Originally posted by: Laserman
As for the black levels, I think there is a lot of confusion there, and having the black level elevated to grey does not necessarily 'preserve' the 'luminace range' of the laserdiscs. In fact, if there is no 'true black' in your transfer, then you are reducing the 'luminance range' as you called it.
You have to be careful with NTSC not to end up with a doble pedestal, i.e. that if your Source is IRE 7.5 for black, and you don't do your mastering right, when you stick it in a US DVD player, it will apply the uplift to 7.5 IRE again! This leaves you with very grey blacks, and a *reduced* luminance range.
I've measure the black bars on the US definitive edition, and they are (damn close to) 7.5IRE, which means they should be BLACK when played back on an American laserdisc player on an American TV set. Which also means on any transfer they should be black when played back thorugh an Amercian DVD player on an American TV set. Anyhting else means you aren't getting the full range, or a correct looking picture. So in short we will be doing it right, if it should be black, it will be black.
As for the black levels, I think there is a lot of confusion there, and having the black level elevated to grey does not necessarily 'preserve' the 'luminace range' of the laserdiscs. In fact, if there is no 'true black' in your transfer, then you are reducing the 'luminance range' as you called it.
You have to be careful with NTSC not to end up with a doble pedestal, i.e. that if your Source is IRE 7.5 for black, and you don't do your mastering right, when you stick it in a US DVD player, it will apply the uplift to 7.5 IRE again! This leaves you with very grey blacks, and a *reduced* luminance range.
I've measure the black bars on the US definitive edition, and they are (damn close to) 7.5IRE, which means they should be BLACK when played back on an American laserdisc player on an American TV set. Which also means on any transfer they should be black when played back thorugh an Amercian DVD player on an American TV set. Anyhting else means you aren't getting the full range, or a correct looking picture. So in short we will be doing it right, if it should be black, it will be black.
I'm glad someone has finally explained this! I've often been confused when people would mention correcting the black would reduce detail, never made any sense at all to me. This flawed fix of the original flaw now makes that make sense.