Gangs of New York (U.S) - Extremely Highly NOT Recommended

[BStecke]

They're both shot to be grainy.

[punkguy03]

really?cuz the only grain i see in the hostel movies are on the black levels pretty much.Hence y i notice it i tend to notice blacks alot.Idk i think gangs of new york is a definite upgrade from the dvd version which is y im not too upset.Then again i also love the vivid setting(i have an xbr4)most ppl hate the vivid setting but i like it.

[BStecke]

I think anything would be an upgrade from the DVD, as any Blu-ray is. But judging against other Blu-rays it's close to the bottom of the pile.

[punkguy03]

o i agree its definetely not the best.I just think ppl are blowing it out of proportion.Of course i watch lots and lots of cartoons so i dont get lots of blurays of those.(im pretty sure south park and such arent going to be on bluray at least not any time soon).We need more cartoons on bluray.Gangs of new york was probably just a quick release im sure they didn't work too much on it.But overall for 25 bux it wasn't a bad purchase.

[BStecke]

When comparing the treatment taken to bring Blade Runner, the Pirates films, Natonal Treasure, and pretty much any other Disney catalog title to Blu-ray, Gangs of New York looks like a quick hack job. When compared to those, I don't think the negative reaction toward it is out of proportion. It's just a poorly done disc. National Treasure was the same price and it looks great. When paying a premium, and in many cases replacing DVD's, I think that premium should be reflective of the quality, and Gangs of New York certainly does not represent a product that is deserving of a premium price.

[jurassic_pork]

I vote the Punisher, Robocop, Terminator, Mission Impossible, Total Recall, Saw, Hitch, short circuit, XXX, young guns, Michael Clayton, Million Dollar baby as worse....

[BStecke]

Terminator 1?? Terminator looks way better than this, and considering it was shot for peanuts is even more of a slight against GONY. Punisher is pretty poor, but I don't think that has anything to do with Lionsgate botching the disc. I think that's just what it looks like. Another film shot on the cheap.

I think the important distinction to make here is that some movies just look like crap, and will always look like crap, due to no fault of the studio. Robocop for example probably won't look much better than it does.

GONY on the other hand is just a case of blatant disregard for the presentation of the film. EE and the extreme amount of processing that is evident is something that could be fixed.

[jurassic_pork]

Originally Posted by BStecke

When comparing the treatment taken to bring Blade Runner, the Pirates films, Natonal Treasure, and pretty much any other Disney catalog title to Blu-ray, Gangs of New York looks like a quick hack job. When compared to those, I don't think the negative reaction toward it is out of proportion. It's just a poorly done disc. National Treasure was the same price and it looks great. When paying a premium, and in many cases replacing DVD's, I think that premium should be reflective of the quality, and Gangs of New York certainly does not represent a product that is deserving of a premium price.

I agree here in the sense that we've been used to seeing Disney/Buena Vista put out top notch product.

[owa]

Originally Posted by jurassic_pork

OK so maybe I'm not as passionate as some of my fellow members (let the flaming begin, LOL) but I watched my newly delivered copy this afternoon and I don't think it looks as terrible as many have made it appear to be. For a while there I was going to cancel my Amazon pre-order but I like the movie and decided to keep it and see for myself. Maybe I'm not as objective as othe videophiles here but I do own quite a few other BD's that look worse than this. Just my 2 cents.

I'm not quite all the way through it yet (stopped to do a PS3 firmware update) but I think it has looked pretty good so far. IMO, the detail has been good quite a bit of the time and I also don't see it as being overly "flat". Like many other movies, the PQ does vary some so there are some scenes that are flat and/or soft. Hopefully someone will provide screenshots of the US version vs the imports to demonstrate what the issues are. Anyone know if the screenshot guy at AVS has done that already or not?

[thebluemax]

I'm upset about the negative comments regarding the PQ. I have this coming tomorrow from Amazon. I will just have to make my own judgement.

[BStecke]

Just keep your eye out for the halos around edges in a lot of scenes. I found it hard to miss. Especially the scene where Amsterdam is walking across the bridge and throws his bible into the water, just for one. Also, check out the first big pan of the camera across the snow right at the beginning of the movie. It looks awful.

[owa]

Okay, yeah, the halos are pretty obvious now that I've looked for them specifically. I guess I was so hung up on looking for "detail" and looked right past the halos. Of course, now that I've noticed it, I'm having a harder time looking past it.

Edit: I don't know, I think I take that back. What I thought was so obvious a few minutes ago maybe wasn't what I thought it was. I've gone through some more of it and I'm not seeing anything now. I guess I'll just let others worry about it since it seems to okay to me for the most part (more speckles -- flaws of that nature than I'd like -- but for the most part, I'm fine with it).

[Copywriter]

Guess it's me, but I'm not going to buy "acceptable" BLUs anymore.

They either are very good or they are sitting on the shelf for someone else to buy.

Hopefully there won't be too many drone, complacent consumers that put up with mediocrity in "HD" products.

"It looks fine" is for SD.

[#Darren]

Originally Posted by Copywriter

Guess it's me, but I'm not going to buy "acceptable" BLUs anymore.

They either are very good or they are sitting on the shelf for someone else to buy.

Hopefully there won't be too many drone, complacent consumers that put up with mediocrity in "HD" products.

"It looks fine" is for SD.

Smart Man.

[GGX]

Originally Posted by owa

Okay, yeah, the halos are pretty obvious now that I've looked for them specifically. I guess I was so hung up on looking for "detail" and looked right past the halos. Of course, now that I've noticed it, I'm having a harder time looking past it.

Edit: I don't know, I think I take that back. What I thought was so obvious a few minutes ago maybe wasn't what I thought it was. I've gone through some more of it and I'm not seeing anything now. I guess I'll just let others worry about it since it seems to okay to me for the most part (more speckles -- flaws of that nature than I'd like -- but for the most part, I'm fine with it).

We need less forgiving people like you. These transfers are just unacceptable. Even if it does look okay to you it still isnt the way the film was intended to look.

[Blaumann]

Originally Posted by quirkmanly

This is a comment from another forum:

"The French and German release are perfect.
French editor "M6 Video" said that the disney master was pityfull, so they restarted the entire bluray with a new master, many delays after the bluray is here, and all majors french reviews give a 9/10 for the video...."

I have just ordered a copy of the german BD, which hopefully i should hold in my hands tomorrow as i am in Germany. I saw the UK BD of Gangs last year, which has the Disney transfer and looks like sh!te. Hopefully the reports of the better transfer/remastering are true. I'll post some pc screenshots once i have the disc.

[#Darren]

Originally Posted by Blaumann

I have just ordered a copy of the german BD, which hopefully i should hold in my hands tomorrow as i am in Germany. I saw the UK BD of Gangs last year, which has the Disney transfer and looks like sh!te. Hopefully the reports of the better transfer/remastering are true. I'll post some pc screenshots once i have the disc.

I look forward to reading your review nik... er... Blaumann

[Blaumann]

Originally Posted by iDarren

I look forward to reading your review nik... er... Blaumann

heh heh

[Robert Harris]

Blu-ray was, from the outset, designed to be a multi-functional system capable of serving many masters.

Combined with the PS3, it becomes a superlative gaming system.

Played back on that same PS3, or any Blu players, it can offer a totally immersive and perfectly honed rendition of film (cinema) as a digital video product.

Because of its huge data handling capabilities, compression becomes much less of a problem, and along with that the need to reduce, no less remove, the original grain structure of a motion picture.

If the consumer, as a matter of personal preference, determines that they like to view some or all older motion pictures encoded to Blu with a slightly softer appearance, the system can handle that request with the simple turn of a digital dial.

The Blu-ray system stands as a consummate achievement of modern technology in its ability to do many things, and to do them very, very well.

As I see it, the only thing that can damage or destroy its commercial image is a run of software that prohibits the system from doing the job that it was designed to do -- that being the replication of the theater experience in a home setting at the highest level of reproduction and purity.

And this is where Gangs on Blu-ray fails the system as well as the consumer.

Blu-ray discs are too expensive to allow the public to be complacent about quality, when quality is all to easy to achieve.

I believe that we've reached a plateau in development cycle, where "good enough" is no longer viable.

RAH

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by Blaumann

I have just ordered a copy of the german BD, which hopefully i should hold in my hands tomorrow as i am in Germany. I saw the UK BD of Gangs last year, which has the Disney transfer and looks like sh!te. Hopefully the reports of the better transfer/remastering are true. I'll post some pc screenshots once i have the disc.

Hey buddy. Hold on. Members in cinefacts.de forum are complaining of similar EE on the German BD. Due to the due diligence properly before taking the plunge.