Hitchcock on Universal DVD and Blu-ray

[hearthesilence]

Damn, wound up buying the whole set after all! Thanks!!!

[bjeggert82]

This seems weird. I just ordered it from Fingerhut and it's saying delivery by 10/26.

Maybe it's just paranoia on my part, but at this price, this deal seems off somehow. Are they shipping the recalled version now, and early? I guess I'll find out when it arrives, but $125 less than most of their competitors seems too good to be true. I hope my suspicions are wrong, but until the set is in hand, and I can somehow confirm it's the correct set, I'll feel strange about this. But $125 savings is just too much to pass up.

[captveg]

FYI, it should be noted that the Isolated Score on North by Northwest has been dropped for the version of the disc in the box set (it is identical otherwise). If such matters to you best to hold on to the original release.

[Graham]

"I, again, reserve the right for more insightful comments until after I have lived with the entire Blu-ray set for a while."

The Beaver seems to be hedging his bets, as if he's afraid to approve of both the Vertigo and Rear Window blus in case of a backlash.

[mfunk9786]

This Fingerhut thing seems fishy, you're right, bjeggert. But I'm going for it anyway, worst thing that happens is that I have to flip it.

[Zot!]

Wow, on first glance, Vertigo is amazing. I'll be curious how this shakes out, but I thought NxNW was mindblowing and even that had it's detractors.

[hearthesilence]

If it turns out to be the recalled version, couldn't we just exchange it for the new one? (At least directly through Universal?) I thought it generally worked that way with recalled products, including home video releases.

[med]

"I, again, reserve the right for more insightful comments until after I have lived with the entire Blu-ray set for a while."

The Beaver seems to be hedging his bets, as if he's afraid to approve of both the Vertigo and Rear Window blus in case of a backlash.

No, note the use of "the entire Blu-ray set." I think it's his inarticulate way of saying don't take his approval of Vertigo and Rear Window as an endorsement of the set as a whole. He still needs time to work through it.

[triodelover]

No, note the use of "the entire Blu-ray set." I think it's his inarticulate way of saying don't take his approval of Vertigo and Rear Window as an endorsement of the set as a whole. He still needs time to work through it.

There's also the fact that Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo were three transfers that got the Peerpee Stamp of Approval when Nick went through the set, IIRC. (NXNW wasn't in the UK set.) Gary hasn't gotten to the problematic transfers yet. We don't what, if anything, has changed in the reissued set.

[Drucker]

The Birds.

I think this one, Nick mentioned that the first part was riddled with errors and then all of a sudden things get straightened out? Or something to that effect?

[Roger Ryan]

The Birds.

I think this one, Nick mentioned that the first part was riddled with errors and then all of a sudden things get straightened out? Or something to that effect?

Nick said THE BIRDS was all over the place in terms of grain and manipulation; not sure if it "straightened out" at any point. Now he did say that MARNIE was crap until the last ten minutes when the picture became acceptable.

[MichaelB]

The thing about The Birds is that it has more process shots than any other Hitchcock film, so I'd expect grain to be all over the place even in 35mm. Going from those grabs, it looks as though Universal has done a reasonable job with tricky source material.

But can someone please explain what the hell Gary means by "depth"? It's one of his most frequently-used adjectives, and I usually don't have the faintest clue what he's getting at!

[swo17]

Nick eventually backed off on his initial negative assessment of The Birds.

I think this one, Nick mentioned that the first part was riddled with errors and then all of a sudden things get straightened out? Or something to that effect?

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[mfunk9786]

Has anyone seen any movement on their Fingerhut orders? Mine is listed as "Label Created," whatever that means. The item is now listed as Out of Stock on the website.

[criterion10]

Beaver on The Man Who Knew Too Much

[triodelover]

But can someone please explain what the hell Gary means by "depth"? It's one of his most frequently-used adjectives, and I usually don't have the faintest clue what he's getting at!

Well, I can't speak for Gary, but I can tell you what I would mean by the term. Depth is the characteristic of what essentially is a two-dimensional field to display a third dimension. It's often used in describing the stereo soundstage in reviews of hi-fi gear, even though the illusion of depth is an artifact of the recording process and can be enhanced or diminished based on the engineering choices. Google the microphone set-up used by Bob Fine and Wilma Cozart Fine for the Mercury Living Presence recordings of the '50s for an example of how to make this happen (in a good way).

Visual fields in film display height and width in real space (e.g. 1920 x 1080, duh). Within that image is the illusion of depth, something our mind knows and calculates based on our knowledge, say, of what it looks like to watch someone walk down a street (Robert Cummings outside Ray Milland's flat in Dial M). Even in SD, our mind's eye realizes that what we are seeing isn't really flat, but the 2D representation of a three-dimensional space. But in SD, that image really doesn't "pop out" because the image lacks the requisite detail to separate something like a building's façade from the sky behind it. In HD - or at least HD done right - the additional detail seems to separate the individual components of the image more clearly, thereby providing the illusion of greater depth to the image. The last film I immediately recall seeing that displays this quality is the CC Les visiteurs du soir. In particular, the banquet hall scenes seem to have an extraordinary depth. This is also true of the scenes along the Boulevard du Crime in the much-maligned Les enfants du Paradis Blu. And it's manifestly not true for the DNR-scrubbed images of the interior scenes in the same film.

[mfunk9786]

I can't get over how good these look.

[FilmFanSea]

Excellent explanation, triodelover. Gary's caps for Rear Window seem to perfectly illustrate what you wrote. The compositions in SD appear flat when compared with the new BR images, especially the beads of sweat on Stewart's forehead or the lobster dinner. This transfer alone (of my favorite Hitchcock film) may make me buy the set.

[bamwc2]

Can anyone explain to me DVDBeaver's policy for sizing the caps? Here only the 1998 DVD caps are shown at the smaller size, and only the Blu-ray caps can be clicked to zoom in. How can anyone make a fair comparison from this?

As a former reviewer for the site, I can tell you that all smaller BD images are 800 p, The larger ones that you get after the click are in at full 1080 p.

Also, triodelover's explanation of depth is spot on: it's just the appearance of a slight third dimension caused by the sharpness of the image.

[MichaelB]

The Beev reviews the first of the seriously problematic titles... and it's not good news.

Oh, and many thanks to Triodelover for that excellent, admirably thorough explanation - Gary's reviews actually make sense now!

[denti alligator]

It doesn't look *that* bad to me.

[rspaight]

Too bad he doesn't mention if the fuzz goes away toward the end (and provide an explicit comparison of that).

[perkizitore]

You should e-mail Gary with any questions, he usually replies quickly.

[hearthesilence]

They were screening Marnie at the NYFF...too bad it's come and gone, I definitely would've checked it out with those screen caps in mind. I wonder if the film has always looked this grainy (assuming it's not noise introduced in the transfer)? Gary's comparison to blown up 16mm does seem apt, at least in those stills.

[matrixschmatrix]

I wonder how it looks in motion? Just looking from the caps, I have to agree with denti that it looks not so bad- but I thought the same thing about Children of Paradise, where the drawbacks are to my eyes far more visible once you actually play the thing.