How is the picture quality in the Departed? I'm about to go and purchase, just wondered what to expect.

Very good.

There are lots of threads on this, you can use the search feature to find them. Also there is a Tier thread that is stickied at the top of this forum that ranks PQ of HD DVDs look there also to find what you are looking for.

I thought it looked very good. In the opening scene, a young Colin Sullivan's blue eyes just POP right off the screen!

Just don't get the DVD if you can help it.

I just watched it on an 84" screen, it looks very nice.

It looks flawless.

Ive only seen the BD, but to be honest, I found it to be slightly soft in comparison to other movies ( I cant recall if it was like that in theaters. ) Being that its the same VC-1 encode from your discs, I find it difficult to label it "Flawless"

Ive only seen the BD, but to be honest, I found it to be slightly soft in comparison to other movies ( I cant recall if it was like that in theaters. ) Being that its the same VC-1 encode from your discs, I find it difficult to label it "Flawless"

I too have only watched the BD, and it definitely did not look flawless. It looks quite soft to me, like several other Warner releases.

There's nothing wrong with the VC-1 encoding. The "flaws" you see are either on the digital master or the movie wasn't made to look like HDTV video.

larry

I would say it looked flawless as well. Great movie too.

There's nothing wrong with the VC-1 encoding. The "flaws" you see are either on the digital master or the movie wasn't made to look like HDTV video.

larry

Have you seen the master?

Just don't get the DVD if you can help it.

OMG You are so right, I popped in the DVD side into my up converter in my bedroom since I loaned out my X-Box add on. It was shimmering something fierce. I thought I was going to start spazing out. Their really should be an epilepsy warning on the DVD side.

Ive only seen the BD, but to be honest, I found it to be slightly soft in comparison to other movies ( I cant recall if it was like that in theaters. ) Being that its the same VC-1 encode from your discs, I find it difficult to label it "Flawless"

How is softness a flaw. Posterization and banding = Flaws. Compression Artifacts = Flaws. Dirt and film drop outs = Flaws. Hell for the sake of being fair EE = Flaws. Since when did not being as sharp as you may have expected suddenly become a flaw.

It is an excellent transfer. Without seeing the master I will not say it is flawless but it is top notch, at least on a 50" screen.

How is the picture quality in the Departed? I'm about to go and purchase, just wondered what to expect.

Most titles even new ones have some discussion about PQ and AQ. These are the threads to check first before starting a thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=705387


Here is a list of review sites:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=709133

Both of the above threads linked are sticky's at the top of this forum.


Here are some existing threads on the topic:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=804954

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=805925

There were others too that discussed PQ, but it wasn't referenced in the title.

I thought it was good. Due to the subject matter, I think there was an approach taken that did not make the picture POP that greatly.

The look was good and solid with nice detail. Needless to say, the blood did pop !

How is softness a flaw. Posterization and banding = Flaws. Compression Artifacts = Flaws. Dirt and film drop outs = Flaws. Hell for the sake of being fair EE = Flaws. Since when did not being as sharp as you may have expected suddenly become a flaw.

It can be a flaw if the image was smoothed over via processing to help with compression.

it's outstanding, however perhaps a computer generated giant green monster dodging missiles would have kept it from appearing "soft" ;)

I wouldn't say it looked flawless, at least not on my set. I definately saw a couple of instances of blocking on solid color backgrounds. I think both were in the apartment of Leo's love interest.

However, the transfer was not soft. It was very sharp, and with the exception of maybe 4-5 scattered seconds in the film where I saw a few digital artifacts, it was flawless.

...although (*spoiler*) when Jack does that amazing transformation into RATMAN without the aid of CGI it was pretty spectacular!

If this isn't a reference of what film should look like on HD, I've got no idea what the hell's going on... The flick looked better on my set than most of the theatrical presentations I've seen over the last year. It may appear "softer" than, say Ice Age, but if it's come to that to determine quality images, we're screwed.

The picture quality is exellent, really good disc.

It can be a flaw if the image was smoothed over via processing to help with compression.

Or to eliminate grain and noise.

We watched this one over the weekend (110" screen) it looked excellent!!!

Unfortunatly this is the only HD DVD I ordered for this month, first time thats happened since launch, hopefully they'll start actually having more title releases soon.... :(

When I think of the word "flawless" I am looking for transparency to the master. I NEVER SAID that it was due to the compression. I mentioned compression because both HD-DVD and BD have the same transfer. I also qualified my comment, saying that I dont recall the look of the theatrical release, where it might well have looked that way.

My point is - if I were to show off BD to a friend(or HD-DVD) for that matter), I would not pull this disc out.

excellent pq movie is a must buy :)

When I think of the word "flawless" I am looking for transparency to the master. I NEVER SAID that it was due to the compression. I mentioned compression because both HD-DVD and BD have the same transfer. I also qualified my comment, saying that I dont recall the look of the theatrical release, where it might well have looked that way.

My point is - if I were to show off BD to a friend(or HD-DVD) for that matter), I would not pull this disc out.

Huh, we're different, go figure! :)

... what disc -would- you pull out? I'm kinda nuts, as the film that made me buy a player wasn't Serenity (looked like plastic crap, better plastic crap then the DVD version to be sure, but looked like plastic crap) but Unforgiven (by no means pristine, but as good as I've ever seen -film- look at my home.)

Departed is -exactly- the type of film that shines on HD, where even SD can do a pretty bang up job with the DI/CGI'd flicks out there methinks.... It's in the subtlety of image, colour gradiation, dimensionality of image, etc. where it shines for me.

Still, the joy of this all is that you can have other discs to whip out and wow friends instead (Hulk's fun for that...although I usually use the dino scene in Kong...:) )

While I dont consider it my best, Crank seems to be the layman's favorite (lets keep that from becoming a flame war about EE and oversaturation if we can and stay on point). For people with a discriminating eye, I tend to go for Black Hawk Down or Kingdom of Heaven.

While I dont consider it my best, Crank seems to be the layman's favorite (lets keep that from becoming a flame war about EE and oversaturation if we can and stay on point). For people with a discriminating eye, I tend to go for Black Hawk Down or Kingdom of Heaven.

Yes, all of those look good. The Departed doesn't.

huh.

BHD and KoH I haven't seen on BD, of course, but that crazy, unsaturated Ridley Scott thing doesn't do it for me...

Patrick, I'm not looking for a fight here, but you're actually claiming that Departed looks -bad- ?

Crank's shot in HD, so I also don't think it's a fair comparison (it -better- look like pristine HD).

Film, unless it's been DI'd all to hell, doesn't have the same sense of specularity, clarity, etc., but it does have (often) a more pleasing palate and more naturalistic focal range (I'm not getting into a film vs. video thing here, but you'll no doubt agree that capturing on film and presenting on video is still very different than shooting straight to 24p).

Out of curiosity are there any flicks that haven't been reprocessed considerably that you enjoy on your format of choice? Something like an Unforgiven, or Searchers (I think it's on BD now), or even Casino (if you have the HD version)?

Have you seen the master?
No, but I've seen enough movies made on film to know how they can look for various reasons. And I've seen enough SD DVDs to see how they shouldn't look for various reasons. :) So far, I've yet to see people point out VC-1 encoding artifacts or errors. If you think you see some, post the timestamps so we can take a look.

That being said, I'm not convinced that the digital transfer was perfect. I didn't see the movie in the theater so I can't say what processing was done making the film. I did see what might have been ringing on the HD-DVD but wasn't pronouced until you saw the same scenes on the SD DVD where there was some ringing. However, whatever softness or graniess you see and don't like is problaby inherent from how the film was made. Nothing I've seen so far seems to indicate the the encoding of HD-DVDs (or BDs for that matter) vary wrt quality during the movie. I could be wrong and if so, I'd like somebody who knows to explain why.


larry

huh.

BHD and KoH I haven't seen on BD, of course, but that crazy, unsaturated Ridley Scott thing doesn't do it for me...

Patrick, I'm not looking for a fight here, but you're actually claiming that Departed looks -bad- ?

Crank's shot in HD, so I also don't think it's a fair comparison (it -better- look like pristine HD).

Film, unless it's been DI'd all to hell, doesn't have the same sense of specularity, clarity, etc., but it does have (often) a more pleasing palate and more naturalistic focal range (I'm not getting into a film vs. video thing here, but you'll no doubt agree that capturing on film and presenting on video is still very different than shooting straight to 24p).

Out of curiosity are there any flicks that haven't been reprocessed considerably that you enjoy on your format of choice? Something like an Unforgiven, or Searchers (I think it's on BD now), or even Casino (if you have the HD version)?

I wouldn't go so far as to say The Departed looks bad. It just looks mediocre. I was disappointed that such a high profile title would look so mediocre.

I think Seabiscuit looks great. I pick that one as an example based on your criteria, and the fact that it sounds like you may be HD DVD only. I think the facial close-ups in Hulk are spectacular looking. Would you say they have been reprocessed considerably?

I haven't seen Unforgiven. I watched a small bit of The Searchers, and it looked very nice.

No, but I've seen enough movies made on film to know how they can look for various reasons. And I've seen enough SD DVDs to see how they shouldn't look for various reasons. :) So far, I've yet to see people point out VC-1 encoding artifacts or errors. If you think you see some, post the timestamps so we can take a look.

That being said, I'm not convinced that the digital transfer was perfect. I didn't see the movie in the theater so I can't say what processing was done making the film. I did see what might have been ringing on the HD-DVD but wasn't pronouced until you saw the same scenes on the SD DVD where there was some ringing. However, whatever softness or graniess you see and don't like is problaby inherent from how the film was made. Nothing I've seen so far seems to indicate the the encoding of HD-DVDs (or BDs for that matter) vary wrt quality during the movie. I could be wrong and if so, I'd like somebody who knows to explain why.


larry

No, I am not claiming I saw any artifacts. It may well be that the softness I see is in the source material. Whatever the cause, the result for me is the same: less than outstanding PQ.

Well, there are many non DI/processed films on BD (I see my HD-DVDs at my friends) that I enjoy such as Rambo, but I dont really revere them for their image quality. As for non-processed image quality, i really enjoyed the Great Raid.

cool... I think we can all agree, however, that in this age of HD it's often our responses to the Cinematography and choices involved in the generation of the HD master rather than problems with the disc encoding itself (there are, of course, major exceptions to this).

I wonder what your thoughts of a film like Departed would have been if you start a/b'ing at your local multiplex.

I haven't seen Seabiscuit (saw it in theatres, that was enough) but I'll take your word that it's a fine presentation, might be worth a recheck for that alone...

As for Rambo, I thought the First Blood print was supposed to be in poor shape, no? But, yeah, if you're worried about the PQ of a murky film like that you're missing the point - as long as it looks like film, and not some swimmy mess of an MPEG SD DVD presentation, you're golden...

cool... I think we can all agree, however, that in this age of HD it's often our responses to the Cinematography and choices involved in the generation of the HD master rather than problems with the disc encoding itself (there are, of course, major exceptions to this).

I wonder what your thoughts of a film like Departed would have been if you start a/b'ing at your local multiplex.

I haven't seen Seabiscuit (saw it in theatres, that was enough) but I'll take your word that it's a fine presentation, might be worth a recheck for that alone...

As for Rambo, I thought the First Blood print was supposed to be in poor shape, no? But, yeah, if you're worried about the PQ of a murky film like that you're missing the point - as long as it looks like film, and not some swimmy mess of an MPEG SD DVD presentation, you're golden...

I really dislike Seabiscuit as a movie, so it's hard to watch for that reason, but the PQ is definitely outstanding.

The Rambo movies are really not something I am very much interested in, so I have no experience with that.

I am giving The Departed special attention because it is such a prominent title for so many reasons.

$10 it wins best picture...

A funny, if slightly OT story... I missed seeing Infernal Affairs when it played in Toronto, and I decided to wait to see it -after- The Departed. I looked on Azn for the price, and I noticed something familiar about the cover... a quick search through my DVD profiler, and I OWN THE DAMN MOVIE!

Sad when you don't even know what you've got in your collection...sigh.

In my defence, it was a title that I got from the studio, so it's not like I -paid- for it and then forgot...:)

FWIW #2, I watched IA yesterday, and while of course the Departed owes the core of its story to the original, and there are a couple nice alusions to it by Scorsese (anybody here use the same Mackintosh system as Damon?), I think that Marty's pic is far and away the better vision of that story. (*spoiler*) The inclusion of Walberg's character, for one, totally -makes- that film, and while the original gets bogged down with procedure and intrigue, Scorsese's film launches like a rocket, and doesn't quit 'till the end. If anything, the tale is more Shakespearian in Scorsese's hands, more epic, more philosophical... I can't say enough about the flick, by far his best since Casino and an absolute pleasure to watch.

Plus, of course, the PQ is fantastic too... :)

cool... I think we can all agree, however, that in this age of HD it's often our responses to the Cinematography and choices involved in the generation of the HD master rather than problems with the disc encoding itself (there are, of course, major exceptions to this).



Couldnt agree more. Except in sound. Give me that 7.1 channel PCM!




As for Rambo, I thought the First Blood print was supposed to be in poor shape, no? But, yeah, if you're worried about the PQ of a murky film like that you're missing the point - as long as it looks like film, and not some swimmy mess of an MPEG SD DVD presentation, you're golden...

I see how I wasn't clear about that. I meant to say, when it comes to movies like that, im not all to concerned with the eye candy and instead enjoy the narrative. That said, we are talking about PQ here and I digressed calling it "enjoyment" without explanation.

ah, look... we have come together to agree...:)

Departed, imo, looks wonderful, but few, I think, would discredit it as a film. Marty's the man, again, and it almost makes me forget such crap as Bringing out the Dead and After Hours...

eesh. :)

It can be a flaw if the image was smoothed over via processing to help with compression.

That makes an assumption not a fact. I just don't understand this feeling everyone seems to have that every movie was recorded exactly like Hulk and anything that doesn't is then a bad transfer. Departed was never going to be an eye candy movie and to say that its not a good transfer because you don't like the sharpness.

I Really think this sharp vs. soft debate is the most worthless of all things people complain about. Why is it every single movie has 3-4 guys that come in and say it looks soft?

I find it amusing how so many BD supporters are claiming the picture was "soft" and blaming it on the VC-1 codec. I thought the film looked excellent on HD-DVD. Maybe it isn't the codec and is the format that is showing so poorly on BD.

I've watched both on HD DVD & BD

Toshiba HD-A2 (will be replace with HD-XA2): HD Video (10/10), DOLBY TrueHD (10/10)
Sony PS3/60GB: HD Video (9/10), Uncompressed PCM (10/10)

Using HDMI and Toslink on 37" 1080p Sharp AQUOS LC-37D90U F/P LCD HDTV.

Even though I rated the Audio 10's...BD's Uncompressed PCM is much more bolder, crisp.

Since this is actually a current conversation, I will mirror some comments from elsewhere.

I though it looked really good, except for 1 scene.

In the beginning after the rugby game, Colin and some other kat (don't remember right now) were sitting on a bench in front of the capitol building. On both shots here the gold on the rooftop shows the most HORRID compression artifacts, like big blocky mosquito noise. I have NEVER seen this in any of my HD DVDs, and I don't have the HD DVD of this one to compare to so I don't know if its the transfer or the PS3 - which is supposed to be the best BD player out.

There were NO PROBLEMS AT ALL with the rest of the movie. I never saw 1 other bit of artifacting, in fact even in ALL THE OTHER SHOTS with the capitol, it didn't have the same problem.

Can anyone cue it up and see if they see what I see?

I am actually tempted to Netflix the HD DVD to see if its there - I don't remember it from the theaters, but I could be wrong.

6:05 - 6:08

6:10 - 6:12

brywalker,

Just for the hell of it, I decided to put the Reservoir Dogs BD on pause and check out the time frame you mentioned on The Departed HD DVD. I'm viewing this on the xbox 360 w/add on and the outdoor scenes you reference look perfect.

There are no flaws at all on those scenes.

Just for the record, out of my 4 star system for pq (who needs the tier system, lol) , I give The Departed a perfect 4. This transfer on HD DVD looks better than the print I watched on its opening weekend.

brywalker,

Just for the hell of it, I decided to put the Reservoir Dogs BD on pause and check out the time frame you mentioned on The Departed HD DVD. I'm viewing this on the xbox 360 w/add on and the outdoor scenes you reference look perfect.

There are no flaws at all on those scenes.


Not good....

Here are the best 2 comparison pics I could get.

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/6589/capitol1pd6.th.jpg (http://img511.imageshack.us/my.php?image=capitol1pd6.jpg)
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/7145/capitol2tc8.th.jpg (http://img511.imageshack.us/my.php?image=capitol2tc8.jpg)

You can see the artifacts are different (not so much here) but in motion it looks TERRIBLE. I tried it on 1080i and 1080p (wondering if it was a processing issue) and it looks the same both times.

Looks like I backed the wrong horse this time around. I wanted the PCM audio and it was $5 cheaper. I wonder what the deal is.

Like I said, NO PROBLEMS with any of the rest of the film, other shots with the capitol look fine - just these 2.

I've watched both on HD DVD & BD

Toshiba HD-A2 (will be replace with HD-XA2): HD Video (10/10), DOLBY TrueHD (10/10)
Sony PS3/60GB: HD Video (9/10), Uncompressed PCM (10/10)

Using HDMI and Toslink on 37" 1080p Sharp AQUOS LC-37D90U F/P LCD HDTV.

Even though I rated the Audio 10's...BD's Uncompressed PCM is much more bolder, crisp.

And do you see any differences in the video between the BD and HD DVD versions?

I'm looking fwd to this movie, as comes out here in aus in 3 weeks. :) which is good for us considering Serenity just came out ! :)

New review here (http://www.hd-world.net/reviewDEPARTEDdvd.html)

One of the best PQ in HD-DVD and I'm only watching it on 1080i with my XA2.