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Topic: GLADIATOR Brouhaha

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-07-2009 06:21 PM

The primary thing any studio intends with a movie release on Blu-ray or DVD is to make money.

Newer movie releases usually look very good on Blu-ray because movies produced within the last 4-5 years often have had precise film scanning and digital intermediate techniques used in the post-production stage. Those techniques are improving further. The Blu-ray disc is being authored using a higher quality source.

Catalog titles on Blu-ray are more tricky. They don't sell nearly as well as new movie releases on Blu-ray. Lots of people already have the DVD version and don't want to buy them again, especially at some of the price premiums being charged for the discs. It's worthy of mention Gladiator and Braveheart both feature $10 mail in coupons for owners of the previous DVD versions.

In that environment the studios have a difficult choice to make. Do they want to spend a significant amount of money and effort creating a new HD master and risk not getting a return on that investment? Or is an existing 9 year old HD telecine master originally intended for DVD authoring use good enough? The defense of using an old video master is certain fans of a movie are going to buy a new Blu-ray version of it despite how soft it looks, how much detail it lacks or how obvious problems like edge enhancement may be in the image.

My own opinion is I simply dislike the use of these old telecine masters on catalog Blu-ray releases because they simply are not up to the standards of the Blu-ray format. Those masters look too soft in appearance. They often have more dirt and other debris visible. Side-weave and other image movement is common. Titles and other in movie graphics often look noticeably soft. Worse yet, things like grain reduction and edge enhancement may be cooked into these masters. Not a big deal when the image is reduced to 480p for DVD authoring. The problems are amplified when the image is shown at native 1080p resolution.

If movie studio heads don't think there's enough potential customers for a certain catalog title to justify getting a new film scan and HD master then I think the studio should hold off releasing it until enough potential customers are available. The Blu-ray format is going to get a whole lot more popular, especially with BD player prices dropping to ever more affordable levels.

In some cases certain movies have to be saved ASAP using whatever resources are available. For a lot of movies made within the last 20-30 years, most could look quite a lot better if given the same scanning/DI treatment most new movies receive.

There is already far more movies available on the Blu-ray format than most of us could possibly afford or have space to store and Blu-ray is still arguably a niche format. So it really is no big deal for me to just wait until Universal and Paramount can reach some agreement to give Gladiator the proper treatment it deserves for Blu-ray release. There's lots of other good movie choices available for adding to one's Blu-ray collection.

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Michael Barry
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 584
From: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 09-08-2009 02:07 AM

I suspect we'll see the same release pattern for Blu Ray as we have for DVD with respect to catalog titles.

In the late 90's, we got DVD releases of things such as Batman (Tim Burton). It was a single layer disc which had a smeary image and an OK soundtrack. Eventually, we got a 2-disc set with a dual-layer disc, upgraded soundtrack and a far superior transfer.

My guess is that the same sort of thing will happen with the Blu Ray format, especially titles that sold well in their original incarnation.

The strategy of releasing the movie using the original transfer allows the studio to collect sales data, which they can then use to determine which titles will finally receive the 'white glove' treatment. Then they can sell them again. And voila - double dipping! [Big Grin]

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