60 La Vie de Jésus

Discuss releases by Eureka and Masters of Cinema and the films on them.
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Ledos
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:05 am

#26 Post by Ledos » Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:52 pm

peerpee wrote:I really dunno -- we had similar problems with NOSFERATU, and some other titles. Beaver's grabs were just not representative of the MoC discs, and the discs Beaver receives are always finished discs. There's something quite wrong somewhere.
On the Nosferatu disc the problem was that captures were made to fit a certain aspect ratio using PowerDVD, meaning that the resolution was changed. That is, the DVDs native resolution of 720x576 non-square pixels (which will make the picture appear as having an aspect ratio of 1.25:1 when displayed on a computer screen with square pixels) was reshaped to 768x576 (making the picture be 1.33:1 on a square pixel screen). In PowerDVD this caused, for whatever reason, the chroma effect to appear.

That PowerDVD's reformatting caused the chroma effect can be seen by making captures in the native resolution (720x576), where there is no such effect. Using different software to reformat the picture to 768x576 (to make it 1.33:1 on a computer screen) caused no chroma effect.

peerpee
not perpee
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#27 Post by peerpee » Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:00 pm

Gary Tooze wrote:Nick,
I did the grabs for Nosferatu - where Pepsi did them for La vie de Jesus. We both used the same procedure that we've been doing for years.
k - but - we've proved that there's something wrong somewhere in each instance (and there are others). Your NOSFERATU grabs were nothing like the ones I made, and Pepsi's LA VIE DE JESUS grabs are nothing like the ones I've just made either. How many other films are also being misrepresented in the same way? I'm not having a go, I just genuinely care about this film, want people to see it -- and there seems to be a problem with your grabs.

If I wasn't involved with this release and I looked at Beaver and read this thread, I'd think the DVD looked pretty average. In reality, it's not -- it has been carefully authored, at great cost, and took a long time.

Clearly there's something wrong somewhere with the Beaver grabbing process? -- Is it something to do with the compression? You say 90% JPEG. The Beaver LA VIE DE JESUS grabs look like 50% JPEG compression or worse to me?
I don't have the DVD yet, but think Pepsi's grabs make it look okay - for a single-layered disc.
It looks better than "okay" though -- and it being single-layered is nothing really to do with it. The Cinemacraft encode has been optimised for MPEG2 for this film, and it came out at the size it did. It could have been faked to be 7.5GB, or it could have had the bitrate over-ramped, but it wouldn't have improved the picture quality with the encoding software we're using. There are countless stunning quality 90 minute films on DVD5.

I'd email privately, but I think the whole issue is of interest to many here. If you want to continue privately, let me know.
Anyway, I added your caps at the bottom of the comparison.
Many thanks for that Gary. Much appreciated.

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fiddlesticks
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#28 Post by fiddlesticks » Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:46 pm

domino harvey wrote:How is it that those caps look 218.42% better than the DVDBeaver ones?
Fixed, and now 99.44% exaggeration-free.

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HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#29 Post by HerrSchreck » Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:13 pm

fiddlesticks wrote:
domino harvey wrote:How is it that those caps look 218.42% better than the DVDBeaver ones?
Fixed, and now 99.44% exaggeration-free.
Awesome.

You'd expect a little more humility from a dude whose service almost sunk a beloved release. On one hand he refuses to brook any criticism regarding his site and it's quality controls, loves dishing out the hammer when a label releases an 18fps film interlaced or ghosted, but takes no responsibility & hangs his comrades instantaneously out to dry the second they goof.

peerpee
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#30 Post by peerpee » Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:28 pm

Let's all try and get on! -- We're all problem-solving here, trying to make things better. We're all here to learn and improve things, everyone's helping, and things are getting fixed.

I understand how Gary can get wound up by constant criticism, I understand how much work all the Beaver folk do, and I understand how folk want Beaver to be as good as possible. We all love DVDBeaver, and we all love properly-authored DVDs. Gary spends a medieval amount of time on the site, and he's trying his best. We don't want to drive him away from this forum do we? Let's try and get along -- please? :)

... and Schreck, thanks for the kind words about the proper grabs. Everyone's interest in things looking great keeps us all on our toes -- and that's very much appreciated. Really.

(Don't mean to be pedantic but -- there's no excuse for a DVD of an 18fps film that's "ghosted". That's bad, and suggests a poor conversion of interlaced material. 18fps will have to be interlaced, yes -- no way round that, but ghosted, no! :))

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HerrSchreck
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#31 Post by HerrSchreck » Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:44 pm

Economics on silent films back in the old sd-mastered days. But I can't complain. For example-- every Paul Leni release from Kino is from a foreign (German) master that they couldnt (didnt) preconvert. If the alternative is No Paul Leni On Dvd (no one else is stepping up), I'll gladly blink.

Like Eureka w their NTSC masters (Griffith & some of the Soviet stuff I believe, all non preconverted & ghosted). Foreign masters on a marginal silent titles is a well-trodden, old-news heartache! Part of the reason (my guess) that there are no US silents in the MoC catalog.

But this is an old, sore subject so lets in the spirit of goodwill drop it as quickly as we brought it up! HD masters has thankfully made standards conversion less an issue, all praise be to zeus!

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pro-bassoonist
Joined: Wed Jun 07, 2006 12:26 am

#32 Post by pro-bassoonist » Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:47 am

Gary Tooze wrote:Nick,
I did the grabs for Nosferatu - where Pepsi did them for La vie de Jesus.
We both used the same procedure that we've been doing for years.
I don't have the DVD yet, but think Pepsi's grabs make it look okay - for a single-layered disc. Miles ahead of the F/L. I mean - it's not a Blu-ray or anything.
Anyway, I added your caps at the bottom of the comparison.
Best,
Gary
P.S. "How is it that those caps look a million times better" - glad we are not prone to exageration. :roll:
P.P.S. Nick's grabs are at 1% jpg compression (99%) - ours are at our consistent 10% (90%).
Hello Gary,

I decided to enter this discussion as just a few days ago I also received an advanced copy of this disc (though through different channels, it was not sent directly to me)...and I could not agree more with the sentiments expressed by Nick. The image on the MOC dvd is anything but okay and I am also as puzzled why the caps you/your contributor posted look different. I think that Nick has a solid reason to be slightly upset by the fact that you are not handling the criticism herein expressed as you should.

I do not wish to be argumentative with you but the reality is that something was not done as it should have been. So, perhaps you should look into it and make sure that next time the results are better.

I decided to post all of the above only because just recently you had a go at a fellow reviewer at DVDTALK who apparently made a mistake you could have easily addressed by a quick PM. Why? We are all human. And colleagues, supposedly driven by the same desire for perfection. Instead you chose to produce some quite dismissive comments addressing the entire site in a fashion I'd rather not comment on.

So here we are in a similar situation: Something went wrong with your analysis, so, why the demeaning tone of your reply...again? If you are willing to offer criticism you should be able to receive some as well, not assume that everyone is on a mission to degrade your work.

By the way a close friend of mine tried to contact you so you could correct the info provided on your site but I don't think he was successful:

The Gotham Knight does have the Japanese dub you claim it does not. You simply have to access in a certain way.

Pro-B

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Gary Tooze
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#33 Post by Gary Tooze » Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:31 am

Per-Olaf requested that I post this:
COULD YOU POST THESE IN THE CRITERION FORUM (I don't have access at this time):

Sometimes it's very frustrating to do reviews. Always someone finds "something wrong" in everything, and the DVD producers want that their DVDs looks better, than they actually are!

I stated many times in my review that the Fox Lorber disc is unwatchable, and the MoC disc is excellent!

When I finished the screen caps on both editions I was struck by the similarities in the color timing in both editions. So I tried to find evidence that both editions have used more or less a transfer made at the same time, in 1997. The MoC could possible be made a few years later, but not much (the anamorphic French DVD is released in 2002). When I noticed that the both editions have the few scratches on the exact same place, (and I believe they are Film copy scratches (not from the film negative), I resume that they are from the same source.

First Fox Lorber, second MoC:
Image Image

The technique goes so fast in Digital Media, that there are a very big differences, if the master tape is made from original film elements in 1997, or 2008. If the progressive transfer was recently made from the
original film elements, there was no chance that the color timing on the both editions could be this close to each other. Unfortunately the colors on the film negative fade so fast in time (of course also depending of the stock and were it's preserved).

If you do in the comparison the screen caps in the actual size, it's much more difficult to compare them. I think everyone can see in the picture #3 ( Freddy and Marie in the field after sex), the huge difference in the caps. If you focus on the skin, and imaging that the picture is going to be zoomed 10x - 100x times bigger when displayed in TV or on a projector, you can image how the Fox Lorber disc looks in motion.

The MoC transfer looks fine, but IT'S NOT THE BEST POSSIBLE TRANSFER ON SD. The close ups that Nick has provided looks good also on my computer screen and on my projector. No problems here, but there's edge enhancement visible on a projector, that wouldn't be there if the transfer (from the film copy) was made today. Unfortunately the same minor edge enhancement is visible during the entire film, and it makes landscapes and every frame that don't have close ups look a little bit dizzy in motion!

Edge enhancement on the MoC disc:
Image

have made a screen cap, from almost the same frame that Nick, and I think it looks exactly the same from my computer settings. I also made the same grab from the Fox Lorber disc in native resolution

Image
Image

Much of the reviewing is made on the base how you watch the DVD. Almost everyone who use a new TV set are going to be very happy with the transfer. Those who uses a projector are satisfied. So thanks' Nick for the DVD. I love it!

Thanks,

Pepsi (Per-Olof Strandberg)

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SoyCuba
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:30 pm
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#34 Post by SoyCuba » Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:52 am

But those two comparable caps by Nick and Per-Olaf actually do look very different: Per-Olaf's cap has pixellation while Nick's has none. Why?

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Gigi M.
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:09 pm
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#35 Post by Gigi M. » Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:54 am

There's something definitely wrong going on here. There's a huge difference between Nick's grabs added to the bottom of Beaver page and the ones taken by Per-Olof. No offense, but Nick's grabs look Blu-Ray quality compared to Per-Olof.

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pro-bassoonist
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#36 Post by pro-bassoonist » Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:41 pm

Gary Tooze wrote:Sometimes it's very frustrating to do reviews. Always someone finds "something wrong" in everything, and the DVD producers want that their DVDs looks better, than they actually are!
With all due respect, Per-Olaf's address is quite a bit misleading.

Specifically, the producer of the DVD has not made a false claim - the DVD actually does look better than what was initially revealed by the caps provided on DVDBeaver.

Ciao,
Pro-B

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MichaelB
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#37 Post by MichaelB » Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:46 pm

pro-bassoonist wrote:Specifically, the producer of the DVD has not made a false claim - the DVD actually does look better than what was initially revealed by the caps provided on DVDBeaver.
Absolutely seconded. Granted, I only ran it on a mere 43" screen and not a projector, but even then it looked pretty damn superb.

bear
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:01 pm

#38 Post by bear » Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:13 am

Looking at the caps from Nick and Per-Olaf, the difference is evident in the filesizes. On the grab with Freddy in profile its 258 KB vs. 31.5 KB. JPEG compression can look ugly and produce effects similar to edge-enhancement and so on. I wonder if it's not time to grab screens in a lossless format. PNG is, and the resulting filesize isn't that ugly; usually around twice the size of a good JPEG.

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What A Disgrace
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#39 Post by What A Disgrace » Sun Sep 07, 2008 2:57 pm

I'm pretty sure this disc is R0, too, despite the R2 listing on the back of the box. It plays on my computer without having to use Remote Selector.

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colinr0380
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#40 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:19 pm

Glenn Kenny's positive review of the disc.

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GringoTex
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 5:57 am

Re: 60 La vie de Jésus

#41 Post by GringoTex » Tue Nov 04, 2008 8:00 am

I'd never seen a Dumont film before. This was extraordinary. He films the human body like nobody I've seen before.

And the transfer is superb.

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Zazou dans le Metro
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Re: 60 La vie de Jésus

#42 Post by Zazou dans le Metro » Tue Nov 04, 2008 8:42 am

GringoTex wrote:I'd never seen a Dumont film before. This was extraordinary. He films the human body like nobody I've seen before.
Ca n'est qu'un début. Rush out and get yourself 'L'Humanité'.

James
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:11 pm

Re: 60 La vie de Jésus

#43 Post by James » Sat Jun 27, 2009 11:27 pm

Is it worth getting this now (looks like Masters of Cinema have done a great job with the transfer here) or waiting to see what Criterion does with it? I don't really like buying the same DVD twice.

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CSM126
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Re: 60 La vie de Jésus

#44 Post by CSM126 » Sun Jun 28, 2009 12:13 am

james wrote:Is it worth getting this now (looks like Masters of Cinema have done a great job with the transfer here) or waiting to see what Criterion does with it? I don't really like buying the same DVD twice.
Well golly, it sounds like you answered your own question.

James
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:11 pm

Re: 60 La vie de Jésus

#45 Post by James » Sun Jun 28, 2009 12:41 am

CSM126 wrote:
james wrote:Is it worth getting this now (looks like Masters of Cinema have done a great job with the transfer here) or waiting to see what Criterion does with it? I don't really like buying the same DVD twice.
Well golly, it sounds like you answered your own question.
I was mostly wondering about extras. Could Criterion potentially license material from the Cannes premiere? Interviews? I'm wondering how they'll approach this.

James
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:11 pm

Re: 60 La vie de Jésus

#46 Post by James » Mon Aug 03, 2009 5:27 pm

I'm glad I got this. Great booklet, great picture quality; all I could really want to supplement a movie like this one.

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jbeall
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Re: 60 La vie de Jésus

#47 Post by jbeall » Sat Jul 10, 2010 6:11 pm

I really enjoyed this one. Poor Freddy--he seems to lack anything that might help him get out of his situation, and he's got basically two beautiful things in his life--his bird and Marie--and then he thinks (correctly, perhaps?) that she's about to leave him. The close-up on Freddy's eyes was absolutely devastating--if looks could kill, indeed!

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Oedipax
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:48 am
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Re: 60 La vie de Jésus

#48 Post by Oedipax » Sat Jul 10, 2010 7:02 pm

Is Criterion really releasing this one? The MoC DVD is great as-is, but I'd buy it again on bluray.

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