Dressed to Kill (1980)

[Bluebolt]

I suppose we can also question the technical competence of DVDBeaver vs. the technical competence of Criterion by asking whether DVDBeaver may have screwed up their new screen captures on this one?

Yes, I know, sounding a little desperate now…

[AlexIlDottore]

Originally Posted by Bluebolt

I suppose we can also question the technical competence of DVDBeaver vs. the technical competence of Criterion by asking whether DVDBeaver may have screwed up their new screen captures on this one?

Yes, I know, sounding a little desperate now…

DVDBeaver are known for having bad screengrabs, just not stretched/squished ones

[darkness2918]

Nothing I saw is enough to make me not want the Criterion release. It looks fine to me.

[AlexIlDottore]

Originally Posted by darkness2918

Nothing I saw is enough to make me not want the Criterion release. It looks fine to me.

You're joking. Stretching the image is fine ?

Politely and objectively : you need to look again, and or buy glasses.

[tama]

Originally Posted by AlexIlDottore

You clearly understood what I wrote. I won't respect somebody's opinion just because it's an opinion.

Is that clear enough for you? Or are you so stupid that I need to go further ?

I'm sure people are surfing these boards looking for your respect on their opinion

Carry on.

[AlexIlDottore]

Originally Posted by tama

I'm sure people are surfing these boards looking for your respect on their opinion

Carry on.

Wow, Profound.

Yeah, I'll carry on questioning an opinion until it's backed up.

You keep posting crap with your emoticons.

[JohnCarpenterLives]

I don't know how anyone can be OK with the Criterion image. It's totally washed out, and the squishing is very prominent. One the shots looked like a shrunken Michael Caine he was squished! Unfortunate. Get the Arrow release.

[Mose Harper]

I could give the benefit of the doubt to the color grading and gamma changes. Usually screen caps do not jibe with what I see on my screen in these areas due to several variables.

The geometry differences are another kettle of fish though. If that represents what is actually on the disc, Criterion screwed up, plain and simple.
There no opinion about it, the geometry is simply wrong and and anyone familiar with these actors (not to mention props like the old phone on the desk) knows these are wildly off here.

It's a shame too as I would be interested in seeing the Criterion for myself given that other aspects of the image could be a noticeable improvement.
And yeah, the old Filmways logo would be a great little bonus. But without a video processor to adjust the geometry, I could never watch the film like that.

Looks like I may give the Arrow a shot though. Thought the old MGM would be sufficient, but the Arrow still looks like an upgrade- as well as being pretty cheap right now.

[bgart13]

Is it possibly "stretched" due to lenses used when shooting it (I know "mumps" are typically seen on the sides of the screen)?

[The Great Owl]

In my line of work, I often review construction plans drawn by designers who never visited the actual site to see the terrain and topography. We have a saying that goes, "The desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world."

Along those same lines of logic, screencaps are not the best way to watch a movie.

I've seen a lot of heated arguments against Criterion transfers based on the screencaps, with Michael Mann's Thief being one specific example, where people claim that the transfer is a disaster of bad tinting, bad framing, and such. In most instance, the movie looks great in motion on the Criterion disc.

I'm not an apologist for bad transfers, but I'd like to see this one in motion. I like the Criterion screencaps better than the MGM screencaps, while the Arrow screencaps look like a favorable middle ground between the two. I'm restricted to Region A by choice, though, and the Criterion screencaps lead me to believe that the supposed stretching is something that I'll forget about when I'm five minutes into the movie.

I sold my MGM Blu-ray of Dressed to Kill when I found out that Criterion was releasing it. If the worst case scenario turns out to be true, then I can always buy another MGM disc.

[babybreese]

It is squeezed, not stretched, and wow, did Criterion botch this one in all major areas. Epic fail.

[Brad1963]

To me, the Criterion shots appear to be the best framed and look properly set and accurate. All these years it looks like MGM has cropped the film a bit. I like seeing the extra information and it looks better in that respect. I've taken a closer look and could the Lamp and a couple of other things mentioned. Hopefully it is just bad screenshots or dare I say bad Beaver shots. I'm not in hurry to purchase it so I will wait a while and get feedback. I did not purchase the MGM version, and after looking at those shots side by side I still like the Criterion better.

[babybreese]

http://i.imgur.com/xf5oAh3.gif

[Rockercub]

Originally Posted by Brad1963

All these years it looks like MGM has cropped the film a bit.

The MGM and the Criterion are the same aspect ratio with essentially the same framing from a vertical standpoint (the Criterion appears to be just slightly lower on both the top and bottom). So how can you crop the same image with the same aspect ratio and nearly the same vertical information, but radically different horizontal information? You can't. It's not a cropping issue, it's a horizontal stretching/squashing issue. If you think the Criterion is correct, then MGM stretched the image horizontally before cropping it. I think it's obvious that the Criterion is squashed horizontally, but to each his own.

[joie]

Suppose 2K is 2048 pixels wide. For home video (1920 pixels wide) they can crop 64 pixels off each side (2048-1920=128) or squish the image horizontally. It's much simpler to crop each side.

[Mose Harper]

it's possible the MGM and Arrow are zoomed in and cropped.
But if the Criterion is showing information that is all supposed to be visible, then the aspect ratio should have been closer to 2.5:1 not the ~2.35/2.4:1 of the MGM.
It would have been a very simple tweak to adjust the geometry. IF beavers caps are accurate, how that fundamental a thing could slip past the folks at Criterion is really beyond comprehension.

[Bates_Motel]

Originally Posted by Mose Harper

it's possible the MGM and Arrow are zoomed in and cropped.

No, it's not, or the top and bottom of the frames would also be zoomed and cropped. You can't just zoom the horizontal without zooming the vertical as well.

It's also not possible since in most of the shots on the Criterion, the people are abnormally thinner and look nothing like to do in other films.

But in actuality, all movies are cropped, since rarely the whole negative is used. Whoever made the Criterion master messed up and squeezed the image instead of doing the proper cropping.

[ccfixx]

For those "in the know," could the huge difference in framing, color timing (I know that's usually a director's revisionist approach these days), and skewing of the image have anything to do with Criterion presenting the "unrated" version instead of the R-rated version?

Arrow's release has a featurette, Unrated, R-Rated, and TV-Rated Comparison, and I was wondering if anyone that owns Arrow's version has watched that and seen any similarities that are visible in DVDBeaver's screen shots? Also, has the unrated version been available elsewhere before on an official home video release?

[Arlington]

Originally Posted by ccfixx

For those "in the know," could the huge difference in framing, color timing (I know that's usually a director's revisionist approach these days), and skewing of the image have anything to do with Criterion presenting the "unrated" version instead of the R-rated version?

Arrow's release has a featurette, Unrated, R-Rated, and TV-Rated Comparison, and I was wondering if anyone that owns Arrow's version has watched that and seen any similarities that are visible in DVDBeaver's screen shots? Also, has the unrated version been available elsewhere before on an official home video release?

MGM's release had the unrated version and was the initial source of that featurette.

[ccfixx]

Originally Posted by Arlington

MGM's release had the unrated version and was the initial source of that featurette.

Thanks. I own it, but didn't bother to check before I proposed my pointless question.