Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:36 pm
Has anyone checked the extras of BFI's upcoming Blu-ray release of Salo? Criterion has more, but BFI has a making of. But let's wait for the image quality of these releases.
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See page 32 for all the details.perkizitore wrote:Has anyone checked the extras of BFI's upcoming Blu-ray release of Salo? Criterion has more, but BFI has a making of. But let's wait for the image quality of these releases.
For comparison purposes:perkizitore wrote:Has anyone checked the extras of BFI's upcoming Blu-ray release of Salo? Criterion has more, but BFI has a making of.
Sadly (for some), I can now confirm that the BFI's Salo Blu-Ray will definitely be Region B, due to unavoidable contractual issues.In order to present Salò in its complete and uncut form, this DVD edition includes a brief scene which was cut from the original negative and is only available in a 35mm print held at the BFI National Archive. Although efforts have been made to make this inserted material consistent with the overall feature, the noticeable contrast in image quality is due to the difference in source material.
I'm happy to confirm that Gary's grabs look pretty accurate. As for the colour, I think it's a matter of taste - there's clear contextual justification for a cooler look (given that Pasolini intended the film to be detached and analytical), but without Pasolini or Tonino Delli Colli to confirm, there's always going to be a certain amount of educated guesswork.jsteffe wrote:Hmmm... based on Gary's frame grabs the color scheme of the BFI disc looks decidedly cool next to the warmer Criterion re-release. Personally I lean towards the Criterion--it seems to have a richer range of hues--but I can see the BFI version also working in its own way. (This is assuming that the frame grabs are 100% accurate, since we already know they're not an exact science.)
The original BFI DVD wasn't much better!Either way, the best decision I ever made in my life was to sell that original crappy greenish Criterion DVD to some desperate soul for $300! It was the worst-looking title they ever put out.
It looks fine in motion - and Gary himself says in the same review that "it looks quite stunning".CSM126 wrote:Maybe it's just something on my end, but those blu-ray caps look awful in full resolution. They look all blocky and smeary and pixelated on my monitor.
Oh oh... I somehow feared that Christopherson wouldn't simply do an 'aesthetic' kind of pop video. The titles on the Beaver cap mentioning a Khmer Rouge 'Interrogation Camp' (and that dog!) makes me assume that this might be almost as 'unwatchable' as the film itself.Gary Tooze wrote:Extras include the 6:54 Death of Pasolini featurette that some may find as bewildering as the man himself.
I can't speak to what it looks like in motion (blasted Australian censorship, and this is the one blu-ray I would have at least considered paying 15 pounds for) but from the caps it looks a lot like my HDDVD of 'Elizabeth' which, I suspect, suffers from a very subtle edge-enhancement (which meshes well with what Gary illustrated in his vidcaps)MichaelB wrote:It looks fine in motion - and Gary himself says in the same review that "it looks quite stunning".CSM126 wrote:Maybe it's just something on my end, but those blu-ray caps look awful in full resolution. They look all blocky and smeary and pixelated on my monitor.
The BFI itself seemed to be selling copies in the foyer when I popped out for my lunch break earlier today.Bürgermeister wrote:Is BFI having trouble getting the Blu-Ray of Salo out? Just got back from town and went in HMV and Zavvi neither had it except for the SD-DVD.
Must be the suppliers all the usual websites are saying pre-order, dispatched in next 7 days. Amazon website is claiming release on 2nd of October. It seems strange that SD-DVD is available though.MichaelB wrote:The BFI itself seemed to be selling copies in the foyer when I popped out for my lunch break earlier today.Bürgermeister wrote:Is BFI having trouble getting the Blu-Ray of Salo out? Just got back from town and went in HMV and Zavvi neither had it except for the SD-DVD.
So three respected reviewers, based in three different countries and with no connection to the BFI, reach more or less identical conclusions in their reviews - and you think this is "dubious-sounding"?Darth Lavender wrote:(aside from dubious-sounding praise)
And here's Torsten Kaiser on the provenance of the master:I've now had an opportunity to peruse the Blu-ray of Salo, and here's what I'm seeing.
The film appears to have been scanned on the wrong equipment, as notches have affected the stability of every shot. If a facility does not have the means to correct these problems digitally, the element should be scanned pin-registered, which should be unaffected, or far less affected, by the timing notches.
The entire film appears to have been processed to remove grain, with additional processing in an attempt to make it look more like film. It does not. The final result is fully digital.
Because of the processing, high frequency information has been lost.
All in all, at least to my eye, not a pretty picture, and assuming that earlier information is correct, none of these problems stem from the BFI.
The film elements were handled in Rome (as I suspected, by Technicolor; this was not the first time this issue came up) without the presence of anybody from the BFI. The master was made not from a transfer direct to HD but a 2K scan of the material (from what I am seeing here, on a 2K Spirit - that still has the little porcelain piece near the lens head attached, which is part of the cause of the distortions). Then the files were converted and played to out to an HD tape, in this case an HDCAMSR. This is what the BFI received, not the 2K files. I do not know whether the SR was done 4:4:4 RGB, but I suspect it was not, so it was made 24psf 1080 - probably 4:2:2 YUV. During that scan (!!!!!) already De-Noising was attributed - so it could not be removed. The color timing is another issue, but the "bugs" were already in the "flesh" before the 2K downconvert HDCAMSR made it to the hands of the BFI team.
The "processing" that you refered to, Robert, is the trail of a de-noising tool such as Digital Vision produces it. It removes grain by cleansing the image intraframe from not only grain but any HF detail and replaces it with an almost veil-like shroud if made too agressively. The artifacts left behind are crystal sharp and on the file resemble little sugar powder that replaces the original pixel information.
A pin-registered scanner such as an IMAGICA would have been, indeed, better for this material - not to mention that the use of de-noising during the scan is something that is beyond belief.
Yeh, it could be but I think they'd have to print yet another different size book then. Oh well, we'll see.mfunk9786 wrote:If it's anything like the dual-format Alice release, it's the wide clear Blu case like the one that MoC uses for their dual-format releases.
Great, thanks. Safe to order through somewhere that uses shitting packaging then.bigP wrote:It's the same as the cases MOC use, no slip case, three discs surprisingly fitting well. I never had the Blu-ray release so don't know what the booklet for that was like, but I didn't notice anything missing from the Dual booklet when (swiftly) checked against the DVD booklet.