Solid Snake

Wait. I thought the Tati box was official?

Paul_SD

Thanks for the info!
I just glanced at the huge thread over on AVS , but it didn't look like people were harping about any consistent issues with the unit so I thought it would be 'safe'. I did see someone else mention that they used switched ports because of some problem, but I thought that was a unique problem to that one unit.
Besides being an extra $100, the reasons I didn't go with the Darbee model are
1) I already own a standalone Darbee
2) someone said the QDEO offered picture enhancement settings, including more color controls, that I thought might be handy- whereas the VRS on the 103D didn't. The little I read made it seem like the VRS was a slightly gimped chip compared to the QDEO, used only because it mated better with the Darbee processor.

Already got the ship notice, so it's too late to do anything now anyway.
It's always something.

Neil M.

It hasn't been announced yet but their New Year's drawing shows the head of Hulot in a box so the belief is that there will be a box set.

Giles

since a French release and UK one is happening

French edition:

- "Jour de fête" version 1949 (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono - N&B - 1.37 - 1080p - 87')
- "Jour de fête" version 1964 (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono - N&B avec éléments colorisés - 1.37 - 1080p - 80')
- "Jour de fête" version 1994 (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono - Couleur - 1.37 - 720p - 77')
- "Les vacances de Mr Hulot" version 1978 (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono - N&B - 1.37 - 1080p - 89')
- "Les vacances de Mr Hulot" version 1953 (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono - N&B - 1.37 - 720p - 95')
- "Mon oncle" (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono - Couleur - 1.37 - 1080p - 116')
- "My Uncle" (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono - Couleur - 1.37 - 1080p - 106')
- "Playtime" (DTS-HD MA 3.0 - Couleur - 1.78 - 1080p - 124')
- "Trafic" (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono - Couleur - 1.37 - 1080p - 98')
- "Parade" (DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono - Couleur - 1.37 - 1080p - 90')

UK bluray extras

7 discs
Jour de Fete: À l'américaine: Jour de fete documentary (2013, 78 mins)
Original Trailer
Les Vacances de M. Hulot: Beau Temps, Vent Léger documentary (39 mins)
Mon Oncle: Tout est Beau documentary (52 mins)
Tout Communique documentary (51 mins)
Playtime: Jacques Tati on Tempo (25 mins)
Like Home documentary (18 mins)
Sequences commentary by Jérôme Deschamps and Stéphane Goudet
Trafic: Trafic International: Interview with Jonathan Romney (2013, 15 mins)
Parade: En piste documentary (2013, 27 mins)
Short Films: Les leçons du professeur Goudet: An analysis of the cinema of Jacques Tati
56 page booklet.

it will be interesting to see what the Criterion edition will contain. I must say I really like the full length commentary on the BFI Playtime bluray - which for some reason Criterion couldn't or wouldn't include in it's entirety for their version. I for one am NOT impressed with the transfer done for the Criterion release and according to this link a new scan was done for Playtime - if the BFI edition has this transfer, you can bet I'll be importing this and not going with Criterion's edition:

http://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/view...p?f=32&t=35333

hanshotfirst1138

Have Criterion ever shared extras with another release? I know that as with a lot of their content, some have become exclusive and valuable.

Josh Z

QDEO offers a lot of pointless features that you should never use. If you want to calibrate your picture, you should do that in the display, not the Blu-ray player. Its "enhancements" are pretty crude and cause artifacts like edge ringing or black crush. You should leave all of the QDEO settings at zero regardless.

Darbee enhancement is separate from QDEO and is more useful, IMO.

rocket1312

I don't think Criterion licenses out a lot of the extras that they create in house, although it does happen from time to time. For example, the Taxi Driver blu-ray includes the Criterion laserdisc commentary.

However, not all of Criterion's extras are created in house. A lot of them are licensed from other places. Those show up all the time on other studio's releases.

slop101

All the extras from The Rock Criterion dvd are on the Disney blu-ray. Not sure if that's "sharing" or a rights thing.

Paul_SD

I guess I was holding out hope this player might be a budget (quasi video processor) solution to tweak away some of the annoying revisionist aspects of several discs- in a way I haven't been fully able to do with just the display. But upon further reading it sounds like the settings available are all just redundant display level ones anyway.
I'll probably play around with it though just to see what's going on.

Was I wrong in thinking that because I already own a Darblet that the 103D would have been redundant- or does having it integrated in the unit alter the effect of that processing for the better?

Might as well mention- I placed the order online Monday (they're closed on Mondays), I got a ship notice and tracking number by Tuesday night, and about an hour ago it got delivered. And with free shipping to boot! Good thing they had a map on the site with estimated delivery times by region otherwise I would have been tempted to pay $20 more for two day shipping.

Looking forward to giving it a thorough going over tonight, if we can dodge some expected thunderstorms. Otherwise I may not get a chance to see what it can do till the weekend. Glad I kept some PAL discs when I pulled the Malata out of the system 8 years ago. It's gonna be great to finally be able to see some of those again after all these years.

Josh Z

I'd say that for all practical purposes, they're redundant. However, an argument has been made that Darbee processing works best when applied to the native signal closest to the source, before any scaling or other processing is performed. The difference is surely marginal at best, though.

If you already have an external Darblet, I'm sure you'll be fine with the 103. As I said, the HDMI 2 output bypasses QDEO and doesn't have the Noise Reduction issue. Switch between the two outputs to compare. The DNR is fairly mild on HD sources like Blu-ray, but stronger and more noticeable on SD sources like DVD.

Ah, Malata. I had one of those back in the day. That player had a bunch of features that I've still never seen on any other DVD player. I loved its infinite zoom. I was very sad when the player eventually died on me.

Paul_SD

Mine has just been kicking around the basement, getting moved from atop of one pile of junk to another. Will probably end up donating it to Goodwill soon. Not worth it to sell it, and I hate to just junk it. If anyone wants it, just pay the postage and it's yours.

Supermallet

The Malata was completely brilliant. Loved the X/Y adjustments that let me correct against overscan.

nitin77

Josh,

I was under the impression that running the video through HDMI2 meant that QDEO processing wouldnt take place at all, which as you say would stop the built in noise reduction, but wouldnt it also stop the dvd upscaling?

Josh Z

No, deinterlacing and scaling to 1080p in the player are performed by the Mediatek processor, which applies to both outputs. QDEO is only used for additional picture control enhancements (that you shouldn't use anyway), and for scaling from 1080p to 4k. If you don't have a 4k TV, the latter is irrelevant.

Why So Blu?

My copy of the UK Nosferatu import is prepping for shipment. And then we're seeing it at the Cinefamily tomorrow night in 35 mm!

Paul_SD

Bd.com has their review of Nosferatu up. The caps chosen for both versions don't look nearly as bad as the ones seen elsewhere. Though the review does mention some funky stuff going on with the grain in a temporal way (unnaturally comes and goes). If I was just going by that review, I don't think I would see what all the fuss is.
But then you look at the Beaver caps and there is a tremendous difference between the two.
Had I somehow been able to magically avoid all this discussion or seeing the previous screencap comparisons (i.e If I'd been busy having a real life), I likely would have just excitedly taken delivery of the Shout disc, watched it , and enjoyed it immensely for the simple fact it was substantially better than either of the previous two Anchor Bay releases. And I'm sure I would have been quite happy.

nitin77

thanks for that, time to switch to HDMI2. I didnt realise there was a different processor for the deinterlacing and processing, the manual makes it sound like QDEO is doing all the work.

Paul_SD

Finally had a chance to play around with the Oppo for a few hours last night.
Set-up was a snap. I love having the settings accessible on the home/start-up screen. Switching between regions was as simple as could be and no hiccups going back and forth between them five or six times in a row.
Video quality looked good. 1080p looked great on my five year old Panasonic, so I wasn't expecting to be blown away there. Unfortunately of the five PAL discs I still own, only two are what I would consider solid encodes/transfers that are pleasant to watch. The others vary from watchable but weak to riddled with artifacts and chroma noise. Those three tended to look electronically harsh and edgy. OTOH, the one Japanese disc I have (The Brink's Job) seemed to display a much smoother, more solid image than on the Panny. Was pleasantly surprised by that.
Overall I was very happy with the image from standard DVDs, if they were decent encodes to begin with.
Audio quality was even better. Every soundtrack sounded better on this. First disc I played was Ghost & Mr Chicken and the jazzy Vic Mizzy theme had a sparkle to it that was sublime.

It played everything I threw at it without a hitch. The transport has a nice solid feel and disc boot up was lightning fast. No more waiting as the HDMI handshake has to work its way through "no signal/out of range" blank screens seven or eight times.

I was having some second thoughts about this earlier last night. I don't like having significant titles in my collection locked to only a specific player- and then being in an expensive fix if that player should crap out. But after a few hours with the Oppo, my feeling is it was absolutely worth every penny.

hanshotfirst1138

Did you but the region-free mod and install it yourself, or did you buy a modified version?

Paul_SD

Bought a modded version from JVB Digital for $589 based on the endorsement from Josh. They want $79 for a DIY kit. I could have sworn I read there was soldering involved, but there isn't. I'm not going to sweat the $10 though.

I wasn't as keen on the Malata as you guys were. It worked OK for PAL and non region 1 discs, but if I flipped back to a R1 NTSC disc, the picture settings would need calibrating- which would then throw them out of whack when I hooked my primary Panasonic back up. Something wasn't translating properly. So it was very much a one trick pony unit for me. That's why I wasn't keen on repeating the experience with Bd.
But the Oppo is obviously nothing like that one. Between the feature set, AQ and PQ and seeming build quality, this is the lushest, highest quality optical disc player I've ever owned. And at the price, just a few bucks more than either the first HD DVD or Bd player I owned (both $500 + tax) both of which I couldn't wait to replace with a better one.

Giles

Malata has a region free bluray player? I currently have a Malata region free DVD player, a region free Sherwood bluray player AND just added Oppo 103D player.

Paul_SD

No, Malata was just DVD. Up till now that was my only Region free solution of any kind- aside from ripping a dvd and converting it to a mp4 to watch on my ipad.

Why So Blu?

Cinefamily is presenting a 2-night only showing of Fata Morgana via DCP next week. I'm tempted on going.

http://www.cinefamily.org/films/spec...ents-may-2014/

hanshotfirst1138

Do it. You don't get many chances like that.

Why So Blu?

It'd be a given if it were presented in 35mm but it's DCP. The film will also be one of the boxed sets, so where's my incentive to see it on the big screen? I don't know.