samper

dvdtimes reporting that the BD disk isn't that much better than the French disk that i own. I was afraid of this. Oh well I ordered it anyway.

DVD Times - Black Narcissus

Third Man

Just how much better can it look than the French disc - I really have to ask myself after just purchasing the Institut Lumiere edition which IS fabulous.

There is surely only so far you can go with these films when it comes to restoring the picture before you actually start changing the way it should look or was originally intended.

Simon

Steve Crook

There is a risk that the higher detail will only make the flaws more visible. The DVD Times article on the Blu-Ray release mentions things like the grain and the dirt on the print being more visible on Blu-Ray. Does that add to the experience? Is it "as the director intended"? They also mention the French DVD (& other DVDs) being less sharp but also the changes they made to the contrast and the colour boosting. There are a lot of controls to play with when you digitise something and it's hard to say which is the more accurate.

For myself, I'm definitely in the "as the director intended" camp. And I'd go as far as to say that my best experiences in seeing this or any of the other films have always been to see them projected from film onto a large screen. That's how they were made to be seen.

I feel that any digitisation loses something, although Blu-ray and other HD digitisations might lose less than other processes. And to save space on the DVD they do tend to use some techniques like predicting a jump cut and having shadows of the next scene before the cut. These are apparent if you run it through a jump cut scene frame by frame and although they're not obvious when you're watching it at full speed, there might be something that registers subconsciously which makes certain jump cuts less dramatic.

But there is a problem with BN in particular that if you see it in a pristine print on a big screen then some of the joins are visible where they do the mattes and hanging miniatures. But even with those, it's still a beautiful film and a joy to see.

Steve

samper

I meant to post this earlier, but I finally watched the BD. I have to disagree with the review earlier - its just fantastic on my 46inch LCD and PS3. I have not seener finer presentation of this classic.

Steve Crook

When Sister Ruth goes to see Mr Dean, he rejects her and she gets angry so there's a wash of red across the screen. Then she faints. What colour does the screen go when she faints?

Steve

Stephen Pickard

Well as long as they are film-related I don't mind. The problem is a lot of the technicians that work on some of these titles overdo it with the digital cleaning tools and you finish up with digital related artifacts, that are to me far harder to deal with than film-related ones.
I don't believe that blu-ray makes the viewing experience any worse with regard to grain I think it enhances it. The exception is when you view any optical dissolves, any shots that are 'blown-up' or dupe shots that replace footage in original negatives etc. that are a generation or more away from the 'original footage' there is definately a big jump in quality which is not as bad when you are watching it on standard def. As long as they use the earliest generation film materials they can put their hands on there shouldn't be a problem.
When they try to remove film grain you finish up with problems like "Patton" and "The Longest Day", and many more which I have seen on Satellite HD broadcast, that finish up with an 'overclean' or 'plastic' appearance.

Stephen Pickard