The Fifth Element REMASTERED edition*PIX* + review - Page 3

Well the older version barely looked better than the Superbit Upscaled, had ton of DNR and Macroblocking in certain scenes...

This new one look almost like it's as good as The Patriot.. witch look awesome for a Catalog Title...

this may be late and a stupid question but bear with me please

how can you tell the difference between the two BD on the out side cover????

That is FUNNY!

Looks like they got it right this time!

It's not glaringly obvious, but the original didn't have a Dolby True HD soundtrack - which is listed on the back now.

Awesome.

Don't want to ask too much but can you do a comparison of a clear shot of a face close-up?

I hope that Sony releases remastered editions of Kung Fu Hustle and XXX. I am terribly disappointed with the quality of Kung Fu Hustle. May be I should have bought the Japanese version which costs double the amount here.

In retrospect, I have to agree with others that Sony's less than stellar early releases cost them alot of early-adopters and, inadvertently, pushed them to the Dark Side.
An expensive lesson IMO.

Does anyone know if Netflix will send their copies back to Sony?

striking difference!

Amazing. I never expected the difference to be so large. I am addicted to your comparison shots and need more, lol.

I was going to say something about it but the improvements outweigh the negatives. T5E is a Super-35 film with a lot of vfx shots anyway. Some grain is unavoidable unless it's smoothed over or filtered out, like the previous release.

This is Sony's first "Superbit" BRD isn't it?

Unavoidable Question: So now where's Universal's remastered real HD release of Traffic?

Nice improvement, but they are still using 720p upscaled master IMO.

Here are some lossless 2X zoomed crops:






Look at the hairs in the above shot... the difference is very noticeable.

How do you figure 720p? And what telecine facility would produce a 720p master?

I did the usual "Downscaling-Upscaling" Test. DU Test for short.

If downscaling the original 1080p image to an X resolution and upscaling it back to 1080p it doesn't loose any detail, then the X resolution is likely to be near the original. You can do it yourself with Photoshop using the screenshots posted by Xylon. Just remember to use the best upscaling/downscaling algorithm available in Photoshop.

Here's the DU Test for King Kong HD DVD, a reference movie known to be from a true 1080p master:





You can clearly see the loss of details in the DU process.

And there is the DU Test for Fifth Element Remastered (AVC):





As you can see, there is no loss of detail in the DU process, so the master must be around the 720p resolution (+-100).

BAH that sucks!!! Love TFE, it's been a demo disc on DVD since it came out... and it still looks like a friggin SD upscale. Why won't Sony give this title the release it deserves? Makes no sense to me, especially considering the black eye they got the first time they bunkhumped this release.

Sigh... 18 months from now, we'll get the "Ultimate Edition", which finally give us the edition we deserved in the first place...

Nice sleuth-work FrancescoP. Too bad this still hasn't gotten the transfer it deserves... even if it is better than the MPEG2 version.
-Matt

a perfect 1080p transfer of a source will still have only the detail of that source.

It's possible that the 35mm print that was used for TFE is being fully represented here. King Kong was transfered to HD from negative elements and then digitally created before even being printed to film for theatrical release. These two films have very different "source" histories and wouldn't necessarily look the same even under ideal conditions.

Unless we can really conclude that the print contains more visible picture detail than this Blu-ray Disc, we shouldn't get too upset.

I do agree that the 1080p > 720p > 1080p conversion test is very revealing, and helpful to spur discussion about the quality of the transfer and the clarity of the source material.

this does prove tho AVC > MPEG2 doesnt it? if they are from the same master and AVC obviously looking better than the MPEG2.

How many times do folks have to repeat and repeat and repeat that the new disc is taken from a NEW film-to-digital transfer?

dave

Is it?

The detail on a master and the technical form of the master are different things. This comes from a real new 1080p transfer. The IP used may indeed have at times not more than the equivalent of 720p detail, though. Your examples are all sfx shots with generational loss (negative -> scanned at (presumably) 2K, processed -> put on negative -> copied to IP -> scanned again to 1080p).

Paidgeek has established this many times.



Exactly.

LOL King King is Filmed in the Digital Domain, Fifth Element is a 10 years old film Element. The new master is way better then the old and zooming 4x into it doesn't proove anything other than showing how crappy the first one was..

You should take the Superbit Shot from the DVD thread (in the general forum) and put it beside this one.. for a laught..

Wow, looks like a big improvement. Can't wait to get my hands on this!

King Kong and The Fifth Element were both shot on Super35 film, FYI.

I think he just stopped laughing

Still worth a rent if not just for Milla Jovovich

Yes, but one is a direct scan from the negative (newer film stock too) and the other at best a scan from a copy of the negative. So King Kong should be sharper on average. But there should also be 1080p sharp stuff on the TFE transfer when we see unmanipulated live action footage.