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RobertAltman wrote:

triodelover wrote:I may be remembering incorrectly, but didn't BFI send out replacements disks for a film a couple of years ago without requesting the defective disks back? I don't remember the film (except that I bought it and got one of the replacements) and can't find it through a search, but I think MichaelB posted a contact e-mail.

Chaplin at Keystone. I just sent them an e-mail saying I had received the set with the faulty disc. They sent me a replacement disc free of charge, and I did not have to send them my faulty disc. And I'm in Norway, so they ship replacements internationally too.

That's not the one I'm thinking of, though. (I own the Flicker Alley version.) It was 2-3 years ago and the disk to be replaced had been encoded at too low a bit rate. I think tenia got it with Autumn Afternoon. Anyway, one of the BFi Ozu's sounds right.

EDIT: And Beaver confirms it.

MichaelB wrote:

peerpee wrote:27" and 32" are very small displays on which to be looking at 1080p material! There seems to be a consensus that 40" is the ideal lowest size on which to properly resolve a 1080p image.

I suspect the viewing distance is a pretty crucial factor, though - downstairs, the sofa must be a good ten feet away from my 42" plasma, but I'm typically only about two feet away from the 27" screen in my office. So I really do see more detail in the latter, especially as it's the screen that's been professionally calibrated.

Yeah, it's a big factor that seems to get overlooked at times. When I was deciding which TV to buy years ago the consensus tended to be that if you sit the 'proper' distance away then there's little point going for 1080p unless you want to go beyond 42". I guess the point was proved anecdotally when my boss went and got the 1080p version of my Panasonic plasma yet it was impossible to tell any difference between the two unless you tried to recreate that scene from Videodrome.

On my 27" screen, the difference between SD and HD material is really glaringly obvious. On the 42", much less so - unless I actually get up and look at the image closely.

I just received my Potemkin BFI copy, and can only sadly confirm that Potemkin is indeed plagued by an awful pixellisation problem.

Les Yeux Sans Visage wrote:

tenia wrote:On the other end, they haven't asked to send them back the Autumn Afternoon disc which was encoded at a low bitrate.

Hopefully the'll do the same in this case.

The thing that bugs me is that I hadn't noticed a problem (on my 32" screen) and just checking again - even going close enough to the screeen to see the screen's pixels - the masts and sails still seem to have pretty solid edges. Nothing like the jaggy edges seen in Kris's pictures. It makes me wonder how much I'm "wallowing in ignorance" with the quality of other discs I own...

Get a bigger TV mate!

Has talk about this problem been confined to this forum alone? I have searched elsewhere for some acknowledgment from bfi or other reviews that point to the problem but have come up with diddly-squat.

All feedback from the BFI will be posted here in the first instance, but I don't have any more news aside from their initial confirmation that they're aware of the problem.

OK Thanks.

Am I being unreasonable in expecting to have had an official update from the BFI by now? Even just a statement that says they're aware of the problem and a replacement programme would be announced in due course? I was really hoping to be able to watch this over Christmas.

TMDaines wrote:Am I being unreasonable in expecting to have had an official update from the BFI by now? Even just a statement that says they're aware of the problem and a replacement programme would be announced in due course?

The statement has already been made.

The second I'm told any more, it'll be posted here.

I'll be honest and say that I feel like a total idiot now, especially as I was the first to respond to that very post!

Calvin wrote:HMV have sent my copy so it should hopefully be with me tomorrow. Has anyone here seen the documentary Hitchcock on Grierson? I sent STV an e-mail regarding it as they appear to have it up on YouTube but the video is, sadly, private.

I saw it on STV's youtube channel earlier in the year. Hitchcock just comments on Grierson inbetween longish clips of Grierson's documentaries.

If you're in the UK and have Sky/Virgin Media its showing on Sky Arts this Saturday.

Still no news on a replacement programme for this? It's been well over a month now.

Would it help if many people sent furious emails to the BFI? I'm a bit nervous, since most people don't seem to realise the problem or even buy the disc - not one single user review on amazon so far...

Kris

Kris wrote:Would it help if many people sent furious emails to the BFI?

In a word, no: you won't be telling them anything they don't already know, so it will achieve absolutely nothing.

I can assure you that they're fully aware of the problem, and that it's clearly in their interests to resolve it as quickly as is realistically possible. But since the problem affects the entire transfer and almost certainly the underlying HD master, it's not something that can be fixed with a minor authoring tweak (like, say, Arrow's Zombie Flesh Eaters). The Christmas break probably didn't help matters much either.

Kris wrote:Would it help if many people sent furious emails to the BFI? I'm a bit nervous, since most people don't seem to realise the problem or even buy the disc - not one single user review on amazon so far...

Kris

In fact, I was wondering myself at which stage BFI was on this and e mailed Ben Stoddard about it 2 days ago. I had the answer today :

Me : I was just wondering if there was any replacement disc finalized for the Battleship Potemkine BD pixellisation issue ?
It has been released 2 months ago, so I thought maybe some new discs were issued already.

Ben : Replacement discs are being made at the moment and we should have them available to send out to customers in no more than 2 weeks. I will be sure to notify you as soon as I have them available.

So it should soon be OK.

That's a super fast fix, considering the nature of the problem, and Christmas.

peerpee wrote:That's a super fast fix, considering the nature of the problem, and Christmas.

On the contrary, I'm quite surprised it took 2 months to fix what simply seems to be an issue in the encoding, just like it was the case (but on a different level) for An Autumn Afternoon.
But maybe that's naive me who thinks this can be fixed easily.

I'm still quite embarrassed that I didn't notice when I watched it!

tenia wrote:On the contrary, I'm quite surprised it took 2 months to fix what simply seems to be an issue in the encoding, just like it was the case (but on a different level) for An Autumn Afternoon.

As far as I'm aware, they're two completely different situations.

An Autumn Afternoon was simply an encoding issue - the authoring house encoded it at a lower bitrate than requested. So reissuing it should have been a simple matter of re-encoding the main video file from the existing master: it wouldn't have required any additional materials.

By contrast, the problem with Potemkin (at least to my knowledge) was that the original HD master was faulty - and once you're in a situation where the master has to be replaced, there's little that the distributor can do except wait for the rightsholder to send them a new one, which can sometimes involve waiting for a new one to be created in the first place.

The BD of Privilege was delayed by some four months over a similar issue, although in that case the defects in the first HD master were spotted before the originally scheduled release.

I hope this question ain't silly:

The HD master problem does not only affect the BD, but also the DVD, doesn't it? (At least I got the impression when I saw it once)

MichaelB wrote:

tenia wrote:On the contrary, I'm quite surprised it took 2 months to fix what simply seems to be an issue in the encoding, just like it was the case (but on a different level) for An Autumn Afternoon.

As far as I'm aware, they're two completely different situations.

An Autumn Afternoon was simply an encoding issue - the authoring house encoded it at a lower bitrate than requested. So reissuing it should have been a simple matter of re-encoding the main video file from the existing master: it wouldn't have required any additional materials.

By contrast, the problem with Potemkin (at least to my knowledge) was that the original HD master was faulty - and once you're in a situation where the master has to be replaced, there's little that the distributor can do except wait for the rightsholder to send them a new one, which can sometimes involve waiting for a new one to be created in the first place.

The BD of Privilege was delayed by some four months over a similar issue, although in that case the defects in the first HD master were spotted before the originally scheduled release.

Since Kino has no problem whatsoever on Battleship, I would expect that the problem is not with the HD master that has been supplied to BFI. Or they have done theirs, and screwed it, which would explain, indeed.

tenia wrote:Since Kino has no problem whatsoever on Battleship

Kino's POTEMKIN Blu-ray might not exhibit this particular BFI problem, but the Kino has nevertheless been clumsily authored with unnecessary repeated frames and the wrong running time, so it has problems of its own.

The BFI were attempting to fix these very issues, when something else went wrong with a newly supplied master. Very unfortunate.

The replacement programme has been announced:

After the release of our Dual Format Edition of Battleship Potemkin/Drifters it became apparent that there was a technical fault with the presentation of Potemkin on the Blu-ray Disc. We have therefore re-authored and re-pressed the project, and replacement Blu-ray Discs are now available. If you are dissatisfied with the quality of the original Blu-ray Disc and would like a replacement, please contact [email protected] giving details of your name and address and, if possible, proof of purchase and a new disc will be sent to you as soon as possible. We are extremely grateful to you for your patience and understanding during the period it has taken to resolve this matter.

That's great news! Thanks for the arbitration!

Kris