Pans Labyrinth Pics & Impressions - Page 6

+1!!!

For your interest. The UK Blu-Ray (also VC-1) beats everything else we have so far:



Compared several frames between French HD DVD and UK Blu-Ray and the UK Blu-Ray was never worse. Sometimes equal, often noticably better.

average bitrates (video only!):
French HD DVD (VC-1): 20254 mbps
UK Blu-Ray (VC-1): 28769 mbps

Unfortunately the UK Blu-Ray only has one lousy Spanish AC3 640kbit track. No other multi channel audio tracks. No lossless.

Watched last night and the picture had a weird quality to it even without a direct comparison. What people describe here is clearly visible. Cleaned up to a point where it looks pasty, waxy and sterile.

Not too mad, I hadn't seen the film so this was my ticket in a way. Great film, and great soundtrack. Will rebuy if a version without aggressive tampering presents itself. And doesn't drop the awesome soundtrack at the same time.

Thank you very much madshi, I appreciate it.

This is about what Pans Labyrinth "is supposed" to look like - comparing the UK BD (high bitrate ) release with the New Line one is quite shocking. Mild DNR???

Mess up a perfectly fine international master tape with obsessive DNR, obvious contrast and edge enhancement and encode it with the lowest, compromised bitrate that "just" doesn't result in obvious artifacts and is therefor good enough (even for "professional" reviewers - NL PL release gets 4.5 - 5 stars for P"Q" in published reviews so far)...NEW LINE.
------------------------end of senseless enragement-----------------------

madshi, is there any chance at all that you could provide screen captures and/or impressions of the German HD-DVD/BD release of Pans Labyrinth??? That would really make my day (it is a region codefree release with PCM tracks)! Thanks again und ein frohes neues Jahr!

I have that disk sitting on my HD shelf. But I just removed my Blu-Ray drive. Will be replaced with a LG combo drive tomorrow or the day after that. I'll post my impressions then.


To be honest, I don't consider the master "perfectly fine". I think the blacks are not black but rather gray in all the dark scenes. The same problem plagued all releases I've seen so far, so it seems to be a fault of the master and not of the encodings.

Of course I agree with your comments/opinion about DNR, though.

Bought this one from Amazon; received it and watched it a few days ago.
As played on my XA2 and a calibrated Sony 46XBR4, picture quality was absolutely astounding. I saw no ill effects from EE, no "plastic" look, just beautiful color, clarity and detail. I have about 90 HD-DVD's so far, and this one may just be the best picture quality I've seen. It is stunning.
The 7.1 DTS-MA soundtrack on my 7.1 system (receiver is a Yamaha RX-V3800) is also just great.
Absolutely no complaints here with this disc.

So...

UK BRD vs French HD-DVD

UK BRD vs US BRD

The US consumer got screwed. Someone who tries to pass off DNR like this as minor should be put on display ala House of Wax.

Check out the captain's right shoulder. All that fine detail is smudged over in the US version. The textures look like SD in comparison to the UK and French discs:


Interesting that the UK BRD is unmatted and has yellowish fleshtones. Decoder bug?

Great, looking forward to it. Interesting comparison as this release is encoded with rather high bitrate AVC.

I am still puzzled why they went with a 640kbps DD audio presentation for the UK release You cannot have everything...


I certainly agree with you about the black levels und contrast of a few scenes. This was also an issue with the digital cinema projection I saw. Quite a few movies have elevated black levels these days - this becomes obvious on correctly calibrated setups.

So yes - it is not "perfect" nor a reference transfer, but IMHO qualifies as a transfer a feel "perfectly fine" about (especially considering the decent level of fine detail and texture) - as long as you don't mess it up by obsessive digital filtering.

...or better yet should apply for a position as "professional reviewer" for highdefdigest & Co. He/she would fit right in (What???Traffic HD-DVD is from an upsampled SD source??You have screen caps as "proof"???Are we watching still photos or movies???SD source???No way - it looks as intended - just a mild and hardly noticeable deficiency of small level detail...)

So is the UK BD hard locked to B or region free? If it's free, I'll definatly be ditching the New Line disc and picking up the UK one...

Yeah, I noticed unmatted and the slightly more yellow fleshtones, too. However, I was not sure whether the more yellow or the more red fleshtones are correct, to be honest. The fleshtones of the US Blu-Ray almost look a bit too red to me.

When I saw this in the theater, I remember thinking that it wouldn't be a standout title on HD DVD if released because it was so murky and grainy. After watching it again this week, I thought that the film actually looked better at home than it did when I first saw it. I watched it a few weeks into its run at the theater and the print wasn't in the best of shape by then, with a lot of scratches and pops and hisses. So if the quality of the home video presentation is judged against our memories of the theatrical experience, the HD DVD is miles ahead of what I saw at the megaplex.

Considering the wide range of personal tastes and preferences, the huge variety of home theater setups and the different prints of the original movie being played in so many different types of theaters by so many different projectionists, are there two of us on this site who have had the same experience with this film?

North America is region "A" right? Anyway the UK BluRay played perfectly on my U.S. Playstation 3, although extras would not play. I assume they're PAL.

This movie looks and sounds great on hd.

I said almost the exact thing earlier. It seems no one is paying attention. PQ in the night scenes like when the Captain shoots the father & son is very smooth, colorful and detailed. I can't imagine the scene looking any better. And like I also said earlier, I don't see no waxy looking people. I see dead people, I see Spanish people, and fairies but no waxy folks.

On another note, I and a few others am having a problem with the 7.1 DTS Master HD track. In my case, I'm getting good sound from the the two back speakers but the side speakers are not doing anything. There is nothing wrong with my set-up as when New Lines logo with 7.1 sound appears you can clearyly hear it in all four surround speakers. Others are showing 7.1 on their reciever but the sound is only 5.1. Clearly something is not right.

It's all somewhat relative. Just compare the screenshots and you'll see what we're talking about. The US Blu-Ray/HD DVD doesn't look bad, it just can't hold a candle to the UK Blu-Ray. If you watch the US Blu-Ray without having a comparison you will probably like it. But if you have the UK Blu-Ray to compare to, the US Blu-Ray is disappointing.

Have you checked out the screenshots?

So, are the German and UK BR the same in the picture department?

That's the question that remains to be answered. They are certainly not the "same" (German BD is AVC), but both should be vastly superior to the US release.

Watched this last night on HD-DVD. Great story, PQ and AQ. Man I had to read the subtitles but that was fine. Movie was awsome. I love the special features too. Plenty of insight on the production of this great film. Will have to pick this up since I rented it.

Same here. Nothing wrong with the movies PQ.

As I'm sure many of you know, Pan's will be the first and last HD DVD title from New Line. According to HDD, what retailers have now to sell will be it. The words "instant collector's item" are mentioned.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...o_Blu-ray/1351

That's right. In five years you'll be able to sell it for 10 bucks. j/k

On the one hand, I kinda wish I hadn't opened mine (but it's such a great movie that I had to). At the same time, though, I don't feel like shelling out another 25 bucks to have an unopened copy sitting on the shelf. It's definitely one to grab while you still have a chance, though.

So basically one can't be a movie lover and want a dubbed soundtrack?

What kind of crap is that?

I can understand the director not authorizing a dubbed version due to it messing with his movie, his art.

But after watching it, I thought, my god it would have been much more of a visual experience if it was dubbed in English, instead I had to have my eyes glued to the bottom of the page half the time.

A nicely dubbed in English soundtrack would have also probably DOUBLED the U.S. Gross at the box office, thats for sure.

I recall watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon first with subtitles, then again dubbed in English, I remember enjoying the film much much more with the English soundtrack.

I have to say this is the best foreign film to date.PQ stunning and SQ stunning.

I find dubbing much more distracting than subtitles........the voice acting is almost always terrible, and I find my self thinking that over, and over again while watching the movie.....which can definitly take away from the experience.

Finally I found some time to check out the German Blu-Ray. To make the comparison a bit simpler, let me repost all older shots together with the new ones:

Comparison Frame 1:
USA Blu-Ray VC-1:

SkyHD Broadcast h264:

French HD DVD VC-1:

UK Blu-Ray VC-1:

German Blu-Ray h264:


Comparison Frame 2:
USA Blu-Ray VC-1:

SkyHD Broadcast h264:

French HD DVD VC-1:

UK Blu-Ray VC-1:

German Blu-Ray h264:


Average Bitrates (video only):
French HD DVD VC-1: 20254 kbps
UK Blu-Ray VC-1: 28769 kbps
German Blu-Ray h264: 28860 kbps

Don't know the bitrates of the SkyHD broadcasting and USA Blu-Ray. Maybe someone else can check for that? You need to use "xport" to demux the video track. Then calculate "fileSizeInBytes / runtimeInSeconds / 128". That gives you the average video bitrate in kbps.

FYI, the audio tracks of the German Blu-Ray (German 6.1 PCM, German 6.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish 5.1 PCM, Spanish 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio) are all only 16 bit.

The German Blu-Ray evidently is noticably "darker" than all other encodings. Because of that I've added another comparison frame from a rather dark scene:

Very Dark Frame:
UK Blu-Ray:

German Blu-Ray:


It's interesting to compare the file sizes of the PNG screenshots. As you probably know, PNG uses lossless video compression. The UK Blu-Ray PNG file consumes 1.50MB. The German Blu-Ray PNG file consumes 216KB. I think that shows pretty well how much shadow detail is lost due to the very dark encoding.

U.K version - Too high Black Levels and tremendous amount of Shadow details.
U.S version - Thick Solid blacks with sub-par shadow details.

When I see a dubbed film all I ask myself is "what kind of idiot would actually prefer this". I don't think I've actually made it through an entire dubbed movie. I feel like someone is insulting my by suggesting I'm too narrow minded to read subtitles...lol Hell, grain removal would be the least of my worries if this was dubbed. I think I'd rather see Pan's in B&W then dubbed