Is it just me, or is the video quality of Usual Suspects absolutely terrible? Out of the 50+ BD titles that I have bought/rent, this transfer has the MOST artifacts I have ever seen. It’s like I can’t even enjoy the movie without being totally distracted by white specks filling each scene. Such a terrible shame, as this is my absolute favorite film of all time.

And in all honest I wish that studios would totally ditch the DTS-HD and DD-HD formats, the core tracks are total junk compared to the pure bliss of PCM goodness, and god only knows when they will stop monkeying around and get some hardware to support the HD compressed tracks. :confused:

Bahhh, sorry for the rant, glad that this was a Netflix and not a purchase, I’ll wait until this one is done again because this transfer just doesn’t cut the mustard.

Is it just me, or is the video quality of Usual Suspects absolutely terrible?

.....?

Is this a trick question?

No, absolutely serious. I don't know, maybe I am just numbed by the recent transfer qualities, but The Usual Suspects just was not good. Visible artifacts throughout the entire film (got a little better towards the end) and really soft colors in areas (especially blacks). I don't know but I was sorely disappointed with the video treatment of this release. Definitely didn't deserve a 4 star rating at highdef digest, in my opinion, more like a 2-2.5 star for video.

Maybe I'm crazy....... :confused:

Just popped it in after reading your post. Any scene I should look at in particular? Random stops look ok to me. Grainy, a little flat, but not too bad. American Psycho looks a touch better from what I have seen. Cutting it slack for age - no Crank here - the scenes I saw were 3.5ish. I don't think Highdef digest should be relied upon for its PQ score. Strikes me as his honest gut reaction to a film which, when I look at several films back to back, doesn't hold up to direct comparisons. Not bad but the tier list in this forum matches more closely my experience with PQ.

You are not crazy though :D

The transfer is only as good as the original source. I think the Usual Suspect was a low budget movie and it probably shows. I checked ...it cost $6 million to make.

Thanks for the response Humbert.

Seemed like a massive amount of white specks (artifacts) in the first 20-30 minutes of the film (line-up of the crew in the police station). I certainly can understand the occasional hair or dirt/dust speck for a film of this age, but my problem with this transfer is the compressions artifacts. Also, it seemed like towards the end of the film colors went totally flat and suffered noisy dark areas (elevator scene where McManus caps the two dudes in the elevator).

I dunno, I thought that even American Psycho was a better transfer in terms of picture quality, and Reservior Dogs is far superior in picture quality. This transfer (Usual Suspects) would rank down with "Knights Tale" or "House of the Flying Daggers", which needless to say is not good. Once again I am terribly upset, because this was an automatic buy for me pending the quality.

I just don't understand why Fox couldn't go back and turn this low budget film into a $100M production. :mad: Is that too much to ask?

:rolleyes:


I'm not asking for a $100M production, but a decent video transfer isn't too much to ask for in my opinion. I own both American Psycho and Reservior Dogs, which are similar in terms of age and production budgets, and the video qualities on both of these are superior to the Usual Suspects transfer.

The transfer is only as good as the original source. Unfortunately usually the transfers are a lot worse.

I think the Usual Suspect was a low budget movie and it probably shows.
It depends on what sort of problems you're seeing. A low budget movie might have been filmed on grainier film stock. If you think that film grain is a problem rather than a characteristic of the medium then you'd have a point here.

However, if you're talking about digital flaws - such as edge enhancement, filtering, noise reduction artefacts - then the processing that introduces these would actually cost MORE money.

I just watched it on my 62" Toshiba and have to say I disagree with your negative assessment. I thought it looked really, really good for a movie that age. I also barely noticed any grain or the white specs you describe. The colors were vibrant, as well. I was actually quite pleased.

I wouldn't hold your breath for a better transfer anytime soon. I think this is as good as it's going to get for The Usual Suspects for quite a while...and that's not a bad thing at all.

Just my 2 cents.

^hmmm

Maybe I'm off the mark on this one, I dunno. I'd like to hear from others that have seen this release.

I thought it looked really, really good for a movie that age.


:confused: :o

-Gary

I watched it the other day and I too found the movie to look quite good. I was very pleased with the picture quality given the age and budget of the movie.

I thought it looked almost on par with Reservior Dogs. Pretty good company.

The transfer is only as good as the original source. I think the Usual Suspect was a low budget movie and it probably shows. I checked ...it cost $6 million to make.

Out of all the Blu-ray apologists on this forum, you are without question the biggest. Congrats!

Out of all the Blu-ray apologists on this forum, you are without question the biggest. Congrats!
I gotta back you up here, the notion that low budget films automatically equals poor image quality is ridiculous.

Even mediocre film-stock is capable of gorgeous image quality, thats the beauty of film. Does it look great in every case? of course not, but automatically dismissing away mediocre transfers due to the films budget smacks of fanboyism.

I just got this yesterday from netflix and watched it last night. I give the Video 3.5 out of 5 stars. Some scenes were great others not so. I pulled out my SD DVD version that I own and compared. The BD version was hands down the winner. The bitrate for the SD version was in the 3-4Mbs and the BD version was in the 20-23Mbs range. Would love to pick this guy up at a sale or ebay in the near future.

Greetings,

I found image quality to be quite good. While certainly not reference, overall image quality was stable with no signs of compression related artifacts, debris or noise.

I will agree that not every scene exhibited crystal clear detail but I think that this was more related to the photography than to the transfer.

I am sorry that you feel let down but I was very pleased with it.


Regards,

Right on Ralph, I appreciate your opinion greatly.

Perhaps my senses are just too engaged with the mass amount of ultra-high quality transfers that I have watched recently (Flyboys, Departed, Crank, etc.). Not to say I didn't enjoy watching the BD rendition of this movie, but I was really hoping for a reference quality transfer on this one.

I gotta back you up here, the notion that low budget films automatically equals poor image quality is ridiculous.

Even mediocre film-stock is capable of gorgeous image quality, thats the beauty of film. Does it look great in every case? of course not, but automatically dismissing away mediocre transfers due to the films budget smacks of fanboyism.

Film does look great - but it's entirely possible that since it was a low budget film, it wasn't archived as well as some of the bigger budget ones, resulting in a lower quality master/print today, even though it may have been pristine when it was shot.

Just got done watching this for the first time, and IMO it is leaps and bounds better than the DVD. Looked plenty sharp to me.

Sucks. Best crime movie of all time :(

I watched this last night on 110", and I was very pleased with the image as well.
Sure, it's not Crank, but it's never gonna be.

Me like!
:)

Hey guys, quick update. I went back and made so modifications to my display's settings (turned sharpness down, turn brightness down, and contrast up) and Usual Suspects looked significantly better. Less digital noise, but still quite a few artifacts. I'd re-rate it at higher Teir2/lower Teir1

Hey guys, quick update. I went back and made so modifications to my display's settings (turned sharpness down, turn brightness down, and contrast up) and Usual Suspects looked significantly better. Less digital noise, but still quite a few artifacts. I'd re-rate it at higher Teir2/lower Teir1

There you go! Not sure it makes Tier 1, but it's definitely a decent transfer.

The transfer is only as good as the original source. I think the Usual Suspect was a low budget movie and it probably shows. I checked ...it cost $6 million to make.
Out of all the Blu-ray apologists on this forum, you are without question the biggest. Congrats!

For only $6 million, the only cinematographer they could afford was a guy who didn't know how to use a light meter, range finder, or f-stop.

I WIN!!! I'm now he biggest blu-ray apologist ever!!! Don't mess with me, buster!

:D

-Pie

Is it just me, or is the video quality of Usual Suspects absolutely terrible? Out of the 50+ BD titles that I have bought/rent, this transfer has the MOST artifacts I have ever seen. It’s like I can’t even enjoy the movie without being totally distracted by white specks filling each scene. Such a terrible shame, as this is my absolute favorite film of all time.

And in all honest I wish that studios would totally ditch the DTS-HD and DD-HD formats, the core tracks are total junk compared to the pure bliss of PCM goodness, and god only knows when they will stop monkeying around and get some hardware to support the HD compressed tracks. :confused:

Bahhh, sorry for the rant, glad that this was a Netflix and not a purchase, I’ll wait until this one is done again because this transfer just doesn’t cut the mustard.
Given how polite this thread has been (and that's a good thing), I imagine this didn't offend anybody's codec biases. Musta been MPEG2? :p

Seriously, if you could put some time codes and specific problems, that would be immensely helpful -- I learned this the hard way.

-Pie

OK, this film was shown on HDNet Movies a while ago and looked pretty good. Vastly superior to the DVD's in every way. So I fail to see how a BD release could not look at least as good as that HD version.

OK, this film was shown on HDNet Movies a while ago and looked pretty good. Vastly superior to the DVD's in every way. So I fail to see how a BD release could not look at least as good as that HD version.
Has anyone compared these? I have both but I don't want to open the BD (so I can return it) if it is not at least equal to the HDnet version.

Just got done watching this for the first time, and IMO it is leaps and bounds better than the DVD. Looked plenty sharp to me.

I agree....It's not a Tier 1 but I thought they did a good job with it. Marked improvement over the DVD.

I watched this last night on my 50" Sony XBR1 SXRD and did notice those white specks here & there. The transfer wasn't that bad for me, probably the best the movie has looked.

All films are bound to have artefacts and with the region 2 DVD special edition I can’t find a single dissatisfying fault.

The image is one of many best transfers from MGM/UA is razor sharp, tonally nice colours nicely balanced contrast is cool in the line-up sequence and brightness kept the darkly lit final fiasco in prefect perspective.

Sound is mostly dialogue orientated with good isolating of sound effects over the LCR when used. Stereo surrounds are sparely used as it’s mostly played over LCR. LFE.1 is also sparely used as most of the bass is covered by LCR and sometimes by the surrounds in different sequences throughout it running time.

Extras galore need I say more.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk123/IndianaJones34/TheUsualSuspectsDVD1.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk123/IndianaJones34/TheUsualSuspectsDVD2.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk123/IndianaJones34/TheUsualSuspectsDVD3.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk123/IndianaJones34/TheUsualSuspectsDVD4.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk123/IndianaJones34/TheUsualSuspectsDVD5.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk123/IndianaJones34/TheUsualSuspectsDVD6.jpg

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk123/IndianaJones34/TheUsualSuspectsDVD7.jpg

I’m listening to the audio commentary track with (John Ottman) at the present time, where he talks about the editing of the film in post. Some portions that where filmed had the wrong film gate in the camera.

White specks are NOT artifacts. They are most likely the result of dirt either on the camera negative or on an internegative, and would be present on any and all copies made from the negative (IOW, probably every release print, every video transfer, etc). Another (highly unlikely) possibility would be emulsion damage on the element used for mastering, but usually you will see scratches rather than only white specks.

If they are that annoying, then I would probably be looking closely at your display settings. Excessive sharpening, torch mode rather than properly calibrated display settings, etc will all make thiese type of issues look far worse on your display.

Yes, this type of damage can be corrected digitally, but it would be fairly costly to do so, and not every title can support the additional cost to do this.

Vern

Seemed like a massive amount of white specks (artifacts) in the first 20-30 minutes of the film (line-up of the crew in the police station). I certainly can understand the occasional hair or dirt/dust speck for a film of this age, but my problem with this transfer is the compressions artifacts.

As a fellow hater of print impurities I request you to exercise extreme caution before blindly purchasing catalog titles released by Universal.:(

The PAL R2 DVD of Usual Suspects is indeed superb, and is much better than the overly-compressed R1 SE. It's so good that I sold the Blu-ray, because that disc didn't offer a significant improvement and it also lacks the great extras, natch. The R2 DVD does lose the burnt-in captions, but it's a small price to pay.