The Thing comparison *PIX* - Page 3  

Bah, thank you for making my HD-DVD's collectible uni.

For me it's simple, the difference isn't that apparent at 720p and I really find it pointless to drag out the HD DVD to see things in static screen shots that arent bothering me in motion. Maybe if I was watching these at 1080p and at less than one screen length away it would be different but so far it's not.

I find it interesting that you haven't mentioned the one thing that really DID bother me and that is the annoying ring halos around the sled dog in the opening sequence, can you put up a shot or two of the dog running through the snow directly at the camera? I can get you the timecode of the shot if you like but it should be REALLY obvious if I can see it at 720p and with a smoothscreen pj.

In the grand scheme of things I would MUCH rather people jump down Universal's throat over the BUTCHER job they did on the extras and their unwaveringly sticking to this U-Control tool that is a solution in search of a problem. I really hate most U-Control features and implementations tho.... I don't want to have to watch movies 4 times to get all the extras, put em in a freaking menu and you are DONE.

send him an email with a link to this thread. Maybe he sold his HDdvd awhile back.

That's not really the point....The point is why are these studio's doing it....Why make it worse than the HD DVD edition. It simply shouldn't happen and there has to be a reason that it is happening....Do they think Blu Ray owners want a smoother look ? I think that's what they are thinking...They think Blu Ray owners hate grain....It really is that simple and reviewers who call grain noise are making the problems worse and unfortunately there are a lot of them about.

It might not bother you now but what about when you upgrade your equipment.....I think long term when i make my purchases....So yes this is really bad. I also have a 720pj with smoothscreen ( Panasonic ) It bothers me a lot and i do notice the smoother look when i see it.....Smoothscreen elimates screen door while retaining sharpness and a film type look and has nothing to do with the smoothing over of Blu Rays by DNR just in case anybody brings it up.....Panasonic did a great job with their technology....They didn't simply unfocus things like some uneducated people are writing...Their technology works.

I'm not changing my score either after seeing this thread Dave. Going down the slippery slope of second guessing yourself based on static screenshots or how something looks on something other than your own system does readers no good. You can make a case that I should have a better PJ than what I currently do and I won't argue that point. But I won't base my scores on anything I can't see in motion in my own home. And frankly I continue to think those of you who base your entire buying decision on static screenshots are out of your mind but you are entitled to spend your money (or not) as you see fit =)

Again, I am no apologist for Universal or for DNR in general but as Xylon quite rightly points out, it is 'pick your poison'. It's a complex balancing act and I guarantee that the people who encoding these movies are MUCH MUCH more concerned with how something looks in motion than they are in static screenshots. You also have to factor in artistic intent. Who is to say that the HD DVD encodes weren't overly grainy or accurately represent what the director/DP intended 100%? If they were in charge of the encode which factor would they 'slide the scale's weight' to?

I hear ya. But I must say in many instances where I HAVE spent the $ like Dark City, Xylon's screenshots have been right on the money. Gangs of New York clearly showed the hideousness of that BD, (THAT I just netflixed but would have bought) I already own The Thing on HDdvd. IF the image had been the same it might have been worth it but it's clearly not. That's one thing screenshots CAN do. Show that there is a difference and that they are not identical. That plus the doc being reduced to a PIP window? ack

Well we know pre-1982/1983 that film stock contained more grain...Thats a fact...Low grain film stock was introduced after this film was made.

Its not just the grain that is removed....It's the detail with it....You can see that in motion....Or some people can and it's not dependent on the projector being 720p or 1080p....

You have to really take into consideration Universals recent record of degraining HD DVD ports.....Once you take this into account it's not too hard to come to an educated opinion that they have degrained the film just like they did with U-571.....

At the end of the day people can say "well it's what it's supposed to look like" but that doesn't explain the detail removal that went with the grain....I must also point out that natural grain seen in a moving image looks great so people just viewing screenshots should not worry about it and think it will look terrible on their system as it doesn't but DNRed grain tends to introduce unwanted side effects and sometimes looks like a clumpy mess...It can ruin the cinematic experience that Blu Ray can give you.

Whilst you might not want to change your score for this film i believe as a reviewer you should point out the degraining to your readers and then let them make their own minds up.

Bollocks. By the way things are going, it seems they're simply following a scripted process.

1) clean up scratches/defects (but not to the point of perfection)
2) run DNR filter
3) encode with least visible artifacts

It really feels like very little personal effort is going into these.

I also think a lot of people aren't aware that natural grain can give the illusion of additional resolution.

As I did in the past, I can only add my voice to those complaining about (excessive) use of DNR in recent BD transfers. That being said, I don't think the problem lies entirely with DNR. I compared on my gear the Harry Potter HD DVD and BD editions. I am not aware that more DNR was applied to the BD than to the HD DVD, but the HD DVD looks substantially sharper, even in motion. I know of several people who have done the same test and all of them recognize in private that the Potter HD DVDs are sharper. But none of them wants to put it in writing. I know I am going to get flamed, but what the H**l !

I think this particular point really cuts to the heart of the matter. Not so much personal effort, but budgeted scale of the project. With the exception of the most high-profile restorations, a lot of these older movies are just not going to justify the nth degree of tlc (from the standpoint of whatever beancounter ok's the project). It's on a skeleton budget to push the project out the door with the least amount of investment/effort. I'm not trying to say this is "ok", though. I'm just saying it is the pragmatic reality. The foremost goal, unfortunately, is to simply make the title available on br, rather than make the best release of the title that is technically possible from the master.

I guess that would be one of the most poignant catch-22's of a brand new hi-def format. It was devised to facilitate the highest possible resolution for video and sound, wide open bitrates, and the best codecs of the day, but if the material, itself, is not up to the task, its not going to even come close to exploiting the technical specs of the format. The premium looking hd doesn't just happen by accident or incidentally. It is a concerted effort/expertise to ensure the quality of the material is optimally expressed through the entire workflow. When things are left to "autopilot", the shortcomings of the result become only that much more apparent on a high-performance medium.

Could it be possible that Blu-ray's higher bitrate ceiling and space is leaving more of the disc encoding to autopilot resulting in suboptimal output???

As long as the bitrate is allowed to "run free" to exploit that ceiling, I would not expect it to be particularly responsible for suboptimal output. Leaving a dnr process to run on autopilot, otoh, would seem to be just begging for issues to crop up. Similarly, restricting QC to mere "spot checks" over the entire length of the movie is just begging for issues to sneak through in whatever areas are not checked. These are all aspects that come from defining the scope of the project, rather than any technical specs of the target medium.

...and man, does that last pic give me the willies! Nothing turns my stomach like scenery from The Thing.

In that shot you can clearly see that DETAIL was removed on the BD.

I "borrowed" one of your comparison pictures(the one with the zoomed hand) and posted them in our swedish forum. This makes me so sick I have to use your pictures for education.

Please, dont go ballistic on me Xylon. Please PM me if you think I did something wrong.

Robert

**** YOU UNIVERSAL!! **** YOU!!!
The Thing is my ABSOLUTE NR.1 favorite movie and they screwed it up.
That´s it, no more catalog titles from Universal!!

I really sucks that Universal is doing this to one of my favorite movies. Oh well, I still have the HD DVD.

Xylon - Do you have any plans to compare the UK or JP releases?

What a shame. Maybe I'll buy that backup HD-DVD player after all...

This movie is really something else on HD-DVD. Why mess with a "perfectly" good thing? I've watched it twice now, once with the friend who bought it for me, and once more as a demo. My friends were utterly speechless. They were besides themselves. They couldn't believe it. They didn't know that dude wore a nose-ring.

*sigh*

Darkman is another excellent title on HD-DVD and is Universal I believe. Oh I hope they don't mess that one up too if they bring it to BD.

I've been looking for the HD DVD at my local Fry's for weeks, but it seems to be the one title they no longer have

I procured the following sample pic in a future timeline where The Thing actually got a newly remastered release (though not a full-out restoration). Temporal indicators are still phasey at this time (due to unavoidable Butterfly Effect issues), but predictive enhancement suggests such a release may appear around 2011.

This is what could have been in the 2008 release, but will now have to wait for approx. 2011:



2008 release (cropped):

If the predicted 2011 release has that much grain, then I would prefer the 2008 release. Grain for grain sake does not make much sense IMO.

You would be surprised how much of that grain was inherently still part of the image (just laying dormant).

very nice, i really like how they cleaned up the Blu-ray version, it definitely looks more like high def wwithout those "dirt" and grain.

Well sorry guys but the studios are cleaning the old transfers because most ppl want to see it clean (without grain, dirt) ect. you guys here on the forums are just the minority, as hard as it sounds to you guys

oh dear...

Glad I had better sense than to sell off my HD DVDs.

Nevertheless, this practice needs to STOP!