jaws), but I don't want to knock using the interpose, it's a great way of doing it (some would say the best way), you can get some fantastic results, & most (nearly all) of the Blu-rays in your collection would have been made that way.