i’m not into blu-ray, or high-def images. they look unnatural to me. cold and digital. actually, when i saw an old sean connery james bond blu-ray, it looked like digital video more than a film print.
i prefer film grain, and a slightly rough edge to the image. high-def is fine for digital video and television (love it for sports). but film is film. especially old film.
film grain and blu-ray are not necessarily in opposition. With old films, the blu-ray often preserves that cellulloid-feeling, for example in my blu-ray of Raging Bull, and also in Chungking Express there is lots of grain. With new films it is a different story. M. Manns Hi-Def Public Enemies, judging from the trailer, indeed does not look like film anymore.
Bobby Wise-Blu ray if done correctly will not look unnatural-don’t trust what you see displayed at Best Buy. That’s not how it’s going to look at home in most cases.
i got the blu-ray experience at my friend’s house who has a state of the art home theater.
in some cases, the film look versus the slick video look was inconsistent. like the discs for “rear window”, “vertigo”.
“the third man” looked like it preserved the old grainy look well. but then, that kinda defeats the purpose of blu-ray to me. like i said, its fine. i just prefer it for live television, or digital video productions. high def is enough to make me drool when watching sports.
Blu-ray is a double-edged sword. I think it will increase our involvement and experience with film but only in a shallow way. I think this is important for the overall film experience, but I think it also makes us slaves to technology and image quality fetishists. At the end of the day, a film is as much about its ideas, acting, and feeling as it is about how pristine its image is. I like the the idea of feeling privileged to see a film regardless of what format its on. A film that is so good and involving that a VHS copy is a adequate because of the ideas and feelings contained within the film itself and not the bitrate at which its encoded. Hopefully, the shift to a new format is used to enhance the experience rather than create an artificial need where none should exist. The day we say that watching a film in anything less than 1080p is “not really watching the film”, is the day that we have pretty much given in to visual snobbery.
Richard, I very much agree, especially to your last sentence:
“The day we say that watching a film in anything less than 1080p is “not really watching the film”, is the day that we have pretty much given in to visual snobbery.”
Also, I do not want to invest a considerable amount of time in learning technical stuff regarding the perfect home theater experience or whatever. I want to watch films. Period.
@ Thorsten Funke “…do not want to invest considerable amount of time in learning…”
D: this depresses me, its really not that hard if you are mildly computer/tech literate and rather interesting
I just can’t imagine how anyone anywhere can have any negative feelings toward Hi Definition. This just makes no sense to me. Yes there have been a few really bad transfers out there and some of the edge enhancement and other “effects” can ruin a good film, but for the most part, Hi-Def is making these movies look close to what was originally projected at the time of their release. Bobby Wise, you’re on the Criterion site for heaven’s sake. Check out some of their releases and see if you don’t like them. I GUARANTEE you will love them. hi-def is the best thing to happen to home video since dvd. When I watch a film, I’d like to see it in the highest quality available. If I have to watch it on my POS television, then fine, that’s what I’ll watch it on. But if something I love to watch is available in hi-def, there’s no better way to watch it.
Bobby:
“the third man” looked like it preserved the old grainy look well. but then, that kinda defeats the purpose of blu-ray to me"
wow, I don’t understand that. It’s supposed to preserve the old grainy look. Grain is a part of film. A major part, why would you want to get rid of it. It’s the higher resolution that is making that grain easier to see and that’s the whole point of hi def.
@Jacob
No need to be depressed ;-)
Of course I know some stuff and find it interesting to a certain degree. But reading blu-ray and dvd-reviews that only refer to the tech specs makes me yawn. I once surfed through Hi-Fi forums when I was looking for a LCD TV and Blu Ray player and such, and boy did I understand little.
That was my point to start this whole thread: Having Chungking Express and Ran in a never before seen quality is nice, but for me not the most important thing about films. And I hope it will remain being like this. With all the new developments it might change – you know, paying eight euros für a night in a cinema with bad projection while knowing that I could watch this at home in better quality …
I love it just for the fact that it is the closest thing to what the filmmakers visualized when they were making it. I wouldn’t say that I only watch blu-ray now but almost all of the new releases I buy I go ahead and pick up on blu-ray, it is always worth it to me. I watched “Domino” the other day on blu-ray and was surprised when I found new things in some of the scenes that I had never noticed before on the DVD copy. Not to mention some of the discs that carry lossless audio, I think that is a good factor as well.
@ Thorsten
Ha! Indeed. I do believe the whole point of “high-def” is to emulate the Cinema experience,of which one will only be able to have a crude facsimile of at best,NOT to improve the film in any way,just to show the Directors vision. In any case I would much rather sit and watch a battered and worn distribution copy of some old film in a cinema with cinephiles,film purists and enthusiasts,than watch a Blu-ray Disc in my home theatre, the ambiance and emotion is and will always be worth the price.
I can understand this Jacob, but for me, nothing beats sitting in my basement watching movies without any noise from cinephiles, film purists and enthusiasts. Nothing wrecks a good film more than a bunch of film snobs.
Image quality is one of the least of my worries when I watch a film. I’m more concerned that the film have the proper aspect ratio and be free of editing.
i’m just not a tech-heavy person. so blu-ray doesnt do it for me. i’m definitely on the side of those who care about films and the emotions transmitted. not that i dont care about the image. of course i’m not saying that. i just dont care about the neverending search for the technical perfection of the image.
it depends. in all honesty i care more about the contrast and color balance then the picture detail which is what is at question here. in this case ive found it comes down to who mastered the print and in many cases, an inferior medium such as VHS may have a more desirable print then say a DVD.
either way, im still riding the wave of old Cathode Ray tubes since new displays are the last thing on my list of things I would like to buy, so Blu-ray does nothing for me.
I have this argument now it seems on a daily basis.
I was so happy I could have wept the first time I screened for a class Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light on the Criterion boxed-set DVDs. I had never seen them so crisp and clear, and it took me back to my own school days where I had to watch them on old, 16mm copies from a loud projector at the back of the room, scotch-taped where they had broken, the soundtrack alwys a beat or two off, and bad and sometimes unreadable subtitles. I am still quite happy with DVD because it takes the movies to exactly where I need them to be. I agree with those who say that if we start getting too picky that we’re then caring more about the technicals than the films.
I say that as a 43-year-old.
I will also tell you that in the last two weeks I watched Iron Man, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Disney’s Sleeping Beauty on a state-of-the-art BlueRay projection system on an 18-ft home screen and it was nothing short of a religious experience, especially the Disney film.
So, in short, I’m a little torn.
18 ft home screen? I don’t even have a wall that big . And here I thought I was doing okay with 42".
Theirs is an odd house.
But the new system finally gave good use to that space!
Mostly, I don’t care. Although looking at VHS these days is a little painful.
But I worked in a cinema for a long time and put on a lot of well known older films as late shows. For a movie like Jaws, that’s a well worn print – and i know some viewers that were iffy about the pops and crackles especially at the reel end. But for me – it’s part of the late night movie experience. worn prints say something, it’s like it adds to the fact that it is tangibly, old, or if rare, that it somehwo feels rarer, more fragile (literally, in some cases, you can sense that the film might snap at any moment, and there’s an extra edge of excitment and suspense).
Having said that – sure seeing things in such crisp clear condition is often revelatory. Almost overpowering. Sleeping Beauty was a wonder to me. The recent re-release of Munchausen (even though the existing vanilla disc was perfectly fine by me) also seemed clearer, richer, crisper. Someone else mentioned contrast, brightness and editing. I’m there, with you on that. But still, I’ll forgive a lot on a physical print, just because there’s something palpable and real about the experience, as opposed to DVD/home cinema.
Most of what we screen at a film club we run comes from dvd (not blu-ray), with a pretty basic digital projector, and it’s fine, and out punters love it. It’s all about the movie, and the atmosphere it’s screened in. Home, you’re probably wnating to look closer, pause, back it up, examine the corner of the frame. In cinemas, or public showings of any kind – it’s the totality of the experience. It’s about the film as a whole, the over-all sweep, and giving yourself up to it.
Well, I just saw 2001, Lawrence of Arabia, Hello Dolly, Mutiny on the Bounty and West Side Story in 70mm at the Berlinale Retrospective this year – and it totally blew me away. So yes, image quality matters to me. And combined with the cinema experience it is priceless (of course you only get superiour quality on film festivals). And it is very valuable, what the dvd culture (and critereion et al) do for film – making it available in the best possible transfer. So, really, I start getting hooked on image quality, and sense a certain change of heart with myself. That’s why I started this thread. It would be sad, if the new technology was not used to give the films the treatment they deserve, wouldn’t it? I like properly edited books and well restored paintings, too.
Movies today are made to be shiny and keep our attention since they aren’t yet up to par with the editing techniques of television (look at Spielberg’s constant overlighting in his recent films), so picture quality has become, almost against our will, a more important factor than it ever should be when considering a film to be good. When I was younger it never mattered how good it looked, and I also have to agree with whoever said that when we start saying that watching a movie below a certain quality or whatever is not really watching a movie, then yes, we are not really watching the movies. We’re just looking at them.
DVD’s have other advantages to VHS aside from image quality; scene selection, freeze frame, can be easily played on computers; things which are convenient if you are like me and like to really vivisect the guts of a film to see how it really works. Then you have things like commentaries, doesn’t degrade with repeat viewing, etc. Image quality is much better as well, but it’s not everything. If that’s all Blu-Ray has on offer, than I’ll stick with my DVD’s for the next 10 or 20 years (or whatever it is before switching gets mandated) and not feel as if I’m missing out on all that much compared to say, sticking with VHS through the late 90’s to today.
Aoaijea,what are you going on about? Editing does not equal lighting.
Mikerswllg-VHS (and magnetic tape as a storage medium) is terrible and you should feel bad for liking it. :D
Any time the medium starts to matter more than the message, an art form is in decline. There is no abolsute perfection of image quality - it’s a hobgoblin that forces people to buy new tvs and new copies of discs they already own. If a film has been remastered from a good 35 mm print, then the image quality should be excellent. Above all, as Aoaijea rightly says, are we just looking at a dazzling image or are we actually seeing something? It’s like saying, “I couldn’t get any meaning out of the Brothers Karamazov because I was reading it in paperback, and I just couldn’t stop daydreaming about the shiny new cover on the hardbound edition.” Or it’s like me saying “I won’t talk to X on this cell phone unless I’m guaranteed a connection with no static, distortion or dropped calls.” If I really want or need to talk to X, I’ll do it no matter where or how.
Moreover, some of my favorite directors — Brakhage, Warhol, Lynch — have used blurriness deliberately as a protest against too much processing and smoothness. Watching Mothlight on a hi-def blu ray home theater system makes absolutely no sense to me.
Film, in general, hasn’t yet converted to using editing techniques strictly to keep the eye on the screen as TV has, but lighting, digital quality of picture, softness, smoothness, color, and all that shit has been utilized for those purposes in film.
Speaking of Brakhage, my teacher made our class watch mothlight on straight film because he said it would be a different experience from watching it digitally remastered. I didn’t understand it, and I’m sure most of the class could’ve cared less how they saw it, but I think he was correct. There is something more beautiful, and exciting about a copy with the cuts, and blurs. But to the original point, the more we get hung up on the quality of the picture, we’ll forget about everything else. That’s pretty much detrimental.
I feel the same way.
i think it does matter when the poor quality actually detracts from your viewing experience, a good example would be the current releases of the Samurai trilogy which are just atrocious. The domestic release of Lily Chou Chou as well is impressively terrible given that it was shot digitally and quite recently.
as for how important it is to view a film on HD on a LCD…..not very. Im still on a CRT and watch everything from DVD and down, and I’m completely fine with that.
Thorsten
I recently bought a blu-ray player and am quite happy with it – the print of Chungking Express just looks marvellous and is fun to watch – so I would not say blu-ray only appeals to the fans of Dark Knight, 300 and other action flicks. But if I look back into the days before all this advanced technology I find myself not even caring about such stuff. I watched bad VHS-copies and even worse prints in cheap cinemas. Even today a film club here in town shows classic movies in rather bad condition, not stopping me and a lot of other film buffs to go seeing them. It still is the movie that counts, isn’t it? Or maybe getting used to dvd and blu-ray will increase our sensitivity and make us care more and more about things whose correct technical denotation I still cannot force myself to remember?
Or are we just about to get to cinematic heaven, and at the same time realising that until now we have been in hell?