IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD July 5th on BLU-RAY

[All Darc]

I would partially agree with you if you was refering to the old DVD, restored by Lowry Digital company still in early stages and with no great tools align strips.

The second DVD, from Warner, was restored in 4K, and was aligned by Ultra Resolution, that detect edges and align to near perfection.

I see no point in use 8K, when films stocks from 30's have no more usual visible details than 2K. And 4K would have just small details, not easy to notice.
I think 8K it's a marketing. And for the poor Blu Ray technology, 8K became even more superfluous.
Well, this last restoration keep the film ready for many generations.

And the color change due imperfect align of strips, in early edition or even theater on 1939, would be noticed in the edges, and not in overal center of a object, like a shirt, jacket etc. The difference in colors can also be from technicolor technology, since technicolor prints gradually get better from 30's to 40's to 50's etc...

The Blu Ray tried some colors adjusts to look like a vintage technicolor, depite of have perfect aligh only in the digital restoration. But the point is that some scenes look too different from DVD to Blu Ray. Maybe they change mind or found better color references form the original color grading of the film, as restoration it's a work in progress for many films.

Despite this doubts, I think Gone With The Wind restoration, Together with The Wizard of Oz, in terms of image detail, it's the most wonderful technicolor look on home video. Warner did a master job in this point.. And the most vibrant color too...

I know it's impossible to have a home video with technicolor colors, since TV contrast and video color tonalities (depth) limitations can't reproduce all technicolor explendor.

Anyway, maybe the true photography director coilor balance can't e know for sure, since the technology have some problems, the prints have some differences one to each other, and even with a original 3 strip technicolor print, that never fades, you can't be sure if the color in that print represent 100% the original color balance.

Well, if the prints in 1939 could not be perfect, or was very difficult to register the true director color balance, we can say the work of today it's close enough. And close enough can be translated as good enogh.

Just for your information, the Gone With The Wind Blu-ray did NOT use the same 4K scan from the previous DVD edition. There was a brand new, 8K scan created from the original 3-strip Technicolor. Once in the digital realm, the strips were perfectly aligned with one another using brand new software designed for that purpose. It had previously not been possible to do this, even at the film's premiere, the colors would have been ever so slightly off. The entire image subsequently underwent an enormous 1 million dollar digital restoration (if you doubt this figure, go ahead and check out Warner's corporate website to see the numbers for yourself), utilizing no visible digital noise reduction or edge enhancement. This film is as close to the original vision as it will ever get, and I can assure you any differences you see in the image compared to prior home video releases is solely due to the fact that those releases did not have the Technicolor strips aligned correctly, as they are on the Blu-ray. There is absolutely NO color correction or alterations on the Blu-ray.

[Little Caesar]

I bought this blu-ray several days ago, and I think it looks quite nice. I hope I have the time to sit back and watch it in its entirety sometime soon. However (as was briefly mentioned earlier in this thread), my blu-ray player plays the extras in a small box towards the upper left side of the screen. I may have to look at the settings of my player to rectify this. Since I have the original flipper dvd of this movie with those same extras, that's not at the top of my priority list at the moment though.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I read somewhere that a good deal of the footage cut from the roadshow version still survives. Of particular interest to me is the fact that the audio still exists of a scene with Buster Keaton that was in the road show version. I would love to hear that. Perhaps someday a reconstruction of the road show cut could be attempted (a la the 1937 version of Lost Horizon and 1954 A Star is Born perhaps).

[Steve Pendleton]

Joining the chorus, the picture quality of the blu ray is phenomenal. Thank you, FotoKem, MGM, and Walmart. Having recently driven through the Rancho Mirage/Palm Desert area, it's poignant to have such a high-quality record of what it looked like when it was God's own desert, not million-dollar gated communities. But--with candor--the present cut is long enough and frenetic enough. Adding a half hour or more might easily push it from great to grating.

/ SRP /

[All Darc]

Maybe the screen caps I saw on Bluray.com do not make justice...

Joining the chorus, the picture quality of the blu ray is phenomenal. Thank you, FotoKem, MGM, and Walmart. Having recently driven through the Rancho Mirage/Palm Desert area, it's poignant to have such a high-quality record of what it looked like when it was God's own desert, not million-dollar gated communities. But--with candor--the present cut is long enough and frenetic enough. Adding a half hour or more might easily push it from great to grating.

/ SRP /

[fwtep]

All Darc said:

"Blu Ray, like DVD, despite use bits AND BYTES it's not true digital, but a video signal, FIELDS,"

and

"HD resolution on Blu Ray resolution it's a lie !!!"

You are wrong. It's really as simple as that. Wrong.

[moglia]

All Darc said:

"Blu Ray, like DVD, despite use bits AND BYTES it's not true digital, but a video signal, FIELDS,"

and

"HD resolution on Blu Ray resolution it's a lie !!!"

You are wrong. It's really as simple as that. Wrong.

You are correct he could not be more wrong.


Sadly this Mad, Mad blu-ray suffers from excessive and needless edge enhancement and excessive and needless Digital noise reduction. It would have looked amazing with so much more detail if they had just left it alone. Amateurish work by whatever morons did the mastering. Some just don't understand that what worked for DVD transfers and mastering simply does not for blu-ray - guess they work cheap.....

[Robert W]

The second DVD, from Warner, was restored in 4K, and was aligned by Ultra Resolution, that detect edges and align to near perfection.

[/quote]

The Ultra-Resolution process is only used to align films that were shot in Technicolor's original 3-strip format ( hence the need to align 3 separate pieces of film for the 3 primary colours. ) 3-strip Technicolor was no longer in use by the time IAMMMMW was shot. Even then I don't believe IAMMMMW was shot in any form of Technicolor, even if Technicolor did make release prints of the film.

[Steve Pendleton]

>The Ultra-Resolution process is only used to align films that were shot in Technicolor's original 3-strip format
I believe Warner's restored The Searchers from the color seps by Ultra Rez or an equivalent technology. It isn't Technicolor that's essential, just having multiple records that benefit from computer-correlated registration. You don't even have to take the records from the same source. Given one faded layer, you can pull the good data from the negative and replace the faded data from an alternative source like a color sep. You get the sharpness of the neg plus the original color.

As to IAMMMMW, I'm not seeing much monkey biz. The image encourages the speculation that it's a 8K transfer from clean 65mm elements, downrezzed and mastered but otherwise left alone. The hard contrast on Hwy 74 might relate to the location. Borrego Springs, like the Nafud, is the Sun's Anvil. In any case the Blu sure kicks the socks off the DVD. Given MGM's recent history, we're lucky to have it. Maybe MGM will release Zulu domestically, hopefully without the DNR in the UK version (but even with the monkey biz, the UK Blu slam-dunks PD VHS I owned back in the day).

/ SRP /

[Christopher Jacobs]

I've had a chance to watch several minutes of IAMMMMW straight through at several different chapter stops, and yes there is a small amount of edge enhancement and possibly some minor digital noise reduction. Some of what looks like edge enhancement is actually a pervasive use of backlighting, but there is a definite faint white outline visible at times. It should look a bit sharper than it does, being from 65mm, but some people working on video transfers who grew up with television evidently can't keep their fingers off the "sharpness" knobs and don't understand that the sharpness is in the film grain itself. Still, while it does not approach the gold standard of 65mm-to-Blu-ray of a SOUTH PACIFIC, or the amazing HOW THE WEST WAS WON Blu-ray, or the incredible 35mm transfers of AN AMERICAN IN PARIS and QUO VADIS, it's a relatively minor disappointment, a bit like the Blu-ray picture quality on THE BIBLE. It seems slightly sharper than Universal's SPARTACUS Blu-ray, is much better than the mediocre GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD transfer, and does not erase the grain like the frustrating ZULU Blu-ray, or BECKET, THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, THE LAST STARFIGHTER, and numerous others including more than a few recent films that look worse on Blu-ray than films made 50 or 60 years earlier.

It still makes the old DVD release look like it was smeared with vasoline (or mastered from VHS), and remains a fantastic value at only $10 that will look outstanding on typical flatscreen LCD or Plasma HDTVs. Due to the noticeable if minor edge enhancement, however, I'll probably watch it all the way through in the next week or two and not bother waiting until I can get a 10-foot-wide screen that would just enhance the edge enhancement even further. Digital image manipulation tends to look more obvious through a hi-def projector than on a TV monitor, where we're more likely to accept it as part of the "look" of the technology.

--Christopher Jacobs
http://hpr1.com/film
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs/Old ... BluRay.htm

[Marr&Colton]

Point to consider:

I notice a few posts about "edge enhancement".

REMEMBER--this film was shot in ULTRA PANAVISION---a system that utilized "squeezed" frame edge and "flat" frame center and then projected through a special, part-anamorphic lens which compensated for the edge compression. This was all part of the then-new single-projector 70mm Cinerama process (In Toledo we had just such an installation) that utilized a deep curved screen--requiring the differences in squeeze and focus to properly fill a Cinerama screen. It's possible this may be the reason for the minor differences in the edges of the picture as transferred.


The 35mm reduction release prints were compensated for this difference, but if you will notice on the out-takes and edits included on the disc, the sides of the frames often show this difference in focus, since they were transferred without compensation.

[Steve Pendleton]

>ULTRA PANAVISION *** part-anamorphic lens *** edge compression *** this may be the reason for the minor differences in the edges of the picture

The "edges" in "edge enhancement" are light-to-dark transitions anywhere in the image, not the left and right edges of the frame. That said, I've wondered if some haloing accused of being edge enhancement might be optical or chemical. Unsharp masking was originally a film-based technology, so it's clearly possible to create ringing effects without using analog or digital sharpness filters. An accidential source might be subtle chemical depletion during development. Real-world prints and projection do not hold up to the level of scutiny applied to home-theater releases.

My concern about perfectionism is its potential to raise the bar so high that studios further minimize the catalog. Even if IAMMMMW did get subtle post processing, it looks better on Blu at home for $10 than it would on film in my major urban market for $20. Some who've seen IAMMMMW in real-world 70mm are saying the Blu is the best they've seen it look. Zowie!

For catalog, I try to be discerning but not demanding, as is probably true for most here. This one is worth $10 if only to show MGM that there's a profit in catalog.

/ SRP /

[Christopher Jacobs]

>My concern about perfectionism is its potential to raise the bar so high that studios further minimize the catalog. Even if IAMMMMW did get subtle post processing, it looks better on Blu at home for $10 than it would on film in my major urban market for $20. Some who've seen IAMMMMW in real-world 70mm are saying the Blu is the best they've seen it look. Zowie!

For catalog, I try to be discerning but not demanding, as is probably true for most here. This one is worth $10 if only to show MGM that there's a profit in catalog.

/ SRP /

I agree completely. Even if they didn't take the care that is so obvious on the "showcase" classics like the amazing Blu-ray of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, this disc of IAMMMMW is a good, solid transfer with a very sharp picture that is miles ahead of any previous home version despite its flaws, and at only $10 it belongs in everybody's library for several reasons. One, of course, is to support the release of pre-1970 films, and another is to demonstrate how many more copies will sell when they're priced under $15 than in the $20-$40 range (pricing at which I still often buy for pre-1970 titles and usually buy for pre-1950 titles, but think much harder about for any others, especially post-2000 titles).

--Christopher Jacobs
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs/Old ... BluRay.htm
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs
http://hpr1.com/film

[Banned User]

Well I was extremely happy with this it looks stunning to me. Plus its nice to have the wider aspect ration 2.76 unlike the DVD. ( even though it is incorrectly listed as 2:55 on the back of the Bluray) I wish a decent 70mm roadshow print could be found, but none exist to my knowledge. The film is coming up on its 50th anniversary so its possible another release will come out then. Probably just a repackaging with some added special features.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Last night I finally sat down and watched the movie all the way through, pausing for a few minutes at the intermission. When I had spot-checked it earlier to evaluate the picture quality, I was looking specifically for DNR (which can soften the image) and edge-enhancement (which puts haloes around everything) and noticed minor instances of both. While watching the film and following the story, however, their effect is so minor as to be barely noticeable, if at all, and the picture quality overall looks extremely good. Colors sometimes do look slightly contrasty and intense in the manner of an old Eastmancolor print or a decent color dupe, but the picture is still quite sharp.

Watching it projected eight feet wide and just under three feet tall from about six to eight feet away, it looks good enough that I'd rate the picture quality as an "A-". The nice DTS-HD stereo soundtrack with lots of the original screen separation of dialogue, pleasant music score reproduction, and good low-frequency rumbles in the explosions, I would rate an "A" easily. The movie itself is still silly and overblown, but is reasonably entertaining, a bit better than I remembered, and a lot of fun to watch for all the guest stars and all the early 1960s/late 1950s cars and scenery in HD. I'd rate the movie at around a B or maybe a B+ and rate its bonus features likewise (an old retrospective documentary and extended scenes in standard-definition plus two trailers in hi-def).

The 20-year-old documentary, called Something Less Serious, is an entertaining and interesting tribute to the film with the director and many of the original stars, running just over an hour. The extended scenes, apparently taken from a beat-up 70mm workprint, are of interest to fans to see longer and alternate cuts of selected scenes, but besides the understandably poorer print condition, the hour's worth of clips (with several scenes duplicated in very slightly different versions) seems to be arranged in a random order and certainly doesn't follow the chronological order of the story. Even in the low-res VHS-quality transfer of these scenes, viewers can also notice how the sides of the Ultra-Panavision frame have a slightly squeezed look, compared to the rectified transfer of the entire feature. It would have been nicer to see them at least in story order, if not in a new HD transfer, but they're still fun to watch if you've already seen the movie.

While the lack of a main menu is annoying (only a pop-up menu makes the disc's features accessible), it's commendable that the overture and exit music actually plays over a black screen instead of some artificial title-card intended to reassure viewers who never heard of road-show presentations that they don't have a faulty disc or bad video connection.

It's certainly well-worth the $10.

[All Darc]

yeah, this BR could be better.

If people take my words literally, I'm wrong, cause BR uses bits (0 and 1) to create image, so it's digital, and the resolution it's HD, most times not sampled from lower resolutions.

But if you take what I really mean, you will see that despite of use bits, BR, like DVD, uses compression and video field, and so it kill image details and can create ghosting frames. And BR it's more stupid than DVD, cause it's caged to 16:9 and use black bars for most films, while DVD at least had anamorphic.
And grain reduction in most cases are excessive and very poor, with very rare exceptions of advanced grain reduction technology used.

That's what I really mean about not be true digital and not be true HD.

And May I remamber that on computer it do not look bright and glossy ???? if you increase contrast on the computer player you kill a lot of nuances on the bright tonalities, and shadowns get even darker. Beacause it is made for TV, not for omputer. TV, with video fields crap...

So it's not true digital.


Even softwares to rip VD and BR are less stupid than BR standart, cause they have option to anamorph in very different ways, or to recor a video in different ratios aspects, and so avoid to use image space to record silly black bars.

For me, a true digital home system would not mess with grain, projection speed variances or frame shape. Until something like that be created I will keep saying itr's not true digital, not cristal clear, not perfect.

All Darc said:

"Blu Ray, like DVD, despite use bits AND BYTES it's not true digital, but a video signal, FIELDS,"

and

"HD resolution on Blu Ray resolution it's a lie !!!"

You are wrong. It's really as simple as that. Wrong.

You are correct he could not be more wrong.


Sadly this Mad, Mad blu-ray suffers from excessive and needless edge enhancement and excessive and needless Digital noise reduction. It would have looked amazing with so much more detail if they had just left it alone. Amateurish work by whatever morons did the mastering. Some just don't understand that what worked for DVD transfers and mastering simply does not for blu-ray - guess they work cheap.....

[All Darc]

I didn't said Ultra Resolution was the tool to restore IAMMMMW camera negative.

Ultra resolution can also align protection separation master of technicolor strips, or color separation master from a color film shot on tripack film emulsion, since many co.or films are preserved in separated BW strips for each primary color.

Disney Pollyanna was restored from original negative and a protection master, combining 2 primary colors of original negative and one from a protection master, cause one color in the negative had faded a lot.

It was a difficult task, align the camera negative 2 primary color and the protedction master.They could not just use the 3 color from the separation master cause when it was created, shot from original negative, someone mistake things and make two B&W strips from asame basiccolor, and forgot one primary color.
if I remamber well, it was something like that: Camera negative had the blue layer fadded. The protection master have 2 B&W strips for the green layer of camera negative and one for the blue layer, but not one for the red layer.
It was not restored with Ultra Resolution but it could be.

Today some comercial digital restoration softwares, like from MTI, have a tool to align color channels from technicolor or preservation master of a color film, by edge detection. But i'm not sure if it's so precise like Ultra Resolution.

The second DVD, from Warner, was restored in 4K, and was aligned by Ultra Resolution, that detect edges and align to near perfection.

The Ultra-Resolution process is only used to align films that were shot in Technicolor's original 3-strip format ( hence the need to align 3 separate pieces of film for the 3 primary colours. ) 3-strip Technicolor was no longer in use by the time IAMMMMW was shot. Even then I don't believe IAMMMMW was shot in any form of Technicolor, even if Technicolor did make release prints of the film.[/quote]