PatrickMcCart

The problem is that only the Photoplay version has the color effects added in the rooftop scene and the colorized 2nd half of the Bal Masque (after the rooftop scene - it survives only in B&W).

A lot of the speed adjustment was in post, which means the ghosting would be visible in either PAL or NTSC. But TCM aired the Photoplay version and it didn't look as bad, but it did have more dirt/scratch damage.

Carcosa

Yes. that makes sense. But...I didn't notice any of the ghosting problem with the David Shepard release of the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA which isn't as complete as the Photoplay version and doesn't have nearly the amount of digital restoration done. But it runs at the correct speed.

This is all very confusing to me.

Ms. M

I was at a presentation of this film at the Tampa Theater today and they noted before the show that they were playing the DVD (they got an advance copy) because it looked better than any film reel would have. The movie looked great on the big screen - as clear as films I've seen made decades after.

Takeshi357

Wait, when did THAT come out?

Ky-Fi

Curiously enough, I just saw this for the first time today---fantastic movie. I was treated to a great live score by Devil Music, and I would highly recommend this presentation----there's a number of dates in the Northeast over the next couple weeks where they'll be performing this:

http://www.massdist.com/dme/2007%20fall%20tour.htm


The score was pretty impressive---spaghetti western guitars, fiddles, Eastern European folk music, good percussion. Very well done.

Carcosa

It hasn't...yet. It will be out on the 19th of Nov I believe...as will the KINO edition. They are basically both the same restoration. Red thru the past posts and you'll see whats up here...

Carcosa

Are the rooftop scene and 2nd Bal sequence recolored or is it the original Technicolor? I remember reading that Photoplay used Shepard's color footage...but his is only the pre-rooftop Bal scene.

The DVD presentation is virtually free of any signs of damage with the exception of parts of the color scenes and a few parts that only exist in damaged prints. Its an amazing restoration that rates up there with THE MATINEE IDOL and the new JAZZ SINGER release...it just suffers from a poor video transfer.

PatrickMcCart

The Bal Masque up until the rooftop scene survives as genuine dye-transfer 35mm (from the 1929 talkie re-release). The Bal Masque after the rooftop scene does not survive in color, so Photoplay had it colorized to match.

The rooftop scene originally had the Phantom's cape hand-stenciled red. No prints survive, but the Photoplay version copies it as correct as possible.

Photoplay's work was not done on film, but entirely in the digital medium back in 1996. The Matinee Idol was 28mm to 1080p back to 35mm again for preservation. The Jazz Singer was 35mm to 1080p (or even 2K). Phantom does not have a film-quality digital restoration yet like many other films.

Carcosa

Thanks for the enlightening responses. I love this kind of info.

I believe Photoplay also did a restoration of the Douglas Fairbanks THIEF OF BAGDAD...do you know if this has shown up on DVD? I don't think the Kino edition is it and I know the original IMAGE edition was a David Shepard effort. The Eureka website doesn't make mention if it is.....

Despite the PAL conversion thing, the Kino METROPOLIS DVD has some pretty glowing reviews when it came out, including one from DVD Savant and a "best of the best" type of rating from DVD REVIEW who didn't comment on the "ghosting" issue at all....I'm softening up here. I really would rather buy an NTSC disc if at all possible.

PatrickMcCart

Kino's DVD for The Thief of Bagdad is excellent. Great image quality, with a PERFECT score by the Mont Alto Orchestra.

Takeshi357

Oh, okay.

I'm just shocked and all, with me having waited for ages for some kinda definite edition of this film, and it almost managed to slip right under my nose.

Carcosa

On one of the previous pages, someone posted link to a new trailer of this restored version...and its pretty incredible. I believe Eureka has it on their website also....

jmj713

It's really too bad the two editions have mutually exclusive extras.

Takeshi357

Eureka has a 80-page booklet, while Kino has photo gallery, scene comparison and excerpts from other Murnau's films. I'm assuming the restoration bit is the same on both.

Doesn't really seem like anything truly dramatic to me. It's possible that the booklet will have a fair share of photographs in it anyway. Of course, I live in the Region 2 area anyway, so the MoC release is the one for me to buy.

Carcosa

Yes, I think you are in good shape. Check out DVD BEAVER and look at the comparisons of the METROPOLIS DVDs. The Eureka disc has a slight edge over Kino's.

Richard Malloy

The Eureka (really, the "Masters of Cinema" line from Eureka) release of "Metropolis" is IMO more than a slight edge. It was the first Kino title I replaced, had both discs briefly, and was able to A:B them.

And "MOC" booklets are not simply wide-spaced, large font nothings. They tend to be extremely long and well-researched, with essays, articles, transcripts of Q&As, etc. Their "Kwaidan" release had to use a special "double DVD" looking case just to fit the fat booklet. I believe Criterion has recently upped the quality and quantity of their written scholarship to match MOC.

I'm not here to bury Kino, but given the great deals we've seen lately on MoC discs (even with the weak dollar), and Kino's extremely high and unwarranted price-point, I would definitely urge you folks to look at MOC whenever there's a shared title. Chances are it'll be better.

Takeshi357

And at 80 pages, you can probably drop the "let" from "booklet".

Steve

this was one of the main reasons I bought an Oppo region free player. When I can, I get the R2 MoC version and play native PAL on my system (i have a front projection DLP). If I let the Oppo do the convert to NTSC I can see the difference - which is what I imagine what Kino vs MoC is like. But for R1 only folks, Kino isn't that bad - just over priced in my opinion. Metropolis being squeezed on 1 disc vs 2 discs (like MoC) was something I didn't understand tho. That was strange to me.

Takeshi357

I just noticed that the Eureka release has an edge over Kino with the inclusion of a commentary as well.

I guess it's pretty obvious now which one I'll go for...

Darryl

Watched the Eureka 2 disc this evening. The Murnau documentary and the restoration featurette were very informative. The film itself looks amazing!

hanshotfirst1138

AT LAST!!

Assuming that it's done correctly.

Alfred Bergman

HEY FOLKS, A RESTORATION BRIEF DEMONSTRATION ON NOSFERATU

http://www.kino.com/video/news.php?news_id=57

They didn't replaced the missing frames. Nitrate, compared to accetate, could tear very easy, that why there is so much missing frames in old films, specially silent that required a simple projector (which usually didn't cared well the fim in terms of friction), was often.
The Image Entertaiment second version of Nosferatu had many of the frames that was missing on the Kino edition, but the footage was of inferior picture quality.

If they woud replace the mising frames with frames from other footages, they would create a "hiccup" in image quality and contrast, or even geometry of the frame. This could be minimized by contrast match of both sources, geometry compensation (adjust size and shape of the frame), and a bit of sharpness or grain reduction technic to attenuate to certain degree the image quality differences. But most digital restoration don't care about those important details, or don't have the right tools or the right stuff to performe it.

This restoration, despite of really very welcome, still have the limitation of almost all digital restoration projects use to have. They didn't cleaned all dirty and dust of the film (despite a very few is normal to any film) allowing min some scenes several debris. The vertical scratches was not fully removed, and also some abrasion sporadic scratchs. The vertical tranparent persistent lines, probable remains of deep large scratchs removed by wet-gate, are visible. Large weak tranparent marks are still visible. It's more easy to remove a opaque little dust than a large very tranparent stain, even if the stain is like a overexposed or subexposed area of the frame.

WETGATE JUST WORKS IF THE SCRATCHES ARE IN THE FILM BASE OF THE PRINT, AS A PHSICAL DAMAGE, AND NOT IF THE IMAGE OF THE SCRATCH IS PRINTED-IN AS IMAGE.
SO IF A SCRATCH NEGATIVE IS USED TO DRY STRIKE COPIES, THE COPIES WILL PRESENT THE SCRATCH. iF YOU COPY WITH WET-GATE, THE SCRATCH WILL BE COVERED AND THE THE PRINT WILL HAVE NOT THE SCRATHCS. BUT THE SCRATCH CAN'T BE ON THE FILM EMULSION, OTHERWISE WIL BE STILL PRESENT, DESPITE OF BE MINIMIZED A BIT.

Those clips posted above tried to hide some remaining low quality scenes still present in the Bologna restoration.

Let me explain:

The Bologna restoration is based mostly in a great print found on the Cinemateque Française by Luciano Berriatua (he spent years and years trying to find this print), which was originally stroked from the original camera negative in the 20's. The print offered the best image quality than any other surviving footage of Nosferatu. But this copy was victim of censorchip and also from deterioration, so several missing scenes and deteriorated or partially deteriorated scenes was replaced by using footage of The 12th hour (a talkie version of nosferatu made in 1930 by reediting to have a new end where Helen ends alive), and other footages. So several scenes of the Bologna restoration are not as in great shape in terms of image clarity/definition compard to the the best quality segments.

The footage from The 12th Hour (Die zwölfte Stunde) was the best image qualiyt print available before the new print found in Cinemateque Française. I also suspect that Bologna Restoration of Nosferatu also used another print to replace missing shot, which derives from the a common print from were the basic footage used in The Image Entertainment editions was copied. I noticed some few scenes on both presents the same focus hiccups, when there are sporadic lost of focus (virgem film lose contact with master film in the optical printer).
Those focus hiccups could be minimized by filter to increase sharpness just in the frames that suffered it, but the foccus hiccpuc happens in different degrees and sometimes more unfocused in the center than the bords or a little in the top frame and more in the lower frame. That would require a manula work and proper tools, as long I understand, wasn't created to treat this specific problem. Even with the correction very well made the result would not be perfect since sharpness filter don't exactly recover the focus, but tries to increase the image information detail to give a senssation of more focus.

Another problem with the Bologna restoration is about choose of footage and decision to avoid footage image quality mixture in a single scenes when possible. This mean that if they had a given scene incomplete in a quality footage, and the same scene in a complete footage but of lower image quality, they will use the entire lower quality footage instead of combine the quality footage with the lower quality footage to complete the scene.

The restoration of Chaplin Keystone shorts used a similar decision. They believe that mixture different quality source in a single scene, would be distractive damaging the view experience of the film. For me this is a bit silly, specially in a video about the Keystoine shorts restoration, showing when they used a lower quality just because the shorter quality footage was a little bether, crisper than the complete scene footage.

Maybe for the HD restoration they could had rearranged some few footage choices. If a segment from the quality footge wasn't used due present some deterioration marks, and those marks could be removed digitally, they could reinsert those segments instead of use the lower quality footage.
That's why they must preserve even the mediun deteriorated segments of the the films, since the future can open door to restore it or maybe use somehow the image information details of that.

If the Lowry Digital Images, actual DTS Digital Images, which have the best image details enhancement technology for film restoration, would restored Nosferatu, they would certainly use the best footage in all scenes as possible, trying to match the image quality and contrast of the lower qualit footage. And surely , should cost much more.

I would like to point about the different tinting used in the HD digitally restored edition, compared to the earlier Kino edition. Some scenes have different tinting, if we compare the Kino with those clips of the HD edition. The HD edition have a scene with tinting and toning, the carnivorous plant scene. Tintig is add dyes in the film base (tranparent plastic) while toning is replace the silver content of the film replacing with dyes. Combining tinting with toning it's possible to get a kind of color gradient, like we see in the clip whowing red to orange.

Image entertaimnet editions have different tinting from both, Kino earlier DVD and the HD restoration. The Kino was suposed to be exactly the Bologna restoration, which calins to have the specific tinting desired by Murnau. But this DH is also the bologna restoration, just cleaned up digitally, and present a different tinting than the early Kino version of Bologna restoration.
So I ask: Have the film restorer certain about the right tinting??? Have the register for tinting survived??? Or have they just made guess for the color on many scenes???

Notice that the yellow tint it's more vivid in the HD, more pleasant. Other earlier DVD which claimed to use the Bologna restoration applied different color tinting for the scenes. What a fuss...

Anyway congratualtion to the FW. Murnau Stiftung for the great restoration investiment, making this movie finally on the way to the audience.
Long live Nosferatu!

--

Deke Rivers

i thought it wasnt out until 11/19?

Alfred Bergman

MK2 realise??????
Documentary as extra.

http://www.ecranlarge.com/dvd-details-4213.php
http://www.ecranlarge.com/upload/dvd...rge_219877.png


MK2 keep the same lazy habit of just place frames as menus backgrounds!!!

http://www.ecranlarge.com/upload/dvd...rge_240452.jpg
http://www.ecranlarge.com/upload/dvd...rge_240450.jpg
http://www.ecranlarge.com/upload/dvd...rge_240451.jpg

More cropped than Kino 2002 DVD??? See: http://www.ecranlarge.com/upload/dvd...rge_240448.jpg At least for this shot in specific, seens yes.

The trailler and specially the restoration demosntration video (http://www.kino.com/video/news.php?news_id=57) dispayed a wider frame aperture, since that once stabilized the film can go to video witout severe cropping, desapite of some cropping occur in the stabilization process.

The theater screen have cropping, since we don't see frame edge on the cinema theater, so the samll cropping from stabilization could be added of black bars, and so we would see the image wider on the cinema screen if the negative was printed that way.

Some cropping is often in talkie copies from silents, since most silent was copied into talkie prints or got a sountrack music score, which have the space for optical soundtrack, so the image when copied this way is cropped in one side. The talkie chemical footage, even virgen film, had the space for soundtrack, so could not fit 100% of the area of a silent print, since was copied by contact.
The 12th Hour (1930) footage, sound recut of Nosferatu, reedited, probalby have cropping in one side, and this footage was use by the Boolgna restoration too for some scenes.

When mastered to video, we can say that's often they use different cropping during video mastering. Even modern films have different cropping while mastering for video.

check comparisons: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcom...vs%20Kino.html
and: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcom...osferatu-3.htm

As you can see above, even the restoration editions on DVD of the Bologna restoration have different cropping.
But I ask if they, DVD producers, got a HD tape direct from the FW. Murnau Stftung for this new Nosferatu edition.

Darryl

I'm curious to see the Kino version. I watched the Eureka 2 disc this past weekend, and the restoration is phenomenal! The 2nd disc containing the Murnau documentary as well as the restoration featurette were informative as well.