logo Sign In

'Raiders of the Lost Ark' - bluray and colour timing changes (Released) — Page 2

Author
Time

skyjedi2005 said:

dvdmike said:

My bad, thought you were talking about the wowow.

Weird he thought Doom, and Crusade were ok tho

There is that or that Lucasfilm or Paramount did not want to spend the money on extensive restorations of the prequel and first sequel.

When it cost them nothing to use an already available HD transfer.

Seriously if it was up to GL we probably would have gotten the dodgy Lowry masters on BD.

I've seen their HD version of Raiders you think the BD is degrained you have not seen the lowry level of degrain destruction.

 

Yeah, its ass, there is no fine detail on the Lowry one.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/18097

 

Colours are the same tho, two companies got the same colours.

 

Do not get me wrong the wowow is far from perfect, it is over sharpened and there are aliasing issues, but it was made for HDTV and shame on Paramount for using them as retail transfers.

Mind you Star Wars shared the same fate!

 

 

 

 

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I also concur that the 35mm scans look remarkably like the BD, with the teal shift being slightly revisionist however.

Celluloid and digital video  color space are totally different things though, so was the BD an attempt with modern digital technology to try and mimic the  original Eastman color release print?

Hard to say did they use the IP as reference. How faded were the obviously not first gen sources.

Same problem James Bond and Star Wars had go back to the OCN and lose the intended color timing, get an image too pristine and never intended for the theatrical movie going experience of the era.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

jero32 said:

Here we go: (PLEASE CONSIDER A MINOR REFERENCE ONLY, QUALITY IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE A 100% RIGHT CONCLUSION.)

http://imgur.com/AFYmF2v

http://imgur.com/yVrRrIr

http://imgur.com/uwaLjmO

http://imgur.com/uqXdb4a

http://imgur.com/4YtiCPY

http://imgur.com/2er2GzL

http://imgur.com/4AGDHQ0

http://imgur.com/fMWqgIC

http://imgur.com/IMdgK6t

http://imgur.com/ivghYoc

http://imgur.com/2ZbIGXf

As you can see the pictures suggest a somewhat warm picture. Due to the quality we can draw no 100% right conclusion. I stil think however that the bluray was meant to mimmick the 35mm with a warmer (as in an 80's) bulb used to project it.

Edit: pictures provided by Harmy, had to check if he was ok with me mentioning that.

They are great, but the sunset shot looks to me closer to the wowow version

 

Wowow

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/18099

BD

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/18100

Author
Time

skyjedi2005 said:

 

Celluloid and digital video  color space are totally different things though, so was the BD an attempt with modern digital technology to try and mimic the  original Eastman color release print?

This is what I think. (As I mentioned before)

Digital and photochemical color timing are different beats, so you're almost never gonna get it to match exactly.

Author
Time

Yours was not here b4 I posted I stated the post and had to wait for them to upload lol

Author
Time

The edit was made before I uploaded the pics, but it doesn't really matter.

Author
Time

jero32 said:

The edit was made before I uploaded the pics, but it doesn't really matter.

I don't see you saying that the wowow sunset was closer to the 35mm, I may be blind and it is nearly 1am here tho

Author
Time

Ah, did not see that edit, my bad did not recheck the posts

 

Author
Time

FWIW, I'm throwing my hat into the ring on the side of the Blu-ray is certainly too yellow/gold, but I also find the DVD is too blue (haven't seen the HDTV aside from screencaps).  I find the yellow/gold tint to be a preferable choice of two discolorations, but I'm under no illusions that it's accurate.

IMO we simply have to have a better source (16mm or whatnot) to be certain.  My wild-ass guess would place the colors between DVD and Blu-ray, but closer to DVD.  That seems counterintuitive, but I think a little shift in the blue direction can seem more wrong than a big shift in the yellow direction, which is why, to me, the DVD is closer to accurate but I still prefer the Blu.  Does that make sense?

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

Author
Time

Somewhere in between may be the perfect mix.

I do not have photoshop on this machine, anyone want to make a hybrid shot?

Author
Time

Keep in mind I've been trying to say the blu-ray is MORE accurate, not that it's the end all reference of how it would've looked exactly. Again, a digital aproximation.

Another reason I have mentioned in the past. (in the indy bluray thread) Those of us who have been fortunate enough to see a very negative project, will know that certain desert scenes actually have a very very similair orange like cast to the skin tones.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

dvdmike said:

Somewhere in between may be the perfect mix.

I do not have photoshop on this machine, anyone want to make a hybrid shot?

If the images were better aligned, we could just take one image and put the other image over it as a semitransparent layer.  Adjusting the opacity would then tell us how close to make it to which source (assuming we could find a range that looked good that we could more-or-less agree on!).  Then we could try to figure out how to reach that target using only one of the sources and some adjustments.

The flag shot is badly misaligned and the sunset shot doesn't have any neutrals or skintones for even attempting to gauge "correct".  IIRC there's another shot someone posted in the AVS forums with Indy and Sallah at lunch that would be a good gauge (and it also showcases the DVD blue problem).  Having that shot and the flag shot aligned better may be useful, but I'm crap at such things.  The sunset shot is likely to remain subjective, but I suppose we could run it through the process as a sanity check.

EDIT: Presumably we'd have to use adjusted WOWOW for the brightened opening even if we used adjusted Blu for everything else, to undo the loss of detail on the Blu.  And then there's the matter of doing some sort of crazy Laserdisc upscaling for the erased effects scenes.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I'm of the opinion that the bluray certainly looks much better colorwise then the DVD. It certainly has modern leanings (slight teal shift here and there), but on the whole it looks pretty good. And I don't see much in the way of DNR here. (We're lucky Lowery didn't get their hands on this version.)

Author
Time

Watched the Blu again this morning and I really do love the colors, especially in the Cairo scenes.

Author
Time

The grass and vegetation in Hawaii must have had a problem with being that brown without much green

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I love the RotLA BD release colortiming.

With that being said, it would be nice to have the option to choose between the warmer (yellow) and cooler looks.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

Author
Time

Here's a question: What does RotLA look like on LD?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

Author
Time

More green, less blue, less orange if that makes any sense

Author
Time

Previous releases aren't typically good references though. I mean just look at a lot of the star wars laserdisk releases.

Author
Time

jero32 said:

Previous releases aren't typically good references though. I mean just look at a lot of the star wars laserdisk releases.

Yep. The fact is that we don't know what many films looked like during their theatrical runs.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

AntcuFaalb said:

Here's a question: What does RotLA look like on LD?

Depends which one you choose to watch, the '90's LD is very close to the DVD's whereas the '80's video transfers are warmer and imo closer to the original. I actually find the brightness and contrast levels on the BD to be off in several instances. Spielberg has also admitted to deliberately have tweaked the opening jungle sequences to be a tad brighter than they were originally.

You asked in the Terminator thread about the changes I mentioned, I can unfortunately not provide any comparisons until the end of the week when I get home, maybe someone else beats me to it but like I said in that thread, the Wowow-HDTV version contain all the same subtle tweaks the 2003 DVD introduced;

A pole connected to the giant boulder for the guide track was removed in two shots, for those who don't have access to the original and don't know what I'm talking about, check the left part of the boulder, it's visible in the original trailers as well. (It was this one along with the matte shot I referred to in the other thread that I assumed they had restored on the BD, I've actually forgotten to check if this is still gone in the BD, I now believe it is after talking to a friend of mine.) :(

The Pan American Clipper - matte shot was tweaked, see the water reflections, particularly under the front of the plane - restored on the BD.

Snake reflection and plexiglas marks removed in the Well of the Souls.

I suspect there could be more of these subtle tweaks, never done an extensive comparison between versions and no documentation is out there as far as I know.

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

Author
Time

I'm afraid that as it became so easy to do these little tweaks (anyone with a home computer and pretty cheap software can do stuff like this in a few minutes) and therefore cheap, we're unfortunately going to see more and more of them in various movies.