Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[moonstruck]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

No, and I wouldn't expect it any time in the near future. It's a great cult flick, but with the limited output, I doubt it's a priority. Personally I expect to see Dick Tracey before Rocketeer.

Since we're on the subject...both The Rocketeer and Dick Tracy were Disney movies (through Touchtone, I believe). Disney's Hollywood Pictures released Evita - do you think that film is a possibility for blu? I'm sure speculating on what movies will get blu ray releases is not your favorite thing, but I was just curious. The DVD for Evita is non-anamorphic with subpar audio. While not a great success, it was an interesting long-form music video that would have a great deal of potential in high def. Thanks.

[Musashi]

10,000 posts. You're a popular dude Jeff.

[Jeff Kleist]

Sorry, not playing "name that midrange Disney catalog title", we'll be here for years

I hope this hasn't been asked already (search function can't seem to find any mention anyway) but does anyone know if the Extended Editions of the LOTR trilogy will use a new transfer as compared to the theatrical versions?

I remember that the EE DVD's looked significantly better than the theatrical ones. I know that is primarily due to the fact that the movie was split across two DVD-9's but the color timing and contrast looked better too so I was thinking a new telecine job was done for Fellowship EE and possibly new DI's for TTT and ROTK.

I was very disappointed with the BD transfers for the trilogy, especially the first movie and I hope the EE's don't suffer the same fate in terms of an old FOTR master and aggressive DNR application on all 3 films.

Well, expect to continue to be dissapointed, because that's the way the movies are. DNR was applied in the post production of the film and you watched it on the prints in the theater. You're right that that EEs looked signifigantly better because they weren't shoving 3 hours onto a single DVD-9, and yes there were probably some timing shifts on the EEs (and there were on the Blus as well, FYI, while the new masters were being prepped with PJ's approval)

Super35 until very recently was a garbage film format, low resolution, blown up, and then LOTR was shot guerilla style and on a medium-low budget (yes 90+ million sounds like a lot, for what they did, no) on top of all that. Not every movie is going to look mindblowing on Blu-ray, even stuff that's less than 10 years old.

Course I doubt any of this would penetrate to some people, even if we had the people in charge of the process and PJ putting something official to paper

[DenonCI]

Jeff,

Great post, although the lunatic fringe won't like what you are saying.

Best,

[Mr. Cinema]

Jeff,

How well has The Office Season 5 sold on BD? Did it do well enough to even get Universal thinking of releasing the other seasons on BD?

[Jeff Kleist]

No idea. I'd say it stands a better chance than most comedies due to it being popular in the geek demographic

Me I wish Carrell, Corddrey and Ed Helms would go back to the Daily Show where they belong
Those who enjoy Gillmore Girls and similar vein shows might do well to buy a few of the HD eps that are going up on iTunes to show there's an interest

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Course I doubt any of this would penetrate to some people, even if we had the people in charge of the process and PJ putting something official to paper

agree, and it has happened before and we all know the answer "they are just saying that because they want you to buy it, they would never admit the truth". On the other hand I can also chuckle knowing that if we ever get UBD (or what ever it is called) with 4k resolution that some of these people will ask for movies of the past few years and then complain of the transfer and that it does not look 4K and say "you are just using it as an excuse that they used 2k digital cameras to make the movie"

[Anthony P]

this might be mean but we are kind of on the subject, but I don't know if I should laugh or cry

https://forum.blu-ray.com/general-ch...ie-hd-not.html

[Vincent Pereira]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

...

Super35 until very recently was a garbage film format, low resolution, blown up, ...

I'm sorry Jeff but this is just NOT TRUE. While Super-35's negative area as a whole is smaller than anamorphic, in one domain- horizontal/width- it is in fact LARGER. Anamorphic has about 21mm width of the 35mm negative- combined with the softer anamorphic lenses- whereas Super-35 has about 24mm width combined with sharper spherical lenses. It's true that in the pre-DI era all Super-35 movies had to undergo an optical conversion to anamorphic 35mm for projection theatrically, but this has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on how a movie is viewed at home, on Blu-ray or otherwise, because all film-to-tape transfers- even in the years WAY pre-DI- were/are done from pre-converted Super-35 elements, either InterPositives or original negatives. To blanket label Super-35 a "garbage format until very recently" is ridiculous and very uninformed.

Vincent

[singhcr]

NOTE= Do not post 1080p screenshots on a forum. Provide links

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Well, expect to continue to be dissapointed, because that's the way the movies are. DNR was applied in the post production of the film and you watched it on the prints in the theater. You're right that that EEs looked signifigantly better because they weren't shoving 3 hours onto a single DVD-9, and yes there were probably some timing shifts on the EEs (and there were on the Blus as well, FYI, while the new masters were being prepped with PJ's approval).

Thanks for the response. I know the folks at AVS can go a bit nuts at times but they were comparing screenshots of a MPEG-2 HD broadcast of FOTR as compared to the BD, and it seems that the broadcast version has more apparent detail as compared to the BD. At first I thought it may be because of contrast boosting but if you look at Gandalf's face and particularly his mustache you can see more smearing on the BD compared to the broadcast version. Do you think there is any validity to this claim?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...237167&page=23

Sorry for the big images, I didn't realize you could hide them with spoiler tags.

[Show spoiler]

[Show spoiler]

[Diesel]

You can spoiler tag the images so that they aren't so huge (just an FYI).

Just highlight the entire code from tag to tag and click

[Jeff Kleist]

We already addressed the screenshot scientists when it first broke, just look back. Suffice to say, I don't see additional detail, I see noise and possibly artifical sharpening, which would not be without precident. U-571 was sharpened for the HD DVD, but the Blu-ray was au natural and the same kinds of howls went up.

I'm sorry Jeff but this is just NOT TRUE. While Super-35's negative area as a whole is smaller than anamorphic, in one domain- horizontal/width- it is in fact LARGER. Anamorphic has about 21mm width of the 35mm negative- combined with the softer anamorphic lenses- whereas Super-35 has about 24mm width combined with sharper spherical lenses. It's true that in the pre-DI era all Super-35 movies had to undergo an optical conversion to anamorphic 35mm for projection theatrically, but this has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on how a movie is viewed at home, on Blu-ray or otherwise, because all film-to-tape transfers- even in the years WAY pre-DI- were/are done from pre-converted Super-35 elements, either InterPositives or original negatives. To blanket label Super-35 a "garbage format until very recently" is ridiculous and very uninformed.

While the Super35 negative may be larger, the actual space used for a 2.40:1 extraction is far smaller and lower resolution. For every Super35 film that looks great like Top Gun (thank you California sunshine! ), there's ten that look like crap because there simply isn't the acreage available to them.

I hold fast to my opinion that no one pre 2004-ish should have shot Super35 if they're aiming for scope. It just looked terrible, even in a good movie theater compared to a true anamorphic flick. Obviously on the relative small size/resolution of the home screen, Super35 served just fine for the most part (but in the case of LOTR, those weaknesses came out). Personlly, if I had to shoot flat, I'd shoot VistaVision (yes I know this is hard these days).

Heck, I even shot a student project a friend was doing for film school, and we shot anamorphic scope on a video camera

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

We already addressed the screenshot scientists when it first broke, just look back. Suffice to say, I don't see additional detail, I see noise and possibly artifical sharpening, which would not be without precident. U-571 was sharpened for the HD DVD, but the Blu-ray was au natural and the same kinds of howls went up.

From these shots, couldn't it be that the Blu-ray is sharper/more contrasty but that the HDTV mpeg2 version is less sharp/contrasty but has more detail?

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...D_LOTR_TV2.jpg
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...D_LOTR_TV4.jpg

Surely if artificial sharpening (or more sharpening) was added to the images on the right, it wouldn't give more detail - ie. wouldn't produce what is in the images on the left?

[jd213]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

We already addressed the screenshot scientists when it first broke, just look back. Suffice to say, I don't see additional detail, I see noise and possibly artifical sharpening, which would not be without precident.

Looks more to me like sharpening has been applied to the Blu-ray, there's a couple hairs that appear much less blurrier than the broadcast. On the other hand I can definitely see DNR as well, individual strands of hair become a single mass in a bunch of places.

From what I've read the DNR only applies to some parts of the film, but I'm still thankful I passed on this set. I'll buy it when they include both the EE's and the theatricals, or if it's just the EE's then I'll buy that set and rent these when I feel like watching them.

[Jeff Kleist]

Exactly, some parts are smoother than others because that's what was needed in post

you also have to remember that these people are hardly scientific. If you're comparing b frames to I frames for instance, you will get a big difference in detail, and even being off one whole frame can drastically change minor details like that, even on a "still" shot.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Well, expect to continue to be dissapointed, because that's the way the movies are. DNR was applied in the post production of the film and you watched it on the prints in the theater.

But, why is grain structure missing in the first half hour during the shire scenes? It seems to be in the rest of the movie. Even though they added DNR in post production, film grain structure from the film print should still be noticeable. (I'm referring to BD which I watched the other night.)

[DenonCI]

Because that's the way Peter Jackson wanted it. He approved the master used in the BD production.

[Jeff Kleist]

Any "malicious" DNRing would be blatantly obvious and consistant throughout the entire film. They're either going to smoothie it or they're not.

[DanFan]

Hi Jeff,

I'm wondering if the eventual release of Weird Science on Blu-ray will correct the missing dialogue from the most recent DVD releases.

The first DVD release was the Image Entertainment version which had an alternate music soundtrack. This did have all of the dialogue intact. All versions of the second release by Universal are missing dialogue.

At 7:17 of the movie Gary says:

"Very Nice.

I'm telling you Wyatt, one thing I know is female stats.

Anything more than a handful, you're risking a sprained tongue."

This is intact on the Image Entertainment release.

On the Universal release (which has the original music soundtrack restored) the following is missing (however the line appears via closed captioning):

"Very nice.

I'm telling you Wyatt, one thing I know is female stats."

The rest of the dialogue is present.

Is Universal aware of this problem? Are they going to fix it?

If they are not aware, are you able to bring it to their attention?

Thanks

Bump

[Jeff Kleist]

I think you asked it before, and I sent it in