Ocean's 13 - what's the beef?

[scragham]

i read the reviews of O13 with increasing dismay because i love the movie and was really looking forward to it in HD. however, i kept my order and ended up getting it late last week. finally had a chance to watch it yesterday afternoon, and all i can say is... what's the beef?

honestly, this movie looks the way i remember seeing it in the theaters. this was no rinky-dink theater either, this was one of regal's nicer/newer ones, so no, the projector and gear and screen did not suck. IIRC, yes, the film in the theater was this grainy too... which leads me to believe that it's more (and here come those hated words...) directorial intent than anything else leading to the look.

i was very pleased. sound was no pirates or whatnot, but then again, it's not exactly meant to be an aural wonder anyway.

[FilmmakingFiasco]

What reviews did you read? There's a problem with most review systems because the "quality" they're reviewing usually comparing to other Blu-ray titles. One of the better sites out there is DVD Beaver. Most of the time they review the movie in two different values. Here is their score from their review:

Image : 6 (5~8/???)
I admit to being in the dark here as this DVDs resemblance to the theatrical experience, which is too bad because I have no idea if this image is supposed to look this way. It certainly looks strange, though. The score of 6 indicates a relative level of excellence compared to other Blu-ray DVDs. The score in parentheses represents: first, a value for the image in absolute terms; and, second, how that image compares to what I believe is the current best we could have expected in the theatre – thus, the ???.

I suppose in keeping with the carnival environment that is unique to Las Vegas, the color & contrast scheme of this movie, and this DVD, is as varied as the rides at an amusement park. The default is over-the-top saturation and contrast plus some added noise here and there. Blacks block up very quickly as there is little discrimination between various levels. It is very important that one not rush to the video displays to try to "correct" for whatever the hell you think the color ought to be. Even if you find a happy medium in one scene, the next will be different – so you'd better have it right to start with (not that these screenshots tell the real truth about the image, try as I might to be faithful to it. ) That said, there are moments of reasonable clarity and sharpness alternating with others of a blush of color in high grain or neon or blown-out high level information. It's all very surreal and, on balance, not much of a good time as far as the image is concerned.

[Deciazulado]

Manny people want and expect their HD looking like a direct CGI rendering instead of a faithfull representation of what the film print/artistic choices looked like. The two oftentimes conflict.


(I personally would like HD to look like a direct scan from the Oneg, manipulated to have the color timing of the answer print but w/o the print duplicating degradation )

[sonicbox]

Various discussions about this in the previous Ocean's thread: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=24493 Yes, the BD looks like it did in theaters (and much better than the DVD release)... like it or not.

[cajmoyper]

I didn't think 13 looked that bad, 12 was the worst looking BD I've ever seen.