This topic may have already been discussed somewhere else in this forum, but reading a review for the Spartacus blu-ray the reviwer says this is one of the worst transfers because the colour timing is totally wrong, and it would be best to save your money and avoid this blu-ray. Has anyone taken the liberty to make a colour-accurate restoration of Spartacus?
It's not just the color timing, there's also the excessive Dnr and edge enhancement. The Hd-Dvd doesn't have the Dnr (or very little) but the edge enhancement is there and leaves the appearance of a noisy, over grainy, edge halo mess. Not only this, allegedly Universal used an incorrect and inferior Hd master instead of the color corrected one Criterion used for their Dvd which may have helped greatly with the aforementioned problems.
Spartacus is one of my favorite films, so the lackadaisical treatment it has gotten on high def has been particularly annoying to me.
However, there is apparently a new restoration of Spartacus that will be premiered along with Apollo 13, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Steamboat Bill Jr. at the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival.
Hopefully this will yield a new transfer that clears up the problems with the previous high def issues of this title.
“That’s impossible, even for a computer!”
Exactly. Hopefully the video license will go back to Criterion, because otherwise Uni will ruin it too. My only other concern is perhaps preserving the Dolby Surround PCM from LD since the 1991 restoration was mixed for that format.
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I believe the restoration is no longer being screened at the TCM film festival, being replaced by 1776.
That said, it's probably still in the works.
News from thedigitalbits.com
While it’s true that the screening has been cancelled, we’ve confirmed through our industry sources that a new restoration of Spartacus has been completed and that Universal Studios Home Entertainment is planning to release it on Blu-ray later in 2015.
Here: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/032515_1415