Arrow Films

[TonyleStephanois]

Don't forget their wonderful Battle Royale limited set that you only buy for, well, the set itself since it's only upscaled masters / transfers.

Really? So not proper HD, then?

Damn, I was going to get that, one day, bank manager permitting.

Beaver

Both Blu-ray versions are clean and appeared notably more dynamic - easily identifiable as high-definition

[RossyG]

Oh, all right then. It's back on the list.

[TonyleStephanois]

Not sure where this upscaled business came from, but I assure you, both cuts are mastered in HD from new restorations. The Limited Edition set is still available from our site.

[tenia]

Not sure where this upscaled business came from, but I assure you, both cuts are mastered in HD from new restorations. The Limited Edition set is still available from our site.

I know, I've bought it a week ago, but there has been a lot of debate on AVS, and you can clearly see SD macroblocking on the theatrical version.

Honestly, I'm not an expert on mastering and transfering. Still, I don't what was your source here, but looking to the pixel blocks as explained by Kentai, it seems pretty far away from what an HD master (then transfer) could / should look.

I'm glad I have my limited set (even if the DVD-high box is a bummer). I don't know if the movie can look better than this. Still, it is far far away from what I was able to watch on BR, and I'm sad to say that a much older movie as City Girl can look that much better than a 10 year old movie like this.

[zombeaner]

Not sure where this upscaled business came from, but I assure you, both cuts are mastered in HD from new restorations. The Limited Edition set is still available from our site.

I know, I've bought it a week ago, but there has been a lot of debate on AVS, and you can clearly see SD macroblocking on the theatrical version.

Honestly, I'm not an expert on mastering and transfering. Still, I don't what was your source here, but looking to the pixel blocks as explained by Kentai, it seems pretty far away from what an HD master (then transfer) could / should look.

I'm glad I have my limited set (even if the DVD-high box is a bummer). I don't know if the movie can look better than this. Still, it is far far away from what I was able to watch on BR, and I'm sad to say that a much older movie as City Girl can look that much better than a 10 year old movie like this.

The people at AVS are full of shit. It is clearly HD and not an upscale.

[fdm]

I know they're only screen caps, but the beaver ones for Battle Royale aren't very re-assuring. The one with the dude standing outside in the grey and black outfit reminds me of the infamous Schwarzenegger capture from the remastered blu-ray of Predator (beaver only seems to have captures from the original blu-ray, so no not that one).

And yes the caps for Bicycle Thieves seem to indicate that mucho grain has been wiped from it as well. Can't speak to the accuracy of it vs the film itself.

The only one I do have is Spirits of the Dead blu-ray, those beaver screen caps look pretty decent, fwiw, particularly in comparison to the others. Appears to be a lot of grain left intact.

(Haven't seen any of these films yet, sad to say (just the original blu-ray of Predators). About to rectify.)

(Edit: fwiw the two previous posts were posted while I was writing this, this is primarily in response to the two screen caps and the preceding discussion.)

[cdnchris]

Yeah, this disc looks fine. Grain is there and detail is high, except when it looks as though the film goes a little out of focus here and there. This may come off as odd praise, but the mild, very fine scratches that remain in the image from the source materials come off very sharp and well defined, and if those that did the transfer went over the top with noise reduction I'm sure these scratches would have been smudged in and would have disappeared--they look too sharp for that to be truly the case. There is some shimmering in a couple of jacket patterns and it does look a little too bright in spots (maybe) but otherwise I think it looks great.

[zombeaner]

Back to Arrow Video: I finally sat down with Phenomena yesterday and I thought it looked great. There were a couple of spots with audio weirdness, but the video was fantastic. The extras were also up to Arrow's standards.

[Yakushima]

My two cents. I recently received and watched two blu-rays from Arrow - "The Beyond" and "Phenomena" (I have pre-ordered both from Amazon). Unfortunately "The Beyond" was indeed the version with incorrect black&white intro, and that sequence looked quite bad, the image seemed very video-like. I had high expectations for the film and was somewhat underwhelmed, regardless of the uneven transfer quality. It had some inspired eerie scenes but as a whole did not quite work for me.

The "Phenomena" Blu IMO is a huge improvement over the previous releases (I had "Creepers" on VHS and the Anchor Bay DVD previously). DNR was noticeable in some close-ups, but it did not bother me much the first two thirds of the film. It seemed to get more prominent and annoying toward the end, with faces of the characters looking exceedingly waxy in most of the close-up shots. Again, it seemed applied unevenly, and by large did not ruin the presentation for me (but "Phenomena" is such a wild ride one tends to overlook small imperfections here and there).

On the side note, I wrote to Arrow last week asking for a replacement of my incorrect version of "The Beyond" and got an automatic "Out of office until April 15" reply. Has anyone have gotten a replacement from them successfully?

In the future I'll probably wait for the reviews to surface, before I order from them, in other words, no more pre-orders for me.

[Der Spieler]

. It seemed to get more prominent and annoying toward the end, with faces of the characters looking exceedingly waxy in most of the close-up shots.

Arrow should release House of Wax. That's one title they'd probably get right.

On the side note, I wrote to Arrow last week asking for a replacement of my incorrect version of "The Beyond" and got an automatic "Out of office until April 15" reply. Has anyone have gotten a replacement from them successfully?

Apparently replacement DVDs are ready now and BDs should be ready later this week.

[tajmahal]

. It seemed to get more prominent and annoying toward the end, with faces of the characters looking exceedingly waxy in most of the close-up shots.

Arrow should release House of Wax. That's one title they'd probably get right.

Fuck me, you are obsessed. Don't buy it. Let it go. Move on. Enough! =;

[Der Spieler]

Fascinated I believe would be a more adequate choice of word.

[perkizitore]

Rififi is a must buy since Arrow improves on the Gaumont image, but i reserve judgement on Bicycle Thieves until i see the Criterion.

[tenia]

As much as the Diaboliques release is god-awfully blurry, if the Rififi PQ is better than the Gaumont one, it is indeed some heroic exploit here, since it was already pretty wonderful.

[Der Spieler]

The only reason I might buy the Gaumont instead is because it's region-free.

[antnield]

The Digital Fix on Island of Death.

[Yakushima]

Got a replacement Bluray of "The Beyond" with supposedly restored original sepia-colored intro from Arrow Films today. Giddy with anticipation I popped it into my player - it would not load. After few futile attempts I wrote another letter to Arrow asking for a new replacement...

[Der Spieler]

Got a replacement Bluray of "The Beyond" with supposedly restored original sepia-colored intro from Arrow Films today. Giddy with anticipation I popped it into my player - it would not load. After few futile attempts I wrote another letter to Arrow asking for a new replacement...

The funny thing is that the actual Beyond opening was golden colored and not reddish...

Edit: Fixed.

[Duncan Hopper]

The funny thing is that the actual Beyond opening was monochrome and not sepia...

Really? I've seen various prints from all sorts of origins in the cinema down the years, all of which had the intro in sepia. (As far as I can remember)

[Der Spieler]

Whoops!

I meant golden colored, not monochrome. #-o

[MichaelB]

Sepia, in other words?

[Der Spieler]

Not quite.

http://www.dark-dreams.co.uk/dd_forum/s ... stcount=31" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[med]

Arrow may indeed have gotten it wrong, but the screenshot in that link is closer to sepia than gold. Gold is much lighter in color than that.

[Der Spieler]

Yes, but from what I've heard the Arrow is neither gold nor sepia, it's reddish. Sorry I got a bit mixed up here.

This review explains it.

The beginning had me baffled as to whether anything was fixed but after a few seconds I did notice a slight tinge of red through the image creating something not completely unlike the US begininng (which I never liked as I'm in the golden yellow looks right camp but thats a whole different arguement), looks kinda like they just put a faint tint of red through their botched B&W if you ask me and it doesn't look all that great

Arrow's corrected disc looks like this.

Blu Brew just reviewed the corrected disc.

[David M.]

This summer I'm going to make a number of DVD and possibly Blu-ray frame grabs for a book. I think it's time to create a separate thread just to deal with technical issues regarding screen grabs, which people can use for general discussion and as a technical reference.

The best thing you can do to make sure you're getting the whole picture (literally) is to take a screen grab of a resolution test chart. The Spears & Munsil BD test disc has one - or you can get the FREE AVSHD test patterns which do a similar job. (On the S&M disc, the chart you're looking for is "Luma Multiburst", on AVSHD the "Sharpness and Overscan" pattern has an area which fulfils the same purpose).

The tiny fine lines should appear as individual pixel-thin lines in both the horizontal and vertical directions. If DVD Beaver were to take a screen grab of this test pattern using whatever process they're using right now, it would appear smudged into a less distinct grey tone.

Give me a private message any time if you're having troubles/have doubts.