The New PQ Tier thread for Blu-Ray - Discussion - Page 609

An Affair To Remember

This appears to be a high quality film transfer of the 1957 movie, but it very much shows it age. The filmmakers made the unfortunate decision to litter the whole film with optical dissolves, all of which look grainy, blurry, and generally horrible. The non-optical bits look a lot better, having excellent resolution. Unfortunately, the colors tend to have a dull, faded appearance, and black levels are always gray and have a blueish tinge. More subjectively, I thought the movie's visual appeal often suffered from very bland production design and a heavy dependence on unconvincing soundstages/matte paintings/rear projection.

Tier 3.75*

Please remember to include an asterisk for discs that have never been ranked before in the main PQ list. That change was made a couple of months ago to save me a little time.

Wrestlemania XXVII

Meh. Cut and paste every WWE Blu-ray video review here and you're good to go, although this one crams about 4 and half hours of content on a single disc. That doesn't help. Lots of compression, ringing, interlacing errors (it's 1080i), aliasing, and plastic looking skin. But hey, colors are strong and black levels are great, so the basics are there.

Tier 4.0*

A Star Is Born

Another quality restoration of a 50s color film that suffers from badly degraded and missing source materials. This film probably looked spectacular before decades of color fading and neglect: many parts still look great, with good colors, skillful photography, and solid detail. All the usual CinemaScope lens defects are on display: mumps, softness, focus that comes and goes, etc. The not-so-preserved parts have that grainy, blurry dupe look. Then there are the not-preserved-at-all parts, where they just pan over black and white production stills. Watching classic films on blu-ray is a very frustrating experience sometimes.
This being a 3-hour Warner disc, there are some occasional compression issues, but it's a pretty decent encode overall, and a satisfying disc provided the viewer has reasonable expectations.

Tier 3.5*

Django

The 1966 spaghetti western is almost painful to watch in many places. It is incredibly noisy, with a completely unnatural level of sharpness for a film of this (or any) vintage, murky washed out colors, and a heapin' helping of source damage and wobbling. DNR is visible in places. About the only positive thing I can say is that detail is generally solid. I could see this looking good on small displays or greater viewing distances, where the overpowering noise could be mistaken for film grain, but to me it looked harsh, artificial, and thoroughly unpleasant.

Tier 4.5*

Another big update, going back to February. The x indicates the title has not previously been ranked. Including the asterisk in your placements for previously unranked titles does save me a bit of time. The number of unique titles being reviewed has greatly increased, which does pose somewhat of a challenge in updating the tiers.

That is why less and less new entries are including the specifications. Only discs that end up ranked in Tiers 0 and 1 get full specification listings. The excellent data analysis of the Tiers by DanLW has been included in the main Tiers list.

x The Peacemaker - 2.75 deltasun

x Pleasantville - 3.25 Gamereviewgod

Despicable Me - 0 above Toy Story 3 lgans316

x Red Hill - 3.25 deltasun

x Waiting For Superman - 3.5 Gamereviewgod

And Soon The Darkness (2010) - 1.5 Gamereviewgod

Book Of Eli - bottom of 0 Canuck89

x Megamind - 1.0 deltasun, 1.0 sbpyrat, 1.0 Gamereviewgod, 1.0 zoey67

x Memento (10th Ann.) - 1.75 deltasun

x Insomnia - 1.5 deltasun

x The Ultimate Wave: Tahiti (3-D combo) - middle of 0 Gamereviewgod

x Dinosaurs: The Giants of Padagonia (3-D combo) - 3.5 Gamereviewgod

x Bambi - 1.25 Phantom Stranger, 1.0 sbpyrat, .75 Gamereviewgod

x 127 Hours - 3.75 Gamereviewgod, 2.25/2.5 djoberg, 3.0 deltasun, 4.0 audiomagnate, 1.5 ivanpino, 2.5 sbpyrat

x Faster - 1.25 changed to 1.5 djoberg, 1.75 deltasun, 1.5 sbpyrat, lower 0 Gamereviewgod, 1.25 rusky_g

x Love And Other Drugs - 1.25 djoberg, 2.0 Gamereviewgod, 1.5 deltasun

Gamer - 1.0 sbpyrat

King Kong (2005) - 1.0 sbpyrat

Domino - 1.25 sbpyrat

Revanche - 1.5 deltasun

x Takers - 2.0 audiomagnate

x Never Let Me Go - 2.25 deltasun

Legends of The Guardians - 2nd in 0 tcramer, 3rd in 0 sbpyrat

x Walking Dead: Season 1 - 3.25 Gamereviewgod, 2.25 deltasun

x Blood The Last Vampire (animated) - 2.75/3.25 Phantom Stranger

Law Abiding Citizen - 1.5 Phantom Stranger

x Fish Tank - bottom third of 0 deltasun, 1.75 sbpyrat

x SWAT Firefight - 3.25 Gamereviewgod

Monsters Vs. Aliens - middle of 0 above Sin City Phantom Stranger

Buried - 4.0 deltasun

Days Of Heaven - 3.5 deltasun

x The Runaways (German AVC) - 2.75 lgans316

x Burlesque - 4.25 Gamereviewgod, 4.0 deltasun

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World - 2.5 Phantom Stranger, 1.25 zoey67, 2.5 rusky_g

x The Man From Nowhere - 2.75 deltasun

x The Next Three Days - 1.5 Gamereviewgod, 1.75 djoberg, 1.75 deltasun

x Sharktopus - 4.0 Gamereviewgod

x Jackass 3 - 3.75 Gamereviewgod

x The Magician - 2.25 deltasun

x Morning Glory - 1.75/2 djoberg, 2.25 Gamereviewgod

x Bigger than life - 2.5 deltasun

x The Robe - 3.25 Phantom Stranger

x Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind - 2.25 deltasun, 3.0 Phantom Stranger, 2.75 sbpyrat

x Paranoiac! (UK) - 2.5 Phantom Stranger

Prince Caspian - 0 rusky_g

x Hereafter - 2.0 Gamereviewgod, 1.5 djoberg, 1.5 deltasun

Black Narcissus - 1.75 deltasun

x The Fighter - 2.75 Gamereviewgod, 3.0 djoberg, 3 rusky_g

Unstoppable - 2.0 deltasun

x the switch - 3.0 Gamereviewgod, 2.5 deltasun

x Mummies: secrets of the pharaohs (3-D) - 2.75 Gamereviewgod

x Ultimate G's: Zak's Flying Dream 3-D - 2.75 Gamereviewgod

x Uncle Buck - 3.75 Gamereviewgod

Treasure Of The Sierra Madre - 1.75 sbpyrat

From Russia With Love - 1.5 audiomagnate

Chungking Express - 4.0 deltasun

Lola Montes - 3.75 deltasun

x Skyline - 4.0 Gamereviewgod, 4.0 deltasun

x The Tourist - 2.5 djoberg, 3.25 Gamereviewgod

x Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance - 1.25 deltasun

x How Do You Know - 3.5 Gamereviewgod

x Yogi Bear - 2.25 Gamereviewgod

x Tron: Legacy - 0 Sujay, 1.0 djoberg, top of 0 Foxarwing42, 1.25 Gamereviewgod, 1.0 rusky_g, 1.5 audiomagnate, 1.25 patrick99, 1.5 lgans316, 1.0 sbpyrat

x Antichrist - 3.25 deltasun

Crater lake Monster - 3.75 Gamereviewgod

x The Order - 2.0 Phantom Stranger

x Galaxian - 4.5 GRG

x House - 4.0 deltasun

Magnolia - 2.0 42041

x Tangled - .25 Gamereviewgod, 10th in 0 djoberg, 0 Vegaz, 11th in 0 sbpyrat

x Black Swan - 3.25 djoberg, 3.0 Gamereviewgod, 3.0 audiomagnate

Logan's Run - 4.0 42041

Fair Game - 3.5 Gamereviewgod, 3.5 djoberg

x All About Eve - 3.0 42041

The WHite Ribbon - 1.25 deltasun

The Ten Commandments - 2.5 deltasun

x All Good Things - 3.0 Gamereviewgod, 3.0 deltasun

x The Resident - 1.5 Gamereviewgod

x Short Circuit 2 - 3.0 Gamereviewgod

x Little Fockers - 1.25 Gamereviewgod. 1.5 djoberg, 2.75 rusky_g

x Unthinkable - 2.5 djoberg

x King Of Kings - 2.75 deltaun

x I Love You Phillip Morris - 1.75 Gamereviewgod

x A-Team - 2.0 djoberg

x Stone - 2.75 djoberg

x Case 39 - 3.75 djoberg

x Narnia: Dawn Treader - 2.75 Gamereviewgod, 3.0 patrick99

x Tron - 3.25 deltasun, 3.0 Gamereviewgod, 3.0 sbpyrat

x Taxi Driver - 4.0 deltasun, 3.25 42041, 3.0 sbpyrat

Justice League: New Frontier - 1.5 deltasun

x The Way Back - 2.0 Gamereviewgod

x Country Strong - 2.75 djoberg, 2.5 Gamereviewgod, 3.5 patrick99, 2.25 sbpyrat

x Scream - 4.0 Gamereviewgod

x Scream 2 - 4 Gamereviewgod

x Showgirls - 2.0 42041

x Scream 3 - 3.75 Gamereviewgod

x Harry Potter and deathly Hallows Pt 1 - 2.25 lgans316, 2.5 Gamereviewgod, 2.5 rusky_g, 2.75 OldCodger73, 2.25 djoberg, 3.25 Patrick99, 2.5 sbpyrat

Wall Street 2 - 2.0 lgans316

x Batman Beyond: Return of The Joker - 1.75 Phantom Stranger

x Girl Who Kicked Hornet's Nest - 2.25 OldCodger73

x Moonstruck - 3.75 OldCodger

x Thelma Louise - 3.0 OldCodger

x Babe - 1.75 OldCodger

x Fiddler On The Roof - 3.75 OldCodger

x King's Speech - 3.75 Gamereviewgod, 4.0 audiomagnate, 3.5 deltasun

Due Date - 2.0 deltasun

x Everlasting Moments - 2.25 deltasun

x Summer Hours - 2.5 deltasun

x The Incredibles - 0 below Astro Boy Gamereviewgod, 0 above MvA lgans316, 0 14th sbpyrat

x Meet The Parents - 3.0 deltasun

x Street Kings 2 - 1.5 Gamereviewgod

x Born To Raise Hell - 1.75 Gamereviewgod

x Mesrine: Killer Instinct - 1.0 deltasun

x El Topo - 3.75 Gamereviewgod

x Gulliver's Travels - 1.75 Gamereviewgod

x The Greatest Story Ever Told - 5 Phantom Stranger

x Blue valentine - 3.25 Gamereviewgod

x Librarian: Quest For The Spear (Dutch import) - 3.5 Phantom Stranger

x Contempt - 3.75 deltasun

x Blood Out - 3.0 Gamereviewgod

x The Terror - 4 Gamereviewgod

x Dementia 13 - 5 Gamereviewgod

x Green Hornet - 2.5 djoberg, 1.0 rusky_g, 2.0 Gamereviewgod, 1.5 lgans316

x Army Of Shadows - 3.75 deltasun

x The Dilemma - 2.25 Gamereviewgod

x Search For the Great Sharks - 4.75 Gamereviewgod

x Inside Job - 4.75 Gamereviewgod

The American - 2.25 lgans316

Daredevil - 2.25 lgans316

Mary and Max - current 0 sbpyrat

Love Actually - 2.0 Gamereviewgod

x Bob Dylan: Other Side of the mirror - 5 Phantom Stranger

x No Strings Attached - 2.0 Gamereviewgod

x South Park 14th season - 1.0 sbpyrat

x Black Death - 4.75 Gamereviewgod

x Mortal Kombat 2 - 3.75 Gamereviewgod

x Halloween 6 (canada) - 4.5 Phantom Stranger

x Mortal Kombat - 3.75 Gamereviewgod

x The Rite - 1.75 djoberg

Lord of the rings 1 - 3.75 lgans316

Lord of the rings 2 - 2 lgans316

Out of Sight - 2 lgans316

Last king of scotland - 2.25 lgans316

x An Affair To Remember - 3.75 42041

x Wrestlemania XXVII - 4.0 GRG

x A Star Is Born - 3.5 42041

x Django - 4.5 42041

Thanks for the update! I'm heading out of town for 8 days today, but will check out the newly updated list closer when I return.

Great work Phantom! As always, it is appreciated.

Elephant White

Decent enough digital production but stuck in some of the most god awful colors you've ever seen. Reds, pinks, purples, blues, you name it, and all oversaturated. Detail can be firm in close, but noise and softness can get in the way. Black levels are mediocre at times too.

Tier 2.25

Great work Phantom. Your patience is highly appreciated.

The Mechanic

Saddled with a nearly monochromatic orange tint, this one suffers for it in terms of eye candy. Grain is a bit noisy here and there too, enough to be distracting. Detail is strong though, plenty of richly textured faces in close or in the mid-range. Blacks crush with a little too much regularity.

Tier 2.0*

How was the movie itself?

A minor milestone today, the active Tiers page passed 300,000 page views since it went live on 8/04/09 from SuprSlow. That does not include any of the page hits for the prior Tier posts at all, which would add another several hundred thousand to the total.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342

Meh. Sluggish and dull. Struggled with tone.

The Roommate

Glossy skin that is a remnant of the digital source, plus simply awful black levels. Detail is here, typically hidden behind a layer of noise. Some aliasing, blooming contrast, and so-so close-ups. This one is all over the place.

Tier 2.75

and how was the audio?

At the risk of stepping on GRG's thunder, you can always read his full review:
http://www.doblu.com/2011/05/18/the-mechanic-review/

A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop*

I loved the way this film looked. There's not a lot of variety here, you're either in the noodle shop or out in the desert, but the colorful costumes leap off the screen, and the gorgeous desert landscapes show how miserably 127 Hours failed in representing a landscape of this type. Grain was just barely perceptible 6 feet from my new 54 inch Panny. Detail came close to Thin Red Line levels. Color accuracy was spot on.

Middle of tier 0*

The Rite

Dark film stuck mostly in interiors that apparently don't have light. Black levels don't hold up to the task as they need to. Plenty of of orange/teal to go around. Grain looks okay but the film looks filtered, a few special effects especially ghastly. Ringing and aliasing are also a factor.

Tier 3.25

I disagree with what you say about the black levels; they looked excellent in most scenes on my KURO. And how could you not mention the stunning details that more or less characterized the film from start to finish? Depth was also appreciable in quite a few scenes.

I'm sticking with my 1.75 or 2.0 recommendation.

Cool! Thanks.

I Am Number Four

Another stylized, CGI-laden action flick with the characteristic orange/teal hues, but I have to say: I LIKED WHAT I SAW!!

You know I'm a sucker for BLACKS and they did NOT disappoint (except for some fleeting moments of black crush in a few night scenes). They were generally deep and inky and the corresponding SHADOW DETAILS were to die for. There were plenty of scenes highlighting them too....my favorites were outside the home of the female lead, with breathtaking foliage, sidewalks, and city streets.

FLESH TONES had a bronze tint to them, yet they appeared quite natural (a paradox of sorts). FACIAL DETAILS in close were definitely demo material, though not quite reference in the majority of shots (high to low Tier 1, IMO).

COLORS were warm and vibrant. In a few instances they were a bit too over-saturated, but even these were pleasing to the eyes.

DETAILS were phenomenal at times, especially in daytime scenes featuring aerial views of the countryside. They were spectacular in close as well.

DEPTH and DIMENSIONALITY were also remarkable in some scenes.

SHARPNESS and CLARITY were, for the most part, consistent throughout, but there were some scenes where softness crept in resulting in a flat look void of details. Thankfully these were "few and far between."

This could have found itself in the reference tier were it not for the anomalies mentioned above, along with some less-than-stellar CGI. As it is, I'm inclined to nominate it for....

Tier Recommendation: 1.75*

Pioneer 60" KURO Elite (1080p/24)....Pioneer Elite 05....Viewed from 7.5'

PS For Toe's sake, I should mention that the audio ROCKED!

Watched two excellent restorations by Sony recently...

The Bridge on the River Kwai
Visually, this was probably The Thin Red Line of 1957, with fantastic location photography. The decades have clearly taken their toll on the negatives, however. Despite the obvious quality of the 4K film transfer, the colors pretty consistently have a either a faded dull look, or one that's slightly unnatural, like the restoration people had to strain the film for color. Skin tones are the worst casualty, taking on flat brown hues regularly. Opticals are pretty bad too. A few spots toward the beginning of the film have subtle DNR applied but nothing significant. This being a CinemaScope film, sharpness isn't the greatest, but resolution is excellent in general. All of that may sound rather negative but it's great stuff, really.
Tier 2.75

Jason and the Argonauts
Eastman Kodak must've cleaned up their act sometime between 1957 and 1963, because the colors on this film fare much better. When the transfer is going straight from the negative, it looks great, and even the opticals don't look as bad as most of the 50s stuff I've watched in recent weeks. Looks like film all the way. The photography is less visually inspired than the David Lean film, though still generally pleasant to look at. Although I think it often looks better than River Kwai in a technical sense, what makes me rank this lower is the extended visual effects sequences, which are heavy with grain and lack detail.
The film itself doesn't really hold up in my opinion. The effects have some dated charm, but most aspects of the production are lackluster.
Tier 3.0

Crazies (2010)

Inconsistent picture. Some scenes looks like upconvert but compensated by few nice and bright looking outdoor scenes.

P.S: The PQ of the movie in the special features looks stunning but obviously its raw and unprocessed. I thought the movie was right on the money but the ending was a slightly missed opportunity.

Recommendation: Tier 2.5

--------------------------------------------------------

Next Three Days

Starts off dull but PQ improves after that. There is a bit of black crush making some dark scenes look murky and lifeless. Besides that, the abundance of outdoor scenes compensates these by offering nice PQ.

Recommendation: Tier 2

Thanks djoberg.....you know me well! Looking forward to this one.

Daughters Of Darkness

recommendation: Tier 3.0

This Blu-ray looks much better than any cult horror film from 1971 should at this point, especially given the poor state in general of older films on the format. Blue Underground has given the film a brilliant treatment outside of one caveat. Gorgeous colors, excellent contrast, and deep black levels combine to produce a striking transfer.

The rich, crimson reds pop off the screen, a signature motif in the movie. An ample amount of detail is evident in most scenes, allowing an unprecedented level of clarity to the picture unseen since the movie was first shown in theaters. The AVC video encode averages a high 31.10 Mbps, revealing every inch of the original source without breaking down into artifacting. There is virtually no amount of print damage in the image and no trace of deleterious digital noise reduction usage.

The one caveat mentioned before is the unsightly appearance of ringing and halos in select scenes. If one can get past the ringing problems, much of it optical in nature, the picture quality really looks more in the area of Tier 2. A substantial minority of the film does show large halos, particularly the scenes set in the hotel's ornate lobby. There does look to be some level of edge enhancement added to the master, at least on a select basis. Unfortunately you would have to be blind to miss the glowing force fields that surround certain objects in the lobby. Possible problems in the surviving film elements might be at fault.

Daughters of Darkness on Blu-ray is an immense increase in resolution and clarity over the prior DVDs. Even with the minor problems, Blue Underground has performed stellar work on this transfer. The final score in Tier 3.0 probably gives the wrong impression of the image, as the disc usually looks incredible for the movie's age and status.

BDInfo scan (courtesy of McCrutchy):
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post20172804

I have little thunder left, and now you're stomping what I do have out of existence? Cruel, cruel man.

The Company Men

Absolutely fantastic. Best live action I've seen this year. There's a natural purity to the colors, never oversaturated or blown out. Everything is just real. Sharpness is amazing, the exteriors of the houses meticulous and the facial detail staggering. Black levels are brilliant, and the contrast perfect. Just a slight hint of ringing and one moment of aliasing.

Tier .75

Thanks for whetting my appetite GRG!

Reviews on the movie (at Amazon) also sound good.

It is a great movie. Some people have trouble feeling sorry for the guys since they're in a significant pay grade, but the movie is more about their feelings of diminishing self-worth and their inability to provide than money.

The 36th Chamber of Shaoilin

DNR'ed and interlaced (1080i) leading to plenty of problems. Facial detail does remain, if uncommonly. Colors are way oversaturated, blues and reds bleeding out. Black levels do the same with with a near complete crush of shadow detail.

Tier 4.25*

I really wish another company had acquired the license to distribute The 36th Chamber than Vivendi, whom has proven themselves a problematic Blu-ray provider at best. The film deserves better as the influential classic it is in the history of kung fu cinema. A company like Blue Underground or Criterion needs to save it for posterity.

White Material

Contrast is a bit weak in places, but a commendable high-def presentation with decent details. Facial close-up's are even better, especially of the main character. Colors can be a bit washed out, predominantly browns and yellows, but the occasional greens look striking.

Not a stunning presentation, but adequate.

Tier Recommendation: 2.25

ln46a650 - 1080p/24 - 6'

P.S. Thanks, Phantom, for the recent updates. I can't stress enough how much we appreciate your time spent in propagating this thread!