Gladiator Master Blu-ray Comparison and Review Thread - Page 35

I bet many of these people who denounce Xylon's screenshots actually (quietly) look forward to seeing them.

And you think that's hard to read?

I don't understand why everyone is praising Bill Hunt's negative assessment of screenshots. Were we not able to ascertain the exact same image characteristics that he did using only the screenshots posted by Xylon?

His argument about the uselessness of screenshots is ridiculous, and demonstrably false. Sure, they can cause people to overreact to single-frame-long visual anomalies, but these things CAN be noticeable in 1/24 of a second, and as he says himself, are unacceptable on top-tier Blu-Ray titles.

I'll take screengrabs over Bill Hunt's or any one else's opinion any day.

I can't at all understand the logic some people employ regarding direct screen captures. These aren't photographs taken from a unique screen using a unique camera, these are pulled straight from the Blu Ray disc.

Take your computer, plug it into your primary display, and (assuming your levels are claibrated evenly) these screen captures are EXACTLY what the disc looks like.

If there's grain you will see the grain pattern changing when in full motion, but if you see a ton of DNR, EE and any other Filtering in these screen captures, it's not suddenly going to vanish when you pop the disc into your Blu Ray player.

Sorry, but the argument that "screen captures are not representative of the actual content of the disc" is extremely idiotic.

I can certainly see a lot from screen grabs. I have seen screen grabs then got the disc and found the grabs to be spot on.

I feel sorry for those who are not able to make the connection.

Keep up the great work Xylon!

Exactly. What Bill Hunt's article did was repeat precisely what the screenshots had already told us. He just used words rather than pictures. It seems bizarre to claim that viewing screenshots is not an accurate way of assessing image quality and then effectively say that what people took from the images was absolutely correct.

Anyway, regardless of his questionable (and frankly ill-informed) stance on "screenshot science", I greatly appreciate that this influential figure has addressed our concerns and sent a clear message to Paramount that these sort of shenanigans WILL NOT DO.

Honestly the only time that I've personally found screen caps inaccurate was for Star Trek III and IV, which actually turned out to be worse in motion. The screen caps prepared me for the waxy detail and muddied grain, but in no way prepared me for the static/floating grain patterns that were only noticable once I watched the films.

Screen caps are vaild as long as they are representative of the disc as a whole. It's human nature to cherry pick images to prove a point even when not done deliberately. As a example the Braveheart caps show off the best while the Gladiator ones show the worst parts. Since the concensus is that Braveheart is the much better of the 2 no damage done, but it would have been possible to show a very different picture to showing the best of Gladiator and the worst of Braveheart.

It looks real nice, thankyou Xylon. Me and my son enjoyed its HD silliness only a few nights ago!

Steve.

Or Paramount can pull a "Let The Right One In" on you. They will release a proper version in a few months, but offer no replacement for those who have already purchased it.

It happens all the time, look at the 1st pic in the Italian job thread, you couldn't pic a more ugly shot. In fact all the pics are designed to show waxy faces caused by too much DNR. The caps were cherry picked to show a fault with the transfer.

EDIT: This was a responce to a post that since has been deleted.

Why, because they will buy the disc and enjoy it while you will be here bitching about how it looks like garbage?

re-read my post then think hard about your reply.

I was talking about screen grabs in general and felt sorry for those who cant look at multiple screen grabs and be able to tell from them how a BD is likely to look.


I could care less if people buy Gladiator or not...they have been warned and its their choice if they accept a subpar product marketed under a "high quality" sapphire series brand.

A lot of us here have larger screens. Screen grabs are useful (to me anyway) for spotting the worst errors such as severe ringing or obliteration of detail.

Things that absolutely WILL be noticeable to me on my 60" screen.

I would rather see the screen snaps and determine if the disc is worth owning than being ignorant about it and wasting my hard earned $$ on a crappy encode that is not worthy of the film and only a modest improvement over the DVD.

Pretty much.

Yes because 95% of people are only going to look at the score and not read the text.

or they could rent it, enjoy the film as well as anyone who is buying it without spending the $

On Blu-ray.com 45% of people are still buying this disc. This is not helping. I'm not going to be surprised when discs all start looking like Gangs of New York and people will still support it as long as the resolution is higher and it's nice and sharp and it just POPS cause that is all that matters right?

Ironically, the early Dark City DVD was one of those discs.

And unfortunately, Dark City never saw another release on DVD until the DNR and EE-ridden Blu-ray was released.

Bill Hunt is dead wrong. We don't need to post video rips to make adequate judgements on how the video will look. The people who are posting screenshots have seen the ****ing video and would not post a screenshot unless it was indicative of the many frames preceding and succeeding it to comprise that scene. Which it usually is, because that's the nature of filtration. It's not like 1 out of 100 frames suffers the scratch removal problem that scrubs out the arrows, and we are just picking the one. That is absurd if he believes that.

Indeed

I will say again, he ranted about the screenshots, and then proceeded to tell us all how bad Gladiator looks, which we already knew from the screenshots.

What do you expect most of the reviews the users there posted were like this:
"It's not that bad, sure it could be better. But this is the best Gladiator has looked. Even if it is missing spears and other VFX, it's really only a little bit of the movie if you think about it. The image was really bright. And grain wasn't that noticeable even when I got up close to the screen"

The last line was verbatim from more than 1 post over there.
And only 1 or 2 members will call them out on it. Same hobby, same discs, same internet, completely different environment though.

He's another person that should actually try looking at the screenshots before discrediting them.

The screen grabs for this movie look absolutely horrible. You have to be a big fan of this movie to want to buy a release like this.

It is unfathomable how a studio could release a product with image quality like this when they should be working towards making impeccable releases, especially on their biggest franchises. I personally believe in voting with your dollar and for a release this bad I wouldn't vote with one cent.

Maybe if it were towards burning a pile of these abominable disks would I pay to send a message to these studios who can't seem to tell a good master from their own hairy bums.

These disc issues are seriously getting tiresome.

I'm a huge fan of this movie and THAT'S why I won't buy this. I have too much respect for Ridley Scott and everyone who worked on this movie to do so.

i cancelled my U.S order and will wait for my aussie order (Universal)which is only a few weeks away.

Paramount has set a president for catalog titles with "Gladiator", i simply WILL NOT buy anything Blu-ray from them until i have a least 4 or 5 reviews confirming no butchery, especially with the "Sapphire Series"
Thanks again OP, you have saved me $$$ and dissapointment at nearly being duped into buying this garbage.

Yep, thats about it. People need to determine what they find acceptable and go with that. Patton was a good example for me - I did see what the video-gurus were talking about but overall the BD version kills the DVD version so thats the one I went with. Better colors, cleaner image, better sound, better overall presentation.