The Thin Red Line - BD Quality / Discussion - Page 4

How did you come to see the rough cut, Matt?

Vincent

Anyone else having trouble finding TRL? Most Best Buys are out of stock, and the one I went to did have it, but it took them over 45 minutes to try to find it in the warehouse, and by that time my lunch break was over and I left. Gonna try again today.

According to Drew Taylor over at Hidef Digest, it is the single greatest high definition transfer he has ever seen. Period!!
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/3385...inredline.html

The Video: Sizing Up the Picture


"I'm feeling a little bold today, so I'm going to go ahead and say it: 'The Thin Red Line's' 1080p AVC MPEG-4 transfer (aspect ratio: 2.35:1) is the single greatest high definition transfer I have ever seen. I mean that. The bar has been raised. And now there's something to compare all other releases against."

Has anyone seen this on BD, your thoughts.... is this just a jaw dropping transfer as he mentions in his review??

Paul

Saw the Blu last night. It is in fact quite an amazing home theater experience. The a/v quality is off the charts. What a treat!

Found it at Best Buy, although they had to go into the backroom to get me a copy (it wasn't out on the shelf). Priced at $29.99.

I am no pro when it comes to reviews, but I think this looks good. Really good. Really, really good.

VHS bootleg of a work print.

Looooong ago.

Quality was so so back then. Today I would call it unwatchable.

Thanks Flexx & giantchicken, I will get this at my local BB over the weekend.

Can't wait to see this movie.... I remember seeing it long ago but I do not recall much of the story line, it will be like watching a new movie!!

Paul

Yeah I read that too and after watching it I would slightly disagree. I do think it's one of the best looking non animation catalog titles on the market though. The best transfer ever on the format is a bit overkill but it is a damn fine looking title & the soundtrack is top notch stuff too!

You are so lucky man. That was not the 5 hour cut though was it? It was just a recut of the original with Brody at the fore front of the movie right?

I don't know your location but I wouldn't count on any BB having more than 2 copies if any and would call ahead.
The 3 BBs closest to Seattle had 2 copies each.
I had to look hard at the BB in SouthCenter as TTRL was misplaced, on the bottom row and had the spine facing out not the cover.
It's all about IM2 this week.
I hadn't been to BB in a long while. I remember now why I don't go there.
I don't know about the best transfer ever but what I've seen\\heard so far it's easily worth the price and I'm a cheapskate

Hey oink get your's yet?

Guys,

I simply love this movie. Just ordered the Blue Ray version from Amazon (with IronMan2).Looking forward to it.

This disc has stunning PQ and Audio. I cant think of a better looking Bluray Ive seen. Some of the animated stuff like Coraline and Toy Story2 are hard to beat, but IMHO this is prob the greatest looking non animated film Ive seen on BR. The transfer has a natural "film look" that is just beautiful too look at - especially with the scenery. My new fav Bluray transfer.

As for Best Buy, mine had 2 and I had to search for it, because some idiot there put the disc under C for Criterion.

imho it looks good to really gooood, but definately not the best non animated stuff overall. sometimes its a little too soft for my taste.

for me, the best looking non animated picture is still I, Robot (even though it has integrated CGI parts, but the PQ is still as good when there is none).

I'd vote for something that looks more like film - the remastered Gangs of New York, for example.

gladiator remastered comes 2nd so here you go :P

After reading this thread I would like to clear some things up quickly. Bluray has a max bitrate of 40mbps for the video. Lossless 1080p 4:2:2 video is somewhere around 500mbps. Of course quality reduction does not directly compare to compression but you still get the point. Some of the comments on here seem to dictate that bitrate is not important or less important than other attributes of the film. You could not be any more wrong. Surprising considering some of the posters.

Anyway, after viewing the film on projection I have come to the conclusion that this film is another average to good transfer, mostly good. Highdefdigest has no idea what they are talking about and seem to be in rapture of the film itself and not the encode. Fine for them but you should be careful when you utter the best in any review. It makes you look quite inundated with emotion rather than technical know how. I have seen this in too many bluray reviews lately. They seem to think that certain films, by the look of the film itself and not the encode, are somehow the best out there and it cannot get any better when it fact the encode here is not even close to 40mbps for quite a lot of the film and this is some tough material to encode in the action sequences, which I might add we given a bitrate boost for the most part compared to some 'lesser' parts of the film.

Bluray itself will be surpassed with 4:2:2 color and 4k whenever they choose to get another format out that supports higher bitrates or in the least more data. I am not putting down the format I am just saying we are nowhere close to lossless video here and you need all the bitrate you can have when you are so far away, especially for big screens. On smaller screens, sure, things are more forgiving. Anybody with a screen above 40 inches should be able to tell when films hit low bitrates. It is not hard to see compression artifacts when the screen is paused on a scene that was deprived. Since the algorithms use motion in deciding bitrate as a main factor of the overall bitrate I would like to see a war film like this get the full treatment on two discs. Anyway, have a good night.

^^^^^
Wow. This must be a first here on AVS Forum.
A lecture on the importance of bitrate, encoding, future formats, screen size and compression artifacts!
Thanks for clearing these things up once and for all.
Maybe it should be sticky.

I will have to disagree with you. I saw the film yesterday and it is a stunning transfer. Its fine if you don't think its the best out there, but to say its average is just wrong in my opinion. When you say something like that ,it makes me think that its you that doesn't know what they are talking about.

Ivan

The commercial reality is that studios hate splitting a movie over two BDs and the majority of customers hate it for different reasons. It increases unit costs and this is not a situation where an extra disc like a DVD cost pennies. Multiple BDs in the same set eat into the profit margin on movies that will not sell in quantities sufficient to support the extra BD. Obviously as someone concerned with the absolute best fidelity and quality, it would be great for longer films to be split over two discs. Given the current market and economics, I do not see much chance of that happening now.

Sorry, let me clear things up. You did take that quote before I edited it. I mean average in that I think most blurays are decent enough. I was not WOWED by this as I have watched many blurays already that have been as good or better. This one has a decent bitrate. The film itself is the stunning part. I have seen many a stunning film on bluray. It looked marvelous on DVD back in the day when I was watching on a smaller SD screen. It looks stunning now. Average to good to me means it looks great but for some reason it didn't hit me over the head. Sure, if you mean by average some run of the mill warner encode than maybe you took me wrong. I don't own any run of the mill blurays. And I really do think that most people have no clue how large lossless 1080p really is. Maybe that is why they think bitrates are okay when low. You tell me.

On the other thing. I am not lecturing anybody. I took some offense to Mr. Wiggles quite honestly. He was pretty harsh on the other chap and imo he didn't come here with any science. To back nothing up with harsh, half baked criticism over someone's obsession with bitrate is not my idea of a proper argument. Bitrate is bitrate. It is the dang film for god's sake. You need a high bitrate. It really is not optional imo. This film spikes high enough when needed to be good. But I will not call it great just like I did not call the first version of Coraline great. Everybody was gushing over that on the 3D release and I could spot compression and other anomalies on my 55 inch set fairly easily.

Then the high bitrate release arrived and kind of shut everyone up. I have no doubt that if this film had a 40mb average it would put this version in the heap of forgotten versions. To each their own I guess. I am not here to lecture I am just saying some of the comments before really bothered me. When you are talking a lossy format you can't really with any kind of intelligence say that lesser bitrates are okay. Not if you care for the original and especially for an intense experience like Red Line. I guess some of you have deep enough wallets not to care. Some of us have been burned and we choose to be picky. I might pick this up for 20 when I have time. It's good.

Just finished this, and other than the strange Koteas shots and one shot of Sean Penn overlooking the grave towards the end--it looked gorgeous.

while bitrate is not always the all determining factor for the quality, if the rather low bitrate is to blame for the absence of a good amount of grain in the middle part of the movie (be it due to DNR on purpose to get extras on the disc or accidentaly), then hes right. so lets not do the opposite and diminish its importance. a healthy bitrate (however that much may be) is vital as well.

The ole' rumored 6+ hour TRL cut that Malick was showing to some people back during his editing time. I love this movie and read everything on it 10+ years ago. Basically its a cut with a Brody lead and other actors that he edited out, different narrative voices, etc. I still have my fingers cross that Malick it still playing around with this movie and we'll get a super duper 7 hour director's cut in 2020. This would be a treat to the cult fans of this film. No doubt.

I still have my fingers cross that Malick it still playing around with this movie and we'll get a super duper 7 hour director's cut in 2020. This would be a treat to the cult fans of this film. No doubt.

I consider this to be one of the greatest color films ever made, but I worry about seeing the complete footage shot. Would not the studio, not Malick, own the film? Back in the old days of Hollywood they would burn outtakes and old film to recover the silver. To get a long version we would assume that the camera negative shots still exist and have not deteriorated, plus the sound. It's a lot to hope for.

I just want to see Gary Oldman's cut scenes

It was not 5 hours. I think it was fifteen or twenty minutes longer than the final cut. We're talking ancient history so I just don't remember for sure. All I know is that it's absolutely superior to what was shown in cinemas.

I am not sure what your true intention was with this post, but as far as blu ray goes, this movie; and the way it came out is one of the top reasons I bought into blu ray.

It is a stunning example of what the format can do. I had the dvd version for years and it was one of the worst dvd transfers I can remember. I also disagree with your dismissal of the HDD review. I found it to be spot on. But then again most of us don't know what we are talking about compared to the teachers.

Are you watching the video or are you watching the bit rate meter?

I realize that you're new here, but this argument about bit rates has been beaten into the ground with a sledgehammer.

Bit rate, in and of itself, is not an accurate indicator of quality. As much as you seem to believe otherwise, there is no direct linear relationship between bit rate and picture quality. It is equally possible to have a crappy picture with high bit rate and an excellent picture with low bit rate, depending on the specific circumstances of the video content and how well the compression is performed. Some images do not require many bits to be displayed transparently, and cranking up the bit rate can be an exercise in diminishing returns.

The Thin Red Line is a slow-moving film with a lot of long, slow, static shots without much movement in them. Those sort of scenes don't have the same bit rate requirements as, say, the spastic quick-cut shakycam action scenes in Transformers 2.

As easy as it would be to say, "Look, the bit rate meter just spiked. That's great picture quality!" -- and as much as that may make any uneducated Joe with a PS3 feel like he's suddenly an expert in video engineering based on nothing more than watching the bit rate meter go up and down -- it just doesn't work that way in the real world.

It would also help to have a working knowledge of the grain and color properties of different 35mm film stocks, the optical characteristics of different camera lenses (especially anamorphic camera lenses), and the aesthetics of motion picture photography in general.

Picture quality is a much more complex topic than some people realize, and cannot be boiled down to, "Ooooh, high bit rate. So shiny!"