Enter the Dragon (1973) (40th Anniversary Edition) (Remastered) - Page 30 - Blu-ray Forum

Lantz · 06-15-2013, 01:00 PM

Now, no more speculation. I borrowed the new edition from a friend last night and have gotten more than halfway through the feature and checked the new extras. AQ is outstanding. Period. Regrettably, I must say that I'm still less than impressed with the PQ. Granted, a superior encode by far, colours are bright (almost unnaturally so), blacks are inky and no digital artifacts along the lines of aliasing, but I still don't share Brown's outspoken fascination with the transfer; opposite to my expectations, I didn't think it looked much better in motion than those screencaps on here reveal. In my opinion, colours are off, there's black crush and I don't see more detail than before (occasionally, I even see less). Clearly a slight teal push throughout, that I find a bit annoying.

Besides the transfer, I didn't find any of the three new mini-docs particularly worthwhile, possibly the one on the locations was a bit interesting, but I'd say they do not really compensate for the omission of John Little's 100-minute doc that was part of the 2007 edition.

So, personally, I am now confidently set on giving this edition a miss, feeling the transfer could have been rendered more 'natural' and with all the really relevant extras already to be found on the 2007 edition that I own. And, warts and all, the old transfer is still the one I prefer, as those jaggies are not all that prominent on my 55" sitting 2-3 meters away. And the AQ on that edition is perfectly sufficient for my set up.

EDIT: Oh, that the new transfer is cropped more than before didn't help either.

Tech-UK · 06-15-2013, 01:12 PM

Nothing with regards to the Blu-ray, but I thought this was pretty cool, if you didn't already know:

The Dragon · 06-15-2013, 02:37 PM

[Show spoiler]

kdo · 06-15-2013, 06:38 PM

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Originally Posted by HDvision

My god, why is this zoomed?

I don't like that it was done either...though the two following posts seem to offer explanations as to perhaps why vvv.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I believe the cropping is a result of making sure there is no scaling or resolution loss coming from a 4K or even 2K scan since 1080p is 1920x1080. They either have to crop a little to make it fit, or would have to scale it which would cause resolution loss. Joe Kane talked about this recently in an interview in regards to 4K and UHD. I believe the same concept applies here. This is why all of these nice new transfers have a very slight amount of cropping compared to the old release which was scaled down. Very slight cropping is much preferable compared to losing picture resolution.

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Originally Posted by Geoff D

I agree with HH. He's not saying that every new transfer HAS to be resized in this manner, but it's a method which I've seen advocated by a veteran VFX supervisor and it does have some merit. 2K is very close to HD in terms of resolution*, so instead of downsampling the image and risking the addition of a new set of artefacts, they can simply shave off the extra pixels. It's quicker too.

Sure, some outfits will have shit-hot algorithms for this kind of work and will set aside the time to use them properly. But with less time and money available, a decision may well be taken to crop a 2K master for HD instead of resizing it.

Anyhoo, EtD is not the first movie to have been cropped in this manner, nor will it be the last. As long as it's not a huge detriment to the framing, I can live with it. Heck, Alien has lost more pic info with every successive new transfer, but I'm not pining for those pixels when I play the blu-ray because it's just so darned good otherwise. And, given a choice of the two, I bet some folks would've preferred the restored-but-cropped Lowry version of GoldenEye on blu-ray instead of the DNR'ed-but-properly-framed version that we ended up with.

*albeit a 1.78, 1.85 or 2.39 deliverable, not a fullap scan

Quote:

Originally Posted by HDvision

The original look zoomed too.

The 2007 disc was (at least in comparison to the HK Blu), but it was slight. In some of the screencaps of the new 40th anniversary Blu, entire faces are missing from the frame

.

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it looks zoomboxed and badly at that.

I agree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lantz

Now, no more speculation. I borrowed the new edition from a friend last night and have gotten more than halfway through the feature and checked the new extras. AQ is outstanding. Period. Regrettably, I must say that I'm still less than impressed with the PQ. Colours are bright (almost unnaturally so), blacks are inky and no digital artifacts along the lines of aliasing, but I still don't share Brown's outspoken fascination with the transfer; opposite to my expectations, I didn't think it looked much better in motion than those screencaps on here reveal. In my opinion, colours are off, there's black crush and I don't see more detail than before (occasionally, I even see less). Clearly a slight teal push throughout, that I find a bit annoying.

Glad that you were able to actually view the disc to verify some of what we've been saying all along. Looks like our assumptions based on the screenshots were accurate, and in all honesty, I'm not surprised...

Quote:

Besides the transfer, I didn't find any of the three new mini-docs particularly worthwhile, possibly the one on the locations was a bit interesting, but I'd say they do not really compensate for the omission of John Little's 100-minute doc that was part of the 2007 edition.

When the specs were first announced, I didn't see anything particularly eye-catching in that regard either. Seemed like a few cheap new bonus features (some of which seemingly have very little relevance to "ETD").

Quote:

So, personally, I am now confidently set on giving this edition a miss, feeling the transfer could have been rendered more 'natural' and with all the really relevant extras already to be found on the 2007 edition that I own. And, warts and all, the old transfer is still the one I prefer, as those jaggies are not all that prominent on my 55" sitting 2-3 meters away. And the AQ on that edition is perfectly sufficient for my set up.

And it looks like we're on the same page in this regard as well (and I haven't even seen the disc)

. As for the original Blu, yeah, I'm watching on a 51" setup, and the jaggies don't tend to bother me either. Granted, I noticed the aliasing issue the very first time I watched the Blu, but unless you're fixating on it (or watching on a huge display), it's not that bothersome. Obviously, some shots fare worse than others, but again, I have no problem with (and actually prefer the look of) the 2007 disc, and it's the one I'll be sticking with.

Quote:

EDIT: That the new transfer is cropped more than before didn't help either.

This much is certain.

nagysaudio · 06-15-2013, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kdo

I don't like that it was done either...though the two following posts seem to offer explanations as to perhaps why vvv.

The 2007 disc was (at least in comparison to the HK Blu), but it was slight. In some of the screencaps of the new 40th anniversary Blu, entire faces are missing from the frame

.

I agree.

Glad that you were able to actually view the disc to verify some of what we've been saying all along. Looks like our assumptions based on the screenshots were accurate, and in all honesty, I'm not surprised...

When the specs were first announced, I didn't see anything particularly eye-catching in that regard either. Seemed like a few cheap new bonus features (some of which seemingly have very little relevance to "ETD").

And it looks like we're on the same page in this regard as well (and I haven't even seen the disc)

. As for the original Blu, yeah, I'm watching on a 51" setup, and the jaggies don't tend to bother me either. Granted, I noticed the aliasing issue the very first time I watched the Blu, but unless you're fixating on it (or watching on a huge display), it's not that bothersome. Obviously, some shots fare worse than others, but again, I have no problem with (and actually prefer the look of) the 2007 disc, and it's the one I'll be sticking with.

This much is certain.

Dude, come on man. It's cool to post your opinion, but you have posted the same thing more than a dozen times. Once is enough. You drown out other opinions and that's not cool. Makes it seem like you have an agenda. You did the same for Ghostbusters too. And judging picture quality is more technical rather than an opinion. And you are 100% dead wrong in regards to this release. So wrong that it's ridiculous. Many very knowledgeable members here already said that it looks excellent and very film like. Including the official review. This is a great release, 9/10 for picture and sound. Saying that the old release looks better in any way shows a lack of understanding on what film looks like and what makes for a great transfer. You've made your point enough times, please move on and let others speak.

rickah88 · 06-15-2013, 07:06 PM

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