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Info: Back to the Future - without DNR & EE — Page 30

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jimbotron235 said:

Considering many review websites gave the BTTF set glowing reviews, I don't think they're in a position to care.  I re-read some of them recently.  4.5 out of 5, seriously?

I suppose that will happen when their only criteria for positive reviews is "better than DVD".

 That's sad guess non of the reviewers can be taken seriously. I wish there was something we could do :(

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towne32 said:

 A colleague of mine has a very negative (1) view on physical media, though he actually believes that streaming is not only the way of the future, but equal quality. He gets confused at what 'bitrate' means.

 Show him the same clip from a Bluray, first rendered at lossless quality, then at 450 kbps, he'll understand.

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AntcuFaalb said:

My father watches VHS over composite stretched to 16:9 on a contrast-boosted over-sharpened LCD TV with a terrible black level and he thinks it looks fine.

I'll see you that and raise you a "and the VHS tape is recorded from an OTA broadcast", with now-vintage commercials and everything.  In EP mode, so he can fit three movies on one tape.

Agreed.  Most of the world does not care about quality, and furthermore, they seem to aggressively prefer the worst quality just to annoy us.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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I wish there was a way to educate people on this like digitalbits did with anamorphic widescreen.

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AntcuFaalb said:

jedimasterobiwan said:

Do they know people are sick of dnr and edge enhancement in their films or do they just don't care?

In my experience "people" just don't know and don't care.

The average person is fine with whatever's most convenient for them (e.g., Netflix) and even the average piracy-inclined person is fine with a low bitrate YIFY encode of a movie.

Videophiles are a relatively tiny group. We're lucky that some production companies are even making a half-assed attempt to please us.

My father watches VHS over composite stretched to 16:9 on a contrast-boosted over-sharpened LCD TV with a terrible black level and he thinks it looks fine.

For the most part, bad releases are released and never revisited.  But as recent history has shown, if the digital butchering is bad enough, and not even the studio apologists can accept it, then the studio will quietly reissue a new release with a remaster.  Sadly not the case for Predator and the Star Trek films though.

When the first Gladiator disc came out, there were a few reviews that claimed "it's not that bad".  I'm not sure how it could be much worse.  I guess Gulliver's Travels?  There was enough furor to influence Universal/Paramount/whoever to do a new remaster not long after.  Similar thing with Gangs of New York too, and LOTR: Fellowship (though that remaster opened another can of worms).  BTTF isn't in that league, however.  It's no Predator UHE.

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But it still ruins the look of the film and colors are wrong as well. This sucks why can't our voices be heard?

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Because we're a small community compared to the huge amount of people who'll buy the set even if the picture quality is still not there. Unfortunately, it works like this and yes that sucks.

“English, motherf***er! Do you speak it!?”

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 (Edited)

"The DCP is not the same master as the Blu-ray.  The proportions and framing are different.  It is in fact the 2002 DVD master."

EDIT: Seems I was correct. The DVD, BD and DCP are all the same master.

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No. Actually the DVD/Blu-ray/DCP all come from the same old 2002 master.

They just tweaked it for the BD release but it's definitely the same master.

“English, motherf***er! Do you speak it!?”

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ilovewaterslides said:

No. Actually the DVD/Blu-ray/DCP all come from the same old 2002 master.

They just tweaked it for the BD release but it's definitely the same master.

Are you sure?  The proportions and framing are different.  The Blu-ray master is more squeezed, and has slightly more information on the sides.  Plus if they were the same master, then how did the end credits get squeezed?

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Yes I'm pretty sure indeed. 

You never see the exact same dusts with different masters: LINK

The reason why the framing is different is because they are working with an open matte master. It was needed for the fullscreen DVDs back in 2002.

The end credits issue is still unknown. Nobody actually knows what the fuck Universal did with these. It doesn't have anything to do with film transfer though because the movie has no anamorphic film element at all.

“English, motherf***er! Do you speak it!?”

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So your saying there nothing we can do at all really no petitions etc.

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jedimasterobiwan said:

So your saying there nothing we can do at all really no petitions etc.

 Petitions are probably useless against Universal, they just don't care. They are starting to do BD well lately though. Breakfast Club and Duel are ones that I bought recently and they look fantastic! No issues. So, maybe Universal will have a nice non dnr and edge enhancement version of the BTTF trilogy this year. Who knows...

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ilovewaterslides said:

Yes I'm pretty sure indeed. 

You never see the exact same dusts with different masters: LINK

The reason why the framing is different is because they are working with an open matte master. It was needed for the fullscreen DVDs back in 2002.

The end credits issue is still unknown. Nobody actually knows what the fuck Universal did with these. It doesn't have anything to do with film transfer though because the movie has no anamorphic film element at all.

That example looks like a burned-in piece of dust on the original negative, so it would appear in any master.  I could be wrong though.

I know BTTF 2 and 3 were shot in open matte, which led to the misframing on the original DVDs.  But I thought BTTF was hard matted, so the top and bottom of the frame were never captured, and the fullscreen version crops the sides instead of opening the top and bottom. No?

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crampedmisfit1990 said:

jedimasterobiwan said:

So your saying there nothing we can do at all really no petitions etc.

 Petitions are probably useless against Universal, they just don't care. They are starting to do BD well lately though. Breakfast Club and Duel are ones that I bought recently and they look fantastic! No issues. So, maybe Universal will have a nice non dnr and edge enhancement version of the BTTF trilogy this year. Who knows...

Who knows, indeed.  They did just remaster Apollo 13, and it's gorgeous.

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jimbotron235 said:

ilovewaterslides said:

Yes I'm pretty sure indeed. 

You never see the exact same dusts with different masters: LINK

The reason why the framing is different is because they are working with an open matte master. It was needed for the fullscreen DVDs back in 2002.

The end credits issue is still unknown. Nobody actually knows what the fuck Universal did with these. It doesn't have anything to do with film transfer though because the movie has no anamorphic film element at all.

That example looks like a burned-in piece of dust on the original negative, so it would appear in any master.  I could be wrong though.

I know BTTF 2 and 3 were shot in open matte, which led to the misframing on the original DVDs.  But I thought BTTF was hard matted, so the top and bottom of the frame were never captured, and the fullscreen version crops the sides instead of opening the top and bottom. No?

 Ok, you want more dust, here is more dust: LINK

BTTF was also shot in open matte.

I have the original 35mm trailer and it is open matte, I have the fullscreen DVD box set and it is open matte, I have an old TV capture which was made from a 35mm print and it is open matte as well.

You want some proof, here you go: LINK

“English, motherf***er! Do you speak it!?”

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ilovewaterslides said:

Ok, you want more dust, here is more dust: LINK

To be honest, it doesn't convince me either. What should I look at? The white speckle?

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All three films are open-matte, only the effects shots were letterboxed. The FX were shot in VistaVision, at a wider AR - some of the live plates for FX shots were also shot Vista to reduce grain buildup on composite. So for example, if you look at a print of BTTF II, the full frame will go from open-matte to letterbox every time the same actor appears in a shot twice.

The DVD framing issues were utterly baffling; wouldn't locking the transfer at frame center to match up with the letterboxed FX shots have provided the correct framing? Was there wiggle room in the FX hard-matte shots? Are they not actually centered on the frame on the film sources they used? Still a mystery 13 years later...

And is the "DCP" version truly the raw 2002 transfer? Did the original DVD also have the digital cleanup gaffe that turned Marty's skateboard wheels from yellow to pink?

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zee944 said:

ilovewaterslides said:

Ok, you want more dust, here is more dust: LINK

To be honest, it doesn't convince me either. What should I look at? The white speckle?

 Seriously? What about these two? LINK

Don't tell me they are part of the wall because I just checked the scene and they only appear on this frame.

But yeah sure, they definitely come from different masters that's why all these dust particles are exactly at the same places.

“English, motherf***er! Do you speak it!?”

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TServo2049 said:

And is the "DCP" version truly the raw 2002 transfer? Did the original DVD also have the digital cleanup gaffe that turned Marty's skateboard wheels from yellow to pink?

 Yes, the skateboard wheels are also pink on the DVD.

The only thing that changes between the DVD and DCP (beside the slight colour timing difference) is this frame which is strangely cleaned up on the DCP:

DVD

DCP

“English, motherf***er! Do you speak it!?”

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ilovewaterslides said:

Seriously? What about these two? LINK

You're so much worked up you forgot to answer the question.

ilovewaterslides said:

Don't tell me they are part of the wall because I just checked the scene and they only appear on this frame.

Those dirts may be already there on the print(s) they made the masters from. It could be one and the same print, but different masters. And it could be even different prints as well, not only different masters. You never thought about that?

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I was obviously talking about the white speckles. I don't see anything else that matches the word "dust" on this frame.

Universal is definitely not dealing with different prints. They scanned an interpositive back in 2002 and didn't scan shit since. It costs money to transfer a whole film so no, I didn't think about that because it's stupid.

The dusts are not on the original negative or the interpositive because they are not the same on the previous analog releases.

“English, motherf***er! Do you speak it!?”

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So this means that even DCP presentations of the Blu transfer (like the ones I saw) are not 4K, right?

The coming UHD/4K home format will undoubtedly force many existing transfers to be retired; we'll see what happens then.

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I wasn't 100% sure those white speckles here and there were the "dust", sorry. Still, it was only a question to make sure what you consider proof.

It's all an assumption, and not even an educated guess. I didn't say a word about the original negative. But I can't see how would you know what's on an interpositive and what's not (I guess there are more than one interpositive), and how would you know if Universal has done a new scan or not since 2002. Because it's stupid? Edge-enhancement and temporal degraining wasn't stupid?