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I'm seeing the grain on the DVD (check out the faces), not here.

I did say the BD doesn't look bad, but actually I'm not very good at judging PQ based on still frames. But in general, the DVD format can't really convey film grain convincingly at all, IMO. And of course, there are other limitations.

I understand the frustration, I really do. It certainly is disappointing. That being said, the fact that we got this at all is nothing short of a miracle, this is it and literally nothing else is coming in the future. Maybe it's just me but I don't think it looks that bad. Besides, didn't the same thing happen with Cluny Brown and that one turned out to like fineish? Another thing to consider, is that Gary and his caps are never a good indicator of what the final product will look like. I'll wait for the eventual Svet review and caps before making my final judgement.

Speaking of Svet is blu-ray.com not working for anyone else? I keep getting a page that says "your connection is not private"

Or with an example like Le Samourai they could release it with an older master. Indicator's Dragonwyck included the earlier master, as another example.

Unmarried Woman didn't get discussed a ton, but that's another film where I felt the heavy hand of Fox DNR was super distracting while I watched the film. Not holding out hope on this one.

black&huge wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:07 am Speaking of Svet is blu-ray.com not working for anyone else? I keep getting a page that says "your connection is not private"

Yeah it's undergoing maintenance or something. It's strange, at times it would take me to a page explaining the maintenance when I'd type in "www" rather than just "blu-ray.com" into chrome, which took me to this "Community.com site," but now it takes me directly to that weird site when I do both rather than the page with updates (earlier today there was one on 4/16 and one from 4/18)

Apparently they were hosting the site on their own server and the hard drive running it crashed

black&huge wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:07 am Speaking of Svet is blu-ray.com not working for anyone else? I keep getting a page that says "your connection is not private"

Here's what they posted on their Facebook page:

Update 2021-04-18:
Since we are offline anyway we are going to take the opportunity to upgrade to a new supported OS which is the better long-term decision. However, it will mean some more days offline since many things needs to be re-installed/configured manually.

Update 2021-04-16:
Hello everyone! We have a faulty OS hard drive which didn't want to be replaced in an easy way, which has caused the unexpected downtime. The site and your data is on other hard drives and we also have mirrored backups in several geographical locations so you don't need to worry about data loss.

The server ran CentOS which was abruptly discontinued recently, therefore we are evaluating our options on whether to try to go back to the OS we have now, or install a new OS.

Because of Covid and that it's Friday night, things will take longer than usual to fix, unfortunately it will probably take several days. We will be working non-stop to get the site back online.

We deeply apologize about this, Blu-ray.com is not run by a large corporation therefore our mirrored backup sites aren't powerful enough to simply switch over the complete site immediately.

My God, that first paragraph is difficult to get through.

No better place to publish a manifesto than... *checks notes* spread throughout dozens of unrelated blu-ray reviews.

I take it he's specifically referring to players of the Bassoon.

Pro-B’s an ALUXer, I knew it!

The world is a much easier place to navigate once you realize that it is populated by two kinds of people: players and those that allow to be played.

He apparently likes this lazy "there are two kinds of people" review gambit a lot. Not long ago he was claiming that there are two kinds of people who enjoy Irma Vep: those who are "attracted to it because of the footage with Cheung doing her part in the weird remake" but deny it and those who are attracted to that footage of Cheung but "have the courage to admit it."

He does use this more and more often in his reviews, which I suppose simply is a lazy way to pit oneself either as a winner against all the losers or as me vs the world. In both cases, there's little doubt who can be his role model regarding pitting oneself in such overly simplistic egocentric takes.

I have been patiently waiting for Svet's review ever since DvdBeaver's screenshots came out. I know this has been a controversial release, but I gotta say that for the most part it looks fine? I mean, it looks about on-par with most of Fox's, recent, 40s black and white remasters for better or worse. Is it perfect? No, of course not, but I don't think it looks as bad as people are making it out to be. I do agree that they upped the contrast a bit too much, but that would be my main complaint.

Unsurprisingly dvdbeaver caps were inaccurate and this looks on par with something like Cluny Brown as predicted and far from the messes of The Song of Bernadette and The Ox Bow Incident and even better than something like Dragonwyck.

Yes, I went through this over the weekend and it's definitely along the lines of Cluny Brown; it could obviously be better but it's not a complete shit-show.

I still have to get through the commentary (never listened to it before) but the rest of the features are good. I didn't piece together who Todd Robbins was (and he's perfect for a film like this), but for anyone interested in true crime shows I was reminded by how he hosted a short-lived one (I think only two seasons) about bizarre crimes, going back a couple of hundred years in some cases, called True Nightmares. The reenactments weren't half-bad either. It's streaming on places like Amazon (though I think you have to pay) but you can watch it on the ID (Investigation Discovery) app as well.

nitin wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:12 am Unsurprisingly dvdbeaver caps were inaccurate and this looks on par with something like Cluny Brown as predicted and far from the messes of The Song of Bernadette and The Ox Bow Incident and even better than something like Dragonwyck.

I predicted as much in my original post. I don't want to say that I told ya, but.... told ya

More obviously than the dvdbeaver caps, the BD satisfactorily trounces the DVD:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=15977&d2=15978&c=6067

I don't get it at all. I still think it looks too soft and not dark enough. I cannot emphasize enough just how pronounced and thick the grain was on the Nitrate print I saw.

Too whited-out and blurry (look at the Tarot Death card at no. 2).

There might be better examples than this cap. It doesn't blurry as problematically blurry, but as shot with a diffusion filter blurry. It doesn't help A/B comparisons that the DVD was obvisouly very sharpened.

It's far from ideal but claims the DVD is better on the last page are incorrect. And it looks like a lot of other recent Fox restorations, especially those from prints rather than original elements.

tenia wrote: Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:56 am It doesn't help A/B comparisons that the DVD was obvisouly very sharpened.

Goodbye edge halos:
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=2&x=44 ... 1&i=4&go=1

For those interested in those type of things, the tarot cards included are limited to only the initial pressing and will not be available with subsequent runs of the disc. So, if you were holding off for whatever reason on buying this particular title, think again.