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James Cameron uses DVNR on Aliens Blu Ray transfer. — Page 9

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msycamore said:

Here you go, from ALIEN 20th anniversary DVD NTSC.

Thanks for that mysycamore.  Allowing for my comments about how screenshots can look depending on various pc monitior colour settings...your NTSC shots certainly seem to pretty much match the look of my PAL versions of those same examples.  (And are equally nicer-looking than how the new colour-timing which came afterwards looks, in my opinion)

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msycamore said:

...and I think these are the two shots where they inserted a starfield in the 2003 DVD.

OK here are the screens for you.

 

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TV's Frink said:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/aliens-teal-orange/

Thoughts?

Finally!  Someone has written a blog about something that I have been moaning to friends about for ages.  Usually, I receive blank looks when I say that I hate the way so many modern films (and many modern transfers of older films) look the same because everything looks blue-green and orange.   I don't mind the blue-green quite so much, but I can't stand the orange. 

There are so many films that have been subject to this treatment.  Troy is another film that looks nothing like it used to if you watch the director's cut.  I am so glad that I have my HD DVD of the theatrical cut.

I have just seen the BD of Aliens, and while it does look this way, the image quality is very high.  The DVD looks too pink anyway, so overall I'd go with the BD.

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Thanks for the screencaps, DJ - looks like this is much more faithful to the theatrical version of Alien than the 2003 DVD!

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Thanks for posting them, dark_jedi.

I'm glad to see they're not using the same transfer for both cuts this time, any chance of seeing the Director's Cut version of those same shots, d_j, please? Anyway, what stunning and beautiful detail in those images! I smell an individual release purchase. :)

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

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msycamore said:


Thanks for posting them, dark_jedi.

I'm glad to see they're not using the same transfer for both cuts this time, any chance of seeing the Director's Cut version of those same shots, d_j, please? Anyway, what stunning and beautiful detail in those images! I smell an individual release purchase. :)
A true branching version that switches back all of the changes? I don't really care all that much about the DE of Alien, but that's a great standard to have!

I mentioned the whole set as a potential birthday present, but I really might just wait to get 1 and 2 when they come out with individuals. I also doubt my wife will get me another copy of the biggest set we own.

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msycamore said:

Thanks for posting them, dark_jedi.

any chance of seeing the Director's Cut version of those same shots, d_j, please?

Absolutely, just give me a little time, today I get my Limited Edition PSP 3000 God of War Ghost of Sparta, so I am going to be raging out LOL, just LOVE the God of War Series! but I will post those 2 screens soon for you.

and those waiting for individual releases, you are going to be waiting a while.

 

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dark_jedi said:


and those waiting for individual releases, you are going to be waiting a while.
Right, but I still have a 9-disc DVD set to tide me over until then. ;-)

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doubleofive said:

 

dark_jedi said:


and those waiting for individual releases, you are going to be waiting a while.
Right, but I still have a 9-disc DVD set to tide me over until then. ;-)

 

But the key word in that line is "DVD", who friggin cares about DVD now when we have BLU!

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TV's Frink said:


The $90 still in my bank account cares. :p
The fact that it would be the only birthday present I would get cares.

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ChainsawAsh said:

Thanks for the screencaps, DJ - looks like this is much more faithful to the theatrical version of Alien than the 2003 DVD!

I'm a little unsure what you meant here CA, so bear with me - do you mean you reckon dark_jedi's 'Anthology' Blu-ray shots look 'more faithful' to the 'Theatrical' version (early DVD 'Theatrical' release I take it, as opposed to 'Theatrical' cinema release) than the 2003 DVD release because of the colouration or the starfield thing?

I'm not using my own monitor at the moment, and the one I'm currently using may be set overly-dark, but do you mean it looks like there's no starfield added this time to the Blu-ray 'Theatrical' version?  I agree that this seems to be the case, going by the current monitor I'm using.

However, if you mean the colouring, then I'd have to say that these particular Blu-ray screenshots just indicate the same very different bluish (teal?) hue that the previous 'Quadrilogy'/ 'Director's Cut' DVD showed, compared to the earlier DVD which showed a grey 'Nostromo'. 

Although there'll be more of a stark contrast when the whole movie is compared on a tv, I've re-posted these screenshots at the same size for easier comparison (hopefully, I've described them correctly) -

msycamore's NTSC pre-'Quadrilogy' 'Theatrical' DVD (same as how my PAL version looks) screenshots are at the top of both examples, while dark_jedi's 'Anthology' 'Theatrical' Blu-ray screenshots are underneath -

and

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dark_jedi said:

But the key word in that line is "DVD", who friggin cares about DVD now when we have BLU!

High-definition be damned, if it doesn't look as 'aesthetically' pleasing overall compared to the DVD version. 

But that's just an individual preference and matter of opinion at the end of the day, so you takes your choice.  Damn you Ridley Scott!  :)

 

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Those comparison shots don't look very different at all to me, IF.  The Blu-Ray just looks like it has better contrast.  And I'm looking at this on a properly calibrated monitor.

I think you're just nitpicking at things for the sake of nitpicking.  The colors are pretty much the same.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say they're probably more accurate to the theatrical release than the pre-Quad DVD was.

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Well, the difference is not major, but there indeed is a discernable colour shift in the lighting on the spaceship, especially the one of the Nostromo. But to say that it's incorrect, I will always say is a bit rash. There's simply no way of knowing that. No two transfers of Alien have ever been exactly alike because it depends on the colourist's preference for little tweaks like that, so some shots in older ones match the BD and some are slightly different, but those older transfers varied from each other in equal amounts as well, and the PAL and NTSC versions of the same transfers even disagreed with each other. I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt that the Blu Ray is more accurate than the Laserdisc/VHS masters of the past (was the 1999 Saga transfers from the 1996 masters? I thought they might be...). Especially considering the pains they have taken to get the original starfield-less shots and keep the original lighting in the Brett scene, etc., plus they are working from the original negatives and not interpositives and print masters like the older ones. It just seems slightly abritrary to hold up a particular transfer from 1999 and say the film must look exactly like this in every single respect. I'm only going by screencaps, but the BD skin tones by far look the most natural, the lighting and colour just looks "right" compared to older versions; in some ways it seems like it is about halfway between the two older theatrical 1999 and 2003 palettes.

In fact, if you look at the 1999 transfer shots posted above, you can see that there is blue in the lighting, it's just very washed out (the shot of landing craft is more apparent). So, it really just seems like the colours have better vibrancy in that respect. I guess you could argue that the BD has nudged them a bit more than they ought to. But I can guarantee that the earlier transfers were toned down a bit more than they ought to be as well, simply because you were dealing with older, fading IPs and much more limited telecine technology without the ability to even display all the colour information there anyway and again subject to preference and eye of the colourist to fiddle around with things to get them to look the way he thought they should look.

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I have now seen the Blu-ray of Alien, and I agree that it looks somewhere between the two previous DVD transfers, which seems like a good place for it to be.  ImperialFighter, I would recommend that you at least rent the Alien BD.   You might be pleasantly surprised.

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Got Alien D-Theater and Aliens HDTV cap

No digital enhancements and no color correction
Dont need the BRD

Moth3r said: No, there is no video embedding option in this forum software (thank god!)

 

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Chewtobacca said:

I have now seen the Blu-ray of Alien, and I agree that it looks somewhere between the two previous DVD transfers, which seems like a good place for it to be.  ImperialFighter, I would recommend that you at least rent the Alien BD.   You might be pleasantly surprised.

If that's right Chewtobacca, then I'm certainly pleased that the colouration of the Blu-ray isn't as much of a departure from the early DVD colour as the 'Quadrilogy' release colour was.

So I take it you've compared both the pre-'Quadrilogy' DVD version and 'Quadrilogy' DVD version against your Blu-ray version on the same equipment/settings to make this judgement then?

As I thought the 'Anthology' Blu-ray looked suspiciously very close to the 'Quadrilogy'-tampering due to the few screenshot comparisons I've seen...I guess I should now try to do the same actual comparison at some point (with a borrowed/rented 'Anthology' BD for now), as I'm certainly interested to see which version I then reckon it's closer to.