358 Pandora's Box

[Sekoya]

Someone wrote this post on a German board. Basically it says that the transfer in this box set isn't restored at all and a huge disappointment. Furthermore, the film is licensed from a swiss company instead of the Munich Film Museum.

[colinr0380]

I'm home tomorrow and will look it up. How do I know the difference?

Sorry I wouldn't know which of the four scores from the full version the boxset version will use. Are there any notes about the score with the discs?

[hammock]

Someone wrote this post on a German board. Basically it says that the transfer in this box set isn't restored at all and a huge disappointment. Furthermore, the film is licensed from a swiss company instead of the Munich Film Museum.

That was my thought as well. Tons of scratches etc.

[denti alligator]

Someone wrote this post on a German board. Basically it says that the transfer in this box set isn't restored at all and a huge disappointment. Furthermore, the film is licensed from a swiss company instead of the Munich Film Museum.

There's not going to be a difference between the version in the 50 films set and i the upcoming 2-DVD set, as this poster suggests. But its also not likely that the version Criterion used for their upcoming release is NOT the new, restored version (isn't this why we've had to wait so long for this release?). Dunno what to say...

[HerrSchreck]

Reinforcing my suspicions that the Team just gave up on the restoration mentioned in Lee Kline's HTF chat where he was talking about waiting for elements-- i e not a third party restoration, but a SEVEN SAMURAI type digital cleanup here in NYC where they created their own brand new digital composite (also think REGLE DE JEU). The fact they reverted to an old Munich Filmmuseum resto from the late 90's says that something just didn't come off. I'm expecting little difference between this and the existing discs in Europe.

[hammock]

It has not been restored - here are some examples that took me only 5 minutes to gather and they are representative of the films overall quality.









"Fires on the plain" has been restored and looks amazing.

[hammock]

It says "NERO-Film" in the opening credits. There is only one soundtrack on, but at least it's a good one...

[HerrSchreck]

Wow that looks terrible-- not only ghosted (did they actually not get an NTSC-preconverted digibeta from Germany and pull a Kino?) but filled with examples of them just letting damage whiz right by. Glue/splice marks, scratches, etc.

We're paying for the extras I guess.

EDIT-- was referring to Hammock's caps.

[denti alligator]

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the definitive Munich Film Museum restoration

So this is a lie?

David, where are the caps you're talking about?

[hammock]

I've now emailed CC and will post their answer when received!

[denti alligator]

I've now emailed CC and will post their answer when received!

Can either Hammock post from the CC version the same frames that David posted, or David post from the Gaumont the same ones that Hammock posted? Or, better yet, both. I'd like to see a comparison (since Gary doesn't seem to do silents).

[Cinesimilitude]

There is no way the 2 disc criterion will be that terrible transfer. They would never do that to us.

I'm guessing that they picked the crap transfer for the box since the new restoration (probably done in house) wasn't finished yet, I'd assume they'll also announce it was "only a mixup" and that they are prepared to replace the pandora disc from the janus box for the 100 or so people who purchased it.

[Tribe]

What do the folks who saw the recent screenings have to say? Did it look like the caps that have been posted?

Tribe

[PaulAntonSmith]

This high-quality edition features a new high-definition digital video transfer from the definitive Munich Film Museum restoration print, created from a composite of 35mm prints and digitally cleaned using the MTI Digital Restoration System. The English language subtitles have been retranslated for improved transliteration.

[tryavna]

You need to exercise caution sometimes with Silent Era's reviews. It's an indispensible site for fans of silent movies, but they sometimes post "reviews" without having actually seen the DVD in question. The lack of specificity this time makes me wonder.

[hammock]

Let's see what CC answers and in the mean time I'll try and locate the same scenes David posted and make a temp page putting them up site by site. It might take a day or two - please be patient.

[HerrSchreck]

This high-quality edition features a new high-definition digital video transfer from the definitive Munich Film Museum restoration print, created from a composite of 35mm prints and digitally cleaned using the MTI Digital Restoration System. The English language subtitles have been retranslated for improved transliteration.

That sounds like it's straight typical quotation from CC "About the transfer". Silentera usually simply report what has been reported about the disc by the disc makers, and will almost never on their own start talking software trademarks.

[dadaistnun]

I'd like to see a comparison (since Gary doesn't seem to do silents).

But he does review every Criterion title, doesn't he?

I have to say I find it very hard to believe that the transfer from the janus box (at least as represented by those screenshots) will be the same as in the actual 2-disc set. Review copies are apparently arriving, so hopefully this matter will be laid to rest soon. Tim Lucas has a post about Brooks on his blog today, but says he's only started looking at the supplements so far.

[arsonfilms]

The DVD Beaver review is up. It doesn't look nearly as bad as Hammock's screen captures, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Anyone have any thoughts?

[Tribe]

The DVD Beaver review is up. It doesn't look nearly as bad as Hammock's screen captures, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Anyone have any thoughts?

You're right...I don't think Hammock's caps are from the same transfer that's on the Criterion. It does look a wee bit ragged, but much, much better from the VHS transfer that is the only version I've ever seen. I doubt very much that a perfect Pandora exists...I'm pretty damn happy with this one.

Tribe

[Matt]

So, from the Beaver's menu grabs, it appears that the other three scores are Peer Raben's orchestral score, Dimitar Pentchey's "cabaret" score, and Stephan Oliva's "piano improvisation" score. I don't know that I could stand to watch the film four times to experience each one, but it's nice that Criterion gave us the option.

[HerrSchreck]

Dave I doubt the two are linked-- the defocusing looks like film wobble during copying print-to-print at least a generation ago, whereby the vantage point of the nitrate was at slight rotating variance with the lens during the duping. Apparently the source material has disappeared, or is so inherently warped-- in either case no form of telecine seems to be able to offset it (or is so financially prohibitive that it was deemed to be simply not worth it).

But this defocusing is an organic issue having nothing to do with the digital realm, whereas the disc is exhibiting either interlacing (which I would find astounding giving the storage on dual layer and the lack of extras on disc one-- did the four scores plus commentary make frame by frame encoding impossible in terms of data storage???).

Gary doesn't mention if the disc is interlaced or non-preconverted progressive (i e like many Kino German silents, encoded frame by frame at a high bitrate but with every fourth or fifth frame containing two images).

Also-- I'm guessing the previous old HVCinema / Janus / Kino VHS piano score has NOT been included?

[HerrSchreck]

Yes-- it's a double edged sword: on one hand a good thing, since this now gives me a sum of five scores to choose from, but with the caveat that my old sentimental fave (I really do love that VHS score... one of the small number of purely piano silent scores that I believe works absolutely perfect in terms of correspondence between the screen / music content) will be heard on what is now an inferior representation of the film. Perhaps one of these four will supercede-- here's hopin'.

[Matt]

If you're willing to put the time into it, you could probably burn a DVD-R with the new picture and the VHS score (provided both versions still have the same running time).

[jon]

If you're willing to put the time into it, you could probably burn a DVD-R with the new picture and the VHS score (provided both versions still have the same running time).

In that case, why not just loop one of them.



...*wink*