Knowing - Wednesday, 29 July 2009 AUS Release

I love this film for great CGI and story also,sound.I can't hardly wait,mate.

Josh reviewed the US release on HDD. I don't know we should have another thread for the movie that left some folks cold so I just add to this one.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2333/knowing.html

Knowing is not to know

Can't say this was a great movie, but it had one of the absolute best, if not the best, and most visceral, action scenes I've ever seen.

Worst movie I saw at the theaters this year, but I bet that one sequence will blow the doors off any HT.

I got the US BD on Friday and watched it yesterday, with part of the commentary too and the two featurettes. I liked the movie. The transfer seems faultless and the AQ is nothing short of astonishing. That being said, it shows the movie was not shot on film, for better or for worse, depending on your taste. The two featurettes are nice (especially the one on apocalyptic mythology). The 30 minutes of the commentary I listened to were interesting and focused on ideas behind the script than on technical details.

This post made me curious to find out sooner the better.

good surprise, not very hopeful
shot with RED ONE 4K cam, super sharp image in theater
i wonder what he means in his review regarding the faces
black level remain still problematic compared to FILM cameras though
(ie they need to improve the black inckiness)

The black level is a grading decision and not a film versus video issue.

I've read a lot of mixed reviews on this one and I'm wondering if it is worth a blind-buy. The raves for the PQ/AQ have me tempted and the story sounds interesting so I may have my answer already

i watched this the other day... i plan on buying this movie as well..........


so i can destroy this movie and get payback for me losing two hours of my life...

video cams still have issue capturing deep blacks and noise free
vs film cams

http://fr.blu-ray.com/movies/movies....72&show=review
another one with greyish blacks shot in digital

Proyas' previous film was also shot entirely on digital... I, Robot. I don't recall black level issues with that movie...

Saw this one at the theater and it definitely did seem washed out. I figured it was just a bad print since I saw it late in the run.

This was a good movie up until they had to actually explain what was happening. Then, like so many other films, books and television shows... it all fell apart. Still, up until then, it was pretty damned cool. Some really great disasters in this movie. I won't be picking this one up new but somewhere down the road when it's on sale for $15 or so, I'll probably pick it up.

Cinematographic process - Super 35 (source format)
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/technical

I give up. Nothing I ever read is correct. It's all conflicting information.

Same here,just received it yesterday,will find out soon.

OMG!This film sure was not for you.

My guess on what the reviewer means about black levels (based on my viewing of the BD): dark spots in the picture very often do not look deeply dark (I hope this makes sense!). `Washed out' seems to me too strong to qualify the picture I saw on the BD, but it certainly gives an idea. Anyway, my feeling is that the movie looks on the BD as intended by the filmmakers.

When I saw it in the theater, blacks looked like dark greys. I'd certainly call that washed out.

Watching the BD, I was more sensitive to dark zones which seemed not dark enough than to black which looked like grey. But again, I did not watched the print you saw in the theater and, most importantly, my statements are purely subjective. Ir seems to me yours statement and mine more or less describe a common reality in different terms.

Watched the blu-ray last night.

I think the transfer itself is excellent but the way it was shot with significant digital enhancement to get a specific artistic "look" may turn some viewers off because overall, especially the night scenes looks a bit soft and very artificial. The overall look of the movie is quite beautiful in most scenes, right from the start in fact. I thought black levels where appropriate, were fine.

IMO, the first half to perhaps 2/3rds of the movie *is* interesting, but the last 20 minutes or so, especially the final denouement is pretty cringe-worthy. The two key "disaster" incidents are absolutely riveting and the sound jumps *way* up above the typical level most of the movie's soundtrack's sound level. Frankly, aside from those two incidents (which are HT demo-worthy), there's little else to recommend this movie though. A lot of plot holes and "WTF?" moments of characters doing stupid or illogical things that take the viewer repeatedly out of the movie.

Considering the talent behind this movie, this was a huge letdown, especially since I liked director Alex Proyas' "dark City" so much. And Cage really needs to pick better material - he's been in some really awful movies the past decade.

T.B.

The Red is not a video camera but a digital data camera. The amount of noise in the blacks depends on exposure which depends on artistic intention and dynamic range of the scene to be shot. If noise in black needs to be hidden you crush black detail, but the black level is not elevated or grayish. If it is it's a grading decision. That decision can be influenced by the dynamic range limits of the camera, yes. Ultimately what the film makers want to see decides how they shoot and grade. Nobody has to endure grayish blacks if they don't want to in the DI age. How much detail or noise there is in real deep (near) blacks is another issue.

Theater blacks in darker material look always washed out. The contrast is simply not there in commercial cinemas.

Having seen this one on Blu-ray now, I'd like to chime in and refute my previous comments. As washed out as this movie was when I saw it in the theater, I found no fault with black levels or contrast in the Blu-ray release. As far as I can tell, the audio and video presented on this disc are perfect.