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| nissling |
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Posted: 31 Oct 2019, 22:41
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Kul att se fler från Sverige på forumet! Om du har hittat en R7G i Töcksfors är det med all sannolikhet min gamla. :)
Like mentioned before the composite output doesn't offer anything too special (you've got noise reduction for chroma and luma but those work best in S-video), but when actually using S-video I found it to be a good player for sure. Excellent comb filter with very little rainbowing and practically no dot crawl. Quite stable image overall. I clearly prefer it over the traditional PAL/NTSC players like D515 or D925.
Got some screenshots from the R7G for you here if you'd like to see.
https://www.minhembio.com/Filmsamlaren1/350951/ |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 20 Dec 2019, 19:40
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6. UHD Disc
I have a UHD player and am very impressed with the overall picture quality. This is a huge improvement over Blu Ray and the level of detail encountered in Blade Runner
is just amazing.
Despite having some changed sound effect and ocassional EE, I fully agree with you that Blade Runner got a magnificent UHD-BD. Warner isn't really a favorable studio imo but that disc is a must-own for sure.
I'm gonna be a bit short on this...
1. Blu-Ray - Yeah we all know UHD-BD is better technically speaking but the library of films available on Blu-Ray is really great. For consumer usage it's fairly rare to push the format to its limit, which I feel says a lot. Audio is awesome too. Forced FBI warnings, slow menus and hard region coding sucks tho.
2. Laserdisc - As a cinephile who loves physical media, Laserdisc is a always great to look back at. The only aspect that haven't aged too well is the picture quality in most cases, which becomes a factor when you've converted to modern formats. Apart from that it really has everything I like with a home video format. Awesome covers, magnificent audio and an overall taste of quality. It was made by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts, and while you often encounter mainstream titles you cannot deny that the format had a really strong lineup in its 23 years on the market.
3. DVD - Can be seen as a final way out when you really have no alternatives. Kind of tedious that you can get better quality off modern streaming services but at least you can get plenty of DVDs for peanuts nowadays.
4. UHD-BD - Only placed this low due to the lack of interesting titles on the format. No further comment needed I assume.
5. HD-DVD - On the consumer side it's hard not to like HD-DVD for what it was. Few people remember this but Sony actually subsidized the Blu-Ray manufacturing and patenting for the first few years in order to compete with Toshiba, which was already at an equal price point for the studios. No region lock, no java menus and more supported video modes would have all played a role in the long run. Also there was an HD-50 disc which could certainly compete with Blu-Ray, but I don't think it was ever utilized. That would've made it somewhat future proof (not sure about 3D, Atmos etc however).
6. VHS - I don't think anyone have any really fond memories of this format.
7. Video CD - While perhaps more convenient than VHS, I will probably never stand to watch an entire film on this format again. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 22 Dec 2019, 01:06
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Have only seen the original series and that must've been ten years ago, but... I wouldn't really call it shoujo. It's very emotional for sure but I believe most people can at least see its qualities. Certainly amusing too.
EDIT: I don't watch any series/shows at all (regardless it being animated or live-action) but I believe these are all of the anime films I've seen so far this year for the first time:
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
Mirai
Mary and the Witch’s Flower
Napping Princess
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion
The Anthem of the Heart
Fireworks
Children Who Chase Lost Voices
5 Centimeters per Second
The Place Promised in Our Early Days
The Red Turtle
The Garden of Words (short)
The Case of Hana & Alice
Night Is Short, Walk on Girl
Must admit 5 Centimeters per Second is arguably the best anime I've ever seen to this point. It depicts distances between people on both physical, social and mental levels in such a touching way which finally ties together so nicely. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya also made great impact on me. The Case of Hana & Alice was by far the most uninteresting, but so far I haven't been very impressed by the works of Iwai Shunji to begin with. Will give him at least one more chance. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 01 Feb 2020, 20:03
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I once tried to watch 31 films starring John Wayne in one month. Gave up after 17 days, but that's still probably more than most people could stand.
In aprox 2½ year I was watching at least one feature film/day wth an average of 400 films per year. It may sound crazy when you hear it but looking back I really miss the enthusiasm I had. Have tried to start again but always fail after three or four days. I still get to see plenty of films that I scan through tele and datacine so you could say my interest have expanded in a new way.
Regardless, well done teddanson! Watching movies as frequently as you have done in the past month is not only a way to maintain your interest for films in general, but it's also a fantastic way to experience new films as it quickly becomes more interesting to watch unseen features rather than re-watch old ones. :) |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 17 Feb 2020, 23:10
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How can Sony TV be better than Samsung if its using Samsung's display? I am talking picture quality not extra added features with software, wifi speeds, buttons on the remote, and such
That's because the input levels (voltages) that contain the signal won't go into the panel with no other work. In fact there are many factors that play along when a TV, monitor or projector displays an image but to make things as easy as possible let's just divide it into two segments.
First there's how the signal is being treated. Are the levels handles properly or are they cut off? An extremely common issue on Philips TVs. Is additional noise reduction being added that cannot be removed? That drove me nuts on older LG OLEDs. Is the frame rate taken care of properly? Many OEM sets like B&O always force 3:2 pulldown on 24p content. Etc...
Second there's how the electronics and controls behave to the panel. This is a very apparent factor that plays a big role. For instance...
The brightness controls, which normally sets the black level, can behave very irregular. Both Philips and LG have had issues with that many values are simply not making any real difference, like going between 52 to 56 may leave the image untouched but as soon as you turn it up to 57 you'll see big jump. Samsung have for a long time had very limited, aggressive controls for brightness that go from -10 to +10 and the final value depend highly on your viewing angle. When you sit in front you may end up leaving it at zero, but move 7° to either side and you'll probably raise the brightness by two or three steps.
The controls for white balance are also completely unpredictable on different sets. Panasonic and Sony have really nailed it on their OLEDs, despite using the same panel as LG and Philips. On Panasonic it does pretty much what you'd expect. But if you, say, try to raise red gain on an LG OLED you'll see on the measurements that the TV in fact have decreased blue and some green instead. And don't even let me get into those 10 or 20 point greyscale controls. They are usually broken to begin with.
Color matrixes are also implemented very differently by manufacturers. Since pretty much all displays over the past ten years have technically speaking had a native gamut larger than the BT.709 standards, pre-loaded LUTs are always activated on consumer sets in order to maintain a somewhat accurate representation of the color space in question. This vary greatly too, depending on again verious factors. Some TVs are provided with good enough electronics and controls to make this issue essentially nonexistent whereas other sets are not really up to the task. The Samsungs I've seen so far have not been able to reproduce a complete 8-bit color pallette, which is something both Sony and Panasonic have achieved with help of better dithering. LG have also suffered for sure but seem to have improved over last year.
I'll ask you a hypothetical question in return: If you can expect the same quality from two sets using the same panel, how come the Sony BVM-D24W1WU had a MSRP at nearly ten times the price of a GDM-FW900 despite both using the same tubes...? :)
I know that LDs are not better than BD, but I thought there are ways to output a better LD picture because this seemed to be true on videogame consoles. I believe the Wii can output better picture if you use component instead of composite for example. Why settle for less if it can output better?!
Video on Laserdisc is stored in composite video format and won't magically become better by having a player with YPbPr output. In fact, before displayed on color television it must be converted to RGB at some stage.
The Nintendo Wii produces the graphics internally in YUV, using YCbCr (much like the GameCube), meaning going the composite route instead of YPbPr will lead to a loss in quality. |
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Posted: 09 Apr 2020, 12:16
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| UHD is not just about resolution. Having HDR and PQ tone curve finally makes it possible to put the old CRT power law aside while still maintaining the integrity of the film. Although Akira may not be the film that utilizes this the most, it's still a step in the right direction. The old Blu-Ray have not aged all that well unfortunately so regardless any release with the new master will most likely be an improvement. |
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Posted: 20 Apr 2020, 17:34
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You can already through quick search by entering the IMDb number of your desired director, actor etc.
https://www.lddb.com/query.php
EDIT: Hm, doesn't seem to work at the moment. Perhaps Julien can give us the current status info of the feature, if any. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 24 Apr 2020, 23:32
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Disney uses the same master as the original Blu-Ray from Japan. Ghibli made a new master when they released a box set in Japan back in 2014, which is certainly from a different source than the old Blu-Ray. And I assume it's the one used by G Kids as well. You can compare the two Japanese discs here. They've also got an old Hong Kong DVD which I think is interesting.
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=2929&d2=4339&s1=27032&s2=40358&i=0&l=0
I remember the cue marks and WWF logo for sure. However considering that the developing process of ECN-2 heavily relies on temperature you will always get some differences in colors when comparing the reels. And the telecine process (most likely flying-spot) is always subjective when dealing with sub-optimal content. Either way I will most certainly try both that and the Ghibli Ga Ippai out next week. May even able to provide some screenshots. |
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Posted: 25 Apr 2020, 20:19
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| Since we're at it, I think I'll bring my copy of Akira Criterion CAV to my studio next week for some additional screenshots. I don't think it differs too much from the new release as far as the colors go (minus HDR of course). |
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Posted: 28 Apr 2020, 18:27
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So instead of using the Akira 4K thread, I think we can have a look at the two Japanese Laserdiscs of Nausikaä here. I brought both of them to my studio for digitizing. Player in use is the Pioneer CLD-D604 and recording was done in native resolution, encoded in ProRes 422HQ. And yes, I call it Nausikaä since ä is indeed an actual character letter in my native language. ;) Also keep an eye up for Akira!
https://i.imgur.com/tZ6i8aE.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/7mj7nud.jpg
For comparison to DVDs and Blu-Rays you can have a look at Caps-A-Holic .
For those of you who don't know, Nausicaä [98LX-1] was originally released on LD in 1984. The master was done from a 35mm print with high contrast and cue marks. Aspect ratio is around 1.74:1 but the masking position differs somewhat from scene to scene. Black level is at 7.5IRE, which have not been compansated for in the screenshots below. The image leans towards an overly bright image with a clear tone of red and magenta. Comparably speaking the shadow details are lacking which is most likely due to the source used. Not in any way bad for a Laserdisc of this age and noise levels are overall fairly low. One scene in particular caught my attention, as there was a white flash on screen which even made the black bars turn white. Will have to look at it once more to see if it's done during telecine or essentially baked into the source elements. Audio is analog mono only.
https://i.imgur.com/m0rM3bo.png
https://i.imgur.com/i8k6N2Q.png
https://i.imgur.com/4r7EYsb.png
https://i.imgur.com/91oMxkv.png
https://i.imgur.com/uU4Wer6.png
https://i.imgur.com/nke07oz.png
https://i.imgur.com/glbG8jQ.png
As a part of the Ghibli Ga Ippai Collection (1996) [TKLO-50180] , Nausicaä saw a second release on Laserdisc in Japan. This appears to be done using a duplicate positive as source, and it shows. Colors appear more balanced and overall gamma is much more pleasing. Shadow details are clear and present without any distracting lifting or crushing (especially visible on the two last screenshots). It's a tad darker than the former Laserdisc but it's all fine to my eyes, especially with those reddish whites being gone. Chroma noise is however more apparent, and the sharper image may result in more apparent rainbowing artifacts depending on the system. Blacks are kept at 0IRE. A very fine upgrade overall, but audio is still analog mono only.
https://i.imgur.com/x7u6KeX.png
https://i.imgur.com/D2RHhbj.png
https://i.imgur.com/b6trGsA.png
https://i.imgur.com/aD3PDbZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/BfFAIQR.png
https://i.imgur.com/nxnDXUE.png
https://i.imgur.com/LBoQqAI.png |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 28 Apr 2020, 18:28
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signofzeta wrote: That would be really cool.
Screenshots are up in the dedicated thread! |
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Posted: 02 May 2020, 18:47
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Screenshots are up now.
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=13995&d2=3919&s1=142169&s2=36403&i=0&l=0&a=0
Must say that, judging from these captures, I am not convinced to upgrade from my 10+ year old UK Blu-Ray. While the former release still has its share of issues, the new one suffers from serious noise reduction that I do find very frustrating. At the same time, improvements in terms of sharpness and color timing are not very apparent. I'm fully aware of that film restoration is very expensive and takes time, plus I have no idea what kind of limitations the team had to face so I'm not saying they've done a bad job. It's just that the end product isn't enough for me to buy it once more. Oh well, saves me some money at least. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 03 Jun 2020, 03:13
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Back in 1993, if you had to do post-telecine cleanup your only option would've been to get one of those Digital Vision NR (DVNR) modules. I think that pre-94 the only major studio that had bought one was Universal. Other than that your main option was to basically have a clean film ready for telecine, which worked for most modern films and those that had gotten recent duplicates. Still on more obscure films (relatively speaking) you rarely had that luxury.
As for the DVD, despite it already being difficult to find and expensive, there are multiple bootlegs floating around. I got unlucky back in 2012 when I found a reasonably priced copy. Bought Hard-Boiled on DVD at the same time which turned out to be legit, and the difference in quality was pretty clear when compared side by side but not so much when just looking at pictures. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 11 Oct 2020, 15:04
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As a film archivist and datacine operator, I can assure you that no distributor or film restorer in the entire world would ever opt to use a Laserdisc as their source elements unless it's absolutely necessary. In most cases Laserdiscs are used, it's to maintain a specific audio track or special features.
Apart from Project A-Ko, the only exception I can come to think of would be the Director's Cut of Manhunter, where the additional scenes on both DVD and Blu-Ray seem to be sourced from a Laserdisc due to the noise pattern (it's clearly not your typical 1" Tape or D1 master). |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 04 Mar 2021, 22:43
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Yume is such a nice film. Love the slow tempo in combination with Kurosawa's artistic style.
Picked this up today. Had a Sega Mega CD (1) as a kid and finding a complete one in good condition is very difficult, so the sentimental value is very high for me. Kind of interesting when you think about it that it was only released in the UK and Sweden. Other European countries only got the Mega CD 2 and Multi-Mega.
https://i.imgur.com/LuSCTOV.jpg |
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Posted: 24 Apr 2021, 06:44
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A good old, trustworthy IBM Model M from 1989. Absolutely phenomenal to this very day.
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| nissling |
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Posted: 23 May 2021, 13:00
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| Even in the industry, lossless video is rarely used. ProRes 422HQ is pretty much fine for everything except heavy VFX and long-term storage. You really cannot see the difference between that and uncompressed or lossless codecs. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 06 Jun 2021, 19:04
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I think they're using an HDM-4130 on the last image in the link that Signofzeta shared. It was the japanese equivalent to the HDM-3830, which alongside with the 2820 and 2830 practically speaking were the only monitors used for any "serious" HD productions throughout the 90s. In early 2000s they were replaced by the BVM-D series. Wonderful monitor yet ridicilously heavy.
High resolution gaming on PCs didn't technically happen until Direct3D and other hardware accellerated APIs. Software rendering was never fast enough for high resolutions or sprites and tiles but did give major advantages when drawing polygons which made great use in early 3D titles. Once dedicated graphics card became common, especially with the Riva 128 and Voodoo2, there was at least some possibilites to play by then modern games in 800x600. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 12 Aug 2021, 20:45
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Don't give me wrong, you probably have a very fine collection for sure and one that I fully understand you put high value in. However, when it reaches this amount of money it starts to get a bit... Difficult to find the right buyer. If you happen to be Jeff Bezos and want to have all the LDs you could dream of, sure then you could probably make out a deal and having both the buyer and seller be happy with the outcome. But for an average person with disposable income (relatively speaking) it's probably a better idea to pay off the loans of your house.
I've easily spent more than I make in a year on movies but there's no way I'd get back anywhere near those money in one single deal. That just won't happen and I'm perfectly fine with that. Once I went bananas and bought a lot containing aprox 40ish Arrow LE box sets on Blu-Ray, along with the complete 88 Film Slasher series and a couple of boutiqe box sets (Shout's Friday The 13th, Dawn of the Dead 4K, Silent Night Deadly Night collection etc) for aprox 2500 USD. Plus 13 hours of driving since I didn't want anything to get ruined in shipping. That's about what I make in a month after taxes and in retrospect I admit that it was a crazy move, but I'm also glad that I pulled the trigger. But if I were to multiple the price by 50... Just no, regardless of how many films were included.
Now I will agree with you on that some collector's items do have ridicilous pricings. As long as you've got the cash you can buy NWC 1990, but getting a complete Nes collection takes time and that is something you'll never get back. Either way I suggest you follow Julien's advice. That's probably the easiest way to get good money for those discs.
Belated happy birthday and good luck! :) |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 21 Sep 2021, 22:38
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It's Gauche the Cellist. Directed by Takahata Isao and pre-dates all of the regular Ghibli films, yet design is very similar overall. Very short but certainly with its own share of qualities.
Both Gauche and Little Norse Prince are available on Blu-Ray in Japan but I cannot comment on their quality unfortunately. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 27 Nov 2021, 19:42
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Most Saturn games run in 240p but there are some oddballs that utilize higher resolutions. Virtua Fighter 2 is probably the most famous example which renders at a native 704x480i while still maintaining a steady frame rate of 60 fields per second. It's one of the most impressive technical achievement from the entire fifth generation of consoles despite compromises in shading. You often see menus in 480i as well, and some games let you choose resolution for the main game. Stellar Assault SS comes to mind.
The main issue with the Saturn for me is that the low pass filter is disabled when the graphics are rendered in 320x240p. This is the case for most, if not all, revisions but as there are seventeen in total I cannot possibly try them all. When used with the XRGB-Mini or OSSC for instance, you'll get jailbars. The low-pass filter on the OSSC cleans it up pretty much perfectly but with the XRGB-Mini I was out of luck. Nearly all CRTs I've used have not had any issues with this with the only real exception being the Sony BVM-D24E1WE as it shows some strange wavy, static pattern which is very visible in greys whenever there's scrolling. Strangely I've never been able to replicate this on any other BVM (20F1s, D20, A20, A24 and A32) or other professional monitor from Sony, Ikegami, JVC, Panasonic etc as well as just about every consumer set I've stumbled upon. I've tried at least a handful of cables with both composite video for sync, sync on luma and Csync but nothing really helps. There's a thread about this issue on the Shmups forums. The HD Retrovision YPbPr cable supposedly fixes the issue entirely, so that can be a solution too.
I'm playing all of my retro games on a BVM-A24, but would honestly considering going for a scaler as an option at least if there'll ever be one with support for 2160p output. This allows the video processor to take care of all the scaling and not relying anything at all on the internal signal handeling of the TV or monitor. It is a perfect 9X match for 240p.
Haven't bought any physical game in quite a while but I did purchase a Mega Everdrive Pro and a Super SD System 3. Being able to play games for the Mega CD on the Mega Drive as well as CD-ROM² on the PC-Engine without any add-ons is really neat, and works practically flawless as far as I can tell. The Mega CD have a very special place in my heart. Sonic CD, Snatcher, The Terminator, Final Fight CD etc are all games I really enjoyed when I was a kid and they hold up just as well today. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 28 Nov 2021, 09:30
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I've got a Sega Mega CD model 1 that's barely been used but is still in desperate need of service. A shame since it's a really neat looking console.
Found some pics on my phone that highlights the issue I've seen on the Saturn. Game in question is Biohazard (Resident Evil) played on a japanese model 1. It almost looks like moire on the darkest shades on the wall, but most monitors are immune to it.
BVM-D24E1WE
https://i.imgur.com/ad3gW4C.jpg
BVM-A32E1WM with BKM-68X
https://i.imgur.com/qPd3VLe.jpg |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 15 Jan 2022, 19:20
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It's possible that the film was shot and produced in 25fps but played back in 24fps in cinemas like any other film. Actually it has been fairly common in Europe throughout the years with some examples being very obvious like The Beatles films. This can cause confusion with the contrasts between production and distribution.
A 111 minutes feature would result in a 106 minutes PAL master, meaning that we can rule out any PAL conversions with the information we've currently got. While the runtime suggests that it is the US cut, I don't own the film and therefore cannot confirm it. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 19 Jan 2022, 22:23
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The Girl Who Leapt Through Time for the first time in several years, and it's somehow even better than I remembered it being.
I also watched it last month, but as part of a double feature in conjunction with the 1983 feature. Despite them being based on the same novel and starts with a similar plot, they evolve entirely different. In the anime she primarily time travels for personal benefit and comfort, which she quickly abuses. The live action film shows the time traveling in a much more subtle way and she never completely understands what is going on. And she never uses her powers for selfish reasons neither.
Watching one right after the other gave me entirely new aspects of both films and was overall a great experience. It's easy to overlook the 1983 film due to its limited availability in the west but it is certainly worth a watch. |
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| nissling |
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022, 17:57
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Got these from Vinegar Syndrome last Thursday.
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Thanks list