Warner promo vs Blade Runner / 300 / V for Vendetta comparison PIX - Page 2

Here is the mojo on 300- looks like they are fairly similar with some give and take from area to area of the scene. The shot does illustrate well the strategy of "careful flirting with teh blocks at the extremes".

Here is the Vendetta spread (not really sure how to comment on this):

But I have to add that the difference in the Blade Runner examples is not due to bit rate of VC-1 alone. VC-1 can be very sharp at 17 Mbit/s. It looks more like a general grain filtering job before compression so compression at this rather low bit rate will work better.

WB kicks customer's arse by committing big blunders on deserving titles. Instead of figuring out compression they have figured out how to apply over-compression, waste space, and of course find ways to sue for $10M.

I would love to see comparison shots of Hancock Blu-ray Vs. Trailer which is on similar lines with AVP-2. Perfect example on how over-processing shouldn't be done.

No I am not saying that, the DC has quite a different look to it because it was not touch-up so much and the live-action shots have more film grain and more detail.


I get the impression nothing WB does could possibly please you.

Myself, I will continue to enjoy the flim-like experience WB gives me on it's classics with, for most titles, a excellent level of detail.

for most titles??

Not a big fan of classics though I like a few of them. Warner's attitude towards Blu-ray quality has slightly changed in the recent times but doesn't suffice. They have to give customers a lot for the illogical compromises they have taken so far.

Thanks a ton for the comparisons, msgohan!

This is the single most reason why I'm holding off purchasing these three titles especially.

They are low bit rate encodes (V for Vendetta is really low) with OBVIOUS compression artifacts; for a project that they invested in so heavily in Blade Runner, they really should have done separate encodes.

Do you think you could get hold of the new 300 release on Blu-ray and compare that as well?

I'm sure that's that case. I don't see why people think compression can change the image that much.

I can't aswer for lgans, but all they have to do is do it right, like most other studios. Even small ones like Lionsgate, Weistein, Anchor Bay, Blue Underground have figured it out.

How hard can it be?

To WB apparently, very much.



With WB, it's killer mix with both filtering and bad compression.

It uses the EXACT same encode as the original release of 300 on Blu-ray Disc. The only changes are in the supplements/extras, and in my mind that makes it an instant no-sale for me (I already own the original release, and the extras aren't worth the expensive double dip they're asking for).

Shame on Warner for continuing to not give their movies the tender loving care they (to fans anyways) deserve.

The PCM track is also gone. This is on similar lines to what Sony did to Casino Royale: Collector's Edition.

At least Casino Royale had a very good video encode to begin with, something that cannot be said about 300.

All too often the 'most other studios' got their classics wrong, the studio's you mention barely do classics if at all.


Again 'most other studios' did more filtering then WB especially on their classics or simply slapped a crummy DVD master onto a blu-ray disc. That is why WB classics look film-like and sadly more then a few from others look videoized. It does not matter how high a compression rate you use on a sub-par source, you still end up with a poor transfer. And yes I know WB did some sharping filter on some titles which was wrong but it was still not as destructive as the DNR other studios used.

Who cares? Lossless and uncompressed sound identical to one another. If they can save more space for video, I'm all for it.

wuther,

you missed the point entirely.

Definitely more fine detail on the promo of Blade Runner. Look at the striped dress on the right side, the filtering sort of blurs the stripes, everything just looks slightly out of focus.

Thanks msgohan but the pics appear only as a thumbnail and doesn't get enlarged.

Only people in the employ of Warner or Microsoft didn't notice the overall softening their low-bitrate VC-1 encodes produced on BD. Warner's current AVC video encodes reproduce cinematic detail much better.

The AVC caps looks better and resolves details better. Warner really screwed us with the compression on many high profile releases by encoding using VC-1 at shockingly low bit rates.

I will get back to you with the exact time codes in the evening.

30:04~30:07
1:55:36~1:55:41

Sorry mate. Will try to get you the time codes this weekend.

Here are my thoughts:

As for the Inception collection of pictures, the VC-1 is superior. The reason is because all of the other shots show vignetting in the corner of the frames! It's pretty clear that they zoomed in to cover that. As for encode quality, the only one that matches the VC-1 encode from a technical standpoint is the "Blu-ray promo (Warner 2011)" and even then it's a toss up. It looks slightly smoother and has some small blocking in the bricks whereas the VC-1 encode looks like it has a "coarser" quantization with more grain like elements to the picture. The other AVC encodes show obvious, if not significant, artifacting.

The Matrix pictures are bad, no bones about it. I've been very vocal about my dissatisfaction with the color timing changes to the film, so I won't get into that here. The existing masters are terrible, with significant horizontal aliasing everywhere. Even the new master is pretty soft, likely scanned on something like a Spirit Datacine. For one of Warner's VC-1 encodes, the artifacts are pretty minimal and likely have low perceptibility in motion (at least in that scene/shot).

By the way, msgohan, do you still have the screenshots from your original post? The screenshot comparison website rebuilt its database after switching hosts in 2010 and all of the pictures are lost.

If you take the time to send them to me, I won't mind re-uploading them.