1962 Mutiny on the Bounty in November 8 - Review up

[ROclockCK]

Originally Posted by rvmeeker

Thanks for your comments, Mr. Rock-Around-The-Clock (yes, I too read Parade Magazine!). But they do beg some questions. First, you say that costs to redo these catalog titles have increased. Really? I've always assumed that hi-def transfer costs have gone down over the years. I remember when Blu-ray (and HD-DVD) first came out, it was predicted that product releases would be relatively slow as it took considerably longer (i.e. more expensive) to do an hi-def transfer than a conventional DVD transfer. With the thousands of titles that now have actually made it to BD, I can only assume that the per-disc cost for these transfers has plummeted. Am I wrong?

Hate to sound glib or evasive rvmeeker, but "no"...and "yes".

My answer would be "no" if the studio was already sitting on high resolution scans (4k plus) of the source materials with meticulously restored masters. To do a transfer to Blu-ray from that calibre of source could be very cost-effective. But how many of those "thousands" of titles (of which only hundreds are vintage catalogue titles), were redone from such high-end, readily-available source materials? I trust my eyes on this point...not too many older movies have just 'swanned' onto Blu-ray without showing signs that they should have had more rework than was done.

More often than not, my answer would be "yes", based on what studios actually spend to take some of these titles up several notches. For example, although the numbers vary, Warners' rescan/remaster of North by Northwest was reportedly over $1,000,000, so it's anybody's guess what something like Ben Hur or Wizard of Oz cost.

Originally Posted by rvmeeker

Second, I don't see how the push to VOD and streaming is going to lead to yet higher-quality HD transfers. My limited exposure to that stuff does not generally impress me. Furthermore, the greater the resolution of a "print", the more video broadcast bandwith it requires. Considering the mediocre hi-def expectations of the average consumer, why would a media company allocate more bandwith than is minimally required for it to tout a broadcast as "hi-def"? What passes for HD on some of my satellite channels is clearly far short of 1080p. And the little streaming video I've seen shows very low PQ. Consumers seem to be demanding convenience far more than PQ, so although I hope you are correct, I don't understand why you believe this trend will possibly lead to good things.

Agree 100%, which is why none of the current 'pseudo' high-def cable or streaming offerings interest me...at least not yet. However, with the push for fiber to the home, and cable fighting to remain competitive with IP based systems, I believe the former will at some point 'pull out all the stops' to deliver a level of quality that IP streaming has no short run hope of matching. Since the studios are ultimately content providers, I suspect they will want to be ready for these true-def cable services when they become more widely available.

Originally Posted by rvmeeker

Finally, I do agree that it's possible that more and more of these legacy titles may migrate to smaller Twilight Time-type labels, but I'm not sure if that necessarily translates to reference-qualiity transfers. For example, I'm thrilled to have "The Egyptian" on blu-ray, but I'd say it falls considerably short of reference-quality.

Awww, well, we differ there sir. I've seen and held the actual film of The Egyptian, and can say without the slightest hesitation that what Fox/Twilight Time did with this Blu-ray was as close to that original 'grace state' as I can imagine. Whether or not it's 'reference quality' (whatever that term actually means anymore) this disc was a very accurate representation of what The Egyptian looked like in early 2.55:1 CinemaScope. Honestly, I don't know what they could have done to improve it, short of restaging and reshooting the entire movie with different actors and modern, less-distorting anamorphic lenses.

Originally Posted by rvmeeker

Do you have any sense of what the actual cost comparisons are for a true high-quality transfer vs. a run-of-the-mill dump? I have no idea myself, but it would be interesting to know the numbers. I would think that Criterion might be willing to tackle some of this stuff, but that assumes the major labels would license their titles, an unlikely scenario I would think.

Unfortunately, anything I could offer you would just be ballpark and more-or-less heresay, like those NxNW numbers quoted above. I'm sure someone with much more inside knowledge of the studio's balance sheets could offer a more credible cost breakdown for these end-to-end redo's.

It's worth noting though that even Criterion is at the mercy of what the studios choose to dust-off, rescan, and restore. Although Criterion treats titles with care and adds their own interviews and other features to their transfers, if the studio couldn't provide them with top notch high-def source materials, then even the most sensitive work at the backend cannot make a so-so master into something incandescent.