Shoah (1985)

[tenia]

Originally Posted by reidw

I'm not sure I can accept that bit of reasoning but at least now I know why older films get 4/5 and even the occasional 5/5 while I find when I buy the disc that the PQ doesn't really live up to that kind of high rating. Criterion in particular seems to benefit from this approach to rating PQ and it explains my dissatsfaction with the technical quality of great films such as Twelve Angry Men, Paths Of Glory etc. The reviewer and I have simply not been on the same page.

As said above, it is indeed a question of expectations. When one give 4.5/5 to Paths of Glory, it is a very good BD... of Paths of Glory.
But of course, when comparing Paths of Glory to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, well, that's not the same.

I thought about it, and the question behind should in fact be :

What the ratings explains ? If the BD is nice-looking or bad-looking, or if it is nicely-produced or badly-produced ?

You have to take both in account, but it's not because it's good looking that it's nicely produced, and vice versa.

Exemple given : I just watched this afternoon Carlotta French BD of Sidney Lumet's Q&A. It's clearly made from a dated master supplied by FOX, it's dull looking, no detail, no depth --> dull old master.
On the other end, I watched just after Third Window UK BD of Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo. Shot in B&W on 16mm with an awfully low budget. Still, it has 100 times more texture and more depth than Q&A.
Still, I'm unsure you'd say the same, because we might not have the same conception of what is and what isn't "good looking". As you wrote, it sometimes just "not being on the same page".

On the other end, I can't advice you anything but to keep on watching more and more catalog movies to understand what you should expect. IMO (at least, that's how I did), the best experience I gathered was through experiment :watching, again and again, more and more catalog movies.

Believe me, Paths of Glory is a thing of beauty in HD.

Originally Posted by reidw

Perhaps the issue would be ameliorated somewhat if a larger scale were used, say for example a 10 point scale. That would give more room and help to differentiate a PQ of 4 for a current film vs. a 4 for a catalogue title.

One thinks it would make a difference, but actually, it is exactly the same, but the ratings are just multiplied by 2. It might simply help between the points (instead of having a 10 ratings scale, you have now 20 possible ratings), or to discriminate slightly better, but if Pro-B gives 5/5 for Shoah, he would probably give it 9 or 9.5 out of 10.

Originally Posted by 42041

Such information is usually (or at least often) out there. And an informed person can draw many conclusions just from the facts of how and when a movie was shot. Of course, it's true that many reviewers assume source issues without reasonable justification, giving transfer issues a pass.

Biggest issue remains the evaluation of the color reproduction. Without knowing the original look of the movie, it can be extremely difficult to understand if the BD is accurate or not, and if any color fading has been properly corrected.

I remember 2 particular discussions about this, one for North by Northwest, the other for The Quiet Man.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by tenia

I just read Pro-B review and I'm quite surprised he doesn't mention the compression issues discussed by Chris @ criterionforum.org and which are visible on the 1st cap here at least.

I did not because there are no such compression issues. In fact, the very example he gives has absolutely nothing to do with noise/pixelation (I refer to his high-rez shot). This is how 16mm film resolves when scanned at 4K. And in this film things are further complicated because plenty of the footage is shot with hand-held camera.

This is also quite obvious on other very high-quality 4K transfers, such as the one used for Broadcast News. See example here:

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/scree...072&position=9

It is far less obvious with larger formats. (But in 1.37:1 and 1.85:1 it is how film density is captured). And it can be noticed only if one takes frame by frame screencapttures.

Pro-B

[Tompa]

This part of the review bothers me

Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

There has never existed a PS3 that is region free.

[cdias_md]

$49.99 at barnes and noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-...n=715515105415

[Tybo28]

Picked this up at Barnes and Noble. I can't imagine watching it too often but I wanted to have it.

[Jr7936]

even though I have seen shoah once the film will probably come in handy once again during my upper division history class the modern history of Israel , since a lot of the topics in the class are dealt with in the film

[pred895]

Shoah: And 4 Films After Shoah >> Unboxing and Photos



Unboxing >>

Shoah: And 4 Films After Shoah - Masters of Cinema Blu-ray Unboxing - YouTube

[ArnoldLayne56]

Claude Lanzmann obituary:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/o...mann-dead.html

[Jlouisbarrett]

Which is considered the superior release PQ and extras-wise? The Criterion or the Eureka?

[koberulz]

Eureka.

[Wernski]

Well, just in terms of extras, I'd say Criterion. It has exclusive extras (the two hours or so of interviews). Eureka has the entire extra film (Last of the Unjust), but that can be bought separately, while the Criterion extras cannot.

[koberulz]

The Eureka blows the Criterion out of the water for picture quality though.

[Jlouisbarrett]

Are both releases based on the same scan? Or does the Eureka contain a new/different restoration or better encode?

[koberulz]

Much better compression and colour timing.

[KubrickKurasawa]

If you want to be "shocked" watch this.