250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

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Moe Dickstein
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#201 Post by Moe Dickstein » Wed Jul 24, 2013 2:34 pm

andyli wrote:
Matt wrote:In supplements, all the time.
I checked a few recent releases and everything in the extras was either 1080i or 1080p. And I believe they have been doing this for years.
that was my point

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CSM126
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#202 Post by CSM126 » Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:14 am

alvareo wrote:This forum is depressing me, I always thought Criterion issued everything at its best possible quality, and would've never thought they frequently upscaled supplements. :(
When the supplements in question only exist in SD format, that IS the best quality.

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MichaelB
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#203 Post by MichaelB » Thu Jul 25, 2013 7:40 am

CSM126 wrote:
alvareo wrote:This forum is depressing me, I always thought Criterion issued everything at its best possible quality, and would've never thought they frequently upscaled supplements. :(
When the supplements in question only exist in SD format, that IS the best quality.
Indeed. I daresay it might be notionally possible to create a true HD version of Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius (a film made for British television in the late 1980s and finalised on analogue PAL videotape), but it would involve tracking down all the clips, stills and other materials, rescanning them to 2K (making sure that the original framerates are preserved) and then re-editing the entire thing from scratch, re-rendering all titles and credits, you name it.

Quite aside from the fact that this would all be staggeringly expensive, there are also ethical issues at play here, because the end result wouldn't be the original documentary that Kevin Brownlow and David Gill signed off on. Which is why I'm entirely happy that the end result looks exactly as it would have been broadcast on British television back in 1990.

Zot!
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#204 Post by Zot! » Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:24 am

Not to mention, there are titles that are contentious in terms of best quality for the feature presentation between MOC or Criterion or others (Hara-Kiri). Also titles that have not been upgraded yet (Passion of Joan of Arc), or likely never will be (Only Son). I think there is a thread.

alvareo
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#205 Post by alvareo » Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:39 am

CSM126 wrote:
alvareo wrote:This forum is depressing me, I always thought Criterion issued everything at its best possible quality, and would've never thought they frequently upscaled supplements. :(
When the supplements in question only exist in SD format, that IS the best quality.
When I said "best quality", I meant the compression issues with this box set (and Fanny and Alexander, Shoah, etc.)

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MichaelB
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#206 Post by MichaelB » Thu Jul 25, 2013 11:00 am

Different labels have different policies, and people will complain regardless.

Just look at all the flak the BFI gets for not upscaling SD extras, and restricting them to the supplementary DVD, even though that seems to me to be by far the most sensible way of going about things. After all, why use up valuable BD real estate if you don't need to?

That said, I can see why Criterion upscaled Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius, because the original programme would have been on PAL videotape. Most US Blu-ray players can't handle PAL (576p) material, so Criterion had the choice between either upscaling to 1080p/i or downscaling to 480p - and since quite a few of Criterion's extras are sourced from PAL/SECAM originals (their French TV programmes, for instance), upscaling seems like the most sensible option. The BFI doesn't have to deal with these issues because (I think) all their SD material is PAL to begin with, and so the DVD retains the original resolution.

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Moe Dickstein
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#207 Post by Moe Dickstein » Thu Jul 25, 2013 11:44 am

I think what people are after is to keep 480/NTSC material in its native format to save space on the BD disc. BD doesn't have to contain only HD materials, nor do SD materials need to be shunted off to a second DVD.

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tenia
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#208 Post by tenia » Thu Jul 25, 2013 11:50 am

Moe Dickstein wrote:I think what people are after is to keep 480/NTSC material in its native format to save space on the BD disc. BD doesn't have to contain only HD materials, nor do SD materials need to be shunted off to a second DVD.
Absolutely.

I'm quite fine with BFI keeping the SD extras as SD, but I wish they wouldn't overload the DVD either, and didn't require me to switch from BD to DVD to watch the extras.

But saving space, or at least trying not to waste it, should be a priority.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#209 Post by peerpee » Thu Jul 25, 2013 9:11 pm

Another thing to consider: SD masters when encoded to DVD contain much compression. SD masters look far better when uprezzed to 1080p and encoded properly for Blu-ray, they actually look identical to the uncompressed DigiBeta master – rather than suffering from DVD compression (which is much more visible).

A good example of this is the 1980s Pete Townshend interview extra on the MONTEREY POP Blu set.

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Moe Dickstein
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#210 Post by Moe Dickstein » Thu Jul 25, 2013 9:17 pm

Nick, if you only left out the uprez aspect, and re-encoded from scratch for Blu without DVD compression at the 480 would you not achieve the same transparency, or is it only a benefit of the 1080 encode?

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#211 Post by alvareo » Thu Jul 25, 2013 9:18 pm

As far as I know, they would achieve the same transparency since it is not resolution but encoding technology what makes it looks better.

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hearthesilence
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#212 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Jul 25, 2013 9:52 pm

peerpee wrote:Another thing to consider: SD masters when encoded to DVD contain much compression. SD masters look far better when uprezzed to 1080p and encoded properly for Blu-ray, they actually look identical to the uncompressed DigiBeta master – rather than suffering from DVD compression (which is much more visible).

A good example of this is the 1980s Pete Townshend interview extra on the MONTEREY POP Blu set.
Very true. I never knew this until I had to play an old SD DVCAM tape side-by-side with a DVD mastered from it, using the lowest compression setting possible - the DVD still took a sizable hit in PQ.

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tenia
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#213 Post by tenia » Fri Jul 26, 2013 1:27 am

peerpee wrote:Another thing to consider: SD masters when encoded to DVD contain much compression. SD masters look far better when uprezzed to 1080p and encoded properly for Blu-ray, they actually look identical to the uncompressed DigiBeta master – rather than suffering from DVD compression (which is much more visible).
But should the PQ of the main movie on the disc be jeopardized just for trying to get rid of compression issues on non-HD native extras ?

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#214 Post by peerpee » Fri Jul 26, 2013 1:13 pm

Moe Dickstein wrote:Nick, if you only left out the uprez aspect, and re-encoded from scratch for Blu without DVD compression at the 480 would you not achieve the same transparency, or is it only a benefit of the 1080 encode?
Good question. If it were kept at 480 it would have to be MPEG2 encoded, and you could really ramp the bitrate because it wouldn't have to be fitted on a DVD5/DVD9, but the problem is that MPEG2 is not as 'filesize efficient' when compared to some of the 1080p codecs (particularly AVC), especially when you start ramping the bitrate of MPEG2.

Also, it's a real pain on some displays/TVs to keep having the res flick out of 1080p to 480p and back again for the menus, etc. So I sense a desire (particularly with Criterion) to keep all the content in the 1080p realm.

That's about as much as I know, I'm not an encoder, but that's been my experience working with really good encoder folk.

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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#215 Post by peerpee » Fri Jul 26, 2013 1:15 pm

tenia wrote:But should the PQ of the main movie on the disc be jeopardized just for trying to get rid of compression issues on non-HD native extras ?
No it shouldn't. The feature should be bit-budgeted first and everything else should fit around it. Most films are around 100 minutes though and well-encoded BD50s can take upto 5 hours of 1080p, so it's not usually much of a problem.

alvareo
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#216 Post by alvareo » Fri Jul 26, 2013 1:21 pm

peerpee wrote:
tenia wrote:But should the PQ of the main movie on the disc be jeopardized just for trying to get rid of compression issues on non-HD native extras ?
No it shouldn't. The feature should be bit-budgeted first and everything else should fit around it. Most films are around 100 minutes though and well-encoded BD50s can take upto 5 hours of 1080p, so it's not usually much of a problem.
What we'are talking about on this thread, though, is when it DOES become a problem.

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tenia
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#217 Post by tenia » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:56 am

blu-ray.com just uploaded their review of Shadows, and as it was guessed, A Contant Forge has been upscaled in 1080i and is included on this disc, most likely due to Shadows being the shortest movie of the set.

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Yaanu
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#218 Post by Yaanu » Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:30 pm

I hope packaging shots come in soon. I want to see if they dual-number SHADOWS and A CONSTANT FORGE or if they just go with a single number for SHADOWS.

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manicsounds
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#219 Post by manicsounds » Wed Sep 25, 2013 9:47 pm


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manicsounds
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#220 Post by manicsounds » Fri Sep 27, 2013 3:13 am


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MichaelB
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#221 Post by MichaelB » Fri Sep 27, 2013 4:35 am

No great surprise that there's very little difference, given the common sources (the BFI used Criterion's masters).

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fdm
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#222 Post by fdm » Wed Oct 02, 2013 3:47 am

Per my back and forth flip flop between selected screen shots at beaver the other day, seems like one or two of the Criterions are a bit more, for lack of a better word, precise. Looked a bit more clear, grain defined a bit more. Just the impression I got, based on his jpg snaps. Others seemed about the same.


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Black Hat
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#224 Post by Black Hat » Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:37 am

Is there anything missing from the dvd on the blu?

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bdsweeney
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Re: 250-256 John Cassavetes: Five Films

#225 Post by bdsweeney » Wed Nov 06, 2013 6:19 am

Are you trolling or are you being serious?

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