Rypro 525

So, it "fixes" it by using the orignal sound but uses the downmix for the extended scenes?

rocket1312

Obviously there is no "original mono" for the extended scenes, but my understanding is that it's more than just a straight downmix. It seems that they did some extra work to try to make the audio in those sections match up better with the rest of the film, including remixing/reediting and possibly even adjusting the pitch on some of the newly recorded dialog.

Rypro 525

excellent. I ought to seek out the single disc version

hanshotfirst1138

So it's NOT a downmix except for the extended scenes? The original scenes ARE the original mono? I am tempted, I admit it. On that subject, since I don't feel like starting a new thread, what's the best bet for the other Leone films? Wasn't DYS a downmix on the U.S. release? Were FOD and FAFDM? I think OUATIW did get a US release with the mono, but I don't think OUATIA ever did anywhere?

Solid Snake

I still regret having TGTBTU. The image bothers me like crazy.

rocket1312

Yes. The audio on this new GBU is the original mono, except for the extended scenes.

As for the other films, there are great region free blus of FOD from both Germany and Italy that feature a better image than the US release and (unlike the US) the original English mono. The German one has a lossless track, but the title cards are re-done in German. The Italian disc has lossy audio, but the title cards are in Italian or English (I can't remember). That said, a new restoration of the film was recently shown at Cannes and there's a good bet it will show up on disc at some point.

For A Few Dollars doesn't have a definitive release, but most point to the German disc as the best. The US disc is cut and a downmix on the audio.

Once Upon a Time in the West has the original mono on the US disc although there are some issues with the cut of the film. It's not the kind of thing that anyone but the hardest of hardcore Leone-philes would know about and I don't think Leone's true director's cut has been released officially anywhere. The US disc is a safe purchase.

I don't know much about Duck, You Sucker. I know it just got released here a couple of weeks ago. I assume it has the same downmix that the dvd had. I don't think there's a good alternative.

I know nothing about Once Upon a Time in America.

There's a guy who posts on some other boards who recently acquired an IB-Tech print of GBU and is having it scanned in 4K. That should give us a good understanding of what the colors *should* look like. Although, from what I read and seen over the last couple of months, the new MGM disc is probably a lot closer to the intended colors than most people would think. Still too much green though.

rocket1312

Just to update the GBU mono track situation...according to a Blu-ray.com user, the GBU disc in the trilogy packs have been silently replaced to include the corrected mono track along with the individual release. Pretty sneaky Fox.

Rypro 525

Was at best buy the other day and got excited when i saw GBU but sadly it was the older disc

hanshotfirst1138

How do you tell which release is which?

Either sounds like a pretty good bet. Sadly, I think I'd have to get the U.S. Releases for the extras. Those Frayling commentaries are gold.

Yeah, Tarantjno was bitching about it on The Treatment because 4K "depresses" him . They've missed the window for the 50th anniversary. With two out of three, I suppose it's too much to hope that they're working on a FAFDM remaster.

So it has the original mono but the film hasn't been remastered?

Such an easily preventable mistake.

I think there's an Italian release of DYS, but I'm not sure about the Audio. I'll ask at the Spaghetti Western Database.

I know a bunch of deleted scenes from it surfaced, and they're working on another restoration.

Yeah, over at originaltrilogy.com. I post there .

Doctorossi

Ugh. Don't remind me of that interview. I really appreciate his opinions most of the time, but his take on digital cinema is just beyond ignorant.

Rypro 525

Well i watched a little bit of the remaster of GBU & can confirm that the original mono track is intact. Easy way to tell is during the opening credits and the gun shots

As far as the transfer goes, so much detail is seen. & also re the coloring, it almost feels like the version we're all used to has been so faded

rocket1312

This is the new single disc version. Only $8.99 right now. I don't know if there's a way to tell if the trilogy pack has the new disc or not.

The German version has the commentary. Or, you can buy the Italian one and probably convince someone to give you the old dvd for free.

If they've already done 2 of 3, why would it be too much to hope they're doing the third? I don't know if they are or not, but I would assume it will get a new restoration at some point.

The German blu-ray uses the same transfer as the US disc (ok, but not great), but it splices in the missing footage from the Italian version (we're talking seconds, not minutes). The titles are in English, but the quote at the beginning of the film is in German. Apparently there's still a few seconds of footage that are missing and there's a couple of other small issues that only the craziest of crazy Leone devotees would notice. Bottom line is that it's easily the best version out there, but it could be improved upon.

Well, I was referring to the AMPS boards, but yes, there is a thread at original trilogy as well.

Solid Snake

I can't bring myself to watch the BD of that one. It just looks so wrong. the Blacks go into an abyss of darkness, the tint of the film, etc. Such an easy thing to just do but they fucked it up.

hanshotfirst1138

I understand his perspective, and certainly love celluloid and digital has made me much less inclined to go to the cinema, and I love film and am depressed by its demise. But many of his statements are outright factually wrong. For 4K to be "television in public" it would have to have the same resolution as Blu-ray, when it's obviously objectively scientifically higher, not mention the difference in digital formats. Personally, I'd have been privileged to be at Cannes seeing a 4k remaster, not "depressed." Tarantino sounds like a necrophiliac, not saying "I prefer 35mm because of the resolution or artistic aesthetic," but basically because "that's how I grew up watching movies, and I don't think they should be presented any other way because that damages my memories." Whether you're in sympathy with his views or not, IMO he say he articulates them makes them doesn't sound intellectually defensible. That said, if I weren't a thousand miles away, I'd love to see some of those New Beverly double features .

I'm just curious how I'd know if I came across in a store.

I'm sure they will, probably right after I buy the imports . Just a question of when, of course. Still the question of DYS though. I suppose the best way to get the extras would just be to get the used DVD versions, they're probably dirt cheap.

I wish ot.com would get forum software with technical capabilities beyond Windows 95 . What's AMPS?

Rypro 525

Also noticed that the new disc of GBU does not have the Italian mono track, which is on the Extended edition dvd. Wonder why that was omitted

rocket1312

Easy. Look for the one that looks like the picture in the link.

http://amps.boards.net/

Doctorossi

He likes the aesthetic idiosyncrasies of film presentation and there's certainly something to be said for that, but these days, digital cinema has reached a point that, beyond nostalgic value (which can be replicated through digital means, while the inverse- the image control and consistency of digital- cannot be replicated by film), there's really nothing left to it. As far as spatial resolution, digital has generally surpassed film. The real last sticking point was contrast/color dynamic and that's been pretty well solved now, as well.

In the sense that you can recreate filmic artifacts through digital means but can't recreate the clean, stable digital image with film, today's digital really just gives you a slightly broader palate to work with and a default image that has more fidelity and more flexibility. It's tough to argue convincingly that this is a bad thing.

Julie Walker

You've explained it so well, I can't add much other than I agree, and I was skeptical about digital cinema at first. Mainly I wasn't impressed with early digital cinema and hated how cheap they looked, and mostly like someone took a home video camera and made a movie. So I was never able to get into films in that regard that were shot that way.

But they've greatly improved in the last ten years, and now I'm truly won over by them. And after working with miniDV tape on a couple short standard definition projects(all on my youtube channel) and the hassle it was transferring the footage to a computer to edit, and now after I have worked on three all digital(memory card) HD shorts and edited them. It was night and day in work load and convenience where I could edit instantly if I wanted, instead of having to wait an hour for the tape to upload. And the quality was much better as well, and I know I don't have experience shooting on HDV tapes, but those seemed like a pain in the ass as well in both expense($4000+ usually) and work load. So I'm glad the prices came down and it's now much more affordable to shoot digitally in HD than it was a few years ago.

I experimented with shooting in 24P and adding fake grain to the image in my second short("Text") I made, and I was quite impressed with the results. Meanwhile my prior shorts I directed or worked on were shot at the normal video frame rate and left largely without any film effect attempts. It's clean, but I really was impressed with the detail in some of the footage. Namely the bees footage in the opening scene of my first HD short, 'Where's Bella' and the trapped in the alley sequence where I tested out my home made steady cam rig. I do prefer a more film like look though. So I think once I get my 4K quality camcorder, I'll stick to 24P and always add a light layer of fake grain and sometimes when appropriate a heavy amount of grain.

Anyway, I'm sold on digital now and laugh at myself for trying to be elitist and stick up for film, and shoot on it, despite it being extremely unaffordable to shoot on, and a bigger hassle than digital. That's why I never started shooting anything until recently, since I was still dreaming of using film, but the costs kept holding me back. Film still looks cool and great I might add. But, digital is certainly easier and more flexible to work with, and is great for low budget independent films!

However, I do miss the cigarette burns at the reel changes when seeing digital projection today. I wonder if there are any effects programs that can add them to a digital movie? I think it'd be fun to occasionally add them in, and it'd be a nice stylish addition that may throw those weaned on all digital media off and think it's defective.


In regards to the remastered The Good The Bad and The Ugly. I'm happy to hear the original mono mix is finally intact, even if I'm not a fan of the extended version of the film. But I can live with the additions as long as the audio isn't as messed with like the 5.1 remix.

The transfer issue does concern me. But after watching a couple heavily criticized Blu-Ray releases where many had issues with the transfer looking to radically different than what people think the film should look like. I'd say give the new GBU release a viewing, since screen captures posted online can be extremely misleading.

For example, I was amazed at how both Bram Stokers Dracula and the Criterion release(which I just watched last night) of Scanners was. Scanners is said to be plagued with an ugly green tint and color drained from the film and noise reduction applied. And yet, that green tint wasn't evident when I viewed the film, except maybe a scene or two where it was appropriate and even then nothing stood out to me. But the film looked normal to myself and did have a variety of colors, and I was really impressed by the quality. I'm not sure about the noise reduction claim, but nothing stood out to me as destroying the image quality and looking unnatural. And yet all the screen captures I saw online of the Criterion version looked awful in my opinion and I was hesitant to purchase it. But it was great I decided to see it for myself and had no problems with the transfer quality.

So I plan to give the restored GBU a viewing sometime when I run across a copy at a reasonable price, since I've only seen the original release in stores like Target and such.

hanshotfirst1138

I think Tarantino's feelings largely boil down to "I grew up watching movies this way, ergo I don't want to see them any other way." I think he's arguing for something which is perhaps valid, but I find his ways of stating things to be less intellectually defensible than I'd like. Kind of like how scratching the film in Grindhouse didn't constitute recapturing the 1970s aesthetic or the conditions under which said films were made. I agree with him to some extent; there's a magic and mystique to celluloid, and I jump at any chance I get to see film screenings, and digital has made me far less inclined to go to the cinema when I get a presentation at home which isn't dissimilar. But the fact is that film is on borrowed time, another couple of years at most, and the nostalgia many have for it doesn't change the financial fact that digital is now able to match its resolution an emulate it so closely that the average viewer wouldn't notice he difference. It certainly isn't an inferior presentation any longer. The Kodak alliance is valiant, and if there's ever a "long live film T-shirt, I'll order one , but the next generation of filmmakers will be trained on digital and film will go by the wayside. The image of Ansel Adams using Photoshop is intellectually abhorrent to me though . But let's be honest, a perfectionist like him would've been all over HDR. It's one of those sad inevitabilities of the price of progress. The car is here, the horse and buggy have to go. Most of the filmmakers fighting for film aren't young, and though studios may allow them to shoot film to appease them because of the power they have at the box office or film festivals, the notion that they can secure its future is sadly wishful thinking. The "democratization" of filmmaking it brings about maybe bring out tons of crap on YouTube, but it allows wannabe filmmakers more leverage than ever and makes DIY projects easier than ever too. I'd LOVE to be able to shoot film, but I don't think there's a single aspiring filmmaker out there who's go with it when the digital option is less expensive and more convenient. My local AMC, even if only briefly, gets all kinds of interesting stuff that they'd never have gotten back in the celluloid days because digital is so much less expensive to distribute. I love film. There is indeed magic a projector flickering at 24 frames per second with a projectionist up there, or holding a photograph on your hand and the mystique of the darkroom. There are countless films I'd kill to see projected on celluloid, which I'll lolly never get the chance to. But if a photography teacher brought you into the darkroom, your probably want your money for the credits back because you were being taught an outdated skill. Magic doesn't pay bills, and while you can make a case for it, it's hardly an inferior product anymore. Digital has come an amazingly huge distance in an astonishingly short space of time, and anything film has over it is likely something digital will be able to overcome with time. Go down swinging Kodak, but all good things must come to an end, I suppose.

Solid Snake

For digital, the last hold out aspect for me as a medium to take over and beat film in a fight is motion, it's an effect of motion on some rigs (maybe all?). Some fast motions in digital don't go as smooth as film. Kind of slight shadowed/washed effect. It's gotten better though. We're almost to the point where it can actually do everything film can. That's the last thing, for me at least. Otherwise...I'm behind it all the way. Evolution is good for film.

I guess the look too at times but I think that has to do w/ how it is tuned as an image.... so post work, I guess?

hdnmickey

Maybe I missed it in between alll the GBU talk, but there appears to be some issue with the new Rain Man disc. But since I couldn't find any reviews, I am only going by what I read. The issue seems to be about framing, and that this new remastered disc has the wrong framing.

Shannon Nutt

It's reportedly been re-framed, but - like many such arguments that go on online - the assumption is being made that the previous Blu-ray version was framed correctly. There's a little less at the top and bottom of the image on this new version, from what I hear.

hanshotfirst1138

What's the native ratio of two-perf Technicsope?

Solid Snake

Got the new Fargo BD for BF. Jesus. It is a pretty image. Never saw the previous one but it is a gorgeous film here.

I need to check out Rain Man, never seen it but I'm sure I'd like it.

TomOpus

Definitely, definitely. Just don't watch during Judge Wapner and The People's Court.