Hear hear, man. I'm pretty particular about video presentation. I have a 60" plasma, carefully calibrated, etc. But I never notice things like compression artifacts, edge enhancement, color timing, whatever. I wish I had a time machine so I could grab some 80s era VHS buffs and show them how we watch movies at home now.
DVDTalk review for Escape From New York!: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/67222/escape-from-new-york/ and The Rage: Carrie II/Carrie (2002) Double Feature: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/67388/carrie-the-rage-carrie-2/
The imperfections you speak of are not inherent to the original film by the filmmakers. These are added mistakes made by Shout. And easily avoidable mistakes at that. This is what's so vexing. If Shout gave half a damn it wouldn't happen and Shout has the gull to ask a little more than most to boot. They haven't earned that extra cost to the consumer. The whole point of Blu-ray is to have enough space that you don't need high compression and present a more film like transfer. That's what we're looking for from HD. Not just yet another packaging of the movie. If you and Paff can enjoy a VHS just as well as a Blu-ray then I don't understand why you're blowing away the extra money on HD. Or are reading people reactions to HD for that matter since it doesn't make a lick of difference to you. If you've got yours with VHS then move along, there's nothing for you here.
The Blu-ray format was "meant" to be superior to every other format that came before it, but for this to mean anything, the films have to be properly mastered, not just properly encoded. It's clear at this point that SF, as a label, isn't really concerned with any of this, so those of us who accept that have learned to deal with it and "move on", as you say. The rest of you, well, you'll keep complaining about it until you, too, learn to accept it. Shout Factory does NOT restore films** (**in most cases) - that's not what they're in business for. If they were, I'm sure they would spend the amount of money and time required to properly restore the films they release and properly encode them. But since most of what they release are independent cult films that nobody gave a fuck about properly storing, Shout does whatever they can with what they have to work with. As far as the compression problems, well, hopefully someone will come in and fix all of that, just like someone came in and "rescued" Arrow, but until then I, for one, will deal with it. I'll take a shitty-looking print of The Final Terror that nothing at all. ANY TIME
That´s one of my favorite releases from them. Let´s hope that the money they make on the "mainstream" MGM releases goes into digging up more obscure and "lost" treasures.
I, for one, don't have any problem with some dirt in the picture or any natural grain. I much rather have that than digital noise reduction, EE, and other digital "tools" for making the image "better".
I watched the Invaders From Mars disc last night. Transfer looked pretty decent to me, but I'm not really a stickler about that stuff. It was shot by Daniel Pearl and it's in 2.35:1, so of course it's a gorgeous looking film to begin with. Even if there are problems with the transfer that I just wasn't sensitive to, this is unquestionably the best version available here in North America. Definitely an upgrade over the old DVD. I guess I'm not as sensitive to compression artifacts and whatnot as other people seem to be. I rarely notice it. It's mentioned in a lot of Scream's reviews, so it's clearly a problem. I do hope they take notice and work on fixing the issue in the future. But regardless, a majority of their releases are the best versions available on home video, and Invaders is no exception. Shout's half-hour "The Martians Are Coming!" featurette is good fun as well. I had no idea Hunter Carson was Karen Black's son. A majority of the featurette is focused on the special effects, which are pretty spectacular. It's amazing to watch the film (especially the finale) and realize all this was really built, it's not a CGI computer created world. I had no idea the set had caught fire. Reminds me of the House Of Wax remake. The featurette actually shows a specific shot in the film where if you're paying close attention, you can see the fire in the background.
That's what I'm saying. Not that "the VHS is just as good", but that if it's an improvement over an anamorphic DVD, then I'm pretty happy. I don't notice these imperfections unless I'm doing side-by-side comparisons, usually. So instead I just try to enjoy the MOVIE. People that find out the encoding bitrate and judge accordingly are really missing the forest for the trees.
Exactly Paff. I think people are really spoiled these days and don't know how to sit down relax and just enjoy the movie. All people care about anymore in compression artifacts, black crush, bitrate etc.
Lol. I have to agree. Given the chance to see a film in good quality or great quality I couldn't imagine why anyone would pick the lesser.
Cray talk maybe it is but somehow I just get a kick watching those old grindhouse movies in a beatdown dvd print... that´just me. For instance, Arrow will be releasing Island of Death on blu, but for me, that deserves to be watched only on dvd.
I used to buy bootleg VHS back when that was the only option to see some movies. I was willing to watch horrible quality just for the chance to see things that are readily available now. The type of films that I sought out were grindhouse/sleaze/horror. One title in particular is right to the point of this argument. I bought Intruder back in the day to see the uncut footage. Now it is out on blu-ray. Would I watch the old bootleg because the film is grindhouse horror? Of course not. There is a high quality version available so there is zero incentive to watch it any other way.
