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Topic: SCHINDLER'S LIST is magnificent on Blu Ray

Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-09-2013 09:25 PM

quote: Leo Enticknap
The other one that deserves a mention here is A Matter of Life and Death.

quote: Cameron Glendinning
I've only run a nitrate print here in Australia, and it looked amazing. We did no realize it was nitrate until we broke it down

Is it possible that you had a reprint?

The following text is taken from AMIA's Identifying and Handling Nitrate Film.

quote:
If you unwind the film a few feet then you
should be able to read some information
along the edges, beside the perforations.
Most film stock made after 1920 was marked
with what type of stock it was created from
with the words “Nitrate Film”, “Safety Film”
or sometimes just the letter “S” which denotes
that the stock is safety. If any of these phrases
can be read along the edges in black writing
then you know what you have. Make sure
that you are reading the black writing and not
any white writing on black – this would be an
imprint from the negative from which it was
made, which is not necessarily of the same film
stock.

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Jock Blakley
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 218
From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Registered: Oct 2011

posted 03-10-2013 08:06 AM

You can even sometimes get multiple generations of edge-coding come through - we've a mid-'70s reprint of LADRI DI BICICLETTE with leaders that show "EASTMAN SAFETY FILM" for the print, "ILFORD NITRATE" for the internegative, and then "KODAK NITRATE FILM" carried through from the generation before that and which therefore also appears in black.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 03-10-2013 04:56 PM

quote: Manny Knowles
Ah. Of course. I completely forgot about that. Hard to believe this stuff is 20 years old. In some ways, it seems like yesterday...and then I'm reminded that certain little details have started to fade.

There. Do you see how easy it is to forget/misremember decades-old details? [Wink]

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-10-2013 05:43 PM

LOL -- okay, Mike.

Note to Tony -- Don't take the bait! Or this thread will get locked!!!!!! [Big Grin]

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 03-10-2013 10:25 PM

Tony, please listen to Manny. Its a very valid point.

On that subject, I wonder how many theaters when running older dts discs actually bother to lower their sub level. I'm going to bet pretty much zero.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 03-10-2013 11:29 PM

Sheesh, I wonder just how many theaters, at least here in the United States, are still running 35mm film prints & DTS.

At least here in my town 10 first run screens were using DTS. Now that number is down to zero. Both the Carmike 8 and Showplex Cinemas Central Mall 12 are all d-cinema now. Any DTS gear they still have on site is idle now, perhaps permanently. The Sheridan Theater on Fort Sill stopped showing movies in December. The Vaska is the only theater (bargain/2nd run) in Lawton still showing movies on film and its days are numbered. The owners are trying to figure out some solution, like maybe getting 2nd hand d-cinema gear from a house that's upgraded from 2K to 4K. But that isn't very likely. Chances are the theater space will be gutted and converted into space for some other kind of business. If it manages to serve as a theater venue it may be for live community theater purposes.

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Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 03-10-2013 11:34 PM

None Bobby. They're running Datasat! [evil]

AJG

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 03-11-2013 10:18 PM

Our Datasat XD-20 gets a lot of use as a decoder for Bluray audio.

Since we usually run repertory and international art house stuff, I hardly ever encounter a print with DTS time code and, when I do, the discs are usually nowhere to be found (or cracked).

To date, we have played exactly one feature in DTS: "Mean Girls."

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Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 03-11-2013 11:14 PM

The Regency 10 Theatres here in Bakersfield are still 35mm and have recently (within a few months) added DTS/Datasat units in most (or maybe all) auditoriums. I'm assuming they picked up gear cheaply with the final conversions of theatres with VPF deals. When this theatre was a Regal, all theatres hade DTS but the projectors and sound equipment were all pulled and Regency signed a new lease about a month later. They initially opened with 1 DTS and one SRD unit. Since they are located in a mall that is mostly empty and it is teetering towards bankruptcy, I doubt digital projection will ever be introduced here before it closes for good. gthis is a secondrun theatre, but the far cheaper subrun theatre on the opposite side of town was the first to fully convert to digital projection over two years ago.

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Jock Blakley
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 218
From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Registered: Oct 2011

posted 03-11-2013 11:46 PM

quote: Manny Knowles
Since we usually run repertory and international art house stuff, I hardly ever encounter a print with DTS time code and, when I do, the discs are usually nowhere to be found (or cracked).

We keep duplicate discs for this purpose. We've racks of them all over the place, although the widespread junking of prints has negated the use for most of them. Really only TITANIC (70mm), VERTIGO (70mm), and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO now.

In fact I think we still have our SCHINDLER'S LIST discs somewhere, probably buried under the dozens left over from GOLDENEYE.

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Cameron Glendinning
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 845
From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia
Registered: Dec 2005

posted 03-13-2013 01:43 AM

quote: Manny Knowles
Is it possible that you had a reprint?

No unfortunately, the experienced chief projectionist who broke it down is positive that was nitrate and was owned by a collector.

A few years later I was shown how to project nitrate safely/ legally and did so at London's National Film Theatre, complete with bottled CO2 attached to the projector and scissors in place.

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Aaron Garman
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: Toledo, OH USA
Registered: Mar 2003

posted 03-13-2013 08:56 AM

Manny, at least you're ready to run Jurassic Park and those other early-mid 90s DTS only Universal prints! Too bad if you ever get Last Action Hero. [Wink]

AJG

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 03-13-2013 01:12 PM

IIRC Sony/Columbia Pictures made only a handful of Last Action Hero prints in SDDS. Most prints of that movie were 35mm Dolby optical. A decent number of 70mm Dolby mag prints were made (I watched one of those 70mm prints at the UA Theater in Dallas near Northpark Mall - same day as my first screening of Jurassic Park at GCC Northpark 1-2).

The only SDDS shows of Last Action Hero in North America were in a couple Los Angeles movie theaters and one in New York (I think I heard about 1 SDDS equipped theater in Tokyo for Sony's own use). From that point until late Summer 1994 the AMC Century 14 in L.A. was pretty much the only place anyone in America could see a movie in SDDS. The format was really in a "test phase" (or marketing phase to get the SDDS brand in there with Dolby and DTS) until summer of 1994 when finished SDDS gear finally started getting distributed to movie theaters.

DTS had a much better format roll-out with Jurassic Park, even quite a bit better than Dolby Digital. Just counting DTS-6 screens alone, I'm certain DTS had more theaters equipped than Dolby had with the launch of Dolby Digital on Batman Returns.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 03-13-2013 02:51 PM

quote: Manny Knowles
Is it possible that you had a reprint?

I didn't handle the print of AMOLAD I saw, but the screening (in the mid-1990s at the National Film Theatre in London - might have been Cameron who showed it!) was advertised as being of a nitrate print, so it would have been a bit cheeky if it wasn't!

Edge markings can be confusing, especially on prints made around the time of the conversion; because a nitrate camera neg, IP or IN can then be contact printed onto acetate stock to the next generation, and then that safety stock back onto nitrate for the generation after that. I've seen late 40s/early 50s prints that appear to have gone from a nitrate camera neg > safety IP > safety IN > nitrate release print, and variations thereof. I suspect that after nitrate stopped being made (February 1950 at Kodak's Tennessee plant), there was lots of remaindered stock sitting around the place, which all had to be used up before nitrate was finally out of circulation.

The instant telltale signs that you've got nitrate are (i) the stock is a lot thicker than acetate - the difference is similar to the difference between acetate and polyester - and (ii) it had a mothbally, camphory type smell, quite unlike either VS or the residual smell from processing chemistry that is sometimes there on a new print.

There have been loads of rereleases and restorations of AMOLAD over the years, though, and so there will be lots of acetate and polyester 35mm prints kicking around.

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Victor Liorentas
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 800
From: london ontario canada
Registered: May 2009

posted 03-13-2013 03:18 PM

This Blu Ray is sadly very very light on special features.
It's mainly stuff from the dvd. [Frown]

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