Predator 3D Blu-ray (1987) [Region Locked]

[HD Goofnut]

If it looks like film we can buy it.

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by Jegærn

No they didn`t

The original negative of Aliens were almost even worse looking than Predator when it comes to grain.....Cameron said they completely removed the stock grain, fixed contrast and sharpnes and then added a thin layer of digital grain. It is that simple....People "think" they see detail when they see grain.

The source issues were different. Aliens was shot entirely in a controlled sound stage environment at Pinewood Studios http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/locations, while Predator was almost entirely shot in the largely uncontrollable jungles of Mexico http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093773/locations

People continue to refer to the "gritty look" of Predator as intended which it was not. This lends credence to Fox's rejection of complaints about the Ultimate Hunter Edition and their claim that the filmmakers were consulted on the 2010 release. The UHE looks exactly the way the studio intended it to look.

"Predator was a loss loss proposition for Fox. There was going to be no way to get any props for this release. The problem with this title lies squarely in the film stock used for shooting the film. Predator was shot on Kodak 5247 and 5294 depending on the ambient light on location. Much has been said that this film stock was chosen to give the movie a look of "grittiness" which is completely inaccurate. The DP chose the Eastman Kodak stocks he did for the simple fact of capturing “usable” images on film under relatively low lighting conditions in the jungle. 'Grit’ or ‘intentional’ graininess was never intended in any artistic sense for ‘atmosphere’. If anything, it was an undesirable side effect of the acquisition because it caused “murkiness” esp. in the greys and blacks of dark jungle sequences and didn’t allow the filmmakers the opportunity to cut the different stocks together in the same scene, which would have been nice to have had that flexibility. To give you an idea of the challenge, they were apparently restricted to shooting at a max. of only T2 in anything but high noon and the middle of the day. In night scenes they only had 7-8 footcandles of light to shoot under, and when you add smoke(fog) it dropped down to 4-5 footcandles. You see, once you add artificial light in the deep jungle, all it accomplishes is lighting the foreground to such an excessive degree that it looks obvious and fake to audiences. Once the film stocks are underexposed, one is only exposing the biggest of the grains, while the rest are unexposed and washed away during the photochemical processing in the optical workflow at the lab, thusly leaving only the bigger ones which are much more apparent to audiences. Hence the overt graininess of the first release.

In an effort to combat complaints on the first Predator release(too grainy), Fox turned on the DNR to high, and basically scrubbed every piece of grain out of the DI and quite a bit of high frequency information(detail) as well. So now you have a film release that looks like DV " http://forums.audioreview.com/news-r...tml#post335482

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

If it looks like film we can buy it.

Do you remember where you got this info on a 4K scan for Predator UHE?

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=5425

[Jompa]

Aliens and Predator UHE was not done the same way. Predator used just massive amount of regular DNR and on Aliens they used Lowry Digital's (Now called Reliance Mediaworks) advanced digital image processing which is used to minimize grain in image quality without losing any quality.

https://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or....gital&safe=off


One can easily tell the difference between them here:

Aliens
http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergl...less=0#auswahl
http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergl...ss=0#vergleich
Predator

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

People continue to refer to the "gritty look" of Predator as intended which it was not. This lends credence to Fox's rejection of complaints about the Ultimate Hunter Edition and their claim that the filmmakers were consulted on the 2010 release. The UHE looks exactly the way the studio intended it to look.

I have no problems believing the movie was not supposed to be grainy, but the original release looks far more like film than the video game looking UHE. The UHE did NOT look like the film prints and no way in hell it was supposed to look that way. Not buying that at all.

[42041]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

People continue to refer to the "gritty look" of Predator as intended which it was not. This lends credence to Fox's rejection of complaints about the Ultimate Hunter Edition and their claim that the filmmakers were consulted on the 2010 release. The UHE looks exactly the way the studio intended it to look.

When I say Predator is supposed to be gritty, I'm not referring to what the filmmakers had in mind while shooting it, but what the final product was (and I'm firmly against filmmakers second-guessing themselves and futzing around with their movies 25 years later). Either way, a perfectly ideal shoot would still look NOTHING like the UHE so I have a very hard time believing the DP would sign off on that turd.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Jompa

Aliens and Predator UHE was not done the same way. Predator used just massive amount of regular DNR and on Aliens they used Lowry Digital's (Now called Reliance Mediaworks) advanced digital image processing which is used to minimize grain in image quality without losing any quality.

https://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or....gital&safe=off


One can easily tell the difference between them here:

Aliens
http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergl...less=0#auswahl
http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergl...ss=0#vergleich
Predator

Aliens only looks good as it was a brand new scan, if it was unmolested it would have looked miles better.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/37139

There is more detail obviously, but that colour !PUKE! the pink is not great either but mailes more preferable

[Ill_Be_Back]

I prefer the Cameron steely tint. I wouldn't be surprised if True Lies will be the same. The Pink in those caps look worse off to me the same with the earlier terminator releases.

I just got a £20.00 voucher for Amazon so I applied it to my order.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by Ill_Be_Back

I prefer the Cameron steely tint. I wouldn't be surprised if True Lies will be the same. The Pink in those caps look worse off to me the same with the earlier terminator releases.

I just got a £20.00 voucher for Amazon so I applied it to my order.

Steel was blue in Cameron world, actual Blue, not teal not green, blue.
I like the blue look also, aliens is not blue

You can take the pink out and not go green

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9710/2tm3.png

And that is just 10 secs in PS, I am working on tidying up the HDTV soon but have like 5 projects on the go right now

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I have no problems believing the movie was not supposed to be grainy, but the original release looks far more like film than the video game looking UHE. The UHE did NOT look like the film prints and no way in hell it was supposed to look that way. Not buying that at all.

Originally Posted by 42041

When I say Predator is supposed to be gritty, I'm not referring to what the filmmakers had in mind while shooting it, but what the final product was (and I'm firmly against filmmakers second-guessing themselves and futzing around with their movies 25 years later). Either way, a perfectly ideal shoot would still look NOTHING like the UHE so I have a very hard time believing the DP would sign off on that turd.

I understand the purist position that Blu-ray should be used to replicate the original film as closely as possible. Robert Harris believes that is achievable. I accept that. The studios have concluded that when they do that, they have no chance of achieving catalogue sales goal and profitability for the release, because the purist is the only market segment supporting it. Their answer is to modernize and modify their property to appeal to the greater audience. The look of the original film is secondary.

The criticism by RAH and others did not put a dent in sales of the UHE to this broader market segment. That simply reinforced the studios evaluation of this issue. To expect any improvement over the UHE for this "all new 3D transfer"
(read transfer as remaster and not new scan) in light of that falls into the irrational exuberance category. Also, the Fox JVC business model for low cost automated conversions just can't support the additional cost of restoration or "new 4K scans"

You may disagree, but for the studio's, profitability will be the major consideration for these catalogue releases, not the preservation of art.

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by dvdmike

Aliens only looks good as it was a brand new scan, if it was unmolested it would have looked miles better.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/37139

There is more detail obviously, but that colour !PUKE! the pink is not great either but mailes more preferable

It was definitely "molested" according to Cameron:

"It's spectacular. We went in and completely de-noised it, de-grained it, up-rezzed, color-corrected every frame, and it looks amazing. It looks better that it looked in the theaters originally. Because it was shot on a high-speed negative that was a new negative that didn't pan out too well and got replaced the following year. So it's pretty grainy. We got rid of all the grain. It's sharper and clearer and more beautiful than it's ever looked. And we did that to the long version, to the 'director's cut' or the extended play."

[The Fallen Deity]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

I understand the purist position that Blu-ray should be used to replicate the original film as closely as possible. Robert Harris believes that is achievable. I accept that. The studios have concluded that when they do that, they have no chance of achieving catalogue sales goal and profitability for the release, because the purist is the only market segment supporting it. Their answer is to modernize and modify their property to appeal to the greater audience. The look of the original film is secondary.

The criticism by RAH and others did not put a dent in sales of the UHE to this broader market segment. That simply reinforced the studios evaluation of this issue. To expect any improvement over the UHE for this "all new 3D transfer"
(read transfer as remaster and not new scan) in light of that falls into the irrational exuberance category. Also, the Fox JVC business model for low cost automated conversions just can't support the additional cost of restoration or "new 4K scans"

You may disagree, but for the studio's, profitability will be the major consideration for these catalogue releases, not the preservation of art.

Did you work on the UHE because you seem to be defending it a lot when the general conscious is that it looks like crap?

Also again, it's been confirmed by Fox insiders that the new release is from a new 4k scan but you're still denying it.

No offence but I'll believe their word over yours any day of the week.

[42041]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

"It's spectacular. We went in and completely de-noised it, de-grained it, up-rezzed, color-corrected every frame, and it looks amazing. It looks better that it looked in the theaters originally. Because it was shot on a high-speed negative that was a new negative that didn't pan out too well and got replaced the following year. So it's pretty grainy. We got rid of all the grain. It's sharper and clearer and more beautiful than it's ever looked. And we did that to the long version, to the 'director's cut' or the extended play."

I get the feeling that whatever iteration of the transfer Cameron was making that quip about isn't what's on the disc. While the granularity might've been evened out shot-to-shot, it still has approximately the amount of grain you'd get from an 80s high speed negative.

[The Fallen Deity]

Originally Posted by 42041

I get the feeling that whatever iteration of the transfer Cameron was making that quip about isn't what's on the disc. While the granularity might've been evened out shot-to-shot, it still has approximately the amount of grain you'd get from an 80s high speed negative.

That's what I thought when I was watching it.

There's no way in hell that it was DNR'ed to death, it would look smeary as hell but it isn't.

I think The grain like you said was probably evened out instead of completely removed.

[tylergfoster]

Originally Posted by The Fallen Deity

Did you work on the UHE because you seem to be defending it a lot when the general conscious is that it looks like crap?

Also again, it's been confirmed by Fox insiders that the new release is from a new 4k scan but you're still denying it.

No offence but I'll believe their word over yours any day of the week.

Plus, as people have already mentioned multiple times, 20th Century Fox already went back to Patton and The French Connection and corrected their mistakes. There is no reason to believe that either a) it is somehow detrimental to catalog sales for a film to look like it's meant to in HD or b) that 20th Century Fox will not correct poor transfers.

[dvdmike]

Originally Posted by tylergfoster

Plus, as people have already mentioned multiple times, 20th Century Fox already went back to Patton and The French Connection and corrected their mistakes. There is no reason to believe that either a) it is somehow detrimental to catalog sales for a film to look like it's meant to in HD or b) that 20th Century Fox will not correct poor transfers.

Fox had nothing to do with TFC and were not the ones who pushed for the remaster

[The Fallen Deity]

Originally Posted by tylergfoster

Plus, as people have already mentioned multiple times, 20th Century Fox already went back to Patton and The French Connection and corrected their mistakes. There is no reason to believe that either a) it is somehow detrimental to catalog sales for a film to look like it's meant to in HD or b) that 20th Century Fox will not correct poor transfers.

+1

The fixed versions of both films look amazing, miles better than the old editions especially Patton, my god what a difference.

[tylergfoster]

Originally Posted by dvdmike

Fox had nothing to do with TFC and were not the ones who pushed for the remaster

Nothing to do with it aside from being the studio that owns the movie, agreeing to release the product, manufacturing it, and getting it in stores.

If you're a filmmaker, you can't just waltz into a movie studio and demand a re-release of your movie. The studio has to be interested in it too, and clearly, they were. Friedkin likes to say he initiated it, but he also tried to pin the look of the previous Blu-Ray on the note included with all Fox Blu-Rays at the time about updating firmware when I interviewed him.

[42041]

Originally Posted by dvdmike

Fox had nothing to do with TFC and were not the ones who pushed for the remaster

Um, how do you know?

[The Fallen Deity]

Originally Posted by tylergfoster

Nothing to do with it aside from being the studio that owns the movie, agreeing to release the product, manufacturing it, and getting it in stores.

If you're a filmmaker, you can't just waltz into a movie studio and demand a re-release of your movie. The studio has to be interested in it too, and clearly, they were. Friedkin likes to say he initiated it, but he also tried to pin the look of the previous Blu-Ray on the note included with all Fox Blu-Rays at the time about updating firmware when I interviewed him.

Lol even though he fully demonstrated how he altered the colour timing on one of the Blu-Ray's special features. I think he's in denial about the whole thing.