U-571 comparison *PIX* - Page 3

in this case we can come close, Widescreen Review did a write up where they compared the U-571 D-Theater tape to the studio master both on a Sony G90 CRT projector, the D-Theater did very very well being indistinguishable at many times, the HD-DVD was a complete wash with the D-Theater in all the comparisons I did and as you can see in these grabs, the BD does not equal them at all due to grain removal, that is the whole complaint here

-Gary

Exactly right...Sony needs to get on top of this before it's too late. CE3K is still IMO one of the best looking discs available but many forum posters and reviewers bashed it's video quality because they didn't like the "grainy" picture .

While I honestly don't care if you bash me to bits I think you should really think about what you say when it comes to Robert. He has the credentials and chops that most here only could dream of and is VERY well respected in this industry. His restoration work and knowledge on film are a testament to this.

It is easy to take the anonymous route and proclaim how right you are and how wrong others are but at the end of the day I doubt you would hold a candle to someone like Robert in terms of knowledge or integrity in this business.

Poor showing

I do agree some people are being harsh on Mr. Harris but the thing is....pictures don't lie and these screencaps show that the BD version has been given an inferior encode with some sort of "grain removal" tool.

I appreciate Mr. Harris' work on many projects but he unfortunately didn't detect the flaws in this disc. People make mistakes and this won't take away any of his integrity

The bottom line is that Xylon has shown scientific evidence that trumps any of Mr. Harris' credentials when it comes to detecting visual issues. Almost no one noticed these issues beforehand anyways and it was only when the caps were posted that people were able to see the problem.

Mr. Harris is not making statements to the affect of X is better than Y though. He is making a statement as to whether the title looks good and he is entitled to that opinion. The disc actually does look good too, though not quite as detailed as the predecessors.

If he had made a claim saying something to the point that the BD was vastly superior to the D-Theater or HD DVD, that would be something else. But he never made that comparison.

Evidently the people involved with this encode thought the BD looked better as well since space was not an issue. The question is, what would the majority of consumers think if you did an A/B? In the end, that is the ONLY thing that Universal is going to care about. You can bet anything on that.

+1. It's been scientifically proven that Mummy 1, 2 and U-571 got inferior video treatment on Blu-ray over the HD DVD. Experts not detecting such discernible quality control issues proves the point that they are also human beings who are bound to commit mistakes and even offer technical recommendations for such products. One doesn't need to be involved in film making or restoration to point out defects in a product that's already been rolled out to consumers. [Examples. POTC framing error, Fifth Element]

1) http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...1-blu-ray.html


2) http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...m-blu-ray.html


3) http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...s-blu-ray.html


4) http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...9-blu-ray.html


5) http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...r-blu-ray.html


6) http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...racula-bd.html


7) http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...op-gun-hd.html


8) http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...efinition.html

I guess I should've been more specific. There's no question that Robert is a film god and is highly knowledgable when it comes to handling and restoring film, but if you look at his history of reviewing HD material you can't help but notice how wildly inconsistent and just plain goofy he has been. Really no better than some of the "reviewers" on certain websites.

Thanks for reminding the world what a cesspool AVS has become. You guys are all class.

The most puzzling thing I've seen from him is this little ditty.

Ok even if End of Days is a decent transfer. How many people would describe it like that? To be honest even without seeing the BD I would recommend people against it. I mean come on... End of Days??

Not bashing, it's just... End of Days? The movie itself is kind of a 'down side'. ROFL.

Perhaps going BD50 wasn't an option. You can look at the size and conclude that porting the existing encode to a BD25 was not possible.

In that case some grain reduction maight have been the only way to go.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...1-blu-ray.html

Check out the replies to the empirical data efforts put by Xylon. Shows how easy it is to lurk, defame post/posters and cultivate an anti-AVS mentality in one go, despite scientifically proving the bad characteristics of the Blu-ray transfer. It's a shame on people from other forums to just peep into useful threads like these, hideously skip the purchase and continue to trash talk about AVS.




U-571 may be recommended for bottom Tier-2 placement in the eye candy thread but members who blindly follow expert's incorrect assessments will just chime in and say "Hey, you guys have no idea what you are talking about. Experts have given highest recommendation, so place it next to I,Robot."

Picture Quality review from HTF

I like this one
the detail is still gone, moving or not detail has been wiped away. The best part about Xylons work is that it's easy to see this will be a trend with UNi. Although I must admit, at least they aren't going overboard with it. They could have easily cranked up the DNR knob and destroyed it.

Judging from the caps it's not completely terrible. But U-571 didn't need any sort of cleaning.

I think the problem is with the freaking shmoe test groups they use. Why don't they provide a primer. Or make it a selling point "Resolution so great - you can see the metallic flakes on the actual film"

If you look back at Xylon's caps, there is some dirt in the HD DVD and D-Theater images. When Uni created the "new" master for BD they managed to remove the marks but they obviously have the DNR knob in the ON position all the time...that's what bothers me.

On some discs (like End of Days if I'm not mistaken) they do a direct port of the HD DVD with the natural film quality still intact...but whenever they do a new master it seems to be guaranteed that it will have DNR applied to some extent.

I went Gary's route and bought all the HD DVD Universal titles I was interested in since image quality matters more to me than AQ and the BD releases are losing many of the great extras. The Thing BD missing the documentary is a huge disappointment.

Holy crap, and I was just about to get rid of my Universal HD DVDs. Dammit, why do these studios ALWAYS have to mess things up?

There in lies the problem.....The longer shots are where HD really makes a difference or is supposed to make a difference but if they filter it with DNR then we lose the reason for buying some of these titles in HD because normal DVD can look very good with closeups and medium shots and it was the long shots where DVD suffered big time. I am not for one moment saying U-571 is no better than a DVD release i am saying that Universal doing this to their releases does not encourage me or some others to upgrade their old DVD releases which i think the studio wants us all to do otherwise the format fails.

The problem for me is that they have already shown they can do their films justice on the HD DVD format so why are they "cleaning" the release up with more DNR ? Do they think the average age of the Blu Ray owner is younger and plays videogames more and likes a clean videogame type look ? Is that what the market research has shown ? Is that the reason for trying to achieve a smoother less grainy look ? Could the studio's be doing this deliberately in order to make us all double dip with a superior version later down the road.....I wouldn't rule out the latter.

I realise the average Joe in the street will be totally unaware of any issues and will pick these titles up but i can't help feeling that the studio's are alienating the very people who helped push the format in the first place and that's the first time buyer enthusiast who hangs out at forums like this. I know i am starting to get more than a little annoyed with what is passing for HD these days....I wonder if Red Dragon which was a reference transfer on HD DVD will also get the smooth treatment......

Worse yet The Thing comes out just in time for my birthday and they have obviously already produced that disc and i fear the worst for it.

They could at least have applied some EE to sharpen up the pictures after using the DNR button.

I don't get it - how could it ever be not possible to use a BD50?

I would guess that a BD50 may cost more and possibly take longer to get a production run scheduled. Universal may have decided to try and fit what they can on BD25s for some of these "less important" catalog titles.

And I have a feeling that that is what this is all about - it may be less of them wanting to "clean up" the image and more of them trying to find a way to shrink down the file size. When has Universal ever gone out of their way to do extra work on an HD catalog title? In this case, they had the motiviation of possibly lowering their production costs by getting it onto a BD25 (while adding DTS-MA).

I'd guess Universal is going to pump out stuff along the lines of Sony at launch. If it's possible to squeeze a title onto a BD25, they are gonna do it. And, as many have noted, one easy way to do that is to filter out HF info...

A good way to tell how butchered "The Thing" might be is to see how much space was used on the HD-DVD. If it was close to 30GB and it's being dumped on to a BD25 (I can't recall if it is), I'd say get prepared....

From HTF:


So according to RAH we should just ignore these DNRed titles and hopefully the studios will eventually find their way. Attacking these releases will just get the studios angrier and we wouldn't want that. Jaws, Jurassic Park, and the Back to the Future Trilogy could get waxed!

I guess that's that then. Everyone move along, there's nothing to see here. All is well. It will pass. Xylon, no more threads, you troublemaker.

Although I have the utmost respect for Mr Harris' knowledge of handling and restoring physical film, I suspect that is where his expertise lies. Anyone with experience or knowledge can easily see the digital degradation here.

It's really pathetic Universal would do this, they've always been the worst studio for catalogue/fully telecine sourced releases and I thought a change of format would (somehow) make them better, not worse.

What an interesting statement from Mr. Harris.

Yeah I was a little surprised by that post he made. I respect him but man, that was odd and a little contradictory of what he has been saying for the last few months. I wonder if this was a film he likes if he'd have the same thoughts on the dnr issue...

I understand that on this title and mummy returns that the DNR isn't THAT bad compared to Patton and others but the fact remains it didn't need to be done and the hd dvd versions are proof it could look better without it so why do it?

To say people should just shrug their shoulders is IMO lame since I have NEVER seen any human quit doing something without being asked/pressured to do it. Why people think studios will magically stop the DNR stuff without being criticized for it is beyond me.

It is sad that here we are, in 2008 and the common mentality of the human species is a "whatever" or "I don't care" approach which can be seen everywhere really. I DO agree that people shouldn't want to burn a studio for something like this but again, why is talking about it and being upset bad? I continue to go back to early DVD days when the complaint was of non-anamorphic discs being released.

There is no doubt the complaints helped change that so why do some find the DNR complaint issue so bad? Why do some who do not care get so upset at those who do care? At worst nothing changes. At best studios quit this and you get a better product. Let the "dnr whiners" have their say and go enjoy the product and hopefully the "whiners" will get enough say to provide you with a better product. Sheesh.

Oh and xylon is the devil. I am so glad we have a xylon out there to do this stuff and it is pathetic some criticize him for doing something useful that helps everyone....I guess those people love the tagline "ignorance is bliss" I for one do not.

We strongly feel that you should stop making such illogical comments as Studios are definitely looking into forums and ordering more grain sucking machineries.

I noticed this with dvdbeaver's comparison and this waxy picture

Would love to see what the D-theater looks like

Well, Kram already sensed DNR and posted here.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post14490045.

In-fact he was the first one to spot DNR and comment about it and it's a shame on people at the other forums to attack him for speaking the truth.

Xylon asked us to watch out for U-571 this weekend and I think we have seen enough.

The only problem is the Mummy movies were on BD50s and still had some DNR applied.

Although Mr. Harris states that the final grain reduced image has no distortion it just takes one look at the third set of images Xylon posted (the close up of the bearded guy) to see that detail IS lost. The complexion under his bottom lip and the stitching on his jacket have less detail than the HD DVD and D-Theater releases.

I feel that their really isn't a debate here...it's clear that Uni botched the transfer and it seems to be a disturbing trend. I see some people on AVS and other boards blaming Xylon and saying that he's doing something wrong or that he's biased. At this point he's one of the few people I put trust in because he posts unbiased and undeniable evidence of image quality on BD releases and how they compare to other SD/HD transfers. His method is superior to an A/B test that many others use to detect differences.

I've probably saved over $500 because of Xylon...

I haven't watched the Blu-ray for U-571 (frankly, I don't like the movie enough to buy another copy), but some of the praise for the HD DVD is a little ridiculous. The HD DVD has quite a bit of edge ringing, especially noticeable during any scene above-water and during most of the close-ups of pressure gauges and the like.

Knowing how Universal operates, it's unlikely that they would remaster the movie to get rid of the e.e., so they probably applied the DNR to the old master in order to tone down the ringing.

This seems to me to be a "pick your poison" scenario.

Amen to that. Keep up the good work, Xylon. Your pictures are worth a thousand words.