Info: Films re-color timed on video releases — Page 7

woodsyallen said:

rockin said:

The new remastered Se7en in blu-ray looks closer to the Criterion LD and DVD. The first blu-ray edition had framing problems and the colours weren't quite right either from memory.

Ah yes, I forgot about that terrible Alliance Bluray release. I remember reading all about the new line DVD and how it was sourced from one of the special prints. As someone who never saw the film in the theatre though I don't really know what to expect, but it always looked stellar to me. 

I must admit, it's pretty shocking the number of botched bluray releases. Considering the format seems to be designed more for film purists than your average consumer you'd think more time and care would be put into the releases. I remember reading about the horrific mastering of Gladiator the first go around that was so bad the studio had to recall all the discs. And of course the infamous Lord of the Rings mess up that people are trying to rectify (also surprised they haven't gone back to recall those).

Of course, there's also no accounting for taste as in the case of French Connection. Friedkin went back and RUINED the film with his terrible colour timing. But again, after enough complaints (including those from the DP himself) they went back and fixed it and released a new BD (albeit with little to no fanfare).

Another one that got a very odd re-time is Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. The bluray (which was only released in european markets but is region free and can be ordered to North America) its timed to be VERY cold. The detail level is very high, and its especially nice to see some of the old videos (namely Thriller) in HD since they have yet to get proper remasters, but the blue colour cast is distracting.

Neither DVD was correct the dvd was not from a SR print, it was recolored into a green mess and that was the same master AA used on their BD.

THe New BD gets damn close but is not 100% faithful 

Another one that got a very odd re-time is Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. The bluray (which was only released in european markets but is region free and can be ordered to North America) its timed to be VERY cold. The detail level is very high, and its especially nice to see some of the old videos (namely Thriller) in HD since they have yet to get proper remasters, but the blue colour cast is distracting.

They may have remastered the pq, but it wasn't the entire picture. Do a side-by-side comparison of the old tapes (or dvd) and you'll see that they zoomed in the fullscreen video until it fit the entire widescreen window.

Pause at 0:09 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntgq6qy1hyA

Pause at 0:59 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceU4ANZKdOM

Such a shame. All that time, money and effort goes into making those sets and costumes to provide a visual depiction for us, and it's partially lost due to laziness (and greed) in the editing rooms years later.

TylerDurden389 said:

Another one that got a very odd re-time is Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. The bluray (which was only released in european markets but is region free and can be ordered to North America) its timed to be VERY cold. The detail level is very high, and its especially nice to see some of the old videos (namely Thriller) in HD since they have yet to get proper remasters, but the blue colour cast is distracting.

They may have remastered the pq, but it wasn't the entire picture. Do a side-by-side comparison of the old tapes (or dvd) and you'll see that they zoomed in the fullscreen video until it fit the entire widescreen window.

Pause at 0:09 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntgq6qy1hyA

Pause at 0:59 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceU4ANZKdOM

 

Such a shame. All that time, money and effort goes into making those sets and costumes to provide a visual depiction for us, and it's partially lost due to laziness (and greed) in the editing rooms years later.

There was some back and forth about this in the fan forums for years... it did certainly appear that the film was cropped on the top and bottom but in some other shots it appeared there was more picture information on the sides. 

So I don't think the bluray was simply a cropping of a full frame image. I think it was shot open matte. But who knows, no one actually involved with the process/film has ever weighed in. 

Here's a post I found online discussing the AR:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/blu-rays-dvds-download-services/1250818-mjs-moonwalker-now-blu-ray.html 

IIRC there was a DVD release that was nothing more than a cropped full-frame but this appears to be legit.

Of course it *is* the UK edit of the film which means it's been censored. So it's got that against it. 

That is a massive crop

The film was shot Academy and matted. Moonwalker was intended for theatrical release, but also for the song segments to be shown on TV as music videos. So it seems to have been shot to work in both ratios.

Usually, "open matte" home video transfers lose a tiny bit on the sides but gain more on the top and bottom. On the other hand, if the visual effects scenes are in VistaVision format, those scenes have a little bit of extra image on the top and bottom but lose a lot more on the sides. (Some examples: the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Jurassic Park.)

Dream Quest did the effects for the Smooth Criminal/Mr. Big segment, and I believe they used VistaVision. If this is the case for Moonwalker, then any time there's a scene with optical effects in that section, it will be the widescreen version that has more picture info, not the full-frame.

That said, the zoomboxed-to-hell YouTube clip of Smooth Criminal sourced from the Moonwalker remaster is absolutely not representative of the actual framing of the Blu-ray release.

This is from the Blu-ray:

This is the same shot from the YouTube clip posted by "MJacksonHD":

So don't worry TylerDurden, the actual BD is not horrifically zoomboxed.

I don't think this "MJacksonHD" channel is officially sanctioned by Sony or the Jackson estate, either; it seems to be a fan. Whoever it is, the crop job is almost certainly theirs, and not an aspect of the BD transfer itself.

As to *why* that YT clip is so severely zoomed - you got me. Maybe it's some kind of trick to fool YouTube's copyright-infringement-detection-bots? I have no idea.

TServo2049 said:

The film was shot Academy and matted. Moonwalker was intended for theatrical release, but also for the song segments to be shown on TV as music videos. So it seems to have been shot to work in both ratios.

Usually, "open matte" home video transfers lose a tiny bit on the sides but gain more on the top and bottom. On the other hand, if the visual effects scenes are in VistaVision format, those scenes have a little bit of extra image on the top and bottom but lose a lot more on the sides. (Some examples: the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Jurassic Park.)

Dream Quest did the effects for the Smooth Criminal/Mr. Big segment, and I believe they used VistaVision. If this is the case for Moonwalker, then any time there's a scene with optical effects in that section, it will be the widescreen version that has more picture info, not the full-frame.

That said, the zoomboxed-to-hell YouTube clip of Smooth Criminal sourced from the Moonwalker remaster is absolutely not representative of the actual framing of the Blu-ray release.

This is from the Blu-ray:

This is the same shot from the YouTube clip posted by "MJacksonHD":

So don't worry TylerDurden, the actual BD is not horrifically zoomboxed.

I don't think this "MJacksonHD" channel is officially sanctioned by Sony or the Jackson estate, either; it seems to be a fan. Whoever it is, the crop job is almost certainly theirs, and not an aspect of the BD transfer itself.

As to *why* that YT clip is so severely zoomed - you got me. Maybe it's some kind of trick to fool YouTube's copyright-infringement-detection-bots? I have no idea.

Thanks for the extra info... I knew that the BRD wasn't that bad since I remembered watching it and it looked fine. I can also assure you that YouTube channel is 100% un-official and probably run by a 15 year old who knows next to nothing about video quality.

I'll tell you a little secret about Jackson fans: a lot of them are idiots when it comes to tech. They all *think* they know a lot, but most of them don't. Search for HD videos of MJ on YouTube and you'll find SLEWS of poorly up-rezed videos from DVDs riddled with the term "remastered" that have had their colour timing ruined, their blacks and whites crushed, it's just an absolute mess. 

Not that the Jackson estate is much better; putting out a VHS as a DVD in celebration of Bad 25. But still, the amount of garbage put out by the fans is far more staggering.

So thanks for clearing up the info regarding the visual effects. I figured for some time it was matted theatrical but framed so it would be okay in both presentations (of course many other fans told me I was wrong).

Regardless (and sorry to derail this thread so badly): Bluray looks great, apart from a slightly cool colour shift.

The link didn't work, but I'll take your words for it. Thanks for the info!!

Just found those myself, bkev. I'm going to try downloading one of those soon.

First observations are that the color-corrected Blade Runner looks nice. Won't burn to a BD though due to failure to mux in TSMuxer due to some compatibility (NAL size invalid?) issue. Recommended, as it gets rid of the teal rather nicely so it looks like an 80's film again.

Add The French Connection and Ghostbusters to the list.

I thought the more recent master of Ghostbusters used for the "4K" BD and DCP screenings was closer to the original color timing than the master on the first BD?

Trekkie313 said:

Add The French Connection and Ghostbusters to the list.

 

Both now fixed 

Yes,  but the newer correct versions are not widely available. Amazon and Best Buy seem to be the only places that carry them.

Amazon is not wide availability? 

To most consumers and movie fans, they wouldn't know about the changes or question why it looks different than previous home video iterations.

For the record, (I'm trying to understand this), best versions of the LOTR trilogy are as follows?

FOTR TE: HDTV (BD has too much DNR)

FOTR EE: BD (despite green tint)

TTT TE: BD (has DNR but HDTV is only EE)

TTT EE: BD

ROTK TE: HDTV or BD (some reviews said the TE BD of this was fine with no DNR so I'm not sure)

ROTK EE: BD

I apologize— I'm not very knowledgable about the transfers of these. Any help would be appreciated.

Saw it on TV tonight and had forgotten my outrage 

http://caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/comparison.php?art=part&x=402&y=217&action=1&image=1&cID=977&cap1=8902&cap2=8993&lossless=#vergleich

I am a huge ENR/Bleach Bypass/Silver retention fanboy it is my specialist subject 

Regarding the issues with The Lord of the Rings—anybody who is upset about this could always try reading the books.  Not only are they 100% faithful to Tolkien's artistic vision, I hear the colour timing on them is fantastic.  ;)

hairy_hen said:

Regarding the issues with The Lord of the Rings—anybody who is upset about this could always try reading the books.  Not only are they 100% faithful to Tolkien's artistic vision, I hear the colour timing on them is fantastic.  ;)

Lol, as good as the movies are, I still prefer the books.  And I don't really even like to read all that much...

This one really intrigues me - Evil Dead II. I just saw a screening of an original 35mm print, and noticed something interesting - except for blood or red/orange light effects or specifically red elements of the frame, the color spectrum seemed to be restricted to between yellow and blue. Skin tones looked yellow-greenish, dark stuff was blue or greenish-blue, and the whole thing had a green/yellow-green cast. I recall a shot of the fireplace where the flames looked almost pure yellow. (Even the end credits looked a bit greenish.)

This is what the Lionsgate Blu-ray looks like:

And this is an approximation of what the print I saw looked like:

I know LPP has a yellow-green bias, but I've never come across any version of ED2 with such a narrow color spectrum. The closest, strangely enough, seems to be the reviled Divimax DVD release (which has horrible DNR, but colors closest to the print I saw - though still not the same):

Was something wrong with the print I saw? Was something wrong with the projector setup? (There were several trailers before it, which all had a similar yellow-green cast, though still a broader color spectrum). I thought that LPP prints don't fade, and the blacks on this print looked absolutely solid. Is that yellow-green-cyan-blue palette how ED2 originally looked?

It makes me wonder how many other films originally had color timing completely different from every release we've ever seen.

As I pointed out before, I've seen a cam-rip of a Derann print of The Neverending Story which has an almost teal/orange balance, similar to the reviled U.S. Blu-ray (though obviously looking better due to being photochemical and not digitally manipulated).

Also, that ED2 color estimate may not look right on some monitors, I may make a new approximation on a different monitor some time. The point is, there was a lot of blue and green, virtually no sign of oranges, purples or magentas, very little red apart from the blood, Ash looked a dulled yellow-bronze, and the medieval coda was green-tinged and almost totally monochromatic.

Part of it could possibly be chalked up to crummy lab work, but I don't think that's the whole reason.

Actually, the colors in this publicity still look quite similar to what I saw last night (though not as photochemically accentuated). In a way, it almost looked like 2-strip Technicolor/Cinecolor.