Blue Ray

[The Peacemaker]

I noticed that a few people claim that the Italian Blu-ray looks better than the MGM one, and I'm wondering if we're looking at the same screen caps.

Seriously, I think the MGM image looks very good. Skin tones are correct, colors are lively, I don't see what's wrong with it.

[Jordan Krug]

I noticed that a few people claim that the Italian Blu-ray looks better than the MGM one, and I'm wondering if we're looking at the same screen caps.

Seriously, I think the MGM image looks very good. Skin tones are correct, colors are lively, I don't see what's wrong with it.

here's a comparison, mgm on left mondo on right, you're telling me you can't tell the difference?

[Jordan Krug]

Uh oh....while the mondo disc is jaw dropping sharp and the color is stellar, there's a big issue with it...I just posted this on the avs forum:

There's a big problem with this new mondo transfer....I'm assuming because this was from the original negative (and not the mgm interpositive based version) that each cut is glued together or spliced together and that over time this has warped the first two frames of the incoming shot and the last two frames of the outgoing shot, because EVERY CUT JUMPS....mostly each cut slightly shifts or warps, but literally there are cuts where the frame jumps a 3rd up the screen - and you can see the top of the frame at the bottom of the screen on the cut! (as if the film is out of it's register as it's being scanned) Case in point, look at the 2nd or 3rd cut in the scene where tuco is shot of his horse (and then after Blondie/Eastwood comes in for the first time). Tuco reaches for his gun, and the last 2 frames jump a 3rd up the screen, his boot is now on the bottom of the screen divided by a black line (a film frame line) - it would be great if someone who can capture br could post those frames up....



ARRRRGGG I really can't believe they would have let this go...they must have decided it wasn't worth the money to fix it...it's such a amazing transfer otherwise....

[Jordan Krug]

http://img5.imagebanana.com/view/zmccgvnb/mondo001747.png


Somebody on the avs board grabbed this frame for me....this is what's going on in the new transfer...

[Novecento]

Thanks for keeping us informed about all this. When I finally get a Blu-ray player, info like this will prove very useful when deciding which release to buy.

By the way, does anyone here have any good recommendations regarding region free blu-ray players?

[cigar joe]

Naaa, I most probably won't be buying one anytime soon, I just don't see any advantage especially when you factor in all the lousy new films being produced anyway.  All the classics I have, they are what they are (and I see no reason to upgrade), all the future classics released that I'd buy probably wouldn't benefit much anyway from the technology.

What gets me is with the new HD technology TV's which are supposed to render super real imagery on one side (which you can see in the wildlife/nature/sports samples on the loop on the display models). While on the other side you have CGI and motion capture images that aren't real anyway and never will, be it seems as if both are at cross purposes to each other, no?.

[Sundance]

I don't know much about the filming and editing processes but didn't they have technology back in the 60s to change how the colors look? Even at the time of the filming? Wouldn't the sun position, lighting, whatever affect how the colors appear on screen? How about Tarantino going to France at a certain time of the year to film his Inglourious Basterds so he could get certain colors on film (I think he or someone else claimed this on some interview)?

Doesn't skin tones look the way the director, cinematographer or nowadays a nerd in front of the buttons, wants them to look? Thus you can't say something is not correct just because it doesn't look "normal". And how do we know how they were supposed to look. Maybe we should ask from Leone... De Colli... Simi... oh crap. Anyways, the credits for the GBU even list an editor with a title of "final colorist", what did he do?

This isn't even the only movie with big color differences... in fact a lot of the Italian released discs (at least AFOD, OUATITW, Nobody and at least one of the Sabatas come to mind) in this genre have very different colors than the ones from the big international companies like MGM or Paramount.

Of course only very small percentage of people actually have their monitors/television perfectly calibrated to show the colors exactly like they are on the disc. I know mine aren't.


As for the Mondo vs MGM, as I already said, in my opinion the Mondo disc is far superior and the image is much more film like and I prefer the colors as well. I'll probably use the instructions at the avs forums to make a custom disc and will never look at the MGM disc again. Unfortunately even with the instructions all the gun shot sounds are still the new crappy ones? But at least the cave scene is missing.

I didn't notice the problems Jordan Krug reported (I don't doubt they are there) but its probably a minor error in an otherwise superb transfer. Although now that I know about the problems, they will probably bother me the next time I watch the disc. I think I may have noticed similar stuff on lots of other discs before, just can't remember any titles now.


EDIT: Anyways, if somebody is looking to get the movie on Blu-Ray and wants it in English (and can't make his own custom disc with the avs instructions) then there aren't any options AND you might actually enjoy the MGM Blu-Ray. A lot of people do, so just because me and others think its crap (and are correct ), perhaps everybody should check it for themselves (rent it or see it at a library if possible, or something).

[cigar joe]

For me the ultimate would be to replicate the cinema experience (vision and sound) in my home. The larger the screen the more HD is a necessity.  Obviously it won't make a bad movie into a good movie.  Whilst watching Changeling and Godfather 1, I wondered why I bothered getting the blu-ray versions. Then I watch the early Bond movies, How The West Was Won, The Professionals etc on Blu-ray and I am blown away.

Well for me the cinema experience for the last 10 years isn't anything to shout about, (between 1970 and 1996 when I lived in Montana I didn't go very much to movies anyway) and my last TV lasted some 15 years, got a new one maybe 3 years ago if it lasts as long then around 2021 I'll possibly get a new one,  a lot of the old films from the 1940's, & 1950's I saw that I would get DVD's of, I originally saw on TV also with pan & scan & commercial breaks so the widescreen DVD's are a treat in and of themselves and that alone blows me away.

I saw my first and only Imax film at the Spokane Worlds Fair and I wasn't impressed. I don't play video games so I don't have that platform and I'll not buy a new DVD player till the old one gives out. I like to travel and be outdoors a lot and spend money that way. I just don't have that much incentive to upgrade and its not for me like the big difference between VHS and DVD.

[Dust Devil]

It's either a benefit or a hazard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6lWNSDsTZg

If it's a benefit - nobody will complain, if it's a hazard - the mob will most likely eat you alive.

[dave jenkins]

Thanks for that link, DD, it's quite interesting and brings up some interesting points for discussion. I've noticed when attending digital projections of recently made films that backgrounds tend to be enhanced and that the very notion of "focus" has seemed to go by the wayside. When Landis talks about being able to read the labels on things in the pub (in Werewolf), which wasn't possible with film projection, well, we're talking about a whole new way of watching a "film."

[Sundance]

What Landis mentions at the end is basically what has been done to the MGM Blu-Ray (and most likely on the DVDs as well before). Someone somewhere at some point decided there's too much grain and got rid of it (not all in the MGM disc though).

But film is made of grain. The detail is in the grain. Different film stock has different amounts of grain. Sometimes it might be a financial decision to use more grainy one but sometimes it is an artistic choice. And the people shooting the film know how the particular film stock works and thus the film is shot with that in mind.

If Leone were alive I do not know if he would have liked for someone to remove all the grain from the movie or not when it is transferred to digital. If he had the chance to shoot the film in digital back in the 60s, would he have done it? And even if he would, the fact remains that he shot it with a certain film with a certain look to it. And unless the director wants it to look like something else, the transfer to digital should respect the original film. And even if the director later wants to change it, I do not need to like it (the crappy color changes to the French Connection Blu-Ray... ugh...).

The Mondo disc is much more grainier and more film like of the two. The picture is more alive when played and not a plastic world with waxy faces. My screen is only 24" though (FullHD at least) and many recommend at least 50" screens to really see what is going on with the transfer (meaning crap will look even crappier... ).

But of course anyone can like what they want and even though I have no kind of statistics about the subject, I think a lot of people (do not know if it is majority or not) prefer their movies to be clean like a video game or something... waxy faces, and no amount of grain.

The Godfather boxset for Blu-Ray went under very serious restoration and got help from Coppola and the cinematographer Willis and lots of other people to make it look as close to the one it is supposed to be. Yet the last time I read some customer reviews (most likely at amazon.co.uk) a lot of people absolutely hated the discs because in their mind it clearly was not restored properly and definitely wasn't HD because of all the grain in it. But if these people own PS3 (and maybe some other players can do it nowadays as well) there is supposed to be a DNR button or something in it which will make the image more smooth. Unfortunately it isn't possible to make a button that removes the DNR that has already been applied to the discs.

[Jordan Krug]

The bottom line is that the grain was ALWAYS there, it's just that VHS & DVD never had the resolution to show it...I personally love film grain...reminds me that something was "captured" on a "medium" instead of just "recorded" which is the way hd feels.

[cigar joe]

Interesting.

Take, when Landis talks about being able to read the labels on things in the pub.

Now say for instance there was a pub set where the general film took place in 1865  or an inn or tavern set earlier when filmed those bottles on a back shelf may have had modern labels but that didn't show because of the way it was filmed and focused.

The same thing goes for say For A few Dollars More when Mortimer gets off the train at Tucumcari.  In the bg of one of the shots is what looks like a typical Western butte, something like you'd see in Monument Valley its not in focus but its there on the horizon. In reality I believe I've read that its a castle, out of focus, it,  to us viewers for all intends and purposes is a butte. Now the question is will a Blue Ray disc reveal this and other unwanted things?

[noodles_leone]

I don't see how out of focus details could be put in focus by any technology... There are 2 very different things here: HD cameras and HD discs (blue ray). I'm wondering if we're not confusing the 2. A blue ray cannot create information that is not on the 35mm film.

[cigar joe]

I don't see how out of focus details could be put in focus by any technology... There are 2 very different things here: HD cameras and HD discs (blue ray). I'm wondering if we're not confusing the 2. A blue ray cannot create information that is not on the 35mm film.

I probably am, I was just concerned about that