Samsara coming to Blu-ray!!! Could this be true!!!

[kuatolives]

Did not get to see this in theatres, but I am incredibly excited for this on Blu. Can't wait!!

[Lutz]

[QUOTE=kashif;6941351]I know you are right but I am not comfortable with watching a dead old corpse for real. QUOTE]

Just to clarify it is a living burn victim in the movie.

[DarknessBDJM]

Originally Posted by Moonpie

This quote from Andrew Fee film expert and photographer:

"
Baraka is another one of those films where I just don't understand how it keeps popping up on people's "Reference Disc" lists.

Well, I know the reason, but it makes me sad to realise that many people who are enthusiasts actually don't understand what makes for good image quality, and just go along with what everyone else is saying. (not accusing anyone of that here, just saying I see it happens a lot)

The imagery is beautiful, it's a very captivating film. I understand that it was shot on 65mm film, and they made a point about how the Blu-ray is sourced from an 8K scan.

However, the image quality on the Blu-ray disc is poor. It's full of ringing and compression artefacts. Here's a 100% quality JPEG (not lossless, but close enough) of a completely random frame from the Blu-ray disc:




You can pick just about any frame from the film at random and it's going to have similarly poor image quality.

And here's YouTube for comparison (couldn't get the exact frame to match)




When a highly compressed YouTube clip of a very detailed scene like that doesn't look significantly worse, you know something has gone horribly wrong.

The same thing applies to titles like The Dark Knight, Avatar, Crank, and a number of other discs often listed as "reference titles."

About the only film I can think of that is frequently used as a demo disc or "reference title" which is actually useful, is Casino Royale (2006). Not because it's a stunning transfer—we've come a long way in six years of Blu-ray encoding—but because it's a good looking disc, has a wide range of good scenes for testing, with night shots, great daytime vistas, and some scenes that are great tests for judging how good a display's colour reproduction is. What makes it a good disc is that it's been around from the very beginning (it was many people's first Blu-ray due to promotions Sony were running) and so calibrators are usually quite familiar with it, and how it's supposed to look."

That's not the best pic, but forums like this v-bulletin forum are bad for posting screenshots. If you go to your original image files....
http://i48.tinypic.com/34hfdrs.jpg and http://i45.tinypic.com/e98d3b.jpg respectively, there is a bigger difference and I captured the same scene and the original image file on my PC looks a lot better than either Tinypic link and the still on my video player even better. Captures can be good for a rough idea, but theyare not all that accurate to what's on screen as you are watching the film.

Baraka does have edge enhancement here and there, but it's a bit annoying to me at least to see a lot of blanket complaints that exaggerate problems online and specifically on this forum. I cannot think of a single disk that's free of problems, of artifacts either due to the transition to compressed digital format or due to post-processing. If even a film's post-processed scenes still look damn good it's a good looking film and those scenes are in a minority here, in a film comprised of a series of shortscenes that are analagous to a series of photographs. Would I prefer Baraka be post-processing free, most definitely, shots like the dragon statue at the beginning of chapter 2 showing an edge enhancement ring have always bothered me on some level, but not enough to have a hyperbolic reaction.

With all that being said I'm hoping for Samsara to be the pinnacle of the format, because the beauty of Fricke's trilogy deserves no less.

[Mr Kite]

^^^^^ Not a reaction but expert opinion. Baraka from start to finish has been compromised in PQ.

[DarknessBDJM]

Originally Posted by Moonpie

^^^^^ Not a reaction but expert opinion. Baraka from start to finish has been compromised in PQ.

I have a studio monitor and studio cables I can see the film as if is seen by professionals, what you said is a huge generalization. This is not a calibrated tv meant for home use, this is made only for things like video editing and color grading and has natural 2.5 display gamma.
Switching between the provided jpegs and the film paused to the same frame on my video player the difference is absolutely huge, so using them as a basis for opinion is bad which was the basis for my first paragraph.

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by kashif

No I am not a Veg and I love eating chickens but I cant see them slaughtered and why would I need to see that? The same question which u asked is asked by many other people often for instance once I told people on forum to stop feeding poor live fish babies to their Oscar fish or Ariwonas and they counter question me "Dont you eat chicken"?

Because you are indirectly responsible that they are slaughtered.
It seems to me you are just trying to protect yourself from having to get rid of your ignorance in this matter. That's why these films are so important IMO.
They show the harsh reality, not the commercials that has happy chickens jumping into the frying pan with joy....

When can we expect a review of Samsara on this site?

[ycbbh]

Review is up and it is pure demo material as was expected. I can finally stop going outside!

[Tech-UK]

48/24

[Bluyoda]

Review sounds great! I am very excited to see this on BD!

Which cover do you prefer:

The US

or the German https://images3.static-bluray.com/mo...5562_large.jpg

Despite the German having a nice simplicity to it, I think the US is more eye-catching.

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by Tech-UK

48/24

The bit rate is far more important than the sample rate. Don't worry, and enjoy!

[Tech-UK]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

The bit rate is far more important than the sample rate. Don't worry, and enjoy!

Bit rate is driven by sampling frequency and bit depth. We had confimation that it was 96/24 from nick666.

Btw I left you a comment on your gallery a few days ago, I asked a question.

[joenostalgia23]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

Review sounds great! I am very excited to see this on BD!

Which cover do you prefer:

The US

or the German https://images3.static-bluray.com/mo...5562_large.jpg

Despite the German having a nice simplicity to it, I think the US is more eye-catching.

Honestly not a big fan of either, but they're not terrible.
I prefer the US one since it resembles the artwork for Baraka.

Nothing beats those covers Criterion did for the Qatsi trilogy(for which Ron Drike was cinematographer) though. The whole set is gorgeous!

Does anybody have their hands on a copy yet?
What's the packaging yet? Is it a digipak, a keep case? Or is it one of those Eco-friendly paper cases that the first releases of Baraka came in? And there's the inevitable question about slipcovers.

[Geezer00003]

As with the movie Samsara, I've been waiting for the review.
I am pleased at what I read and look forward to viewing the Blu-ray!
Thanks to Casey Broadwater for his time writing the review.

Geezer

[WiWavelength]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

The bit rate is far more important than the sample rate. Don't worry, and enjoy!

No, the bit rate does not matter a whit. This cannot be said enough times, but some people just do not seem to understand that lossless is lossless. For example, some LPCM audio may require only 100 kbps to encode losslessly, while other LPCM audio may require 3 Mbps. But both can be encoded/decoded back to the original LPCM without loss. Unfortunately, some people fixate on lossless bit rate -- DVDBeaver comes to mind, often praising high lossless bit rates -- and that is just wrong.

AJ

[WiWavelength]

Originally Posted by Tech-UK

Bit rate is driven by sampling frequency and bit depth. We had confimation that it was 96/24 from nick666.

This agita over 96 kHz sampling rate for "Samsara" is much ado about nothing.

"Baraka" was released with 70 mm mag stripe prints, so its final sound mix was analog magnetic format. Heck, in the early 1990s, its audio production/post may have been largely or entirely analog magnetic. So, the analog origins may have warranted the 96 kHz sampling rate for "Baraka."

"Samsara," on the other hand, has no 70 mm mag stripe prints. Its final sound mix is digital. So, the question arises: was its production/post audio chain 96 kHz from beginning to end? I highly doubt it, since film production/post is almost entirely standardized around 24 bit 48 kHz audio.

So, if "Samsara" was not 96 kHz throughout its production, then it was upsampled to 96 kHz, and that is little more than "specsmanship" to impress people who do not know any better.

AJ

[ianvillaceran]

I can't wait for this!!

[Tech-UK]

Originally Posted by WiWavelength

This agita over 96 kHz sampling rate for "Samsara" is much ado about nothing.

"Baraka" was released with 70 mm mag stripe prints, so its final sound mix was analog magnetic format. Heck, in the early 1990s, its audio production/post may have been largely or entirely analog magnetic. So, the analog origins may have warranted the 96 kHz sampling rate for "Baraka."

"Samsara," on the other hand, has no 70 mm mag stripe prints. Its final sound mix is digital. So, the question arises: was its production/post audio chain 96 kHz from beginning to end? I highly doubt it, since film production/post is almost entirely standardized around 24 bit 48 kHz audio.

So, if "Samsara" was not 96 kHz throughout its production, then it was upsampled to 96 kHz, and that is little more than "specsmanship" to impress people who do not know any better.

AJ

I am looking for clarification as to whats on the disc. Unless someone can confirm exactly what was produced, we will never know. All I want is the best possible presentation relative to the source, if the original mix was 48/24 then thats fine.

[pagemaster]

Sadly, Samsara was an big, epic flop.

The fact that the distributors did not want to make any 70mm for this film is evident. We played the movie at my theatre in 35mm, the film could of just been shot on 4K or 35mm.

[42041]

70mm prints would've been nice but a well-focused 4K projector should get in the 70mm/5perf ballpark...

[pagemaster]

Originally Posted by 42041

70mm prints would've been nice but a well-focused 4K projector should get in the 70mm/5perf ballpark...

A 4K projector is in the 35mm ballpark