Belladonna of Sadness (1973) 4K UHD

[gigan72]

Originally Posted by Kyle15

How many pages is the book? It was always advertised as having 220 pages but it never actually did have that many. I made a lil post about it one page over.
It's pretty wild they're still misadvertising it!

Including everything the book is 198 pages, mostly stills and images from the movie.

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by gigan72

Including everything the book is 198 pages, mostly stills and images from the movie.

Yup, it's always been like that despite being advertised as 220 pages. Nothing's been cut.

[reanimator]

Originally Posted by Magyalmar

This is why I hate the Internet sometimes, people are told "generally very good with a few issues" and they understand "crap".

"If it's not perfect, it's garbage!"

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by reanimator

"If it's not perfect, it's garbage!"

Exactly what I said, and exactly who posted the screencaps said too!

[XGEEKEDGERX]

Originally Posted by andreasy969

If yours came through, it's just luck AFAICT.

I guess I jumped the gun there. My order must have slipped through the net.

[andreasy969]

Originally Posted by XGEEKEDGERX

I guess I jumped the gun there. My order must have slipped through the net.

Yeah, gotta be. Happens to me as well. Mostly with music though and sometimes even despite the red "to customs!" sticker.

According to the letter, the package doesn't seem to state anyting re. the content (says "o a", which I guess means ohne Angabe) and those are candidates for slipping through, if small. But other than that, only roundabout $6 stuff still goes through and rightfully so due to the remaining 1 EUR threshold.

[andreasy969]

BD | UHD-BD

1.

2.


I first thought that maybe it's inherent to the source (and maybe it partly is) and not the compression at all, since the BD is basically the same there, but then it's not the same, so I guess compression it is (and has a hard time with the red area with both).

Anyway, I'll pick the 4K over the BD at any rate. And I will survive.

[andreasy969]

One more comment... If the devil is supposed to be as grainy as the rest (and I guess it is indeed), the compression is just fubar for sure. And I think I also saw other red stuff like that already. But I somehow did expect worse. Maybe because of what your typical anime restoration tends to look like: like that throughout. Which puts things a little bit into perspective.

Depending on how much I'll like this (have never seen it, but thought the style was interesting), might be keeping an eye on alternatives.

[NLScavenger]

FR/DE BD (capped in MPV, scaled to 2160p in GIMP)




Was anyone credited for authoring?

[andreasy969]

Originally Posted by NLScavenger

Was anyone credited for authoring?

I didn't find anything at any rate. Don't know if the disc (menu) states anything - didn't have it in the player yet.

Going by yours, there appears to be a general problem with this stuff though (or they are all struggling with the same stuff), so maybe my first thought wasn't that wrong after all.

Here's another weird red one:

BD | UHD-BD


With the BD being much worse and being poor compression no doubt. But I really cannot say that I see poor compression with the 4K in general - the opposite actually. Weird.

PS: My definition of NSFW will vary from American standards, so someone please PM me, if I'm crossing a line.

[Kyle15]

The Devil has a watercolor gradient that both encodes seem to be struggling with. It's supposed to go from purple to red to purple again.

[NLScavenger]

https://postimg.cc/ygPB08ph

[andreasy969]

I guess it's safe to say that 4K at least isn't worse than the BDs with this. But those reds seem to require special attention.

[Geoff D]

Large saturated swathes of red are tricky to encode because how little of that colour information is present in the YCbCr 4:2:0 signal. Not impossible to represent decently enough, but even David M joints have had reds on the blockier side so I'm not surprised that mere mortals have choked on this when aksed to encode it.

[Rayjg]

The red wallpaper in the Gigi Blu-ray is a smeary mess and it's in most of the film. You can't tell it has detail until there's a close-up near it.

[PowellPressburger]

My copy arrived today.

I’m planning on watching it fully this weekend.

The back cover lists audio as being dts 5.1 which thankfully is inaccurate. It is original Mono LPCM 2.0

I watched some of the first 10 mins of the US Blu and back and forth to the 4K

I believe I’m seeing stronger grain. That much I’m pleased with.

While I know bit rates don’t equate better image, just checking out some shots it seems odd that bit rates would drop to 30-40 mbps while there is some faster animation, while other static shots hit 100ish mbps.

Hoping Caps a Holic posts some sreenshots soon for better comparison.

[slask]

Originally Posted by gigan72

Including everything the book is 198 pages, mostly stills and images from the movie.

mostly from the movie..?
Well, visuals are gorgeous but.. I would've preferred something more.

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by slask

mostly from the movie..?
Well, visuals are gorgeous but.. I would've preferred something more.

It's nearly the entire movie in picture form. It's gorgeous, but like I posted before they advertised it as having "production ephemera" which turned out to be the title page of the script and nothing else. Nothing further special outside of an interview and what's printed in the original Blu's pamphlet. Not to mention advertising more pages than what it actually has!

[MattPerdue]

Not sure if this was mentioned (or if anyone really cares) but I did test the BD on my Region A UHD player and it worked fine. Also has the Cinelicious logo on it so could be the same disc as theirs.

[moreorless]

Its sacrilage I know but I did add a small amount of "dejudder" when watching this, so many panning shots smoothing them out a little just made for more pleasent viewing.

Content wise I think really its a film that benefits a lot from a lack of DNR, a lot of previous anime really the cell shaded style I found didnt make it THAT big a negative were as the watercolours here would have been ruined by it.

The film itself honestly I was pleasantly supprised that it came across as less "arty exploitation" than I expected. Thats I spose why I'd held off seeing it previously but honestly as extreme as the content is I don't think it really strays much into sex/violence for its own sake.

Seems a bit more nuanced than some of the reviews I'd see previously as well, I think really more of a non western viewpoint were the god/devil divide isnt so clearly cast as good/evil and I think you could argue really the whole thing is more a rejection of traditionally religious morality as sexist.