Universal 100th Anniversary releases - Page 7

DNR filters are not blur filters. Image blurring can be a side effect of the processing but is not intended per se. A blur filter on the other hand is designed to blur an image.

True restoration is done by whatever tools the job requires. Automatic, semi automatic or fully manual. These remastering software packages are absolutely used for restoration in Hollywood on a daily basis.

The poorer the condition the more manual and semi automatic tools will be used. That's correct. A restoration job is a mixture of all tools available as required. Automatic tools without human supervision and QC are incompatible with high quality restoration, though. Human supervision is a must.

I understand Universal is (re)releasing Peter Jackson's King Kong as part of their 100th Anniversary slate of movies. I'd guess this is going to simply be a new pressing of the previous transfer which was good as it stands. Anyone know differently?

And frozen grain reminiscent of Life Of Brian.

Sure is the Universal motto. The awful results is no surprise with that attitude. Filtering is never restoring only degrading and yes dnr is a blur filter that's why the images looked blurred.

DNR is many things, can we stop with the absurd oversimplification?

I'm more confident the Jaws release is going to turn out very well. Let's see what's done for E.T.

It is exactly what it was before. Simply a re-package with DVD and Digital Copy, which is Universal Home Video's standard packaging these days.

Universal strike again!

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/screen...891&position=2

100 Years, 100 Films, 100 F--k-ups.

How is the PQ of Apollo 13 on Blu-ray?

Ony surprising if anyone here is surprised. I would really like to see a comparsion against the HD-DVD Sting version. I suspect the BD will look worse.


I would say of all the films Universal also put on HD-DVD, Apollo 13 comes out the biggist difference between the two formats with the BD on the downside.

Robert Harris makes some very interesting comments about The Sting over at Home Theater Forum. Another Universal FILM converted to HD Video.

Hopefully a small budget to "restore" the Hitchcock films will limit the destruction.

ugh brutally bad

so many discs I can't buy because of the trash they do to them, so they spend money to mess them up and then less people buy them, will some high level exec in the studio wake up and can the bozos who push this garbage and realize they are just costing them money, money to hear them make up nonsense about how this and that needs to be done so as to justify their jobs, money to do the this or that and money lost in sales

I'm sorry, but it's obvious that you don't know what you are talking about and have never used restoration packages yourself.

Oh dear. Have they never heard of regraining? Better leave the image alone, but if you have this very degrained look already and it's free of digital artifacts beyond the unnatural plastic look then you can make it look a lot more film like and subjectively sharper by regraining properly. The same goes for the atrocius Mockingbird shot.

You say you have used automatic video cleaning software? Wow, nothing to be impressive about there.

Degraining and regraining a classic? Ugh.
Edited by wuther - 6/23/12 at 2:02pm

Degrain tools are not blur filters, wuther. However depending on the film stock and the DNR settings dictates how much lost detail in the final image.

Degraining then regraining does not help correct lost detail but it certainly fools a lot of folks.

Universal is really mucking up their titles by all this degraining, no manner how much spin they spew out, it essentially defeats the point and benefit of HD for home video.

Best Regards
KvE

The blurring result just appears out of magic I guess.

Does not say much positive about matering places trying to do the fooling.

Yes, DNR is a blur filter, much like a flying brick is an airplane. Both are in the air, after all. Very insightful

A Blur filter does not attempt to retain detail while applying it's effect. While a degrain filter is suppose to retain detail while removing unwanted information.

Clearly when misapplied, or excessively so which seems most often the case, the net result is a slurry of nasty blurred smeary image quality.

On the lesser end of scale it causes the image to be softer. Frequently the more minimal application retains some characteristic of grain but the grain structure is softer and 'blotchy' which tricks many into perceiving no filtering was applied. Essentially if you cannot see darker fine grainuals then it most likely has been filtered to some degree.

Newer film stocks have very fine grain structure that most would not even take serious note of its presence even on a poorly calibrated display with excessive sharpening. Yet even those films get filtered causing the image to be softened, the upswing though is if the application is minimal it does not degrade image quality as much as it would on an older stock with more larger grainuals.

Best Regards
KvE

I have used restoration packages as used by Criterion, WB etc. when restoring/remastering films for their Blu Rays. These tools are manual and automatic, as required. You use what is needed for the job given time and budget limits. And your point is? Have you ever seen properly degrained and regrained material? I'm sure you have, you just had no idea it was degrained and regrained.

Abbott and Costello Vs Frankenstein

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film4/blu-ray_reviews57/abbott_and_costello_meet_frankenstein_blu-ray.htm

This might be the most film like classic Universal has put on BD, going by the few caps it's hard to spot the usual tinkering.

If the rest of the monster classics look like this I would be in heaven.

And now some martini soaked Martin, Airport:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare2/airport.htm

Colors are now bluish in these caps instead of the dvd orange, debatable if that's much better. There's grain in the caps but it does look suppressed, maybe some waxy faces.

Not that I trust a beaver cap in any way, but the color shown on the Blu-ray cap is absolutely accurate - blue is correct and the DVD was not correct at all.

Universal needs to get rid of Michael Daruty.

Reviews of Harvey and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein suggest that Universal may, at long last, have scaled back their enthusiasm for DNR. Robert Harris has very good things to say about the way Harvey looks. Perhaps we have hope for the Hitchcock and Monsters collections after all.

If Universal really has adopted a more film like policy the next thing they'll need to examine in their pricing. $26.98 retail for an Abbott and Costello film? It won't take long for the first sell through to be completed and it shows up at Costco for $9.98. If they really need to charge that much to make margin I'm afraid the market will discourage them from continuing.