Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Almost transparent Blu-Ray disc

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 06-21-2009, 01:19 PM:

I bought the Blu-Ray version of GODS & GENERALS because I am a American Civil War fan from Wal Mart yesterday and opened the package after I bought it and was shocked to see the disc was almost transparent. Because I never saw a disc looking like this before, I felt I might have bought a defective copy. To my surprise, the FBI warning, menu and credits looked normal when I played the disc but the picture image looked liked a color transparency film that was at least a stop over exposed making everything look washed out. I also have GODS & GENERAL on standard DVD and the picture and sound are gorgeous and I knew I bought a defective Blu-Ray copy and will return it today. Has anyone had a problem with a BD like mine?

-Claude

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-21-2009, 03:18 PM:

So wait... the disk was transparent... and then the image on the screen seemed sort of transparent too?? That's an odd coincidence if I read that right.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 06-21-2009, 08:01 PM:

Mark,

I did not say the disc and the picture quality was transparent. If you you read by post carefully, I said the disc almost looked transparent because I was almost able to see through it and I did not say the picture was also transparent. I said it was washed out and looked like an overexposed color transparency film.

-Claude

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-21-2009, 08:14 PM:

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-21-2009, 08:26 PM:

Here's what Claude is talking about:

You can see the lampshade's fabric pattern right through lettering on the disc, which is where there's no silkscreening. Light still passes through the rest of the label too. I've rented & played all six Season 1 and Season 2 Blu-ray discs of "Dexter". All the discs look like this and all played back flawlessly. I've seen a few other rental discs like this, no problems with any of them so far.

"Dexter" is highly entertaining in case anyone asks, and looks great on BD.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 06-21-2009, 09:32 PM:

Dave,

After a period of time, I had a whole bunch of laserdiscs go bad on me and turned completely transparent. They were all pressed by 3M and the company was famous for it's discs developing laser rot. I still have a few 3M laserdiscs that were good when I last played them more than ten years ago but with the introduction of DVDs and Blu-Rays, I no longer watch laserdiscs anymore. I am pretty a lot of my laserdiscs are no longer any good after rotting. With the exception of a few early DVDs from Universal that would not pLay anymore, I had no problem with them so far.

-Claude

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 06-21-2009, 09:48 PM:

Mark.... lol. [Wink]

Posted by Jarret Chessell (Member # 5077) on 06-22-2009, 12:51 AM:

I think it's also worth mentioning...

I've been a little disappointed with some of the transfers to blu-ray, I know others would agree. Maybe the disc is suppose to look like that, maybe not. I wouldn't be surprised if they just did a half ass job of making the blu-ray, hoping that selling the movie in a blue case would improve sales.

I'm curious to know if your replacement looks the same.

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 06-22-2009, 03:42 AM:

Claude:

I guess you still haven't grasped the way DVD and Blu-ray work. [Wink]

It would be a long and boring technical explanation, but, unlike LaserDiscs which were, in effect, a hybrid form of analog video (let's not get into subtle details), DVD's and Blu-ray's are not only digital, but encrypted and compressed.

In a few words this means: it's totally, completely, absolutely, mathematically IMPOSSIBLE for a blu-ray or DVD disc to produce anywhere near a coherent image that is not EXACTLY what the person that made the disc intended to produce, under any circunstances.

A "replication fault" could only yield to a movie with gross and obvious faults of the type of: A) Not playing at all B)Freezing the hell out of the picture C) Big chunks of incoherent blocks of stuff showing up.

But it's TOTALLY impossible to produce a more-or-less normal looking picture with some "subtle" faults, say off-colors or weird gamma. If it displays that way, the only MATHEMATICAL possibilities are: that's the way it should be (the way the manufacturer ok'ed the master) or the playback equipment is faulty/misscalibrated.

So every single copy of the blu-ray that you buy (from the same edition, of course) would look exactly the same. The DVD version that you have has been mastered separately, perhaps even from a different transfer, so you can not use it for comparison except to figure that whoever mastered the DVD either had access to better source material or did a better job than the (idiot) who transfered/mastered the blu-ray.

But there CAN'T be DVD or blu-ray discs with "subtle defects" from one copy to another. Simplifying: all DVD's look the same, and all BD discs look 100.00% the same NECESSARILY or, if defective, they "don't play at all or give huge obvious problems", but they can't ever give somewhat normal looking images with "imperfections".

And yes, the blu-ray discs can be made to look quite transparent and still read perfectly.

In this case, if you are not satisfied with the picture from that edition, all the replacement discs you get would produce the exact same result. Unless the manufacturer acknowledge the did a [bs]

job and pressed a NEW DIFFERENT EDITION re-mastered (or re-transferred) to exchange them with.

But it's not (can't possibly be) a fault with your "one-off" disc. ALL the discs from that edition of the movie will be EXACTLY the same by mathematical need. Welcome to the wonderful world of digital. [thumbsup]

Think of digital encryption like a safety box with a pristine (or shitty, that's up to the owner) photograph inside. You must read perfectly the combination to open safe's lock or, if you screw up even the slightliest number, the combination won't open the safe at all.

If the safe opens, the picture inside will be exaclty the picture the owner placed there. If a single one of the numbers is wrong, the safe doesn't open at all and you get no picture wathsoever. You can't get a "bad picture" or "partially defective picture" because you read one of the numbers of the combination wrong. The safe won't open at all in that case and you'll get no picture whatsoever. That's a way you could see digital encryption. And (virtually) all DVD and Blu-ray movies are digitally encrypted, so they must decrypt to 100.00% the exact "combination" or they can't be "opened" at all.

And then comes compression, yet another mathematical transformation the requires every single number to be 100% correct or the results won't make sense ...

With these digital formats you always get: 100% the data you put in there or ... an obviously very corrupt result. No in-between.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 06-22-2009, 09:10 AM:

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa
I also have GODS & GENERAL on standard DVD and the picture and sound are gorgeous and I knew I bought a defective Blu-Ray copy and will return it today

Why do you assume both copies use the same transfer, at the same quality?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-22-2009, 09:36 AM:

Seeing through a disk has more to do with the label then anything else. The alumnium is vapor deposited if I remember correctly so it is molecular thin... like a partial mirror. On another note I;m amazed that Wal-Mart has anything worth buying. The Wal-Mart here has a pathetic selection of BRDs. I don't even bother to look there any more.

Mark

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-22-2009, 10:46 AM:

Claude is saying the DVD looks great and the BD not so much. Not necessarily that they're from the same transfer. It's not unreasonable to expect the BD quality to exceed anything that was done previously (in fact it damn well better) but in this case Claude thinks the BD is inferior. So maybe the BD transfer is in fact really bad. I dunno. As Julio said though, it's unlikely the BD disc is one-off defective, more likely a bad transfer.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 06-22-2009, 11:00 AM:

quote: David Stambaugh
As Julio said though, it's unlikely the BD disc is one-off defective, more likely a bad transfer.

Or as he said as well, it could be bad settings on the blu-ray player.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 06-22-2009, 02:59 PM:

It seem Mark Gulbrandsen with his GRAND TORINO BD and me with my GODS & GENERALs disc seem to be having a similar problem. His disc had dark images while mine was washed out. It is very interesting to note that both of the discs were from Warner Brothers Home Video. I took my 'bad' disc beck to the store and exchanged it for another copy but before taking the new copy home I had the store check it and it too had washed out images. I also decided not to accept this copy and asked for a refund which was at first was refused because store policy dictates that I can only exchange a bad disc with another copy of the same title. Since I was not willing to accept the only two copies they had in stock that were unacceptable, they tried to get copies from other Walmart stores in the Honolulu district and there were none. They then tried me to contact Warner Brothers and get them to do a direct exchang with me but I refused telling them that as a consumer, it is not my responsibility to get involved between a vendor and supplier when I am not pleased with a product. I guess my argument made sense because they decided to give me a refund.

Mark, Walmart is not as bad as you make them up to be. I got some terrific bargains from them including the BD special edition of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE CLOSE KIND for $29.95. both THE LAST SAMURAI and THE DIRTY DOZEN for $15.00 and so many others. They also do price match so I can always pick up mainstream new releases that are on sale at Best Buy and Target and buy them there at the same price as the other stores. The only thing about Walmart that had upset me was the incident that occurred last night.

-Claude

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 06-22-2009, 03:06 PM:

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa
It seem Mark Gulbrandsen with his GRAND TORINO BD

Claude: Remember that Mark's problem with Torino wasn't a one-off disc. He finally figured out his blu-ray player wasn't set up properly, after which he started to get an acceptable picture. And ALL Torino movies were a little "dark" anyway (but not as much as he was experiencing due to having the wrong settings).

Again, whether you "believe it" or not, it's an undeniable fact that there can't be a "slightly defective" blu-ray (or DVD) disc in the sense of one that would produce "slightly bad images" compared to others (of the same edition). No matter how many copies you try, they will all be the exact same (or totally/obviously corrupt, if the disc is indeed bad).

So they are not defective. It's just the way the issuer authorized the transfer to look like.

Of course, you are entitled to not liking it. But it's not defective per se and all replacement discs would look the exact same.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 06-22-2009, 03:30 PM:

Julio,

Since I am very happy with the dvd version of GODS AND GENERALS, I guess there will be no point to get the movie on Blu-Ray. A comment was made by someone that the probable reason the disc does lot look good on my HD set is because the setting on my player might not be set correctly. After I had the store play the G&G disc on their BD player and HD set and the picture still looked washed out even on their set up, it proves there is is nothing wrong with my BD pLayer setting.

GODS AND GENERAL looked beautiful on the big theatre screen and DVD and I was expecting the ultimate picture quality when I bought the BD, I guess I was wrong if you all believe nothing can go wrong in the manufacturing process despite the fact that all digital duplicating masters are exactly the same. All of the reviews I have read regarding the picture of G&G on Blu-Ray have all been favorable citing colorful images. The only negative comments by one reviewer was picture sharpness. No one had said the the picture was light and washed out.

-Claude

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 06-22-2009, 04:28 PM:

I couldn't find a review of Gods and Generals on Blu-ray at Widescreen Review (those guys are the pickiest bunch), but High Def Digest did review it:

quote:
The Video: Sizing Up the Picture

Presented on Blu-ray and HD DVD using identical 1080p/VC-1 transfers, 'Gods and Generals' has its strong points, but overall I found it visually disappointing compared to most in its high-def brethren.

First, the good news. Colors are more robust than they were on the weak standard-def DVD transfer, and fleshtones benefit from the improved saturation. Black levels are deep, contrast is spot on, and the picture sometimes has a welcome level of depth that makes elements on the battlefields pop. Likewise, the print is very clean and doesn't suffer from source noise, scratches, or blemishes.

Unfortunately, the overriding issue here is a persistent softness -- for every technically proficient scene, there is another that is blurry and poorly defined. Much of this bothersome softness occurs during exterior shots and results in smeared bunches of leaves and patches of grass. Even hair and fine texture details in these scenes become muddled. If this problem were limited in scope, I might have been more forgiving, but the softness is so pervasive that I found myself continually distracted.

All things considered, this one’s certainly a step up from the standard DVD, but it remains a disappointment in a crowded field of superior high-def catalog transfers.

It sounds like they think the HD DVD and Blu-ray were a step up from the DVD. I haven't seen the movie in a long time, and I've not seen the HD DVD or Blu-ray version, so I can't attest to what Claude is reporting.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-22-2009, 06:09 PM:

Yes, My G.T. looks perfect now. Big differences are obvious on a really dark film like this if the DVD player settings are wrong. To be honest... all the other Blue Ray disks I have I couldn't ever tell it was set wrong. The rest loked great.

As for Wal-Mart... the one here has a really bad selection of Blue Rays... I suppose there are Wal-Marts that have good selections but just not around here... Smith's Foods has a better selection than the local Wal-Mart does. Best Buy still has the best selection in this area since Virgin closed their store.

Mark

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 06-22-2009, 06:15 PM:

The old HD-DVD of Gods & Generals looked fantastic.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 06-22-2009, 09:26 PM:

Mark,

In addition to all of the latest Blu-Ray releases, the Walmart I shop at had GHOSTBUSTERS, JOHN ADAMS and a few other 'hot' catalog titles that just came out in BD. Yes, I agree with you about Best Buy having the best selections and best deals in town. The current Blu-Ray Sale I had commented about in another thread I had started is a good example. I picked up ENTER THE DRAGON, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, MATRIX, DIRTY HARRY as well as TRANSFORMERS yesterday and that should do it for the week It is unfortunate however that Best Buy does not bring in lesser known films like THE SEVENTH SEAL and THE DIARY OF ANN FRANK that came out last week. The Borders in my area did get them but they want full list price for them so I got them from Amazon.

As far as the BD of GODS AND GENERALS, I suspect the the two discs I tried to buy were not pressed correctly due to a manufacturing error because they exhibited the same unacceptable picture quality on my HD set as well as the one at the store. I am almost sure if I bought it from another source, I might get a perfect copy.

-Claude

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-23-2009, 12:18 PM:

Best Buy has a wide selection of movies on Blu-ray, but their prices are often pretty high. Sometimes they'll have some decent sales, but then so does Target, Wal-Mart, etc. You just have to shop around and avoid the urge to impulse buy. I'm still more likely to order movies on Blu-ray from Amazon.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 06-24-2009, 03:24 PM:

I don't have the G&G blu-ray in my collection so I can't reference it now but I had rented it from Netflix and don't recall any issues with the image.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 06-24-2009, 07:13 PM:

Joe,

My curiosity has got the best of me and and I just got to know what is going on with this movie on Blu-ray so I had decided to rent it from my Blockbuster online membership. The movie is available in the high definition format so I had put the title on the top of my queue and should receive it next week. The DVD I have is beautiful so there is no reason the BD should not be better than the SD version based on the good review comments and Mitchell who saw it it on HD-DVD.

-Claude