Turisu

You_Too said:

...That's also probably why I didn't notice it in the cinema.

I'd love to know whether the green tint was present in the theatrical prints or just added for the BD. If the green was there in the cinema then that's the way I want it on BD. I don't care which looks better.

Everyone is gonna have to pay REALLY close attention to the colour timing on Desolation Of Smaug. ;)

AntcuFaalb said:

I think the white-balance on his camera is off. Also, his TV might not be calibrated.

Is anybody registered over there? Perhaps the guy with the LD could confirm whether or not the interview scene actually looks that natural on his TV.

Or could someone with the DVD to hand take a screen pic and see if their camera white-balances out the green?

There is no evidence or sources beyond this faneditor's word that suggest The Exorcist ever had a green tint of any kind. I'd welcome a version that had the original DVD colours in the exorcism scene and jump-cut restored.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Take a look at this thread:

http://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2289

there are some screenshots from the LD - it's true, they are not captures but only pictures from TV, but they may be useful too... and I LOVE the black cat... it seems taken off directly from the TV... by the way, they seems really close (if not the same) to the DVD.

I contacted a member on lddb; waiting for further screenshots.

It's difficult to say from pictures of a screen but the Oracle scene looks a lot less green than the DVD and much closer to the more natural looking colours of the 35mm clip. This could all just be AWB on the cameras taking the shots though.

101_303 said:

The Matrix should make you feel sick...

Well if that's what they were going for then I guess the BD colours nailed it. :\

I'm a fan and (like many other fans I'm sure) I'd have been extremely annoyed if the new BD had used the revisionist 1999 timing. I just wanted the colours to be as close as possible to what was on the screen in 1978. So, needless to say, I'm overjoyed with the BD colours as they are.

That being said, the best thing of all to have is choice and since studios rarely provide that then I'm more than grateful for projects like this. :)

Mmmm... P. J. Soles. :)

I agree that the LD shots will be the most interesting (next to 35mm of course) as it's repeatedly stated wherever it's mentioned that it has the original theatrical colour grading.

Original or not, I also quite like the purple tint. It gives the movie a look consistent with the theatrical poster, the purple and greys of which I always felt clashed with the greens of the movie.

AntcuFaalb said:

I know some people on LDDb do. What frames should I ask them to capture or photograph?

The scene of Neo being interviewed by Smith has a really strong and noticeable tint in both the DVD and BD (the DVD being more yellow and the BD being more green). Would be great to see an LD shot from this scene to compare.

You know, I remember seeing The Matrix in the cinema and when the DVD came out it never looked or felt the same to me though, at the time, I could never figure out why. It's only since reading the threads here that I've really begun to suspect that the green tints were added for the DVD and weren't present in that first viewing. It would be great to have this answered.

Interestingly, kk650 did a regraded version of the BD with neutral colour timing throughout (i.e. no green tints). It would be amusing if this actually turned out to be the most theatrically accurate version of the movie available. :D

Wasn't the Collector's Edition VHS a later release? If the above is anything to go by it appears to have the similar colour timing to the BD. The original VHS release I believe was the one rumoured to have the more neutral colour grading.

Thanks for the shots in any case. :)

There are artifacts in the window frames of the helicopter in the shot where the agent becomes the pilot. I'll look through and see if I can find some of the others I spotted.

ilovewaterslides said:

I read somewhere that the full frame VHS had a different color grading than the DVD. Does someone still have a copy of that somewhere and could possibly check if it's true or not?

I think I remember something about this too. A bunch of people thinking there was something wrong with their DVD setup due to the green and the VHS looking completely different. This would have been from AV magazines of the time. Would be interesting to have this confirmed.

poita said:

Unfortunately the colours on that youtube clip don't really tell you anything.

Try this experiment. Run the BD or the DVD through a digital projector, then get a video camera and tape it from the screen. The colours will be nothing like the source image.

 

That's a shame. This thread has now got me thinking; we all know that scenes set inside the matrix were deliberately given a green tint (to varying degrees) on all home media versions of the film, but the first time I ever heard this mentioned was on the original DVD release. Do we know with any certainty whether the green cast to the matrix scenes was present in the theatrical prints or was it just added for DVD?

The original trailer has no green at all in these scenes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPBuOAxOb2E

Check out the brief flash of Neo in Smith's office at 0:16; this scene is yellow on the DVD, green on the BD and entirely neutral here. Is there any chance it was originally that way in theatres? I saw The Matrix on it's original release but I couldn't tell you now whether those scenes were green or not.

Well, I'll be damned. I just did a quick side-by-side comparison and the greens in that 35mm footage look a lot closer to the deep greens of the BD than the more yellowish greens of the DVD.

Although neither is exactly right. The reds look much more pronounced in the 35mm; The Oracle's lipstick is bright and vibrant whereas it's much more desaturated in both the BD and DVD.

Would be great to have this as a colour reference if nothing else.

As previously mentioned, it's as likely that Skull was timed to match the original color timing of Raiders.

A still from the set says nothing about the colouring of the film print.  I was initially open to the idea that the gold colouring might have been incorrect but thus far I haven't seen anything as convincing as those 35mm stills that strongly reflect the timing of the BD.

I'll always determine my preference on the basis of the best evidence available, and right now the evidence points to the fact that the BD (while perhaps not perfect in every scene) is the closest Raiders has been to it's original theatrical timing.

TV's Frink said:

I said gout.

But I only just got here! :(

The shot with Michael stepping behind the hedge will be the most problematic shot of all due to the aforementioned digital tweaking. But if you watch the scene where the girls walk home you'll see the colour of the trees is very inconsistent between shots. Sometimes they look orange and then in the next shot will appear green. So perhaps a clip from this scene would be a good one.

While I think the third option sounds like the one that would achieve the best balance of colour and resolution, I'd be interested to see some test shots of how good the colour grading would be with the second option.

I haven't watched the whole movie yet but I was able to tell immediately that the scene where Tank is shot in the back by Cypher was a DVD upscale. So yes, I believe at least some of the upscaled scenes are noticeable. But this is watching on a PC monitor where I'm very close to the screen. On an HDTV and from a normal watching distance it may not be as apparent.

The HDTV capture does have the DVD colours. Only the BD had them altered.

The artifacts are actually there on every frame in which the lightning rifle is being fired. I just posted the most obvious ones. But you're right, it doesn't ruin the experience and it's much easier to live with than the revisionist BD colours.

Out of curiousity though, would it be possible to replace these shots with scenes from the HDTV version? I know it's open-matte but it could be cropped to 2.35:1 to blend with the BD video.

I finally finished downloading this and have given it a quick scan through. The DVD colours look so much better. It really feels like I'm watching the original Matrix again and not one of the sequels. :)

Even at a quick glance though I've noticed some unpleasant artifacts caused by the colour matching process. For example, in the scene where Cypher fires the lightning rifle:

BD:

[spoRv]:

BD:

[spoRv]:

These brief shots don't spoil the film at all but I did notice them right away, so I thought I would bring them to your attention.

Great project and many thanks. :)

The 35mm stills also sold me on the BD colour timing being the closest to theatrically accurate.

The website shot may have had the colours and levels boosted for "promotional" purposes.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

not so blue as 2D BD; despite the fact that 3D BD has richer colors, and it seems closer to 35mm cells, I'm not sure that a projected image of the same shot, at the theater, shows off the same 3D BD "color richness"... I mean, in real life (not under movie lights) do you think a person, inside a car, in the rainy night, could be seen with that right colors?!?

Not so blue as the 2D but not even close to the film cell. It still looks cold and blue where the 35mm clearly displays warm and natural fleshtones. I don't think it matters about the movie light; the fact is that there is clearly no blue whatsoever in Tim's skin in the original print.

This cements my personal opinion that the 3D BD (while perhaps not perfect in every shot) is hands-down the best reference available for JP's theatrical colours. I would love to see a [spoRv] version based on this but, of course, it's your project and I'll respect your decision. Even the LD colours on the 2D would be better than what we have.

Glad to hear about TR. Will look forward to your results. :)

Do you have this shot from the LD?:

2D BD

3D BD

Film cell

Here the 3D BD is definitely more faithful to the theatrical colours whereas the 2D (and also the DVD releases) have a deep blue tint added. If the LD has the blue tint as well then I would say the 3D BD is the best colour source we have and any restoration should be based on those colours. I have other film cell images that definitely show the deep brown look was present theatrically. For example:

and another:

As for TR, based on your video, I think a restoration would definitely be worthwhile. :)