The New PQ Tier thread for Blu-Ray - Discussion - Page 669

My feelings exactly. I would not recommend anyone but Jeff just based on my amazing experience with him.

Anyway, who's picking up skyfall today?

Sent from the Nodes of Ranvier

I anticipate Skyfall will be a Tier 0 disc

I ordered Skyfall through Amazon Prime and it arrives on Thursday. We're having a daugther and her husband for the weekend and we'll watch it together Friday night.

Paranormal Activity 4

Same old, same old. Same old storyline with nothing new to cause you to jump....same old boring PQ with some decent daytime shots (albeit with smoothed over faces) on home video and some very lousy, gritty, grainy, murky, nighttime scenes.

Tier Recommendation: 3.75*

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Safe

Same old, same old. Same old Jason Statham shootem up, car-chasing, and martial arts fiasco...same old teal/orange mess yet redeemed by excellent facial details and fairly good black levels.

Tier Recommendation: 1.75*

Viewed from 7.5' using the equipment listed below....

I thought it was one of the more enjoyable Statham movies, myself. I haven't watched it yet on Blu-ray to give my two cents on the picture quality.

Really! I kept thinking to myself, "If you've seen one Jason Statham movie, you've seen them all."

His films all largely follow the same formula, but I thought some of the wrinkles they added to the story nicely fleshed out Safe. They clearly ripped off some of the vibe from The Professional, but it's better to rip off great movies than middle-of-the-road action flicks.

And some of the vibe from Mercury Rising as well.

Nope.

Skyfall

Black levels when they're needed the most are the downer here, unable to capture the depth they need. Elsewhere the disc is fine if a little too glossy. Facial close-ups are strong if a hair inconsistent and establishing shots are often mesmerizing in their detail. Sharpness is outstanding all around. All around good disc, not one of the best.

Tier 1.0*

I'm surprised that there's only three reviews in on Cinema's site. They all gave it a perfect score of 100 for PQ and not a word about faltering black levels. The only one who did comment on the blacks was Daniel from HiDefDigest and he said they were DEEP. The irony is he also watched it on a new Panny plasma. So, I'm curious to see who I will agree with on that point, with us all having plasmas.

I guess if you lower your brightness setting too much you will always get DEEP blacks

Fox usually only sends screeners on release day so it takes some time. I just rent them and avoid the delay.

My screens show the dimness of the blacks in crucial scenes. They're great elsewhere though.

Good to hear the blacks are "great elsewhere though." I'll be more than satisfied if it's good enough to have your recommendation of 1.0. You are a very critical reviewer (and that's "a good thing") and I know you don't toss out Tier 1.0 recommendations very often.

Arn: The Knight Templar

recommendation: Tier 1.0*

Arn: The Knight Templar has a strange production history. It originated as a 2007 European mini-series that was then formulated into two movies. This was a very expensive production for television, with the budget topping $30 million. For the benefit of American audiences that prefer their historical epics a tad shorter in length, the two movies were then edited together and hacked up into the cut presented on this Blu-ray.

This particular version of Arn runs 113 minutes, though its distributor EONE did the video encode no favors by barely utilizing the BD-50 capacity. While this BD does possess phenomenal picture quality for the Tiers, interested people should likely explore the reissued, complete-series version on Blu-ray. I have not seen that newer disc to date, but do plan on picking it up. It gives you some idea as to my back log of unwatched discs. Arn was first issued on Blu-ray back in 2010 and the case had gathered a fair amount of dust until I watched the movie yesterday.

The AVC video averages a paltry 19.82 Mbps for the main feature. It doesn't significantly impact the video quality aside from one scene with heavy fog, but one wonders about the possible benefit to transparency from the master with much higher compression parameters. Thankfully the razor-sharp definition remains intact with crystal-clear clarity.

Arn is a Swedish historical epic set in the time of the Crusades and its sweeping scope cinematography is absolutely breathtaking. Shot on location in places like Morocco and Scotland, Arn has been masterfully filmed. It possibly has the best principal photography and composition I've seen from a film in the past decade. The fabulous depth of focus is nearly uniform over the various locales in the movie, a rare thing from today's cinema. Contrast is pitch-perfect with exquisitely rendered black levels. The basically-neutral color palette is fully saturated, though the unmanipulated flesh-tones will spook those who've grown accustomed to Hollywood's current fetish for teal and orange.

Some incidental ringing, very fine in amplitude and possibly a scaling remnant, is the only weakness of an unfailingly pristine transfer. That was the determining factor for my placement outside of Tier 0, though outside of obsessed videophiles I suspect it will go unobserved. I have a feeling that Arn's 2K digital intermediate has a strong chance of producing a Tier 0 disc with the right care and proper handling. I wonder about foreign editions of the movie on Blu-ray...

Anyone into historical drama and action epics should check it out on Blu-ray.

Our company may not be coming this weekend so I may be watching this tonight. The reviews (on Cinema's site) are really coming in now and EVERYONE is singing its praises, which includes comments on are good the blacks are. You are truly the "Lone Ranger" on this one on that site...but I guess that's nothing new.

Skyfall

My recollection of Skyfall at the Cinema was that it was quite dim and murky and I pondered how good it would look on Bluray.

I am therefore delighted that it looks exceptional - everything good about Hi Definition is captured in this release and that's all you need to know.

Tier 0.5

Skyfall

Roger Deakins. Amazing work, yet again. This is a beautiful film with glorious use of various elements, including shadows. It hits all the high notes and deserves its visual accolades. This is the work of a master.

Tier Recommendation: 0.5

Skyfall

It is with some reservation that I begin this review, for I was quite persuaded that I would be joining fellow-members rusky_g and HD-Master in their hearty recommendations for Tier Blu. As stated in a previous post, EVERYONE that has posted reviews on Cinema Squid's site had unabashedly assigned it a perfect score of 100 for PQ, with the sole exception of our resident reviewer, GRG, who gave it a score of 80 there and a Tier 1.0 placement here. Now I find myself with mixed emotions as to what I just saw, though in my heart of hearts I know what I must do.

Let me state emphatically that this was indeed a beautiful film (in many ways). As HD-Master intimated Mr. Roger Deakins is to be applauded for his eclectic filming style, especially his use of shadows. Truly they had the touch the "master's hand." Speaking of shadows, I must disagree unequivocally with GRG regarding black levels, for I found them to be exquisite in every scene with mesmerizing shadow details. When the scene shifts to Shanghai, China we are treated to a panoramic, aerial view of Shanghai at night and it's one of the most beautiful shots in recent memory. Later we are blessed with yet another nighttime, aerial view of Macau and there too the black levels are superb and the lights and details of the city are simply gorgeous.

There is a happy consensus in the DETAIL department, and I might add the DEPTH department to that virtue. Details in clothing, the cobblestone streets and buildings of London, facial close-ups (though I agree with GRG that they were inconsistent), the closing scene in Scotland (where Skyfall gets its name), etc. all constitute, as we love to call it, pure EYE CANDY. And as has been stated by GRG, "SHARPNESS is outstanding all around." CONTRAST is stable, COLORS are natural and vibrant, and in *most* scenes CLARITY rules the day.

I'm sure you're wondering where I'm headed with this, given my opening paragraph where I, for all practical purposes, implied I was disappointed and may be parting company with the vast majority of all who have weighed in with a REFERENCE QUALITY assessment. There is one little area that still must be addressed, one that doesn't always sway me as it did this time around. I'm speaking of those dreaded ORANGE/BLUE hues that were found in many of the opening scenes. I found them to be very distracting at times AND in several instances FLESH TONES were most definitely affected by them, leaving Mr. Craig and others looking rather ORANGE instead of FLESH-COLORED. Thankfully they weren't pervasive; in fact, about midway into the film I can't say that I even noticed them anymore. At any rate, they were bad enough, IMHO, to cause me to penalize the title. I desperately wanted to give this a low Tier 0 placement based on all the *positives* listed above, but now I must, in good conscience, join our lonely GRG (though I'm joining him for a different reason than what he stated) and opt for the following....

Tier Recommendation: 1.0*

PS I just have to shout out a word of praise for the amazing audio track! This was one of the most *precise* tracks I've ever heard, with amazing action in the surrounds, remarkable dialogue in the center, and several excellent doses of LFE thrown in for good measure. In every area it sounded PERFECT! Well-balanced comes to mind when I think of the audio track as a whole.

Viewed from 7.5' using the equipment listed below....
Edited by djoberg - 2/17/13 at 5:50pm

Now we need a tiebreaker vote for Skyfall. Someone else should step up and give their opinion on the BD. It won't be myself anytime soon, it's not at the top of my viewing list.

Chernobyl Diaries

recommendation: Tier 2.25*

Crisp digital video courtesy of the Arri Alexa camera, the first act in broad daylight is both razor-sharp and pristine. Disregarding some possible filtering which smooths out finer detail, the first act by itself has upper Tier One-potential. The movie from that point plunges into darkness, where the video cinematography falls flat against the best film-based cinema. Digitally-shot video has a tendency to lack proper shadow depth and loses a touch of texture compared to film in its delineation. Chernobyl Diaries also doesn't project much sense of dimensionality to the picture, even in exterior shots.
Edited by Phantom Stranger - 2/15/13 at 7:29pm

Nice review, Dj

Thanks!

So, did the ORANGE/TEAL hues bother you at all? Before I wrote the review I went back to several scenes to see if I had the same impression of the "orange flesh tones" and I most certainly did. One of the worst examples of it was the scene in the nightclub where Bond first meets the beautiful brunette...YUK! But again, the overall disc is so good I really don't want to dwell on its one flaw.

I also really liked the movie itself. I never did like the older Bond movies where Bond was portrayed as invincible. It's refreshing to see him being vulnerable, especially due to his age and the limitations that go along with it. And of course the villain in this outing was phenomenal! He was as good, IMO, as the Joker was in The Dark Knight.

I wouldn't call it a flaw if it was a choice however.

Awesome review djoberg and I agree with most of what you said.

While I noticed the orange/teal that you mention, it did not bother me personally since I assumed it was an artistic decision (and I know artistic decision has little relevance as far as this thread goes and the rating scale since it is more about eye candy, or do I have that wrong?).

Black levels, shadow detail, color, clarity, facial detail were all top notch IMO and I was floored with the PQ on this disc! I honestly cant think of anything, including maybe even Samsara (which I actually watched right before Skyfall along with Tree of Life) that has impressed me as much overall as Skyfall the other night did as far as live action blu ray goes. I have been running through a variety of "reference" blu rays since doing a full calibration on my RS45 a week ago and Skyfall tops all of them as far as the live action titles go including the ones I already mentioned and even one of my favorites, The Art of Flight. The image was ROCK solid as well as far as any flickering, or background pulsing goes which is a huge plus for me as I am very sensitive to this for some reason. I dont feel the need to vote here much, but I do for this title since I felt so strongly about it.

Skyfall

Recommendation TIER 0*

By the way, if I did the format for my review wrong let me know as I am new to this here.
Edited by Toe - 2/16/13 at 10:14am

Okay, here's the thing. We do NOT take into consideration "Director's intent." So, if a director decides to make a scene *soft*, we will still dock the PQ for being soft. If the director decides to add *heavy grain*, we will still dock it for heavy grain. I call it a *flaw* because it hinders the PQ in some way. It's not a "flaw" from the director's vantage point; he himself made the choice to include it and so from his perspective it's perfect. But from our vantage point if it in anyway detracts from the PQ, it's a flaw or an anomaly. In Skyfall I found a few brief instances, where the orange hue was on display, where there was such an orange push it detracted from the PQ by giving Mr. Craig an "orange fleshtone." He didn't look natural because of that and fleshtones are included in the criteria that we base our judgment on for placement.

Understood.

So far, it would appear we have one vote for Tier 0, two votes for Tier 0.5, and two votes for Tier 1.0.

Double post...for some odd reason.

Congratulations Toe on being the tiebreaker!!

Regarding your comments on the orange/teal being an "artistic decision," you'll have to read my last post to get my take on that.

I'm really glad to read of the success you're having after doing a full calibration on your RS45. And I really am glad that you took the time the "visit us" with your review. I have ALWAYS valued your opinion, not just on audio (which, I believe, is your "first love"), but for video too.

As far as Skyfall trumping other live action Blu-rays, I obviously don't agree. Even if there were no orange/teal hues involved, I was still only considering a low Tier Blu placement. I don't think it compares with titles such as The Thin Red Line, where the details literally jumped off the screen from the opening scene to the rolling of the credits. Add to that the amazing lush colors (especially the continual lush green forests) in TTRL, compared to Skyfall's rather drab color palette in some of the scenes. I could go on comparing the two, but enough has been said to make my point. You should check out TTRL now after doing your calibration.

Thanks for the welcome here and the kind words. You guys have such fantastic attention to detail as far as video goes that I cant hang with you so to speak as far as my reviews go. You guys have definitely helped me become a more critical viewer which I appreciate. I will do my best though and try to start offering up my humble opinion a bit more often.

I will definitely revisit The Thin Red Line again and I just put it in my que. I have seen it before and remember being VERY impressed, so I am curious to see it again with my display in its current state which should make it even better. I thought it was a great movie as well, so happy to rent and rewatch. Any other suggestions? I mentioned my favorite live action titles above, so any you think that can give those a run for their money I need to check out again.

Thanks!


Great to know and thanks for confirming and clearing this up.

Looking up for that Tier 0 prediction

As it stands currently, Skyfall would be placed in Tier 0, with Phantom having the final say as to exactly *where* in that tier. I say this because Toe's vote simply said, "Tier 0," without specifying where in that tier.

I want to go on record as stating that I will NOT lose sleep if it ends up in Tier 0; it has exceptional PQ and there is not much difference between the lower half of Tier 0 and Tier 1.0. Where I would offer a protest is if it somehow ended up at the top of Tier 0, which is virtually impossible unless tons of reviews poured in with recommendations for the top of Tier Blu.