Jamers

After nearly a full paragraph of raving about the Star Trek Generations video, DVD Review concludes with "However, the transfer also exhibits some shimmering problems. Especially the close-ups of Data’s face and the desert scenes reveal these problems. The shimmering seems to be a problem of edge-enhancement applied too liberally to the transfer and is becoming very distracting at times. Many shots also reveal halos around contours as a result of the edge-enhancement."

And the same with The Digital Bits "Edges tend to jag and shimmer, and there's really no reason for it other than artificial edge-enhancement applied after the fact. Those of you with small, analog TVs will probably never notice it, but if you're watching on a big, widescreen anamorphic display or a video projector, it's definitely going to get on your nerves. Take a look at Worf's brandolier or the detailed rock faces on Veridian III at the end of the film. Ugh. The film is absolutely watchable, but you high-end videophiles are going to be ringing your hands."

I guess I never really knew this was a problem until I got my 46” TV. How friggin hard could it be to preview the video before sending it off to print? This is completely unacceptable.

PatrickMcCart

The Superbit version of Lawrence of Arabia has a little bit of edge enhancement in selected scenes, but it's a LOT less than the original Limited Edition.


One thing I noticed, though, is that some Lowry Digital Images restorations were criticized for having edge enhancement. I've actually found that it's really artifacts of film materials being from dupes. Although, Mary Poppins seems to have been given a 2nd pass of filtering by Disney.

Squirrel God

The worst EE I have ever seen was on Die Hard 3. That disk should win an award for it or something. My eyes actually started to water while watching because it was so bad. That movie is my favourite from the trilogy, but I just could not go through the suffering of watching it again with all that EE.

Jamers

Which edition? The original or the 5 star edition?

Squirrel God

Whichever one was in the ultimate trilogy boxset. 5 star?

Josh Z

Both of those reviews are wrong. The shimmer problem in Star Trek Generations is the result of several factors including excessive filtering and poor compression, but the disc does not have traditional edge enhancement.

The term "edge enhancement" tends to get thrown around a lot to describe just about any video transfer artifact by reviewers who don't know as much about DVD production as they'd like others to believe.

Jamers

The halos are definitely EE though.

Josh Z

Where are you seeing edge halos in Star Trek Generations? I saw lots of other problems (the shimmer is really bad), but no halos.

Sanitarium

As already mentioned, Episode 1 and Die Hard 3 are where I really noticed it. It's terrible on those discs.

renaldow

Good luck with that plan! I have a 42" Plasma and a HD upconverting DVD player connected via DVI. Both TV and the player have the same new Faroudja DCDi scaling chip.

While you get a great pic with a great DVD, the better equipment shows off the weaknesses of bad DVD's mercilessly. If EE is on the disc, the player and TV are only going to show that off more. Yes, you can definitely see improvements by properly callibrating your set, but even the best set and player cannot change how a disc was mastered. You'll be amazed how many discs still have a lot of macroblocking and artifacting issues when you swith to your new player.

Jamers

Just watched Star Trek Generations SE for the first time. I didn't see any shimmering, assuming I understand your meaning of shimmering. But I did see lots of white and black specs flash accross the screen. Like dust on the film in a movie theater. It was extremely distracting. Are these artifacts? Would a better DVD player and HDMI cable help reduce this or is this just part of the film?

DavidH

Tombstone and Phantom Menace are quite bad ---- I rented Die Hard III once and it is even worse.