From the Earth to the Moon

[Geoff D]

It's a mixed bag is this. Two episodes in and the framing (still a bit too tight in close-ups) is the least of my quibbles. There's a lot of DNR being applied here and there with sharpening on top, not on the whole thing but certain shots look very, very processed indeed. And I'm not talking about stock shots of historical video or the handful of janky SD upscales that I've spotted thus far, but lots of 'regular' shots like when Kevin Pollack arrives after the Apollo 1 fire and he looks at Stephen Root, both of their angles look like boiled crap, and there are plenty of little moments like that in these first two episodes.

Do NOT get me wrongo, when this is on-song the detail and clarity are simply fabulous but the grain always looks "managed" to some degree and when it takes an outright detour into DNRsville it can get rather distracting. Well, for someone like me anyway. The ironical thing is that the fake grain in the new VFX shots looks FAR more natural than much of the fudged 35mm grain on display here, though the new VFX themselves can look rather cheap in terms of execution from what I've seen so far. As was mentioned by the 'new' fella, some of the spacecraft almost look like frozen images with a background passing by behind them, there's no kind of proper motion blur or interactive lighting on the object itself and it feels like some of it was cooked up in someone's bedroom.

It's been casually mentioned that this is one of those 'shot on film but edited on video' shows but there are a LOT of photochemical opticals here inherent to the original edit (indeed, the credits list a 'negative cutter') for things like fades and dissolves, there are several of the latter in ep 2. There are also a bunch of shots of David Andrews during the hearing at the end which were originally reframed in post, optically enlarged in the old-fashioned way complete with printed-in specks of dirt that just sit there.

Why am I mentioning the opticals at all? These things are part and parcel of how that era of film worked, you're going to lose detail and get softer-yet-coarser grain compared to the camera negative - but for this presentation they've decided to de-grain them so they end up looking very smooth compared to the first gen material and, again, the flip-flopping between good and meh can stand out more than it otherwise should.

Black levels can look a bit weird, they're quite thin and are sometimes shot through with a vibrant blue tinge, and the fades to black often look strange as well, the image fading down to what looks like well above black and then it just kinda hard cuts to an actual black screen. Spotted some gnarly banding in certain scenes in Ep 2 as well, though that's just as likely on the encoding itself (typical Warners, putting 4 hours onto one disc) rather than the mastering at source.

Basically there's definitely a bit of source-related quality loss BUT I'm not of the opinion that the supposedly poor "OCN" is at the heart of of it all, for if they'd left the DNR dial alone or used it in moderation then it wouldn't look half as uneven as it does.

Eh, it was only 20 quid so this isn't something I'm going to lose sleep over, and did any of it matter when Frank Borman did his 'failure of imagination' speech to the senate committee, or when the wives of the Apollo 1 crew gave Deke his astronaut pin? HECK no, that last bit got me all choked up and as we near the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landings it's only proper to also consider the sacrifices that got them there. (I watched the 'live' CBS report on the fire a few months back on youtube, even that was gut-wrenching.)

[Indiana Jones]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's a mixed bag is this. Two episodes in and the framing (still a bit too tight in close-ups) is the least of my quibbles. There's a lot of DNR being applied here and there with sharpening on top, not on the whole thing but certain shots look very, very processed indeed. And I'm not talking about stock shots of historical video or the handful of janky SD upscales that I've spotted thus far, but lots of 'regular' shots like when Kevin Pollack arrives after the Apollo 1 fire and he looks at Stephen Root, both of their angles look like boiled crap, and there are plenty of little moments like that in these first two episodes.

Do NOT get me wrongo, when this is on-song the detail and clarity are simply fabulous but the grain always looks "managed" to some degree and when it takes an outright detour into DNRsville it can get rather distracting. Well, for someone like me anyway. The ironical thing is that the fake grain in the new VFX shots looks FAR more natural than much of the fudged 35mm grain on display here, though the new VFX themselves can look rather cheap in terms of execution from what I've seen so far. As was mentioned by the 'new' fella, some of the spacecraft almost look like frozen images with a background passing by behind them, there's no kind of proper motion blur or interactive lighting on the object itself and it feels like some of it was cooked up in someone's bedroom.

It's been casually mentioned that this is one of those 'shot on film but edited on video' shows but there are a LOT of photochemical opticals here inherent to the original edit (indeed, the credits list a 'negative cutter') for things like fades and dissolves, there are several of the latter in ep 2. There are also a bunch of shots of David Andrews during the hearing at the end which were originally reframed in post, optically enlarged in the old-fashioned way complete with printed-in specks of dirt that just sit there.

Why am I mentioning the opticals at all? These things are part and parcel of how that era of film worked, you're going to lose detail and get softer-yet-coarser grain compared to the camera negative - but for this presentation they've decided to de-grain them so they end up looking very smooth compared to the first gen material and, again, the flip-flopping between good and meh can stand out more than it otherwise should.

Black levels can look a bit weird, they're quite thin and are sometimes shot through with a vibrant blue tinge, and the fades to black often look strange as well, the image fading down to what looks like well above black and then it just kinda hard cuts to an actual black screen. Spotted some gnarly banding in certain scenes in Ep 2 as well, though that's just as likely on the encoding itself (typical Warners, putting 4 hours onto one disc) rather than the mastering at source.

Basically there's definitely a bit of source-related quality loss BUT I'm not of the opinion that the supposedly poor "OCN" is at the heart of of it all, for if they'd left the DNR dial alone or used it in moderation then it wouldn't look half as uneven as it does.

Eh, it was only 20 quid so this isn't something I'm going to lose sleep over, and did any of it matter when Frank Borman did his 'failure of imagination' speech to the senate committee, or when the wives of the Apollo 1 crew gave Deke his astronaut pin? HECK no, that last bit got me all choked up and as we near the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landings it's only proper to also consider the sacrifices that got them there. (I watched the 'live' CBS report on the fire a few months back on youtube, even that was gut-wrenching.)

In the remastering extra they mention that the 250 new effects shots were outsourced to two different companies and given that some of the new shots IMO actually look pretty good (that shot of Freedom 7 plunging through the atmosphere before the chutes deploy) while others are of a much lower quality, certainly reminds me of what happened with TNG Season 2 when it was outsourced to HTV-Illuminate.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by CouncilSpectre

Sorry Geoff, I “had something in my eye” at that point. It’s a shame that that happened, but not having noticed it on my watch I can attest that it does little to undermine the impact of that scene.

My eyes are nowhere near as discerning towards the digital tinkering and grain structure/management as yours are so I bow to your judgement. I can only say that I have not found it overly distracting myself.

Positives/negatives aside, I’m just glad that this release has given me the perfect excuse to watch this great series again.

If you go back to my first post assessing it then you'll note that I expressed a very similar sentiment, quoted below, but that's not going to stop me from calling out sloppy work.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

[Show spoiler]It's a mixed bag is this. Two episodes in and the framing (still a bit too tight in close-ups) is the least of my quibbles. There's a lot of DNR being applied here and there with sharpening on top, not on the whole thing but certain shots look very, very processed indeed. And I'm not talking about stock shots of historical video or the handful of janky SD upscales that I've spotted thus far, but lots of 'regular' shots like when Kevin Pollack arrives after the Apollo 1 fire and he looks at Stephen Root, both of their angles look like boiled crap, and there are plenty of little moments like that in these first two episodes.

Do NOT get me wrongo, when this is on-song the detail and clarity are simply fabulous but the grain always looks "managed" to some degree and when it takes an outright detour into DNRsville it can get rather distracting. Well, for someone like me anyway. The ironical thing is that the fake grain in the new VFX shots looks FAR more natural than much of the fudged 35mm grain on display here, though the new VFX themselves can look rather cheap in terms of execution from what I've seen so far. As was mentioned by the 'new' fella, some of the spacecraft almost look like frozen images with a background passing by behind them, there's no kind of proper motion blur or interactive lighting on the object itself and it feels like some of it was cooked up in someone's bedroom.

It's been casually mentioned that this is one of those 'shot on film but edited on video' shows but there are a LOT of photochemical opticals here inherent to the original edit (indeed, the credits list a 'negative cutter') for things like fades and dissolves, there are several of the latter in ep 2. There are also a bunch of shots of David Andrews during the hearing at the end which were originally reframed in post, optically enlarged in the old-fashioned way complete with printed-in specks of dirt that just sit there.

Why am I mentioning the opticals at all? These things are part and parcel of how that era of film worked, you're going to lose detail and get softer-yet-coarser grain compared to the camera negative - but for this presentation they've decided to de-grain them so they end up looking very smooth compared to the first gen material and, again, the flip-flopping between good and meh can stand out more than it otherwise should.

Black levels can look a bit weird, they're quite thin and are sometimes shot through with a vibrant blue tinge, and the fades to black often look strange as well, the image fading down to what looks like well above black and then it just kinda hard cuts to an actual black screen. Spotted some gnarly banding in certain scenes in Ep 2 as well, though that's just as likely on the encoding itself (typical Warners, putting 4 hours onto one disc) rather than the mastering at source.

Basically there's definitely a bit of source-related quality loss BUT I'm not of the opinion that the supposedly poor "OCN" is at the heart of of it all, for if they'd left the DNR dial alone or used it in moderation then it wouldn't look half as uneven as it does.

Eh, it was only 20 quid so this isn't something I'm going to lose sleep over, and did any of it matter when Frank Borman did his 'failure of imagination' speech to the senate committee, or when the wives of the Apollo 1 crew gave Deke his astronaut pin? HECK no, that last bit got me all choked up and as we near the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landings it's only proper to also consider the sacrifices that got them there. (I watched the 'live' CBS report on the fire a few months back on youtube, even that was gut-wrenching.)

[CouncilSpectre]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

If you go back to my first post assessing it then you'll note that I expressed a very similar sentiment, quoted below, but that's not going to stop me from calling out sloppy work.

Absolutely. You’re just much better at spotting that stuff than I am Geoff.