Éric Rohmer on DVD and BD

[Zot!]

The downside of all this is that any video formats formats other than 16x9 are losing full pixel resolution. So, in general I don't disagree with favoring widescreen transfers, if the material will allow it, and it's faithful to some instance of the original presentation.

[Rupert Pupkin]

The downside of all this is that any video formats formats other than 16x9 are losing full pixel resolution. So, in general I don't disagree with favoring widescreen transfers, if the material will allow it, and it's faithful to some instance of the original presentation.

You are talking about the DVDs ? (I didn't check the DVDs ). Because Blu-Ray / Anamorphic : I don't understand... I didn't see an issue with the resolution of "Comédies et Proverbes" blu-ray...

but if it turns out (I didn't check it ) that La Femme de L'Aviateur is not in 16/9 on DVD (whereas it is in 1:66) that's indeed a big problem. Bad movie again for Potemkine. ](*,)

[Oedipax]

I think what Zot is getting at is that the full horizontal resolution of blurays is 1920px, but 4:3 movies are only 1440px across (give or take). So in that sense we're throwing away some resolution the same way non-anamorphic DVDs threw away resolution by not using the full 480 or 576 vertical lines.

So maybe what we need are 1920px-encoded academy ratio discs that are then squeezed on the horizontal dimension, much as anamorphic-enhanced DVDs used to be squeezed by the player vertically. But somehow I doubt that'll happen.

[Zot!]

I think what Zot is getting at is that the full horizontal resolution of blurays is 1920px, but 4:3 movies are only 1440px across (give or take). So in that sense we're throwing away some resolution the same way non-anamorphic DVDs threw away resolution by not using the full 480 or 576 vertical lines.

So maybe what we need are 1920px-encoded academy ratio discs that are then squeezed on the horizontal dimension, much as anamorphic-enhanced DVDs used to be squeezed by the player vertically. But somehow I doubt that'll happen.

Yup, and although I hate to be one of those, 'I don't like them black lines on my teevee' people, the current technology legitimizes their concern. I doubt we'd ever get actual "reverse-anamorphic" content as you would need a 4k television to take advantage of it.

[Peter]

Hey :) Has anyone ordered this set from potemkine.fr? If so, how was the box secured, was it frustration free?
I never had any problems with amazon.fr orders, but Potemkine wouldn't get 100% of the money that way.

[Petaine]

I've been searching the web for a review of any kind for this release without any luck; screenshots is what I'm mostly interested in. Anyone knows where I can find anything?

[Oedipax]

Here's a few gleaned from the web:

La collectionneuse 1 2

L'amour l'après-midi 1 2

Pauline à la plage 1 2

Le rayon vert 1 2

Ma nuit chez Maud 1 2 (Only 720 grabs for this one)

Not sure if the capturing method and compression of the sample explains the quality discrepancies in some of these, but overall not too shabby. Hopefully my set will arrive today or tomorrow, but it might be next week sometime.

[Petaine]

Thank you very much for sharing Oedipax!
Indeed, the screens match my (realistic) expectations! Can't wait to see those films again!

[kekid]

Any murmurs of Region A companies doing Rohmer blus? I may finally go multi-region for these..

I'm sure a number of the big titles will eventually come out in the UK and US (Moral Tales, Four Seasons etc.), but I'm just as sure that nobody else is going to tackle the complete works, and films like L'arbre, le maire et la mediatheque will probably continue to wallow in undeserved obscurity.

Keep in mind that if you're going to go region free for this, you will want a player or screen that can handle or convert 1080i50 content. This is probably a good consideration regardless for maximum flexibility. Even if you exclude the DVD-only films and the interlaced content, you're only paying ~$16 per 1080p title, so this is a decent value if you're curious about more than the "hits".

I do not understand the implications of 1080i50 content. I have an OPPO, hardware-modified for region-free operation. Will it be able to handle these discs? (So far I have not encountered a single disc it cannot play) What actually happens when one of these discs is played on a player not designed for it? Does it not play at all? Does it play with some distortions? At an incorrect speed? An explanation will be much appreciated. Thank you.

[artfilmfan]

I do not understand the implications of 1080i50 content. I have an OPPO, hardware-modified for region-free operation. Will it be able to handle these discs? (So far I have not encountered a single disc it cannot play) What actually happens when one of these discs is played on a player not designed for it? Does it not play at all? Does it play with some distortions? At an incorrect speed? An explanation will be much appreciated. Thank you.

I pre-ordered the Comedies and Proverbs set and it was shipped before I found out about the reported 1080i50Hz content on some of the discs. I bought this set primarily for Pauline at the Beach, which reportedly turns out to be one of the affected discs. It plays fine on my Oppo player and NTSC TV set up. The picture quality is a nice improvement over the R1 and R2 DVDs. However, I noticed in one scene the stripes of the swim suit were "banding" or "pulsating" (probably due to the interlace encoding) and that some of the fast-moving scenes (such as someone turning his/her head quickly or moving a hand quickly) seemed to show a minimal "lagging" effect (although I don't know whether it is due to the 50/60 Hz conversion or due to my TV having an LED/LCD display).

[kekid]

I do not understand the implications of 1080i50 content. I have an OPPO, hardware-modified for region-free operation. Will it be able to handle these discs? (So far I have not encountered a single disc it cannot play) What actually happens when one of these discs is played on a player not designed for it? Does it not play at all? Does it play with some distortions? At an incorrect speed? An explanation will be much appreciated. Thank you.

I pre-ordered the Comedies and Proverbs set and it was shipped before I found out about the reported 1080i50Hz content on some of the discs. I bought this set primarily for Pauline at the Beach, which reportedly turns out to be one of the affected discs. It plays fine on my Oppo player and NTSC TV set up. The picture quality is a nice improvement over the R1 and R2 DVDs. Now, I'm thinking of buying the Tales of Four Seasons set to get another favorite: A Summer's Tale.

Thank you.

[artfilmfan]

I've updated the post. Please see above. (Still thinking of buying the other set for A Summer's Tale)

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Biography by Antoine de Baecque and Noël Herpe coming in January.

[Zot!]

So I got my set, which had a spine that was irreparably smashed from some maroon dropping it, and Amazon.Fr packaging this huge brick in the thinnest carboard possible. I'm sending it back for replacement. No Scratches or Fingerprints as others have reported.

This is by far the prettiest set I (will) own, and I just recently bought Mizoguchi and Cassavettes boxes. Really expensive looking, and represents much better in person. Each digipack has a cohesive artist rendition on the front, and the original movie poster on the inside front. I previewed some of the transfers, and I am suitably pleased with that as well. Perceval was standout from what I saw. Some of the 16mm sourced things are hard for me to critique properly (I watched the Green Ray in full), as while detail and grain are abundant, much softness is inherit to the source, and I'm not qualified to comment whether any improvements would be possible. When I compare to screenshots from previous editions, it is strikingly better. While I would have preferred the original running times, the 1080i 50 material is undetectable, and certainly no worse than the existing PAL DVDs. I'll report back once I get a chance to run through more of the set, though I have to send this back once my replacement ships.

[MichaelB]

I can certainly confirm that a great many late Rohmer films have very soft and grainy pictures even in their cinema versions.

[PGW]

So, close to perfect…!

The negatives:

1. THE PACKAGING - It took me a while to figure out how we're even supposed to get the discs out of those horrible cases, and even then I managed to break three or four of the little plastic levers while removing the discs to check for scratches and fingerprints. If I remember correctly, the initial blu-ray sets for "Back To The Future" were packaged similarly, only enough people complained about it that the company gave up and changed it to something that normal human beings could actually manage.

2. SCRATCHES AND FINGERPRINTS - Nothing extreme enough to make me want to return it, but… yep. My copy also came with a nice three/four inch razor blade slice on the outside of the box (with no damage to the shipping container, so it was packed that way).

3. LACK OF ENGLISH FRIENDLY EXTRAS - Why go that extra mile to make the feature films English friendly, and then short-change us on all the extras?

4. SOME TITLES ONLY AVAILABLE ON DVD - I understand it's probably a licensing issue, but it would have been nice to have the complete features on blu-ray - particularly since I can't see Sony putting out their own disc of "The Lady and The Duke" (or Rohmer's other later films) anytime soon.

The positives:

I spent most of last weekend comparing the DVDs from the French box to the U.K. and U.S. versions I have. Except for the films issued in the Criterion box, the new discs were almost invariably better looking - in some cases, a LOT better looking. I still have some quibbles. Why treat us to "Pauline At The Beach" in the full aspect ratio, but then crop "The Aviator's Wife"? Worse, I put on the blu-ray for that one, and in the early scene where the woman gets out of bed in near darkness there's some truly awful ghosting as she gets up and goes to answer the door. This ghosting ISN'T seen on the DVD for the same title, so I don't know what's going on there.

Also, I checked these out on my computer, and some titles simply wouldn't play at all (namely, "L'Amour symphonique," the "L'Homme… et son Machine" documentary, and the entire "Workshop" disc). I have no idea why. They seem to play fine on my stand-alone.

So far, I've watched "A Winter's Tale" and "Pauline" on blu-ray, and they both looked fantastic ("Winter's Tale" less so, understandably, because it was shot in 16mm). I can't wait to delve in further, but I don't want to burn out on these wonderful films.

[zedz]

3. LACK OF ENGLISH FRIENDLY EXTRAS - Why go that extra mile to make the feature films English friendly, and then short-change us on all the extras?

This was my big gripe with this set as well, until I realised that the set includes nearly 40 hours of extras. All the features have existing subtitle files or translated export scripts available, whereas all of this material would need to be subtitled from scratch. If you figure it's going to take five hours to transcribe, translate and encode subtitles for an hour of footage (which I personally think is a superhuman pace), and you're going to have to pay somebody to do all that work (at, say, 30 bucks an hour), you've suddenly added $6000 to the budget of a project that's probably at bare break-even level as it stands. Ergo, no Rohmer box set.

[perkizitore]

Should I sell my Criterion Six Moral Tales boxset to put some money toward acquiring this behemoth, or should I just keep it for the extras?

[AlexHansen]

Beaver on The Green Ray and Claire's Knee

[Michael Kerpan]

Beaver on The Green Ray and Claire's Knee

Interesting to see how relatively good the UK Green Ray and Criterion DVDs are (even if the BR versions are better) and how shockingly bad the Fox/Lorber ones were.

[Zot!]

1. THE PACKAGING - It took me a while to figure out how we're even supposed to get the discs out of those horrible cases, and even then I managed to break three or four of the little plastic levers while removing the discs to check for scratches and fingerprints.

Good lord, be gentle man! You've got to treat this set let the emotionally fragile heroine of the Green Ray. Just push down with your finger in the middle ring, and they should pop right out. For all the complaining, I don't think the packaging is a problem really. I find it much preferable to the paper sleeves of the Alien and Zatoichi sets.

3. LACK OF ENGLISH FRIENDLY EXTRAS

Some of these bizarre gems can be enjoyed regardless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbcTmTdW7H0
I wish they had subbed at least some of the shorts, if not the interviews.

Should I sell my Criterion Six Moral Tales boxset to put some money toward acquiring this behemoth, or should I just keep it for the extras?

The Moral Tales on the box are not definitive (Some DNR on the early films looks likely, and there is at least one interlaced title). Regardless you can see from DVDBeaver's Claire's Knee review, that the new transfers are regardless a revelation. If you only want those films you might want to wait for Criterion to do an upgrade, but who knows when that might happen. If you care about the rest of the material, and don't already own most of it, I would not hesitate to invest in this.

[pro-bassoonist]

These French releases actually are quite a mixed bag. I've gone through almost 10 films and there are transfers that are wonderful and transfers that are very clearly DNR-ed. And it shows. The image is actually very flat and, predictably, smeary. This has absolutely nothing to do with 16mm, softness, or Rohmer's style. When done right, 16mm films actually look fabulous on Blu-ray. There are plenty of examples.

Actually, the screencaptures Oedipax has posted quite well sum up the quality of the films in the collection.

[Michael Kerpan]

When done right, 16mm films actually look fabulous on Blu-ray. There are plenty of examples.

MOC's Pont du Nord?

I guess the questions are -- do ever the less good transfers constitute a significant improvement over the prior (best) DVD releases? And what is the proporion of good to mediocre?

[pro-bassoonist]

When done right, 16mm films actually look fabulous on Blu-ray. There are plenty of examples.

MOC's Pont du Nord?

I guess the questions are -- do ever the less good transfers constitute a significant improvement over the prior (best) DVD releases? And what is the proporion of good to mediocre?

It depends on what is done, Michael. I personally am very happy to have a dated look as opposed to a new resto with all sorts of digital anomalies. Also, there are times when you could tone down the noise on an older transfer and the results are great. But there are also examples where something completely different comes out. On some of these French releases the DNR-ing has wiped out a lot of things. And the problem here is that natural light is a very important component of Rohmer's style, so it clearly shows.

As far as 16mm is concerned, there are some modern releases that have set the bar so high that by now this should not even be discussed as a limitation (and 16mm never was to begin with). Take a look at Chris Nolan's Following. It is one of the all-time greatest looking Blu-ray releases.

[tenia]

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