The mystery and the problem of Edge Enhancement  

I've got a number of black-and-white films as well that don't show any signs of EE. Maybe they felt that it would be more objectionable/noticable with black-and-white material. So, they either didn't add EE or did so, sparingly.

Just an idea.

Chad

Last night I watched Casablanca again. It was the first time I had watched it using the ATI player on my NEC XG135LC. I kept marveling at how wonderful it looked. Black level, shadow detail, overall detail, everything, looked great.

But even with the wonderfully sharp transfer, I couldn't see any sign of edge enhancement. It didn't have an edgy "video" look. As much as anything I've seen on video, it looked like film. I kept thinking "this is what it's all about!"

My question is, why does this particular transfer look like this and not others? MGM is not known for consistently excellent transfers (indeed, it's been severely criticized for some of its efforts). Other studios that have a better reputation for their transfers have done transfers that have engendered complaints about EE. This despite the fact that they will sometimes specifically deny the use of EE. An example was in the recent Home Theater Forum chat with Peter Staddon, in which he specifically stated that no EE was used on Die Hard With a Vengeance, and that problems people were seeing were in the source elements.

So what is the cause of EE? It can't be studio specific, because I've seen EE AND a lack of it from the same studio. I don't know if it's machine specific either, because it's reasonable to assume that studios use the same transfer/compression devices on all their films (or maybe it isn't!).

Is it operator specific? Possibly. Are different films from the same studio transferred by different operators? What about Peter Staddon specifically stating no EE was employed?

Is it film-specific?? Maybe some films are just more amenable to transferring/compression without EE than others? It truly is an interesting question.



[This message has been edited by RobertR (edited 08-06-2001).]

No, EE isn't an intrinsic part of film transferring elements, color or B&W. That is sheer taurine excrement!

I've been told by people on the know that HD masters do not exhibit this ugly video band aid at all. So it must be introduced during the authoring process because telecine operators only appear to check their work on rather smallish display devices, like 34" 16x9 monitors where EE might go unnoticed. Even then, how can they miss ugly amounts of EE that affect flicks like Die Hard 3, something I can easily observe from a 10 foot distance on a 36" TV set? Just amplify a scope-ratioed image, like the new aforementioned Die Hard 3, to a 12 foot width and see what havoc does EE wreck on that image. Ugh! http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/mad.gif

There are a few DVDs lacking EE extant; the AVIA and VE discs are but two examples. With all due respect, I must say Mr. Staddon is wrong, wrong, wrong: EE doesn't rise its ugly head from film -no more than it did with Casablanca; it occurs somewhere during the video transferring process...

-THTS

Not knowing much about EE, but from reading the posts above, could EE be introduced to make copying and illegal distribution a problem and or an effect caused by macrovision. If a DVD that has EE is copied on a computer what happens with the EE effects? are they worse?

I know I'm way out of my area of expertise here, but that was the first thought I had reading this thread, that may have also been the motive because as previously stated "It's usually the big blockbuster flicks that have the most severe EE."

my .02

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John

Here is a good explanation of EE:
http://home.t-online.de/home/bjoern....ml/Page_01.htm

And an explanation of macrovision http://nexus.thoic.net/mv_faq.html