Artificial Eye / Curzon Film World

[David M.]

A few points to make regarding 1080i vs 1080p and 25fps.

1. Blu-ray does not support 1080p at 25fps. This is why 25fps material is encoded at 1080i.

2. Almost *ALL* PAL DVDs were encoded interlaced, even for film material. The exceptions I can think of are the UK/Aus verison of Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" and anything I've encoded. That damaged compression quality because it's harder to encode fields than it is frames. Fortunately, that's not an issue with AVC/MPEG-4 on Blu-ray.

3. If your TV can detect that both fields in the 1080i input signal match, it can give you an image which is the same as 1080p. Unless the video was deliberately filtered to avoid flickering on interlaced CRTs, an interlaced transfer won't be any less detailed, provided your TV is showing it correctly. If it's not and the TV is treating the 1080i material as video rather than film, you'll get small jaggies in some areas, but it's usually pretty hard to spot on a television-sized screen.

4. But all the above points are fairly moot if the film is running at the wrong speed. My above defence of 1080/50i relates largely to material that was shot and designed to be shown at 25fps.

FWIW, I have a title with me now for restoration and authoring and it came from France, again at 25fps. It's completely trivial to get it back to the correct speed. But to make that call, the person doing the work has to be confident that the film was definitely shot at 24. So I can understand why someone at an authoring house would just leave things as is.

[Zot!]

My above defence of 1080/50i relates largely to material that was shot and designed to be shown at 25fps.

FWIW, I have a title with me now for restoration and authoring and it came from France, again at 25fps. It's completely trivial to get it back to the correct speed. But to make that call, the person doing the work has to be confident that the film was definitely shot at 24. So I can understand why someone at an authoring house would just leave things as is.

Thanks David, is there any clue you could give me why a modern production would favor 25fps to capture over 24fps? There seems to be a huge amount of confusion regarding this, even by professional mastering studios, but Melancholia, Antichrist, The World, and many others continue this trend. Unless it is an aesthetic consideration (doubtful), I don't get it, is there some obvious practical consideration that I'm overlooking?

[David M.]

Thanks David, is there any clue you could give me why a modern production would favor 25fps to capture over 24fps?

If it's made for European TV. Europe made the (IMO absolutely horrible) decision to drag 50hz TV into the HD era.

As for the Lars Von Trier films being shot at 25 - I have no idea why that is. Maybe his tech guys are scared about them running at the wrong speed on European TV? It's a weird decision.

[Zot!]

Thanks David, is there any clue you could give me why a modern production would favor 25fps to capture over 24fps?

If it's made for European TV. Europe made the (IMO absolutely horrible) decision to drag 50hz TV into the HD era.

As for the Lars Von Trier films being shot at 25 - I have no idea why that is.

Yeah...me either :-k, The World is Chinese, so they really have no excuse. MoC was unsure of whether to encode that in 24p or 50i for blu-ray, but went with 24p for increased compatibility.

I didn't realize that EU is using 50hz for the HD broadcasts, that might really be where some of the cheapo HD transfers might originate though, broadcast masters.

It can only guess thats also what the Von Trier movies are conforming to. To bring this back to AE, has anybody had an opportunity to compare the Scandinavian 50i release of something like Melancholia to the 24p UK or US one? Is this something one can notice? There should be a reverse PAL speedup going on.

[MichaelB]

The World is Chinese, so they really have no excuse. MoC was unsure of whether to encode that in 24p or 50i for blu-ray, but went with 24p for increased compatibility.

If I remember rightly, they really agonised over that one, because there was a fair amount of evidence that 50i was closer to the version originale. But I doubt anyone would notice in practice, and the compatibility issue was arguably more important - so I'd have made exactly the same decision.

I didn't realize that EU is using 50hz for the HD broadcasts, that might really be where some of the cheapo HD transfers might originate though, broadcast masters

Pretty much every Blu-ray I have that originated from a live stage or concert production is 1080i/50.

[Zot!]

The World is Chinese, so they really have no excuse. MoC was unsure of whether to encode that in 24p or 50i for blu-ray, but went with 24p for increased compatibility.

If I remember rightly, they really agonised over that one, because there was a fair amount of evidence that 50i was closer to the version originale. But I doubt anyone would notice in practice, and the compatibility issue was arguably more important - so I'd have made exactly the same decision.

That is why I find it baffling that a new production would voluntarily introduce such agony intentionally.

[Felix]

Interesting review of the Mizoguchi set in Sight And Sound...

"The Blu-ray editions make the picture grain far more evident, to the extent that darker sequences on Osaka Elegy and Sisters Of Gion seem to be taking place behind a lace curtain: ironically the cheaper DVDs provide a more satisfting viewing experience."

The review has just appeared on the Sight & Sound website.

He repeats his comments on Dave Kehr's site in the Ford thread.

I haven’t yet seen the Blu-ray of FORT APACHE, but I’m becoming increasingly ambivalent about Blu-ray transfers of films from the pre-digital era. I was recently sent both the Blu-ray and standard DVDs of Artificial Eye’s Mizoguchi box set (which I was reviewing for SIGHT & SOUND), and found that the standard editions provided a much more pleasant viewing experience – the Blu-rays looked so grainy that, particularly in the darker scenes, it was like watching the film through a lace curtain! And this seems to be a common problem.

[MichaelB]

I wonder if Brad's ever adjusted the sharpness setting on his TV? Because if it's at the factory setting, it's almost certainly much too high, which will have the effect of exaggerating the grain and the "lace curtain" effect that he describes.

If it's "a common problem" on his particular set-up, it may well be down to something as simple as this. Certainly, turning my sharpness setting to zero shortly after I installed my plasma set made a huge difference - much more than I thought it would.

[Zot!]

It seems like a silly argument. Sure, you'll see less of the harshness of the image if you take your glasses off, and it will look absolutely perfect if you closed your eyes completely. And then to extrapolate this argument to ALL "Blu-ray transfers of films from the pre-digital era"?....c'mon dude.

[Michael Kerpan]

The Fort Apache Blu Ray looks utterly magnificent on MY plasma (and I did turn sharpness down ages ago -- though sometimes the TV seems to reset the defaults to things I don't want).

[David M.]

I wonder if Brad's ever adjusted the sharpness setting on his TV? Because if it's at the factory setting, it's almost certainly much too high, which will have the effect of exaggerating the grain and the "lace curtain" effect that he describes.

If it's "a common problem" on his particular set-up, it may well be down to something as simple as this. Certainly, turning my sharpness setting to zero shortly after I installed my plasma set made a huge difference - much more than I thought it would.

I'd hope that any professional reviewer would be aware of the need for having their TV/monitor/projector match industry standards as closely as possible and would correct the factory default settings at the very least - and I'd recommend full ISF calibration given the low cost, if they're going to comment on technical issues at any length.

Do Sight & Sound pre-vet reviewer's systems and the way they're set up?

There are screen grabs of "Fort Apache" at Blu-ray.com (registration required to see the full-res images), and they are a known reliable source for screen captures. Bar some slightly harsh compression (which does appear to be in the source, not the screen captures), the transfer looks excellent: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Fort-Apac ... creenshots" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Calvin]

I'm not going to get in to technical details as I'm not an expert but I was impressed by the AE Mizoguchi set. I haven't got the DVDs to compare it too but they looked much better than I expected it too. Films such as I Was Born, But... probably wouldn't benefit from Blu-Ray but I'd be curious to see something like Humanity and Paper Balloons.

I also see that Brad found MoC's Make Way for Tomorrow Blu-Ray "unbearable" while I thought it looked lovely.

[MichaelB]

Do Sight & Sound pre-vet reviewer's systems and the way they're set up?

I'm afraid that made me laugh out loud.

I'm guessing you're not that familiar with the DVD section, but aside from the lead reviews (of which this was admittedly one) we rarely get more than about 10-20 words to discuss technical specifics. It's a film-buffs' magazine first and foremost: in fact, I'm not even sure if they bothered with any technical commentary at all a decade ago.

By way of example, these are my latest reviews reduced purely to the technical comments:

Miracle in Milan/Il Tetto: "This generous package presents both features in very acceptable transfers that don't quite match the lustre of Masters of Cinema's 1950s Antonioni discs".

Lust for Love/The Tailor from Ulm: "Both DVDs are derived from the recent director-approved restorations, and both accordingly look superb, though Lust for Love has some distracting audio wobbles during the (very occasional) piano interludes."

[David M.]

Ah, so the comments are from the reviewer and not the publication then?

[peerpee]

It sounds as if Brad's set-up has a bad case of the Jeffrey Wells. It's really important he calibrates his equipment properly before he publicly shits on all "Blu-ray transfers of films from the pre-digital era". What a ridiculous thing to say.

[zedz]

That actually reminds me of some asinine comments along that same lines that gormlessly assumed that there was no way something non-digital (e.g. 35mm film) could have better resolution than something from a digital source, and thus there was no point getting a BluRay of a film unless it was shot digitally in the first place. QED (where 'D' stands for 'dumb').

As for the Mizoguchis: some of the films are from battered, compromised sources, and to be honest I would have been simply delighted with DVD transfers, but the BluRay is certainly an improvement on SD, if only because it's that much truer to the battered source. Maybe you're just seeing the shortcomings of that source more clearly, but that's simply part of the provenance of these movies, which we're lucky to have in any form, and in my opinion warts-and-all is always going to be better than soft-focus-and-hope-everybody-mistakes-the-warts-for-beauty-spots.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Yeah...me either :-k, The World is Chinese, so they really have no excuse.

They have as much excuse as Europe -- China is a PAL country and they've chosen to retain 50i for digital broadcasting. Legitimate DVDs in China are generally PAL, and SD video equipment (TVs, DVD players, video cameras) is natively PAL, although TVs and DVD players usually support NTSC as well. Jia didn't only shoot The World at 25fps, but also Unknown Pleasures (shot in SD 576i50) and Still Life (shot at 1080i50 with the Sony HVR-Z1, which was actually intended for television production and doesn't support 24p). I don't know what he's used for his subsequent features.

As for von Trier, there's an interview with Anthony Dod Mantle somewhere where he says they decided to use 25p/50i for HD because too much of Zentropa's equipment (monitors and such) was intended for 50Hz. You'd think it would be all-HD by now, but maybe they're stingy.

[Michael Kerpan]

It's really important he calibrates his equipment properly before he publicly shits on all "Blu-ray transfers of films from the pre-digital era".

FWIW., I asked him about this (on Facebook) -- no answer yet.

What is the intended purpose of the so-called "sharpness" control? (As it seems that it is a clear negative to set it to anything much above 0 -- at least when watching DVDs and Blu Rays).

[manicsounds]

Not continuing the above topic, but what is AE's holdup of the "Pina" Blu-ray?

[Michael Kerpan]

Brad Stevens responded that he finds that setting sharpness to 0 helps "not enough to prevent the Blu-rays looking grainier than the standard discs".

[TMDaines]

No shit.

[David M.]

That actually reminds me of some asinine comments along that same lines that gormlessly assumed that there was no way something non-digital (e.g. 35mm film) could have better resolution than something from a digital source, and thus there was no point getting a BluRay of a film unless it was shot digitally in the first place.

I come across this at least once a month: "But it wasn't filmed in high definition".

[David M.]

It's really important he calibrates his equipment properly before he publicly shits on all "Blu-ray transfers of films from the pre-digital era".

FWIW., I asked him about this (on Facebook) -- no answer yet.

What is the intended purpose of the so-called "sharpness" control? (As it seems that it is a clear negative to set it to anything much above 0 -- at least when watching DVDs and Blu Rays).

Historically these controls were used to compensate for poor resolution/definition in older CRT designs. Nowadays it's just there to serve people who are used to looking at manipulated video.

[Michael Kerpan]

Historically these controls were used to compensate for poor resolution/definition in older CRT designs. Nowadays it's just there to serve people who are used to looking at manipulated video.

Thanks!

All HD TVs should come with guides that provide simple language explanations of all the image-related controls one finds on the TV. ;~}

[David M.]

They should, but often they're translated from Japanese or Korean with interesting language.

The best advancement lately has been the THX Certified Display program. TVs that have gone through this have a "THX" picture mode, which attempts to hit studio standards for Greyscale, Colour gamut and Gamma. It also turns off the wacky motion smoothing tools. I'd prefer it went further and locked out the Noise Reduction feature, but hey.

Of course, even the manual writers managed to mis-describe this! Panasonic says it should be used with discs that have the THX logo on the box - when in reality it's the best mode to use if your TV hasn't been fully calibrated, because it attempts to hit industry standards that *ALL* professional content (not just stuff with George Lucas' blessing) is mastered to. Yet more confusion!