logo Sign In

Info Wanted: The Secret of Nimh

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I really love this movie - it’s dark, beautifully crafted and the music by the late Jerry Goldsmith is out of this world.

Has this ever been scanned from a 35MM?

Author
Time

Seems unnecessary. The bluray is a very nice scan of the 35mm negative. Looks exactly how it’s supposed to and has the original stereo soundtrack.

Author
Time

Mango said:

Seems unnecessary. The bluray is a very nice scan of the 35mm negative. Looks exactly how it’s supposed to and has the original stereo soundtrack.

Is that the German edition you are referring to? 😄

Author
Time

Redbreast1 said:

Is that the German edition you are referring to? 😄

Unfortunately, the German Koch Media release is pretty bad. It’s the same transfer as the old BD but tampered with an added layer of DVNR destroying some of the finer lines and some really strange visual errors on some frames.
https://i.imgur.com/vh3MZmM.png
It’s a shame because it did have a nice new bonus feature and a higher bitrate compared to the (better) old BD.

Author
Time

RadRen said:

Redbreast1 said:

Is that the German edition you are referring to? 😄

Unfortunately, the German Koch Media release is pretty bad. It’s the same transfer as the old BD but tampered with an added layer of DVNR destroying some of the finer lines and some really strange visual errors on some frames.
https://i.imgur.com/vh3MZmM.png
It’s a shame because it did have a nice new bonus feature and a higher bitrate compared to the (better) old BD.

As I recall the old blu ray didn’t get good reviews due to a bad transfer and “squashed” aspect ratio… whereas the new Koch one - which I have - got raves for picture and remastered soundtrack. Guess it depends on the viewer 😄

Anyway, a 35MM open matte scan would be great, as they included it in the 2DVD set, but in questionable quality.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Redbreast1 said:

RadRen said:

Redbreast1 said:

Is that the German edition you are referring to? 😄

Unfortunately, the German Koch Media release is pretty bad. It’s the same transfer as the old BD but tampered with an added layer of DVNR destroying some of the finer lines and some really strange visual errors on some frames.
https://i.imgur.com/vh3MZmM.png
It’s a shame because it did have a nice new bonus feature and a higher bitrate compared to the (better) old BD.

As I recall the old blu ray didn’t get good reviews due to a bad transfer and “squashed” aspect ratio… whereas the new Koch one - which I have - got raves for picture and remastered soundtrack. Guess it depends on the viewer 😄

Anyway, a 35MM open matte scan would be great, as they included it in the 2DVD set, but in questionable quality.

The old Blu-ray transfer got bad reviews because this film gets a lot of the Disney audience and at the time they were enamored by Disney’s scrubbed Blu-rays. All the video releases I’ve seen of this have a particularly thick layer of grain and lots of cel dust, which I assume is inherent to the source.

As for the Koch release, it’s derived from the same scan as the older Blu-ray but adds a layer of destructive DVNR. Try going frame-by-frame during any scene animated on 1s and you’ll start noticing a LOT of destroyed lines. Here is a screenshot comparison between the older Blu-ray and the Koch Media version:
https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/12225/

A new 35mm scan would be nice, but I think the 2007 open matte DVD is pretty decent already. It was an SD scan done at the same time as the HD scan used for the 1.85:1 versions and looks about the same save for the resolution and aspect ratio.

Author
Time

Idk what you’re talking about regarding DNR on the MGM BD cause from what I’ve seen it’s quite the opposite

What people actually complained about was the lack of cleanup cause apparently dirt is a frequent issue with its transfer

Raccoons

Author
Time

SpacemanDoug said:

Idk what you’re talking about regarding DNR on the MGM BD cause from what I’ve seen it’s quite the opposite

What people actually complained about was the lack of cleanup cause apparently dirt is a frequent issue with its transfer

I was talking about the DVNR on the newer Koch BD. The MGM BD only used a light filter.
Koch went with the heavy filter, so while some of the dirt is gone, you also get more than a few frames like this:

If that’s the tradeoff I’m fine with a little dirt.

Author
Time

RadRen said:

SpacemanDoug said:

Idk what you’re talking about regarding DNR on the MGM BD cause from what I’ve seen it’s quite the opposite

What people actually complained about was the lack of cleanup cause apparently dirt is a frequent issue with its transfer

I was talking about the DVNR on the newer Koch BD. The MGM BD only used a light filter.
Koch went with the heavy filter, so while some of the dirt is gone, you also get more than a few frames like this:

If that’s the tradeoff I’m fine with a little dirt.

Well, I hate to be off-topic, sir, but this cartoon rat illustrated on this screenshot (Jenner, that is) is just a frickin’ murderer! 😠

And to be honest with you, I blame that dirty rat Jenner for murdering Nicodemus, the leader of the Rats of NIMH, in that movie Secret of NIMH!

Author
Time

Have you checked out the Amazon Prime version of The Secret of Nimh. It looks like a nice
1080p transfer to me. Film grain is evident, no disapearing sword blades and nice detail.
It isn’t flawless but there is hardly any dust speckles. I wish I was an expert but I’m
not. I don’t have a blu ray to compare it to.