An excerpt:David Phillips, who works on DVD Development for Criterion, told me that "We're offering people the ability to see what is essentially 95% of the visual quality of our high-definition tape masters, something that we've dreamed of for a long time." After all, these guys have been working with digital masters that clock in at about 2K resolution for some time, which is far higher than HD. "As good as standard-def DVD looks, we've been looking at these HD images for so long and feeling like it's a shame that we can't share this." HD is the way most of these films are meant to be seen, and the people at Criterion get visibly excited when talking about the possibilities.

But with that huge uptick in resolution for the consumer, Criterion is faced with a lot of problems that they didn't have when their masters were converted to standard definition for DVD. After all, they're often dealing with old films, created before there was fancy low-grain filmstock and digital processing. And with the technology they have today, how much restoration and processing is too much?

Really, the mission of Criterion is "trying to replicate the original experience of seeing that movie when it was first released," according to Phillips. While they certainly have the ability to process old films until they look like they were shot on a DV cam, that's not the goal.
And their plans for releases:Criterion is releasing its first Blu-ray films in November, starting with The Third Man, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Last Emperor, Bottle Rocket and Chungking Express. They plan to release two films a month in Blu-ray next year, with HD releases ramping up as sales shift from DVD to Blu-ray.
Criterion Collection: How Criterion Hones Its Restoration Magic for HD (http://gizmodo.com/5052324/how-criterion-hones-its-restoration-magic-for-hd)

These parts seem kind of contradictory:
Really, the mission of Criterion is "trying to replicate the original experience of seeing that movie when it was first released," according to Phillips.

That being said, they realize that consumers buying restored HD films on Blu-ray are expecting near-pristine quality prints. It's a tough balance to strike. Essentially, "it's trying to stay on the side of not overprocessing but not leaving so much film artifact that it's distracting from getting engaged in the film."

Hopefully by "film artifacts" they mean actual artifacts and not grain. But I have faith in Criterion.

These parts seem kind of contradictory:




Hopefully by "film artifacts" they mean actual artifacts and not grain. But I have faith in Criterion.

Just a warning: I have nothing against grain. I love grain. I swear on my mother's head. :D

But I would be willing to live with some light DNR if for some reason the original grain comes out as a distraction or lower the enjoyment of the movie.

Grain is good but still you don't want your movie to look like an old newspaper photo. You don't want it to look like a video either so a balance must be achieve.

I know, I know, some of you want it to be exactly like film. I do too. But the truth is, BR ain't film. Until we have a medium with the same resolution as film I believe that some form of picture anomally may creeps in when dealing with film grain while they process film for BR.

And I believe that is what they are saying. That it ain't that easy to do.

Forgive the double posting. I was relying on the forum auto de-duper thing to work it's magic... I learned my lesson :)

Interesting take on the subject though.

The recipe sounds correct. To be tasted in 2 months.

im a little worried that they might remove a bit too much grain from some older movies. although these discs are very good and most of the time better than other previous editions, in some cases the master of cinema dics look simply more authentic, because of more grain and detail kept or because of not too much extra sharpening.

take these 2 MoC and criterion comparisons as examples:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview/24eyes.htm
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/vampyr-maybe.htm

in the 24eyes the crit disc is newer, but still weaker than the MoC disc. theres simply too much grain, detail and sharpness lost (compare the pic with rain). there are more artifacts on the MoC disc yes, but I'd easily prefer this version over the grain removed one. detail > artifacts. apart from that the crit version is once again darkened too much, a thing which is also quite common for them to do.

its a quite closer in the case of vampyr, but in that case I still prefer the MoC version as well. the difference is really not much, but it looks to me that the MoC version simply looks more authentic the way that movie could have looked back then. there seems to be comparably a little too much polishing from criterion here.


these are quite minor points, but they still could be prevented. so I hope the blu-rays will look as good as possible.

And there are plenty of other examples where the Criterion discs are noticeably softer too.

As they're quite small and do not own any of the films they don't have the means to do full-blown restorations, so it's likely those two are the only options; softer with less print damage, or sharper with more. I would also prefer the latter, but most probably wouldn't and I'm guessing that's the way they're going with the HD releases as well.

Of course the newer the films are, and the better shape the original materials are in, the less need for any processing at all (as long as they don't count the grain as artifacts).

It's pretty sad if they are really doing all this restoration work on cheapo Dell LCDs...

It's pretty sad if they are really doing all this restoration work on cheapo Dell LCDs...

Hey, that's my monitor. ;)

Any EE, DNR, or jaggies should be obvious from that distance. Maybe Disney, Warner, and Universal could get a deal from Dell. :D

They talk about 2K resolution being higher than HD....Isn't that the same as HD media and i am worried they intend to scrub all the grain away for that smooth look. The comments seem to hint at that.

They talk about 2K resolution being higher than HD....Isn't that the same as HD media and i am worried they intend to scrub all the grain away for that smooth look. The comments seem to hint at that.

I believe 2k is actually 2,048 x 1,080 which is a bit higher, but there may be more to it than that.

They talk about 2K resolution being higher than HD....Isn't that the same as HD media and i am worried they intend to scrub all the grain away for that smooth look. The comments seem to hint at that.

I guess it depends if they are talking about a 2k uncompressed/processed source. The end result may have the same resolution but may have lose a big part of the information in the process. Like a 1920x1080 BMP vs a 1920x1080 JPG.

Just a warning: I have nothing against grain. I love grain. I swear on my mother's head. :D

But I would be willing to live with some light DNR if for some reason the original grain comes out as a distraction or lower the enjoyment of the movie.

Grain is good but still you don't want your movie to look like an old newspaper photo. You don't want it to look like a video either so a balance must be achieve.


Well, let them have all the grain intact and then you can soften your projector if its too grainy.

I believe 2k is actually 2,048 x 1,080 which is a bit higher, but there may be more to it than that.

I'm pretty sure 2K digital masters are 2k x 2k, there is no aspect to consider.

2K is different depending on the use, the only defining factor being that it has 2048 pixels horizontally. In the case of the Spirit Datacine, the scanning resolution seems to be 2048x1556, so it's only "far higher than HD" on 4:3 material (which is 1440x1080 on 1080p).

Instead of books, though, the walls would be lined with some of the greatest films ever made, DVDs that set the bar in terms of image quality and extras and packaging and liner notes.I'm not sure where the idea that Criterion discs had consistently excellent image quality came from. Excellent restoration, packaging and just about everything else, perhaps. And an understanding of what film actually looks like... but the final DVDs were often as DCT-filtered as the rest of them.

Fantastic to see them set the record straight regarding film grain on a widely read site :)

this sounds pretty s.hitty:

"Grain reduction has become such an industry standard that people, when they see grain, they think it's a problem rather than what film looks like. Film is a physical medium that has this grain structure to it," says Phillips. That being said, they realize that consumers buying restored HD films on Blu-ray are expecting near-pristine quality prints. It's a tough balance to strike. Essentially, "it's trying to stay on the side of not overprocessing but not leaving so much film artifact that it's distracting from getting engaged in the film."

this is what could destroy the quality, all that QQing from those anti grain nerds who they seem to listen to.

I don't understand how grain can be distracting. Did you ever sit in a theatre a get distracted by the grain?

Doug

Well, let them have all the grain intact and then you can soften your projector if its too grainy.

Not really a solution. The problem isn't my setup but the limitation of the processing. They have to resolve this at their end not mine.

I don't understand how grain can be distracting. Did you ever sit in a theatre a get distracted by the grain?

Doug

No because the picture you see in the theater doesn't look like a 2k processed/compressed file. From what I read, encoder have a hard time dealing with grain and some "anomaly" may be introduce into the picture when there is a lot of it.

As long as we don't have a medium with the same resolution as film the most we can get is an approximation of the source not the same as the source. All the codec used by BR are lossy so some information has to be sacrificed and grain is the first victim.

Are there any Criterion BDs out ?

Art

Not yet. The first batch is out late November.

It's pretty sad if they are really doing all this restoration work on cheapo Dell LCDs...
The work they're doing there appears to be dirt-busting and scratch removal with MTI Correct - in which case, any 1:1 display should really do the trick. Viewing angle, greyscale, contrast and such really won't matter a lot for that sort of application.

If they were using them for colour correction, on the other hand...

I read this article when I saw it on Digg a few days ago and must say it really opened my eyes to how awesome Criterion is.

Before this, I thought they're main focus was extras and didn't even consider that they make their own transfers. For the past two days I've been reading reviews for as many Criterion discs as I can and choosing a few to buy (and renting a ton from my local libraries).

From Criterion's blog:Naturally, the primary goal was to make the transfer of the feature itself as faithful to the filmmakers’ vision as possible. Ideally, that’d be a piece of cake, considering that all of the creative talents associated with Chungking are alive and well today. But at the time that production of the disc was under way, Doyle was wrapping up his directorial effort Izolator/ (a.k.a. Warsaw Dark), Wong was busy redux-ing his martial arts meditation Ashes of Time, and I just didn’t have any luck getting in touch with the other cinematographer, Andrew Lau. There were lots of close calls and “almost there” possibilities, but in the end nothing gelled. (Although, thankfully, I did get word from Wong’s associates that the film should definitely be presented in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio.) I kind of felt like Chungking’s Cop 223, always being separated by an infinitesimal 0.01 cm from getting lucky.

Anyway, the Express production kept chugging along—our standout MTI department executed a Herculean restoration job on the picture, Asian cinema expert Tony Rayns recorded a breezy commentary that fits the movie’s spirit perfectly, and a British TV program containing excellent mid-’90s interviews with Wong and Doyle turned up (thank you, David Thompson!)—but basically we had to do our best with the feature master, based upon visual references recommended by Jet Tone Productions, Wong’s company.

Fast-forward—or, to mirror Wong’s cinematic language, jump-cut—to a couple of weeks ago, when we heard Doyle was in New York working on the latest Jim Jarmusch picture. (Pretty great the way all these talents in the collection just crisscross each other, isn’t it?) That’s right, the hardworking DP was actually in the Big Apple.

Now, by this point, we were already at our initial DVD-R and BD-R stages for Chungking. That means that . . . we were done. Basically, we just had to go through the discs and check them to make sure there weren’t any errors or problems.

But the prospect of getting Doyle’s stamp of approval on our transfer was too tantalizing, and important, to let slip by. So our tech director, Lee Kline, contacted Doyle and persevered until he got the cinematographer to find time in his hectic schedule to swing by and check out the results of our work. Not surprisingly, Doyle did request some changes, ones that only someone closely involved with Chungking’s overall visual presentation would’ve known. They weren’t anything too major: dialing out some green in a few shots, warming up Kai Tak airport interiors, fixing a couple of skin tones. Still, it meant we’d have to “start over” to a certain extent, inserting those fixes and reauthoring both the standard def and Blu-ray discs.

But it was a price worth paying. Not only did we get Doyle to sign off on our presentation of the film, but we also had the chance to meet a bona fide cinema visionary, one who happens to be a total riot in person. Lee likened him to Keith Richards, and I have to say that it’s a dead-on comparison. We were treated to some pretty hilarious stories of Doyle’s transcontinental adventures (believe me, he’s had plenty of them) and a bit of insider gossip to boot.

So, even though it’s unfortunately too late to include this important bit of info in our printed packaging, let the news break here first: cinematographer Christopher Doyle approved the Chungking Express transfer. And thank you, Mr. Doyle, for helping to make what I truly believe to be the best possible DVD presentation of this much-beloved film.Check out the rest of the article :

On Five: The Criterion Collection Blog (http://www.criterion.com/blog/2008_10_01_archive.html#1119712503940748661)

sounds great to have doyle approval on that disc. but does that actually mean the disc will be out a bit later on, or still as planned on schedule?

The work they're doing there appears to be dirt-busting and scratch removal with MTI Correct - in which case, any 1:1 display should really do the trick. Viewing angle, greyscale, contrast and such really won't matter a lot for that sort of application.

If they were using them for colour correction, on the other hand...


The dell Lcd's they are using are from a few years ago and ARE using the same panels as the apple cinema displays. They are amazing monitors with the same quality as the $1800 apple displays but for a fraction of the cost with no sacrifice for quality. Its a shame dell has switched to a cheaper manufacturer and now are junky displays. You can still pick these monitors up off ebay.

They are good, you guys are snobs.

I agree. The 2405fpw is an excellent display for detailed work.

Here is an article by Popular mechanics that touches of the Criterion stuff as well as others like Color of Money

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4295496.html

Thanks for that. 95% of the quality of the studio master is pretty darn good, I always thought it would be around 70%-80% for most movies.