criterionforum.org

Thanks again, Michael! This was highly illuminating , though I had of course already noted that some films look great even on a single-layered disc. Also thanks for notifying me of the Keaton discussion, which I hadn't known about, not being particularly interested in Keaton's films. And yes, the Quay Brothers set has some of the best transfers I've seen anywhere.

Screencaps from the Japanese Le Pont du Nord DVD are here.

They kinda look like Beta-max transfers to me. Thoughts?

justeleblanc wrote:Screencaps from the Japanese Le Pont du Nord DVD are here.

They kinda look like Beta-max transfers to me. Thoughts?

Two (almost) matching screen captures from the old French videotape.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a59/mk ... pont01.png

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a59/mk ... pont02.png

Maybe I am just functionally challenged when it comes to capturing screen shots. There is a lot of motion blur, but to my eyes the quality comes close to the BFI Celine et Julie. The movie itself takes about 7.5 GB... I wonder what all that space is used for.

franco wrote:Maybe I am just functionally challenged when it comes to capturing screen shots. There is a lot of motion blur, but to my eyes the quality comes close to the BFI Celine et Julie. The movie itself takes about 7.5 GB... I wonder what all that space is used for.

I've never done a methodical comparison -- but purely subjectively the BFI C&J doesn't look as good as the French one (which also has better extras -- no subs, of course).

Michael, thank you for sharing the screenshots of the videotape. Don't you think they look similar in quality to the New Yorker Celine and Julie?

I can hardly understand why BFI didn't bother translating the great interviews from the French disc.

franco wrote:Michael, thank you for sharing the screenshots of the videotape. Don't you think they look similar in quality to the New Yorker Celine and Julie?

I never saw the New Yorker video of C&J, only the French video, the French DVD and the BFI DVD. ;~}

I'm hoping that the New Yorker DVD (when it finally comes out will look like the French DVD.

I can hardly understand why BFI didn't bother translating the great interviews from the French disc.

I never heard any explanation. I know New Yorker was (at one point) hoping to include subbed versions of the French extras. Not sure where things stand currently.

I've just had a quick look at Bluebell's Love on the Ground and Wuthering Heights. Love on the Ground looks ok - not impressive, just ok. It's dual layer but since the filesize is quite small, the bitrate is very low! The optional subs are in a pale yellow color (not too annoying). Here are som brief specs:

Love on the Ground
Bitrate 3,96 Mb/s
Dual layer (filesize 4,91 Gb)
PAL, 16:9
169 minutes
Optional subs (pale yellow color)
Region 0
No extras of any kind

Wuthering Heights looks a bit dark and 'muddy', but note that I'm watching this on a computerscreen in sunlight, which isn't the best way of judging the image quality. It's single layer!

Wuthering Heights
Bitrate 4,29 Mb/s
Single layer (filesize 3,98 Gb)
PAL, 16:9
126 minutes
Optional subs (pale yellow color)
Region 0
No extras of any kind

Final verdict: I wish Bluebell would put a little more effort in their releases and use higher bitrates. It seems a bit careless to put a +2 hour movie on a single layer disc. But it's good that the 2 films are anamorphic and that the subs are optional as indicated by Michael's preview disks. One thing is certain: I'll enjoy the films!

Truly disappointing, then, considering how good the French arte discs are. And YELLOW subs on top of it. Count me out, then.

My next Rivette purchase will be the forthcoming AE of "Don't touch the axe". I hope AE will get that one right.....

To be fair I should perhaps stress that the subs are a pale yellow color (or yellowish) - not as annoying as they could be. I've added a few screenshots of both films in the screen captures thread.

I don't have the check discs immediately to hand, but if they have changed the subtitle colour from white to yellow I'm extremely annoyed, as I'd certainly have mentioned it in the review. And I don't recall them being yellow.

(And it's too late to change it, as the next issue of Sight & Sound is already at the printers)

I'm equally unimpressed about the discs being single-layer, as I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt - as it's not at all unusual to release single-layer checkdiscs of dual-layer releases.

martin wrote:To be fair I should perhaps stress that the subs are a pale yellow color (or yellowish) - not as annoying as they could be. I've added a few screenshots of both films in the screen captures thread.

Do your screen shots closely match what you see on your screen. I'm asking because they look more drab than I recall the Arte DVDs being.

Okay, after looking at the screencaps I have to admit that this sort of yellow doesn't seem all too disturbing. Still, I have the feeling that especially with "L'amour par terre" the arte disc looks much clearer.

For the sake of information, here are the file sizes of the arte discs.

L'amour: 7,84 GB
Hurlevent: 6,66 GB

Even though MichaelB has so nicely explained above that file size/bit rate can be deceptive in judging the quality of a disc, the difference here is obvious and probably accounts for the weaker image of the Bluebells.

Are the transfers progressive?

Tommaso wrote:Even though MichaelB has so nicely explained above that file size/bit rate can be deceptive in judging the quality of a disc, the difference here is obvious and probably accounts for the weaker image of the Bluebells.

Just to be absolutely clear, there's an enormous difference between authoring something with a bitrate that's lower than the maximum but nonetheless completely adequate for the job and what seems to be the situation here.

It's simply not possible to cram a nearly three-hour film (in an anamorphic transfer, so the entire frame is filled throughout) onto a single-layer disc without cutting massive corners in the quality department - and I'm really shocked to hear that they've done this.

Love on the Ground is actually dual-layer but the full capacity is not used (far from!).

The screenshots appear rather dark but I haven't have time to see the films yet. I'll have to watch them in proper conditions before I can tell if the screenshots resembles a viewing. But the screenshots are grabbed with Power DVD, neutral settings.

Wuthering Heights is not progressive. I think Love on the Ground is (I didn't notice any interlacing when I grabbed the images).

I definitely recall Love on the Ground being on the dark side, but I don't remember any brightness issues with the others.

With all the power this board has I would have thought you could band together and eradicate yellow subtitles forever.

I've seen Wuthering Heights now (R2 UK). It does look better when viewed on a tv. The picture has more detail and contrast than I expected after having seen my screen captures. I didn't notice any heavy digital artifacts or pixelations, even though the bitrate is extremely low.

The transfer looks interlaced (see the last screen capture) - pehaps from a NTSC master, I'm not sure (the playing time is 2 hrs 6 min 20 sec)?

Anyway, the screencaptures I posted are correct. I've checked the set-up, and my captures (from other discs) always looks exactly the same as for instance Gary's on DVDBeaver. Bluebell's Wuthering Heights DVD is very dark. It's just that the tv is able to present a much better picture than the screencaptures suggests...

I just got all three Bluebell DVDs from Amazon.co.uk-- popped in Gang of Four and Wuthering Heights, which looked better than I'd been prepared for, the combing is real slight and the extreme soft graininess of the image actually helps to mask it! Love the only quote they were able to dig up for Love on the Ground

Some comparison shots from Hurlevent and L'amour par terre added to Screen Captures thread.

As far as I can tell the Arte DVDs are DVD-9s -- but I don't see any huge differences between my shots and those from the Blue Bell versions.

Thanks for the shots from the French release. I'm relieved the Bluebell doesn't look too bad in direct comparison.

I've seen a very brief German review regarding the new German Rivette box from Arthaus. Unfortunately the picture quality of Merry-Go-Round "leaves something to be desired", as the reviewer says without getting into further detail.

It's a shame as I'm very curious about this film which I've never seen. Has it ever been released on dvd before?

Furthermore it seems confirmed that the Claire Denis documantary on Rivette is not on the Arthaus box even though jpc.de still has it listed as an extra feature.

I think there's a stand-alone Italian dvd of "Merry-go-Round", but I have no idea how that one looks. Also, you sure won't have any subs.

I've seen "Merry-go-round" several times on German TV, and remember nothing particularly bad about it, so perhaps arthaus used another print or somehow messed up the transfer (which I find unlikely, given that their recent releases were quite good as far as I've seen them).

But that reminds me of the other German Rivette Box from Flax Films, which contains "Noiseuse", "Marie et Julien" and "Bande des quatre". I recently bought this although I have the arte box, because it also contains the short version of "Noiseuse" plus a wonderful reprint of the 1994 'Du'-magazine on Rivette, and admittedly, because I wanted to have at least some of his films with subs. Anyway, I had only heard good things about this set before, but after watching "Bande des quatre", I'm disappointed. Apart from YELLOW subs, it doesn't look bad, colours et al are exactly the same as the arte transfer, so I suppose they used the same master. Nevertheless, the image is far less sharp than on the arte (popped it in afterwards for a direct comparison, and the difference was more than evident), so I wonder what went wrong. The only answer I have is that it must be the added German dub taking away from the image quality as the film is so long, and that here bitrate might indeed be an important factor.

This makes me fear that although the difference of the screen caps between "Hurlevent" arte and Bluebell doesn't seem so huge, the overall impression when actually seeing the thing in motion might be rather different.

martin wrote:Furthermore it seems confirmed that the Claire Denis documantary on Rivette is not on the Arthaus box even though jpc.de still has it listed as an extra feature.

It is, however, on the new Arte 3-disc edition of La Belle Noiseuse.

I've seen L'Amour Fou and Out 1 (the full version) but unfortunately have been unable to come across La Pont du Nord or Duelle. Anyone know of any available versions of either film in the dark mysterious world of bootlegs?