Payback (1999) (Director's Cut)

[Alley]

I'm a little confused by the synopsis of this movie. Is it really any different then the original? It says see it in a different way through the eyes of the director. I'm lost.

[Chad Varnadore]

I believe it's supposed to be a new director's cut. Can't wait to see it again myself. Fun flick!

[Alley]

I googled the directors cut and found this tidbit.

PAYBACK: STRAIGHT UP – The Director’s Cut isn’t some minor adjustment to sell DVDs – it is a complete overhaul. No Kris Kristofferson, no kidnapped son sub-plot, no boxing match and not any pulled punches. This is a mean sucker punch, gutter dirty, pissed off piece of pulp art! Mel is not “the likable superstar” in this film. He beats the shit out of Deborah Kara Unger in this version, he is straight to the point, no cookie cutter bullshit. This is the way a Parker novel by Donald Westlake should be handled.

The film is leaner and meaner. There are no explosions and needless tacked on gore. This is brutal and hard-nosed… Oh, and IMMENSELY SATISFYING!!!

[Chad Varnadore]

Hope I still like it then. Gibson's character not being likable has me concerned.

[ProvenFlipper]

This sounds awesome. I'll be picking this up for sure.

[Alley]

Deffinatly sounds interesting. Sounds like a totally different movie. I see netflix has payback for blueray but it doesn't say anything about it being this dirrectors cut. But if this is the only one being released for blu-ray then maybe thats just it by default?

[Chad Varnadore]

It's the only version that's been announced so far. There's always the chance that they're including both via seamless branching. But, if it's a major change, I doubt it.

[Knight-Errant]

I've heard good things about the new cut.

This was a case of outside interference changing the film from what the director intended.

[Scorxpion]

this is the review posted on HIGHDEFDIGEST.com

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/payback_dc.html

this is true to compare which is better MPEG2 Transfer done on BD or AVC codec done on HD-DVD!!!!

The result:

Presented in 1080p and encoded using the MPEG-2 codec on this Blu-ray, 'Payback - Straight Up: The Director's Cut' looks very good despite its grittiness and grime. While the HD DVD edition is encoded using the AVC MPEG-4 codec, both the Blu-ray and HD DVD editions are nearly identical and impress regardless of your favorite format

Again here MPEG2 Higher bit rate prove its superiority over VC1

now i want to say for HD-DVD if this title was done on HD-DVD using VC-1,BD using MPEG2 proves its superioty over VC1
But Paramount choose AVC so they rescue THEM from sinking in the water.

[coolmilo]

Damn it Paramount Home Video. Where is the lossless audio track? This should be mandatory for all Blu-ray discs. At $19 (street price) this was on my list to purchase. Because it does not include a lossless audio track, I will not buy it. Rather, I am going to add it to my Netflix queue.

[nhaase]

One thing about the HDdigest review, "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" is better than Snatch and Layer Cake.

[EZE123]

Here's a link to an interview with Brian Helgeland, the director of Payback:

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=9626

[ckelly79]

Originally Posted by Chad Varnadore

I believe it's supposed to be a new director's cut. Can't wait to see it again myself. Fun flick!

It's actually the original directors cut. The studio thought it was too gritty hardcore and people wouldn't like it so they outed him and brought in a new director to film some different and additional scenes.

[marine92104]

Originally Posted by Scorxpion

this is the review posted on HIGHDEFDIGEST.com

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/payback_dc.html

this is true to compare which is better MPEG2 Transfer done on BD or AVC codec done on HD-DVD!!!!

The result:

Presented in 1080p and encoded using the MPEG-2 codec on this Blu-ray, 'Payback - Straight Up: The Director's Cut' looks very good despite its grittiness and grime. While the HD DVD edition is encoded using the AVC MPEG-4 codec, both the Blu-ray and HD DVD editions are nearly identical and impress regardless of your favorite format

Again here MPEG2 Higher bit rate prove its superiority over VC1

now i want to say for HD-DVD if this title was done on HD-DVD using VC-1,BD using MPEG2 proves its superioty over VC1
But Paramount choose AVC so they rescue THEM from sinking in the water.

You left part of the review out. I'm not sure where it said the MPEG-2 was better than the AVC & that they chose AVC so it would look better than VC-1. It just doesn't make sense what you wrote.

Below is the parts you left out:

While the HD DVD edition is encoded using the AVC MPEG-4 codec, both the Blu-ray and HD DVD editions are nearly identical and impress regardless of your favorite format. From afar, I felt like the HD DVD picture was slightly warmer, while the Blu-ray seemed a bit sharper, but in a series of side by side comparisons, I couldn't detect a definitive difference -- it's just an overall impression, so take that as it is.

Where did it say they chose AVC over VC-1 so the MPEG-2 would look better? From what I read he liked the HD-DVD video over the Blu-ray even though both had different qualities. I'm not sure where you read that the MPEG-2 encoding was better to the reviewer & that they chose AVC encoding over VC-1.

He also said the HD-DVD had a slight edge on the audio.

I'm just trying to understand the point you were making?

[Scorxpion]

Where did it say they chose AVC over VC-1 so the MPEG-2 would look better? From what I read he liked the HD-DVD video over the Blu-ray even though both had different qualities. I'm not sure where you read that the MPEG-2 encoding was better to the reviewer & that they chose AVC encoding over VC-1

nobody said this i'm thinking of it myself and its true if its done through VC1 Compression the PQ of BD is going to be better than HD_DVD version but in this case Above both of them are even in PQ.

Now for the Audio part if PAYBACK was done in PCM soundtrack YES BD will be so FAR Better than HD-DVD.

If they are saying THAT the HD-DVD has better Sound than BD,this is obvious clear Because Paramount and Warner are still using Less quality bandwith Sound for BD.All we know without any question about it THAT PCM Soundtrack is unbeatable by HD_DVD DolbyTHD.Hopefully now you understand my point of view

[marine92104]

Originally Posted by Scorxpion

Where did it say they chose AVC over VC-1 so the MPEG-2 would look better? From what I read he liked the HD-DVD video over the Blu-ray even though both had different qualities. I'm not sure where you read that the MPEG-2 encoding was better to the reviewer & that they chose AVC encoding over VC-1

nobody said this i'm thinking of it myself and its true if its done through VC1 Compression the PQ of BD is going to be better than HD_DVD version but in this case Above both of them are even in PQ.

Now for the Audio part if PAYBACK was done in PCM soundtrack YES BD will be so FAR Better than HD-DVD.

If they are saying THAT the HD-DVD has better Sound than BD,this is obvious clear Because Paramount and Warner are still using Less quality bandwith Sound for BD.All we know without any question about it THAT PCM Soundtrack is unbeatable by HD_DVD DolbyTHD.Hopefully now you understand my point of view

I didn't say anything about PCM sound in my quote. I agree I love the sound of PCM. To me it sounds just as good as Dolby TrueHD which uses a lot less space.

And if it is a title released on VC-1 with the same transfer & bitrate how is it going to look better on Blu-ray than HD-DVD? It will look exactly the same. I have both formats & have done side by side tests to verify this. You actually like MPEG-2 better than AVC encoding?

[Chad Varnadore]

I'm guessing the BD used MPEG2 because Sony's labs are still doing Paramount's stuff and they chose that, not Paramount based on whether or not disc content could handle it at an optimal bitrate as well as resources available. They probably can't do everything coming out in AVC yet. If the MPEG2 encoding does look a tad sharper, as indicated in the review, that would make sense. As in the past HD DVD has used AVC on titles that they wanted to do more noise reduction or grain removal than VC1 would allow them to. I'm not sure if this is why Weinstein has chosen to go with AVC with all their stuff so far. But, we were told by Microsoft that it's why AVC was used on the HD DVD version of Rattle and Hum. Considering they normally use VC1 for Paramount HD stuff, I would assume that the switch in this case was for the same reason.

Why they feel a need to alter the natural texture of the film, is another question. But, they're not the only ones doing it. Universal has filtered some of their titles prior to compression. I don't have confirmation of any specific titles but, I'd bet Warner is doing the same, possibly even more. I know of several of their titles that looked far softer than they did theatrically. Even Sony has admitted to doing some grain reduction. Though, in the case with Sony and possibly everyone else, I think they may have been provoked based on reviews by people that don't fully understand the dynamics of film. Regardless, it's a practice that so far hasn't died with DVD, where filtering was actually necessary.


As for VC1 looking better on BD than HD DVD, and I'm assuming this is what scorxpion meant; it will only look better if the HD DVD encode is at the low bitrates that Microsoft seems to be pushing, which have at least sometimes been filtered to try to accomodate lower bitrate compression without adding noise. Microsoft appears to be trying to force VC1 to be more efficient than it actually is. While a 25GB BD can't do any better than a 30GB HD DVD that uses at least 25GBs of space with identical content, using BD50s Disney has shown that VC1 at higher bitrates can produce better results.

Of course HD DVD can do higher bitrates than the current trend, not as high as BD, but it should still be more favorable than 10-15mbs averages. They just need to relegate more of the extras to a second disc, drop them like Fox has, or in some cases actually try to take advantage of more of the 30GB of space available to them than they're actually using. I think I read where several Warner titles used less than 20GBs on a 30GB disc. We've also seen Universal do a number of combo releases that restricted the HD DVD side to 15GBs. I can understand Warner limiting HD DVD to 25GBs, considering how they're basically copying one format onto another for greater efficiency, but 20GBs is just inexecusable IMO, if that space could have been used to in any way enhance the presentation, whether they think most people will be able to notice or not. 720p displays will not always be the dominant resolution in most peoples homes. 1080p is taking over store shelves fast. Now if they do like Sony and Disney appear to have on most of their newer releases - maximize the presentation as best they can with a high bitrate, unfiltered encode and lossless audio, plus all the extras from the DVD and still have space left over, there's nothing to complain about. Considering the current market that's all we can ask anyway.

[Deciazulado]

All great points, for example the second paragraph which I think is spot on.

But what I really really wanna know, is:

Originally Posted by Chad Varnadore

I believe it's supposed to be a new director's cut. Can't wait to see it again myself. Fun flick!

Originally Posted by Chad Varnadore

Hope I still like it then. Gibson's character not being likable has me concerned.

[outfdblue]

At frys.com you can pre-order it for 14.99 (search for #: 5167106) So at that price you really can't go wrong. It should be a good movie.

[Chad Varnadore]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

All great points, for example the second paragraph which I think is spot on.

But what I really really wanna know, is:

I'm hoping to find time to watch it tomorrow night. I'll get back to you if I do.