[cybersoga]

Thought i'd do a comparison between R1 and R2 of Blade Runner, since both are such bad transfers. Captures from power dvd in force weave, upscaled to 1080p in photoshop. R1 is a lot softer than R2, and R2 has a lot more mpeg artifacts than R1. Both have black pillar borders on either side of the picture with wobbly edges (see second screen shot). The sound is better on R1 though, R2 is not pitch corrected.


*I HAVE REPOSTED UPDATED SCREEN SHOTS FURTHER DOWN THE THREAD! THANKS!*

 

[Keenan]

Someday, hopefully, this movie will get the treatment it deserves.


Jim

 

[Frode]

Ouch. Those screenshots pain the eyes. I tried checking some Japanese sites since they tend to have some better re-releases, but it's not released at all there. Guess we'll just have to sit and wait for this one.

 

[Stone Cold]

Are you sure those screen shots are not bootlegs from the Laserdisc? The Horror, The Horror.

 

[Sergei Esenin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Stone Cold Are you sure those screen shots are not bootlegs from the Laserdisc? The Horror, The Horror.

No, the laserdisc looks better than that.

 

[Krynos]

The DVD looks identical to the laserdisk on my system. Hence my belief that the DVD is simply the laserdisk converted, sans the uncompressed sound...


One day once the legal wranglings are done, we should see a much better version.


- Rick

 

[Sergei Esenin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Krynos The DVD looks identical to the laserdisk on my system. Hence my belief that the DVD is simply the laserdisk converted, sans the uncompressed sound...

The DVD and laserdisc are IIRC the same transfer, but the laserdisc looks better due to lack of compression artifacts and better color. I just meant that those DVDs aren't bootlegs of the LD, they're unfortunately the official releases. Well-mastered bootlegs of the LD would actually look a bit better than the official DVDs...


Even sourced from my soon-to-be-upgraded lackluster LD player it looks better than the DVD, especially using filters to clean and upsample. Pity the DVD is so bad for such a classic. Well, at least the slightly better LD was cheap--$3 at a local thrift store. I love thrift stores.

 

[cybersoga]

The Official DVD's don't have any composite video artifacts such as dot crawl and chroma/luma interferrence that you would expect from a composite source such as laserdisc. The master that both the laserdisc and the dvd's were made from was probably uncompressed 4:4:4 component, but even the master is probably muddy, grainy, soft.

 

[Sergei Esenin]

Quote:

Originally posted by cybersoga The Official DVD's don't have any composite video artifacts such as dot crawl and chroma/luma interferrence that you would expect from a composite source such as laserdisc.

Yes, but composite artifacts are reduced greatly by good 3D comb filters and/or postprocessing, and then you get a nice uncompressed NTSC stream. The artifacting on those awful DVDs, however, is much harder to ameliorate and still leaves you with even less detail. The LDs really do look a touch better in most areas as long as you have passable LD equipment, albeit they suffer from the same muddy/grainy poor source.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

BLADE RUNNER was transferred way back in the 90's at good old hat 480 lines of rez in both 4:3 letterboxed and 16X9. Same 35mm source. Same telecine. Same everything, hence they look pretty much the same. Had the DVD not been jammed onto a single layer, it would look much better.


There was a High Def showing of BLADE RUNNER in Japan some time ago that apparently looks quite good, though with audio incompatible with our systems. A copy of that HD broadcast, with remuxed sound (to work with our systems) is on the way to me. Obviously I cannot wait to get my hands on that one.

 

[William]

Blade Runner was my 4th DVD purchased an 04-07-97 (According to my DVD Profiler).

 

[TheFerret]

Its a damn shame that Bullywood will not go back and re-transfer BL. They are quick to get crappy movies out that did poorly in the theater last month than a good movie with a good following.

 

[Grubert]

Quote:

Originally posted by Matt_Stevens There was a High Def showing of BLADE RUNNER in Japan some time ago that apparently looks quite good, though with audio incompatible with our systems. A copy of that HD broadcast, with remuxed sound (to work with our systems) is on the way to me. Obviously I cannot wait to get my hands on that one.

That's very interesting. Please post your opinions when you get the chance to watch it.

 

[cybersoga]

yea, some screen shots of the same frames as above would be nice too!

 

[Matt_Stevens]

I cannot do screenshots of HD. However, once I get my hands on it, anyone who CAN do screenshots of HD can PM me and we'll make sure it happens.

 

[cybersoga]

Here are the screen shots comparing R1 DVD, R2 DVD and the Japanese 720p broadcast. I don't have a copy of the 720p broadcast, just these 3 screen shots kindly sent to me for perposes of comparison.

 

[Frode]

That does look better, but more in that it doesn't have the noise and artifacts present in the DVD releases. There's no more apparent detail that a 720p transfer would provide (at least in those shots), so my guess is that it's just a upscaled NTSC transfer. If you could post some more comparisons I'd apprciate it.

 

[cybersoga]

look! no grain!

 

[cybersoga]

there's some moire even on the 720p version of this logo, but that's probably from the really old computer the logo was made on!

 

[cybersoga]

Quote:

Originally posted by Frode That does look better, but more in that it doesn't have the noise and artifacts present in the DVD releases. There's no more apparent detail that a 720p transfer would provide (at least in those shots), so my guess is that it's just a upscaled NTSC transfer. If you could post some more comparisons I'd apprciate it.

yes there's not really much more detail in the 720p version than the PAL dvd, which is one of the reasons why i'd be happy with a new dvd made from the same master the japanese 720p broadcast was made.


All the screen shots, incuding the dvd and the 720p broadcast were upscaled to 1080p in photoshop using bicubic filtering to better highlight the differences.