BD re-releases?

obieone

Are the movies that were created pre-BD, any good? Is the PQ 1080p, or is it still standard?
The reason I'm asking is, 5 years ago, I bought Scarface, 20th anniversary edition, and was really diapointed by the pq. It was a sdvd, but still, I figured they could have done something, to bring the pq up.:frown:
Remixing the sound is fine, but if it's mated to a sh!tty picture, whats the point.

TIA

cheddar

All depends on the condition of the original film elements. Film is much higher resolution than 1080p. Think of how as screen size increases in the home, defects in the picture quality are magnified with projection screen owners being especially affected. Then think how much resolution film must have to look good on a building size movie screen.

Dirt, scratches, and other imperfections can be removed digitally if the studio spends time and money (different than grain, which is an 'artistic' quality of film that many purist don't want digitally scrubbed). However, the real worry for the industry is that because the resolution digital cameras use is locked to a lower resolution than analog film, a future upgrade in digital playback resolution might leave many current digitally shot movies looking dated.

obieone

10-4, thanks. I reserved 'The Warriors' on BD from RB, so I'll only be out $2 IF it does in fact, suck:cool:

I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on some BD's at Amazon, but I need something to watch tonight, because there ain't JACK on tv:redface:

HB27

the biggest difference I've noticed is in the audio. Upconverted DVD's are very close on re-release BD but the audio is kicking arse.

txcoastal1

You must read the backs. Many BD's are not in surround but 2chnl only, and only produce 720p, and seen some at 480i.

obieone

Yeah the pq wasn't too bad, and the sq was good at the beginning, but then ???
Early in the movie(Warriors), there was a scene where a helicopter is flying overhead, and I couldn't tell until I hit mute, if it was the movie or not. BUT, then, that was it.
After that, nothing special. No LFE, surround, nothing.
Oh well. I can't **** too much for $2:rolleyes:

cheddar

blu-ray.com is your friend. Read the reviews for all the vital stats on a disk as well as how well the video and audio is remastered. Original film elements are often in poor shape with some older tracks being 2 channel or mono. However, studios can often restore and remaster these movies with stellar results in both the audio and video departments with the best ones coming very close to modern movies. They can even go frame by frame for video and use the original audio elements to mix an entirely new 5.1 or 7.1 lossless track (studios often remix the audio on even more recent releases to optimize them for home surround). But that kind of restoration involves time and money. So there are plenty of cheap dumps of archival digital masters out there with original audio mixes.

But read the reviews and you'll save yourself a lot of disappointment. Also, you can set price alerts to let you know when a title goes in the bargain bin at Amazon.

cheddar

Warriors only has a plain DD mix, so you know they didn't give the audio a first class restoration. And the blu-ray.com review mentions its shortcomings.

The studios put much better restoration efforts into movies like Blade Runner or 2001.

obieone

Thanks Cheddar, for that heads up. I didn't even know such a site existed.
In hindsight, it makes perfect sense:eek: