Movie Blurays: Pros and Cons

It easy enough for me to see. Kirk's eyes are slightly pixellated.

Why do they keep copies of films in vaults, then?

 

Cheapjack. I want to clarify what you mean by "They came from the DVD's" Are you saying that they just took the finished DVD video, upscaled it to 1080p and popped it on Blu-Ray? Or are you saying that they used the same source file that they mastered the DVD from? Those are 2 completely separate things so I want to be sure what you are implying.

 

So?
This is a compressed image (jpg) of a screencap of the bluray-version of the film.
Of course there is pixellation.

 

Yes, I am saying they upscaled the DVD. Yes. That's it.

I am a Star Trek Traitor.

Come one, how much do these DVD's cost? They're just upscaled. Hyper-enhanced, but upscaled.

STone, I'm looking at them on a highdef Apple library PC, and they look good, ST2 the most, but a bit soft. And kirk's eyes look pixellated at full resolution, in ST4

Sorry, but they're upscaled, I think.

There was a massive debate about the colour bits of the cage. My guess, is, if they could find a way to just continue upscaling, right to ultra high def 3d, and no-one could tell, or at least 95% of people couldn't , they would. Obviously. It's cheaper.

 

In my previous post I showed you that they are clearly not "just upscaled". But yeah, think what you want. Geez...

You weren't even providing the same screencap from the DVD. I'm going to do that for you now...

 

OK, I'm totally going back on my word returning to this thread, but this is ridiculous.

THEY. ARE. NOT. "HYPER-ENHANCED". DVD'S

Please read this thread again, as others have already stated, you CANNOT make DVD look the way they do on the TOS Blu-ray's through "hyper-enhancement".

 

They are NOT upscaled.

You can't get from this:



to this:

 

Or this:



Or this:



This is the best one:

 

If you take that DVD-cap and upscale it do (roughly) the dimensions of the BluRay-cap, you get this:

 

Yeah, I mean if that doesn't convince him that he doesn't know what he's talking about, then I don't know what will.

 

I'm still confused how they upscaled the DVD of The Motion Picture, since the theatrical version was never released on DVD?

 

I wasn't aware that Apple computers supported Blu-ray playback. What software are you using to view these?

Neil

 

I think I can clear up a bit of the controversy here, as it seems that people are having a bit of confusion over just how movie restorations are done...

Essentially, to an extent, both parties are correct. The current Blu-Rays are NOT simply upscaled 480i sources. With the exception of STII, what they ARE are simply high definition versions of a ten year old master copy at Paramount. They're obviously going to be much better quality than the DVD sets, but not as good a quality as what would happen if Paramount dropped the cash on a quality restoration.

Think about it this way. The TOS remastering involved a lot of work using modern day production and computer work in order to make it look as marvelous as it does on Blu-Ray today (FX and other alterations completely notwithstanding, I'm talking about the pure, live-action footage). That's because 35mm film has an ultimate potential resolution of between 4 and 8k, which is far higher than even Blu-Ray and 1080p at the moment. Therefore, it's actually quite possible, with cutting edge restoration techniques and a light hand with the edge enhancement, color correction and DNR, to 'restore' a film to a condition equal or in some cases, perhaps better than its original theatrical run.

From what I understand about the process, these restorations are stored in a duplicate master, which is basically either a digital file that contains the restoration and associated adjustments, or sometimes even a full 35mm re-transfer of the changed material. This essentially means that the 'remastered' version of the film is a copy, a clone. And a vastly 'inferior' one to the 35mm original master from a pure resolution standpoint. This master will be much better than, say, a video or DVD master, as it will have higher resolution (these things are usually meant to be played at movie theaters which need to have much higher res content), but they won't be quite up to the quality of the master. On the downside, the original master will have the resolution, but lack any enhancements, cleanups, or corrections in the restored version.

Ideally, what studios want with the remastering process is a dupe copy of the master that is between 4 and 8k, which is still several times the quality of Blu-Ray, but will encompass the entire potential pixel resolution of 35mm film. A digital copy of this quality can be played in the theater as essentially an exact copy of the original 35mm master. This dupe would then be able to be subjected to the same remastering and cleanup techniques we use (or better ones in the future) to create a better overall cinema experience with the film.

The problem here is that, until our storage capacity and restorative techniques improve to the point that we can create a true digital master copy-- that is to say, a 4-8k full, uncompressed scan of every possible pixel of every single frame of the original 35mm negative, every remaster is going to come in some ways short of it's original 35mm film.

The quality of a remaster often is a direct relation to its age, as more current remasters can obviously take advantage of greater and cheaper storage space to store the master. The TOS movie series, for example, have masters that are quite old by these standards, these days, with the exception of STII, which Paramount took out and did a fresh restore of before the Blu-Ray release. That's why the TOS films tend to look somewhat... less than they could be with a fresher restore and perhaps a better team on the DNR and edge enhancement side.

I could be wrong here, but I think this is what Cheapjack is referring to, not that the films are simply upscaled 480i material, but made from the same master that said DVD's were made of, which is not at all the same thing. Those masters have much better resolution, just not all the potential cleanup and enhancement that could come from a more modern restoration.

 

I asked that question a few posts ago and [Cheapjack's[/b] response was "Yes, I am saying they upscaled the DVD. Yes. That's it"

So either Cheapjack really thinks that it is just upscaled video or he has no understanding of what the terms he is using actually mean.

Another question Cheapjack. Exactly what are you looking at on your highdef Apple Library PC? Physical copies of the Blu-Ray movies themselves? Rips of the movies or the version that you can buy on iTunes?

 

Those screencaps you posted convince me of exactly the opposite. The standard DVD screencaps are deliberately blurred, to make the high res ones look better. Look at the one, where scotty is lowering the transpararent aluminum into the bird of prey. His hair is blowing and blurred in a video effect. It's obvious it's video. And, I am looking at the stills on a high res apple monitor.

Come on, even my friend, who has been unemployed all his life, says that they haven't got bluray right yet. I've only seen on of the bond films moving, that looked right. These stills looked good, though, but they are not the full whack.

There's only four times more pixels on bluray than DVD, so they could quite easily upscale without much difference.

I don't buy this idea that they somehow took high def masters in 1999, for some high def TV transmission in the future. There were too many formats around, and anyway, the best thing to do would just be to keep the film, till things had settled out.

If you can get twenty megapixel cameras, that's 60MB a frame, not 4K or 8K, for maximum resolution, and 10 terabytes for an entire film. Ten apple hard drives.

 

Ok, now you are just trolling. I'm out.

 

No, I'm not. Even if you do a copy of a tape, a copy of a CD, a copy of a DVD, it comes out slightly different, even if it is digital, when you transfer between formats. These blurays have exactly the same colour balance as the DVD. They've just processed them a bit. They've done it with loads of films, and even the experts have had some difficulty deciding whether it comes from film or not.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tvhhd/tvhhd1494.jpg

That's video, I think.

Google 35mm vs high def.

 

Right, yes, achieved with the hyper-enhancement (HE) process you described previously. I love this board, you learn about all sorts of things - having been a home cinema enthusiast for many years, I'm grateful you've brought this technology to my attention.

I assume the licensing costs are prohibitively expensive; explaining why the big CE manufacturers haven't developed HE chips for standard DVD players - rendering the whole Blu-ray thing totally superfluos.

Oh, one other thing - is there an audio HE process also? My receiver tells me I'm hearing Dolby Digital TrueHD 7.1 on the TOS movie BD's - perhaps the HE tech cleverly produces an uncompressed matrix from the sound encoded on the DVD's. After all, why spring for the cash on new HD sound when you have HE?

 

Are you retarded?

 

If you are not trolling then you quite obviously do not understand what anyone here is trying to tell you. You are throwing out all of these terms but I don't think you actually know what they mean.

What are you smoking? They look blurred because that is how a standard DVD upscaled would look compared to the Blu-Ray version. Upscaling does NOT add any picture information.

I have no idea why your unemployed friend even matters in this discussion.

What? That statement makes no sense. What are you trying to say here?

Using NTSC standards DVD is 720x480 = 345600 Pixels. 1080p Blu-Ray is 1920x1080 = 2073600 Pixels. That is EXACTLY 6 times the resolution of DVD, not 4. If you want to have a discussion about this at least get the basic facts straight.

What you buy and don't buy has nothing to do with the truth.

The reason they would make a master copy is BECAUSE there are so many formats around. They can use that master to make versions of the movie in any format they want. (DVD, Blu-Ray, VHS, Broadcast, iTunes etc) Even if they made the master copy in 2K resolution that is still a higher resolution than the Blu-Ray format. Scanning the film or negatives takes a MASSIVE amount of time and money. It would be financially prohibitive to scan the film every time they wanted to release the film in a different format. They DO keep the film, they keep it for preservation and also so they can make a new master copy if the need arises.

This comment is so out there....Like I mentioned above, even if they had scanned the film at 2K to make the master, that is STILL a higher resolution than what HDTV's can display. And FAR higher than what would be on DVD. What the hell is an apple hard drive? You do realize that Apple does not make their own hard drives right?

You are so off base in all of your comments that it is quite frankly stunning. From your belief that the Blu-Ray is just an upscaled DVD to your accusation that the DVD screenshots were intentionally blurred just to make the Blu-Ray look better. Not to mention the other factual and logical faults.

Of course this entire post will have no effect on you. You will just comment on how you don't buy it and how the colors are the same (BTW, similar colors makes sense if the DVD and Blu-Ray were both authored by the same hi-Def master copy)