Almost that time..... Merry Christmas everyone.

Hope all is good with you & yours, enjoy the day.

Hope you board rats all have a nice Christmas. I've been spending time with family and already did my yearly watch of Princess Bride and Jingle All The Way.

^

My woman had never seen Elf before so did an "HD download". She loved it but I cringed at the PQ all the way through.

Then I put on the Die Hard 2 widescreen LD. I know the reason I love LD but back to back with modern "codecs" and "HD" it just is so blatantly perfect. It's night and day and was nice to be reminded of that. The last CAV disc was sublime, just the ideal way this movie should look and sound at home. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face for the whole movie.

It was like watching an imitation of a movie with Elf then watching an actual real mccoy movie with Die Hard 2.

Can you get Elf on LD? Probably too late right?

Merry Christmas... even if a little late

Merry Xmas

Die Hard 2 on LD looks ugly as hell with its overly warm muddy yellow/orange colour push that completely drains the image of detail and richness. The snow looks like it's soaked in urine. The Blu-Ray of Die Hard 2 is the same as the LD, it looks crap.

The special edition DVD, and the 1080p/4K remasters on iTunes are the best ways to watch Die Hard 2. Whites are allowed to be white, the pallet is much cooler and has a much wider range of colour, skin tones are more neutral and grain is in tact, much better contrast too.

you never seen the final CAV side have you? You haven't even seen Die Hard 2 on LD have you? admit it.

Because NTSC is so perfect right?

Sounds like you are describing the first release of Die Hard 2 on LD. I have the AC3 edition and I recall the colors being more accurate to the cooler NTSC color standard.

In the real LD world it is because no decent gear or realeses were ever really made to support PAL.

Yeah yeah, you're another "well PAL is actually superior" guy. In the real world that doesn't mean s**t.

All I know is "high bitrate download" just looks like dogcrap compared to a nice analog LD. I've always known this, and you know it too, but it was so clearly obvious back to back it just reminded me of how much I love LD. Inspired me to keep collecting more movies.

I have the non AC3 edition and none of the problems alien is talking about are apparant through my (admitedly probably much better than alien's) setup.

This is what I have:
https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/03222/1850-85/Die-Hard-2:-Die-Harder

Correct. I have only ever seen the older letterbox non-AC3 LD of Die Hard 2, which looks like total crap. The Blu-Ray for whatever reason has a similar colour grading to this LD with the yellows and the oranges completely overwhelming the image.

I have not seen the later AC3 re-release LD, but if it has the cooler colours like the special edition DVD has, than it sounds like a huge upgrade as far as LD is concerned.

I have seen the old letterbox non-AC3 LD of Die Hard 2, unless you like the look of piss-o-vision than it's a horrible transfer, again it's drenched in yellows and oranges like the Blu-Ray.

Sounds like the later AC-3 THX approved 1995 LD of Die Hard 2 has much cooler colours and better contrast. If you must stick to SD than sounds like that AC-3 LD is the one to get, or the special edition DVD.

That wasn't what I meant at all; just went with NTSC as that covers the bulk of releases and most peoples experience (you could more accurately accuse me of ignoring and side-lining PAL!). The analogy was that NTSC/PAL were the 'codecs' of the day.

I love LD too, just a little less blinkered than to say "back to back with modern "codecs" and "HD" it just is so blatantly perfect."

Merry Xmas anyway!!

Yeah well NTSC and PAL aren't codecs, they're colour systems from memory. My point was digital files are just dogshit compared to a well mastered RF signal..

What was the setup you watchted it on?

Mine doesn't have a yellow/orange bias at all. Trust me, the snow in Die Hard 2 is even whiter than the snow suits the special forces team wears.

Player: CLD-D925

Video Processor: DVDo iScan HD+

Display: 32" 720p HDTV

Image settings have been calibrated. Most of my LDs look great, but like with all formats you can separate the good transfers from the bad.

Can you take a pic of this scene with your camera? For a comparing reference this scene should have the cold, vivid whites/blues of the DVD cap, NOT the warm, flat yellow/brown bias of the Blu-Ray version.

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=2665&d2=2673&s1=24535&s2=24598&i=2&l=0

I haven't seen this film in quite a while, but the difficulty with comparing a single screenshot this way is that I have no idea what the background to the scene is. On DVD it looks like daytime with no clouds while on the Blu-Ray it's more like evening with clouds. Since I don't know the plot behind any of this (at least not by hand) I can certainly not draw any kind of conclusion which one is more correct.

What I can see however, when looking at the other captures, is that the DVD has crushed whites and easily loses detail in highlights. For instance:
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 97&i=1&l=0 - The light on the left
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 04&i=8&l=0 - All of the light from above
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 03&i=7&l=0 - The fire
With the added amplification of highlights, the gain also seem to draw towards blue rather than a more neutral tone on the DVD. It's certainly noticeable in the following comparison: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 02&i=6&l=0

Note how the DVD show a very clear cyan tone in the snow while shadows are drifting towards red and magenta. It's a very strange combination though I'm not sure what happens in the actual scene. The Blu-Ray seems to be more balanced, though it's always difficult to judge which one of the two are more correct in strict A-B comparison of single screenshots, especially if we don't have a certain reference to rely on. I haven't seen the iTunes version however.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our LDs.

As for the Die Hard 2 issue, I do not own this film at all but the correct colors are the bluray, if the LD is that set then its correct.
Enjoy the films