Predator Ultimate Hunter Edition comparison *PIX* - Page 10

I have never once seen such an instance occur in any film print I've ever watched.

Isn't most of the issue with the previous release of Predator just mosquito noise and not grain from the Mpeg-2 compression?

A true grainy release is such as the likes of Highlander or perhaps Easy Rider. Beautiful to my eyes.

The only time where I've been slightly upset with grain is Friday the 13th, and it's only part of the time. The only time where it's bothersome is in a couple of the low lighting conditions later in the film, where you literally see more grain than black detail.


See above- several scenes in Friday the 13th. I can't find any screenshots of the specific scenes I'm talking about, but I can find the time intervals.

That's what I thought too.

Uh... you're not watching real life, you're watching an image recorded on film
The image is made up of dye particles of different colors. Those particles are the grain you see. It's like saying pixels in a low-res image obscure the detail. It's a nonsensical statement, the pixels ARE the detail.

Taking this one small element of oink's statements, i.e. that grain can more easily produce macroblocking thus obscuring detail as an effect of block DCT, I believe that this is essentially correct. Thus, the actual utility and benefit of noise- and entropy-reduction for DVD titles since macroblocking is arguably more detail-destroying than DNR.

However, it does seem that we find ourselves in something of a bizarro world, since the new Ultimate Edition master would've been much more appropriate for the original lower-bitrate MPEG-2 BD, but the original edition master would've been much better served by the current higher-bitrate AVC encode. Essentially, a lose-lose situation with both releases proving less than ideal.

(Emphasis by me)
Absolutely, positively the BEST way of putting it I have heard yet. I'm gonna use that.

That is exactly what I said.



Essentially, exactly what I said.



This analogy is not representative of a what I said.

I'm surprised these arguments are still alowed. It's pretty simple.

Grain is the inherent composition of the visual feed, you can not achieve greater visual fidelity than seeing said grain.

It can't be removed. You can smear it, blend it, recolor it, smudge it, resharpen it, but you can never remove it.

If people want a new, shiny looking Predator, then all the cast and crew need to get together and reshoot everything from the ground up using new HD cameras. Otherwise, you're just polishing a turd.

If there's grain we can kill it!!
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/43615...unter-edition/

No. Mosquito noise is generally only going to be visible around high contrast transitions. Don't trust reviewers who ignorantly vilify MPEG-2 or naively judge by specs more than qualified observation. They're often the same people who tried to sell us that Warner's HD-DVD encodes were better than their BD encodes, before Warner came out and said that they were both identical VC-1 and 640kbps and before their were components available that could actually verify such. People often see what they think they're supposed to see - sadly even some experienced reviewers do this.

MPEG-4 offers the compressionist a little more control over his work, but it hardly re-invented the wheel. It's been about a year, but having seen the original Predator BD projected onto a 100 inch screen, I don't remember artifacts, that could clearly be labeled as compression induced, being a serious distraction. In fact I've probably seen blocking, which is more clearly compression related, from much newer VC-1 and AVC encodes on BD50s. I think most of the MPEG-2 criticism is from closet grain-haters, younger fans who don't yet know much about film and older ones who may never care enough to learn (it amazes me how few people I meet even realize that movies are just, essentially a series of photographes), and those who have their displays sharpness cranked way too high. Some of it may even be from 720p display owners who are seeing an exaggerated effect induced by scaling. And it still amazes me how many people try to hook up their brand new BD players using the composite video cables included in the box, just because they can't read a manual. Manufacturer's need to stop even including such cables with devices like BD players where they're completely pointless. But, then again, I've recently discovered that there is a surprising percentage of gamers who still have their PS3 (and XBox) hooked up to a small 25" 4:3 CRT.

Anybody, not just looking to further a grain-free agenda, who sincerely wants to see a prime example of how heavy grain does not inhibit detail, check out 30 Days of Night. That is one of the most intensely grainy films I've seen in the cinema and the BD preserves it beautifully without compromise to image crispness or clarity. If the grain were ever removed, the film would lose half it's edgy feel - not to mention half it's falling snow. Sony did an impeccable job with the BD.

Movies are not real life.

You're smarter than this argument you're making here, oink.


You're trying to separate the medium from the subject matter. You can't. Any work of art is inherently a combination of the subject and the medium. If you go to a museum, do you complain about those nasty brush strokes you see on the canvases? Would you prefer to see the Mona Lisa in person, up close, or to look at a digital photo of it that's been run through a heavy gaussian blur filter in Photoshop?

If you believe that the only important thing in a movie is what is being photographed in front of the camera, and not the way it was photographed, then you're not just arguing against grain. You're also arguing against composition. (Are you a pan & scan advocate too?). You're arguing against lighting. You're arguing against color filters, and rack focus, and camera pans, and dolly or crane shots, and editing, and any other tool that the director and cinematographer use to tell their story through photographic images.

Essentially, what you're saying is that so long as you've got Arnold Schwarzenegger in a jungle with a gun, then Predator would always be the same movie, whether it was filmed the way that John McTiernan shot it, or whether it was shot entirely with a camcorder on a tripod 20 feet back from the action. I mean, Arnold's still there running around the jungle, isn't he? It's all the same thing in the end, right?

If that's what you believe, then you have no understanding of cinematic language, or filmmaking as an art form at all.

I don't think that's the case. I think you're just being stubborn. But you should know better.

Great points, Josh.

Is there not a Fox "forum rep" or an alternative means of community feedback where people can express their views (in a constructive manner)?

So we're comparing Predator to Mona lisa now? wow.

...Josh, do believe the vinyl noises and scratches in old recordings are part of the piece? Because they're inherent to the medium too...

Art is subjective.

One man's wooden dummy on a toilet is another man's statement on civilization and mental programming.

While the "Mona Lisa" may have more fans than "Clown with Flower", they both may exhibit the very same painting techniques that yield the same appearance when you stick your nose up close to the canvas. The brush strokes may create a different image, but the way the hand and brush created them may be the same.


They most certainly are not inherent to the medium if you take care of your records and change your needle when it needs it. I wouldn't consider any of that stuff any more part of the recording than dye fade, dust and scratches from a poorly stored film.

Film images are composed from blobs of emulsion exposed to light which take on the form of grain. It's like the texture of cloth - burlap is coarser than silk. Likewise, fast, low light stocks that have been push processed have a coarser grain than a slow, daylight stock that has been processed normally.

Sometimes the stock is chosen for those properties. Other times it comes down to budget. When things are really tight, you end up splicing short ends to shoot your movie which can give you one scene with heavy grain and another with fine grain - or the need to edit around stock that was already partially exposed, ruining your take.

Whatever the process, in the end, grain is what creates the image. What you see is made up of those little bits, be they fine or course.

Movies are stories we see with our eyes and hear with our ears.


Why not?


Absolutely.


Every time I go.





Huh?
I was speaking ONLY about grain.
And ONLY about excessive grain at that.



No, I am not.


Uh....OK.


I didn't want to use examples like this on this thread, but....

I know... And I'm the first to say any film is a piece of art (except for porn maybe), it's just the comparison that I find funny.


Yes they are. It depends on the type of vinyl used.[/OT] Noise (lows and highs), is inherent ot the medium, just like grain.

The record is the medium that's used to play back the recording, not the original source. A better analogy would be the equipment and techniques used to capture musical performances in the studio. For instance, Van Halen famously used some special techniques when recording their first album, to impart a spacious, "live" sound to the recording. The band Korn went so far as to seek out some vintage recording equipment that imparted hiss and distortion of its own to the final masters. I'm in favor of reproducing those original masters as faithfully as possible, just as I'm in favor of reproducing the original negative of a film as faithfully as possible.

That was an excellent post, Josh Z. One of the most eloquent defenses of the preservation of film that I've read.

And I'd like to know how the original negative of Predator actually look.

These threads turn into such a waste, I get tired of even coming to the forum. All I'm going to say is I'm glad I have the older release because this new one looks like complete shite.

Actually, they're not. Vinyl records are derived from master tapes that don't suffer from scratches and dust.

A more apt analogy would be tape hiss, which is part of the original recording. And, as with DNR, trying to remove tape hiss results in a muddy, inferior sound because there's no way of removing hiss without also removing some of the audible details in the recording.

The problem is that the orginal negative does not represent how the movie should look. During editing they were extremly creative and used zoomed in portions of the negative to reframe several scenes. Medium shoots became closups etc. This of course made some scenes grainer then other.

But one thing is for sure, even the zoomed in scenes, still looked like film.

I disagree, I think the movie looks better than it ever has....

Do we know the source for the 2010 edition? The 2006 MPEG-2 transfer released in 2008 was more than likely the same master from the 2000 anamorpic dvd. The 2004 C.E. dvd used the same master as the 2000 dvd. The 1997 dvd was non anamorphic and I don't know if that was the same master used in the 2000 dvd or not, but very likely. The rumor on the forums is the 2008 bluray used a 4 generations old master.

The new master exists in 2010, but is this a new master (digital revamp of the old master with cleanup, DNR, contrast boosting, color timing changes, etc.) or is this a new transfer scanned from the original camera negative of the finished film?

Also chances of a rerelease like Gangs of new York, 5th Element, Gladiator, etc. due to the negative customer response?

With Fox, hell no (think Patton).

I would think Predator would sell alot more copies than Patton though.

The old version is outselling the new one on Amazon Neither one is in the top 100 sellers though...

That's great news. Greater news would be if Fox actually took note of that fact.

That's ****ing awesome.