Quote:
Originally Posted by benes /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/90#post_24363190
I understand its an extra step to slow it down when going from a studio format to a home format but once that's done does it really make a difference? There are plenty of other conversions that need to be done so I don't think this would be a big deal.
ATSC already supports both 23.976 and 24hz at every broadcast resolution. It just isn't used.
I have never heard of this before so you peaked my curiosity. This might be too off topic so we can continue the discussion elsewhere if needed.
I have seen it, so who are you talking to? Why do you assume that everybody who's commented about the obvious loss of detail, clearly seen in each one of the posted screen captures, hasn't seen the movie?
Also, you don't have to use all caps when posting... i can read lowercase just fine.
@Dion250
Thanks for providing those screens showing the 2k trailer encoded down to BD specs with x264. Hopefully that will put some peoples concerns to rest about it not being a fair comparison. The proof is right there to see with their own eyes... which some will undoubtedly dismiss and/or ignore, which is fine... but at least it's posted for people who do think BD's should look as good as the spec allows.
Quote:
Originally Posted by staindrocks /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/90#post_24363664
I have seen it, so who are you talking to? Why do you assume that everybody who's commented about the obvious loss of detail, clearly seen in each one of the posted screen captures, hasn't seen the movie?
Also, you don't have to use all caps when posting... i can read lowercase just fine.
@Dion250
Thanks for providing those screens showing the 2k trailer encoded down to BD specs with x264. Hopefully that will put some peoples concerns to rest about it not being a fair comparison. The proof is right there to see with their own eyes... which some will undoubtedly dismiss and/or ignore, which is fine... but at least it's posted for people who do think BD's should look as good as the spec allows.
I have to agree with staindrocks and Dion. Whether you think the BD is a disaster or not, I think Dion's screens show that it could have been MUCH better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ivanpino /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/50_50#post_24362705
Quote:
Originally Posted by mhafner /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/90#post_24361364
Theaters have the better digital source than any BD can be. That's a fact. Better contrast and black level is due to your projector, not the BD being superior to what the theater had or being a really good BD in general. Better detail at home means the projection at the theater sucked (for whatever reason out of several possible). Does not make the BD automatically a top one. With the given specs for it it won't be garbage, but neither on the quality level one would expect for a movie of that caliber. Beats me why WB can't put the supplements on a second disc, fill the discs and give us a no compromise version of this film. Their technical decisions are puzzling, to say the least. I think I'll skip this release and wait for the 4K BD. Till then I can rent the film.
No the projection at the theaters I saw it didn't suck as you think. So you're going to wait for a 4k version of a film that was shot in 2k? Good luck with that one.
Either the cinema actually showed more detail than the BD at home or projection there sucked. Inevitable conclusion from the fact they have a source with upto twice the spatial detail of a BD. Whether you remember that detail correctly and can actually reliably compare it to what you see at home is another issue.
Concerning 4K BD versus 1080p BD, yes the 4K BD can show significantly more detail than the current offering from WB since it can accommodate full 2K resolution (minus compression losses) unlike today's BDs. Nobody said it would have 4K resolution. Coming from a 2K DI this is indeed impossible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Hitchman /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/100_50#post_24363028
Quote:
Originally Posted by benes /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/90#post_24362980
Hmm what exactly do you mean by that? Are you talking about a future 4K home format? Why would it be 24p and what advantage does that give over 23.976?
One of the recommendations for UHD is to use whole frames like the cinema has used forever rather than the old school video frame formats based on outdated NTSC broadcasting technology. A film or video shot at 24 fps doesn't have to be converted to 23.97, a video shot at 30 fps doesn't need to be converted to 29.97, etc. This keeps everything as shot and in perfect sync and no need for a source slow-down to sync time code. The would also be no need to use 2:3 pulldown to go from 24 to 30 when broadcasting... just send it in its native rate.
24 fps to 23.97 should have no effect on image quality at all. The images are simply played a bit slower. Sound is affected though since it needs to be resampled and pitch corrected. Not ideal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rahzel /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/90#post_24363982
I have to agree with staindrocks and Dion. Whether you think the BD is a disaster or not, I think Dion's screens show that it could have been MUCH better.
I agree myself, but that's not my point. There are so many factors to take into account here. Most trailers are usually made way before the film is even complete. So why are we trying to compare them to actual transfer that was probably approved by Cauron himself. As I stated before and I will again. I saw it multiple times and I clearly remember many shots that were soft. If anything comes from that trailer its that its not being faithful to the actual source.
Its foolish to think that a trailer is to be used as reference for a final transfer. Just foolish.
What's easier to believe
A. The trailer is what this transfer should be like (probably made much much earlier than when the movie was finished.)
or B. A transfer made from a final master that was surely supervised by the director himself.
Could it have looked better? Maybe? Does this mean the transfer is a disaster as its being out to be here? Absolutely not. Note even close.
I could use the 5.1 as an example. Could the sound have been better in 7.1? Probably. Is the sound mix a disaster? No
Please stop the nonsense and using words as disaster to describe this transfer. That's what bothers me. Misinformation....
Quote:
Originally Posted by ivanpino /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/90#post_24365270
Most trailers are usually made way before the film is even complete. So why are we trying to compare them to actual transfer that was probably approved by Cauron himself. As I stated before and I will again. I saw it multiple times and I clearly remember many shots that were soft. If anything comes from that trailer its that its not being faithful to the actual source.
Its foolish to think that a trailer is to be used as reference for a final transfer. Just foolish.
The trailer was made beforehand and it shows signs of not being entirely finished; colors look different, there's some shading here and there that's not found on the Blu-ray. However, as reference material goes, it's pretty good. It shows you very clearly the grain structure and details being a lot more vibrant than that of the Blu-ray. It can safely be assumed that whatever source was being used to make the trailer looks a lot better than what we're getting on home media. It's not foolish at all and I advise you to compare the screenshots once more. It's naive to think the Blu-ray is supposed to look the way it does; it's only a result of poor encoding decisions and a will to crank down the bitrate enough to fit more extras. WB uses the same encodes for their worldwide distribution, as such the Blu-ray for the other markets are gonna need more audio dubs and subtitles to fit the consumers overseas.
As for the transfer being overseen by the director I highly doubt it. I don't remember that being mentioned anywhere. If it was director approved then WB would make every effort to boast about that fact. The director might have had some input on the act of downmixing the audio, but that doesn't mean he was involved in the process of transferring the video.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gaphavet /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/90#post_24365362
The trailer was made beforehand and it shows signs of not being entirely finished; colors look different, there's some shading here and there that's not found on the Blu-ray. However, as reference material goes, it's pretty good. It shows you very clearly the grain structure and details being a lot more vibrant than that of the Blu-ray. It can safely be assumed that whatever source was being used to make the trailer looks a lot better than what we're getting on home media. It's not foolish at all and I advise you to compare the screenshots once more. It's naive to think the Blu-ray is supposed to look the way it does; it's only a result of poor encoding decisions and a will to crank down the bitrate enough to fit more extras. WB uses the same encodes for their worldwide distribution, as such the Blu-ray for the other markets are gonna need more audio dubs and subtitles to fit the consumers overseas.
As for the transfer being overseen by the director I highly doubt it. I don't remember that being mentioned anywhere. If it was director approved then WB would make every effort to boast about that fact. The director might have had some input on the act of downmixing the audio, but that doesn't mean he was involved in the process of transferring the video.
Because the extras and the rest of the Blu-ray take up 21GB. Add in the aforementioned regional supplements and the fact that most BD's come with a couple of GB's of headroom (Don't know why though)
What I would propose to Warner, and I believe others have touched on it as well, is this: leave the movie on its own disc. Put all extras on a secondary disc. You keep bundling BD's with DVD's and that's fine but it's 2014 and if you want the DVD because you lack the hardware for BD then buy the DVD standalone.
According to WB's track record though, that's never gonna happen and we're stuck with a BD with subpar image quality (compared to what we can safely assume it can look like)
It's also very possible that Warner, seeing the huge global response to this movie (though, for the life of me I don't know why), is going to put out a super-deluxe version towards the holiday season. Perhaps that's why they dropped a lot of features and squeezed the film's bitrate like an orange.
They've done stuff like this with The Lord of the Rings, another big hit for Warner.
No, we've already established the fact that the details and grain of the trailer can be kept relatively intact when encoded with x264 at the same bitrates as that on the Blu-ray.
I thought this was shot predominantly on Alexa cameras?
Therefore 'grain of the trailer' means nothing, when there wouldn't be any grain in the first place.
Comparing one possibly unfinished, digitally photographed/timed, etc, set of images, to the actual home video, would be futile, regardless of Warner did or didn't do for the BD release.
Show me proof, that the theatrical release looked identical to the trailer and then we'll talk.
90% of the movie wasn't shot but created digitally. Only the actor's faces and movements inside space stations etc were shot on Alexa's, the rest is the effort of Framestore and the collective rendering from a medium sized datacenter. There aren't any alternative cuts of the movie, the storyline and what you see was pre-programmed, pre-vis'd and animated over several years. Every speck of grain that you saw in the cinema's were intentionally made. It's possible the trailer is from an unfinished batch of renders, I doubt it though. Grain-wise, I believe the trailer is what you would see in the cinema, or at least close to that of the master, and assuming (with a high degree of certainty) that this is the case, then WB has no excuse for pushing out this mess of a release considering the PQ of the source material they have at hand.
Call me a nitpicker if you want, but watching the first part of the trailer it looks a lot more immersive, there's more structure in the motions of the grain. It looks more real!
Wrong, just because it was shot digitally doesn't mean the picture will be completely clean. Alexa material normally has a grain/noise structure just like anything from film. In addition it's pretty much a 100% certainty that they added grain on top of all the VFX (or even the entire thing depending on how it was composited), because that's how things are done (usually to match the CG to what was shot in-camera, to make it more filmlike, to break up the CG-ness of it etc.)
Not to mention that the compression artifacts on the Blu-ray are clearly a result of trying (poorly) to compress said grain. If the source image had been completely clean the result wouldn't have been this noisy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Hitchman /t/1510560/gravity-2d-3d-feb-25/90#post_24362217
One reason I can see they released Gravity with a 5.1 mix rather than 7.1 is so when they release a 4k version with the (maybe) DTS-UHD object surround codec based off the Dolby Atmos mix it will sound so much more AMAZING!!! Some studios start pulling this less than stellar transfer stuff (lower bitrate, smaller disc size, dropping features left and right) right before a major new format, so the new format seems that much better.
One thing about Gravity, though I didn't think the story or acting was all that great, was the Atmos mix. It was off the hook compared to normal channel-based 5.1 and 7.1 mixes. They pulled main off-screen dialog (what little there was) into specific surround speakers which gave a lot more realism to the positioning of people and objects within a specific scene environment, besides all the swirling 3D sound effects of radio transmissions and other things. It was really well done, for the most part. I can only hope that consumer object based surround recaptures that same 3D feeling.
There is no way they could have done it like what I heard in Atmos utilizing all the battery of wall and ceiling surround speakers as individual point source locations for effects and dialog. IMAX is still only 5.1 and channel-based. They have no audio system like Dolby Atmos. Literally, Atmos can become an up to 64 "channel" system. It's extremely 3D in nature.
A lower video encode bit rate means almost nothing for this title because so much of the image throughout the movie is black. And, every review I've read (by someone that actually has the Blu-ray in-hand) has given the image quality either 4.5 or 5 stars (out of 5).
I'm not worried.
If you want to see problems with a release, just watch 'All Is Lost' and watch for banding. UGH!!
Mark
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