criterionforum.org

andyli wrote:

ola t wrote:購買後立即進貨

means they stock upon your purchase.

Thanks!

ola t wrote:I've ordered the BD and The Terrorizers from books.com.tw and that came out to TWD 1629, which is roughly $50, and that includes shipping to Sweden.

For $10 more you could have Tropical Fish, too!

perkizitore wrote:For $10 more you could have Tropical Fish, too!

Well, what can I say? I thought I'd hold on to those $10 for other things, like lunch. Now that I think about it, of course I was being foolish. We all know food comes and goes, but the kevyip is forever!

More seriously, and potentially on-topic, I know nothing about the film. If anyone here has seen it and thinks it's a masterpiece, please let us know! (So I can really hate myself for not buying it.)

the "Dust in the Wind" blu-ray is now also available from JSDVD! The shop language is in Chinese and English!

Great, last time i checked it wasn't!

Thanks for the tip. Strange that the boxset isn't available from JSDVD, hopefully it will be coming along soon.

I have to warn you guys that according to the back cover, the Dust in the Wind blu-ray is encoded in MPEG-2.

I know, I think perkizitore mentioned it previously before losing it in a re-edit. But I'm probably wrong. It sucks, and if MOC were to pick up these transfers and re-encode them with a nice booklet and a stuck loop of Rayns saying "is good, is good" I'll buy them again. But for the moment it's Hou Hsiao Hsien on blu-ray and a pre-2000 Edward Yang film with a transfer that does not cause one to break down and despair. Who knows when we'll see such times again?

I looked up on Bluray.com to see how MPEG-2 looks, and both Black Hawk Down and Silence of the Lambs were encoded that way, the former managed to get a 5/5 for video and the latter doesn't look too bad. It isn't great as can be, but i'm more than happy considering the choices we had before!

Yep, and considering the price, snatching these up was a no-brainer. The Hou will look fantastic no matter the encode. The Yang is a blessing. If MoC (please!) or some other company decide to pick these up (and if they did, the Yang would certainly come in Blu) and improve on the codec I'd re-buy, even if the image improvement is minimal. These releases are among the great news of the year.

Note: my copies shipped today so I'll be able to report on the quality soon.

Ok, got my copies today (they arrived in two days--from half way around the globe!).

I've only just popped in the BR of Dust in the Wind. It looks pretty great. Sharp with nice colors. No visible artifacts or anomalies. However, something funny seems to be happening with movement, especially from side to side. It isn't entirely smooth. I adjusted some settings of my Sherwood (Momitsu clone) and that didn't change anything. This could be my player, or it could be the disc. It was a little distracting, but since there isn't much movement in the film, it's not that bad. But I'd like to hear from others if they also see this. I'll check Terrorizers soon, too.

denti alligator wrote: "However, something funny seems to be happening with movement, especially from side to side. It isn't entirely smooth.

i have the same problem with my "CAPE NO.7" (taiwan) blu-ray and a lot of other "cheap" asian dvd's (not japan or korea) :-(....

So it's an encoding problem? I thought this was a reputable company?

Again, it's not horrible, but only because most of the motion in the film is slow. I will view either it or Terrorizers tonight and report back.

Denti, I'd really like to know about Terrorizers

Latest rumor has it that Terrorizers has audio sync failure for the most part of the film due to an error in master mixing. This error occurs in both the restored print currently shown in Hong Kong Summer IFF and the new dvd release.

Dust in the Wind is said to have the same kind of problem, but only to a lesser degree.

What a shame!

Ugh, thanks Andy - looks like you saved me NT$1000

...

Am I really the only one who ordered these?

I'll report back on one of them (probably Terrorizers) tonight. If the audio sync issue is consistent throughout, those with halfway decent receivers can always adjust the delay settings. Check back later.

Damn. I ordered Dust in the Wind a few days ago. Hope the audio sync issue is negligible... what a bummer.

I watched Terrorizers this evening.

The good news is that this is a dramatic improvement over the bootlegs out there. The picture is anamorphic, colors are nice, and image is mostly stable and clean. It is very watchable. I will try to post some caps later. It's not perfect, of course. It appears to be interlaced, judging by the jaggies that are visible here and there.

The subtitles are very good. There are some odd lines, but on the whole everything seems to be in clear, idiomatic English. Nothing like the back of the box!

The audio sync problem is not that bad. Since I don't understand the language, I was not completely focused on lip movement, making it even less an issue. I did make an effort to assess the degree and frequency of it and it's hard to say: sometimes it there seemed to be no sync issues, other times it seemed more prominent. Nothing dramatic, though. It felt like the film was dubbed, though I'm assuming this is not the case.

The other problem is the same issue with smooth movement that I noticed when sampling the Dust in the Wind Blu (which I will watch tomorrow or the next day and report back). For some reason the image just isn't entirely fluid. That's not to say that it's jumpy. But it's not completely "right." I'd appreciate it if others could report their impressions on this. Maybe it's just me. Or maybe it's my player.

All in all, if you are a Yang fan, don't hesitate. This is a good release. Not very good, and certainly not exceptional, but good. Now if we can get MoC to license it, fix the audio sync, re-encode it and release it on Blu, I will be jubilant.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that no Taiwanese film used direct sound until City of Sadness, three years after Dust in the Wind and Terrorizers. Presumably that means the synchronization issues are just the fact of dubbing.

denti alligator wrote:Here are some screen caps for Terrorizers

Wow. I don't have much of a good eye for these things, but those caps put a big smile on my face. I'm sure this wasn't brought on by watching the hard subbed HK disc over and over for years, however I feel like I've just been cured of cataracts.

Thanks for posting those caps. They look like a huge improvement!

Those look gorgeous. It's a shame they couldn't follow through 100% with the encode, but at least it seems like there's a fine digital element now in existence and there's a chance that some other company / region could get it entirely right.

(Hint to Criterion: Doesn't denti's fifth cap look the basis for some fabulous cover art?)