BD 310-313 Strange New Worlds: Science Fiction at DEFA

[exidor]

So does Deaf Crocodile's release suffer this same issue or is this something that MoC applied themselves?

I asked them about the weird green business and they said theirs doesn't have it. The AI stuff you have to assume is baked into the restoration from DEFA though.

[MichaelB]

I'll watch my copy of the Deaf Crocodile edition when I get a moment, but "when I get a moment" is unlikely to be any time soon.

[ChunkyLover]

From Blu-Ray dot com:

Hi all,

We were made aware of the issue being discussed here in relation to In the Dust of the Stars a few days ago and we have since discovered that the master supplied to us has been subject to minimal AI upscaling using the software Topaz. To be clear, this does not affect the other three films in this box set.

As the technology is relatively new, we have limited experience with AI enhancement in general and Topaz in particular, and to our knowledge this is the first master that has ever been supplied to us with Topaz upscaling (though we did recently pick up far more glaring anomalies in another forthcoming master, which was replaced during the production process).

Topaz was clearly used conservatively in relation to In the Dust of the Stars as the master is excellent for the most part (as noted in recent reviews and notably in DVDBeaver’s write up on the set) and the AI anomalies are minimally invasive. With that said, we fully understand and agree that even minimal AI enhancement is not ideal or desirable. We do not endorse the use of AI in the film restoration process.

We will not be issuing a disc replacement scheme for this set as the high initial production costs on this project and its relatively low RRP mean that this is simply not financially viable for us. However, we will now be introducing an internal policy of hyper-vigilance to the use of AI in the masters supplied to us and will be ensuring that any masters that have been subject to AI upscaling are resupplied without it.

We hope that you are still able to enjoy this box set, which is the result of a huge amount of hard work by our production team and brings four innovative and rarely seen examples of world genre cinema to disc in the UK for the first time.

- The Eureka Team.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.ph ... st23156189

[MichaelB]

I'll watch my copy of the Deaf Crocodile edition when I get a moment, but "when I get a moment" is unlikely to be any time soon.

OK, since Exidor has gone and told the Blu-ray.com people that I have a copy and they're no doubt champing at the bit, if someone could give me a timecode or two (doesn't have to be especially frame-precise), I'll give it a look.

[exidor]

OK, since Exidor has gone and told the Blu-ray.com people that I have a copy and they're no doubt champing at the bit, if someone could give me a timecode or two (doesn't have to be especially frame-precise), I'll give it a look.

Sorry, bored at work and I got carried away. Somewhere around 1:45 is where the guy comes into the control room and stands with his back to the camera. The AI horrors in the garden were 10 minutes from the end, I think.

[swo17]

Also, this Deaf Crocodile release got a replacement disc. What was the nature of the replacement and does MichaelB have the corrected disc?

[TechnicolorAcid]

Also, this Deaf Crocodile release got a replacement disc. What was the nature of the replacement and does MichaelB have the corrected disc?

It was an audio issue that they detected alongside some incomplete subs.

[tenia]

I lol'd at the usual comment there that it's all because Eureka seemingly did 0 QC, and not because despite multiple QC passes, it got through.
(Disclaimer : I've done QC for whole BDs, for subtitles' translation, and for written material. Something ALWAYS slipped through - and I felt awful for it - but that's why I never merely did a single pass, and why I often wasn't the only person on it)

[Orlac]

Thing is, if the AI/QC issues are at the right's holders end, how easy is it to get such things corrected? I assume not very.

[tenia]

The green thing, seemingly, might have been introduced by Eureka. If so, then this could have been caught during QC. AI upscaling ? It's the new "crap, the rightholders stuck me with a rubbish master". Either you have a way to get a different less-problematic master, or you release it as such (and I doubt transparency will extend so far as telling customers upfront "this has AI related issues"), or drop it altogether and suffer the financial losses.

[MichaelB]

I was recently sent subtitles that were AI-generated, and to the rightsholder's credit this was actually acknowledged in the filename - although I only looked properly at said filename after rejecting them.

They were hilariously terrible - this was a 1942 film, with lots of music over the dialogue, which was in English, French and German, so it's not at all surprising that quite a few of the lines ended up as literal gibberish and even the ones that superficially looked OK at a glance turned out to be anything but. I ended up doing the whole thing by ear from scratch as it was honestly quicker than trying to beat the existing subs into shape.

[MichaelB]

I asked them about the weird green business and they said theirs doesn't have it. The AI stuff you have to assume is baked into the restoration from DEFA though.

You would entirely reasonably assume that, but on the evidence of my own eyes Deaf Crocodile is correct - their release does not have these green highlights. I attach evidence below, and I've checked other parts too (such as that handily in-motion YouTube clip, where Ronk's back does not display green highlights at any point in the DC version).

I don't imagine Eureka introduced them at their end, so what happened between the master that Deaf Crocodile used and the one that Eureka worked from? And why?

[exidor]

The email I got back from Deaf Croc said they assumed they got the same master as Eureka from DEFA. Eureka's statement is worded in a way that could be interpreted as the authoring place they used instead of Fidelity in Motion were the ones that ran Topaz across it. I don't know enough about blu ray production to know if that's a likely scenario.

Anyway, thanks for checking. It's good to know that the DC version is definitely in a better state. Now I just need to weigh up whether to lay down another £20 on a film that, though it has its charms, is not what you could really call good.

[ChunkyLover]

The email I got back from Deaf Croc said they assumed they got the same master as Eureka from DEFA.

Comparing the Eureka cap from the previous page and Michael's cap from the Deaf Croc disc, they both appear to be the same base master but Eureka has additional AI "clean-up"/weirdness. The DC looks like an older HD scan (the clunky-looking grain is a giveaway) but I assume the rights holder did the additional work that is on the Eureka disc.

Eureka's statement is worded in a way that could be interpreted as the authoring place they used instead of Fidelity in Motion were the ones that ran Topaz across it. I don't know enough about blu ray production to know if that's a likely scenario.

It might be a possibility but if that were the case then wouldn't the other three films in the set be affected (if that is the case)?

[swo17]

The AI stuff you have to assume is baked into the restoration from DEFA though.

I'm not seeing it in my copy of the Deaf Crocodile disc

[EddieLarkin]

It would seem then, that both the melted faces and the green solarisation are a result of Topaz AI.

And if this stuff isn't baked into the master, that certainly undercuts Eureka's claim that this decision was undertaken by the licensor.

[TMDaines]

DEFA masters were notoriously bad in the DVD and early HD era too. Knew that their catalogue making the leap to boutique labels' Blu-rays would be too good to be true.