WB issuing 1080i transfers for 1080P
 

For more info:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=683474

Glad I skipped those two titles.

They won't be the only ones.

And as some others have said, this affects BOTH sides of the HD war. For once, we can fight together against something.

Considering that the original source material for both titles was progressive, there is no excuse for making such a poor decision when creating the HD DVD. I would have preferred that they leave the disc at 1080i, and let my TV handle the deinterlacing (since it is apparent that my TV can do something that Warner's equipment can't).

Is this really a big deal - so only two of the HD DVD titles are sub-optimal?

How many of the other format's first titles are going to be Mpg2 on 20 or 25 Gig, which I would also consider sub-optimal?

It is a big deal. The whole point of us upgrading is to get the best image quality possible. Considering that Warner is handpicking their titles right now its surprising they would pick transfers that are not up to the quality needed for the new HD formats. This is something that really concerns me and I'm hoping we can get an exact list of titles that are using a 1080i transfer so that we can skip those for now.

If you consider that Warner has released eleven titles so far, yes, 18 percent is a big deal.

And that is not all. If you're interested in catalogue films (let's say films dating from 2000 or before), then that's 40 percent of titles affected.

It all depends on how Warner responds to this problem. They have those transfers (and maybe the encodings too) ready to use. Will they ditch them and order new ones at additional expense? Or will they run with what they have?

As DFNYC said, this is beyond the format war. I'm not any happier by having a choice of either bit-deprived MPEG2 Sony titles or jagged-to-hell Warner titles. :)

Especially when it's Full Metal Jacket we're talking about. :grunt:

I don't understand how the first comment relates to the second. Just because a film is older doesn't mean it inherently has to have an older, interlaced-only transfer. I don't recall seeing any of these comments directed towards Blazing Saddles, for instance, and I didn't spot any of the artifacts described in those threads when I watched that.

Because HD transfers were done in 1080i till recently. That's good enough for broadcast HD and D-VHS. Now all transfers are done in 1080p.

WRT Blazing Saddles, probably it's a new transfer (has it ever been shown in HD?).

It's a bit like the early days of CD, when an album from five years ago sounded worse than another from 1960.

I think he was referring to transfers that date back to 2000 or earlier, regardless of the age of the films.

Edit: now I see that's what Grubert said just above this post.

...but one doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the other. It's the age of the transfer that matters, not the age of the movie, as your "40%..." comment implied. It also depends on how you interpret "until recently" as far as when 1080p became standard over 1080i. My understanding is that 1080i transfers fell by the wayside quite some time.

Food for thought: theatrical and DVD release years of Warner titles:

Blazing Saddles: 1974/2004
Fugitive, The: 1993/2001
Full Metal Jacket: 1987/2001
Goodfellas: 1990/2004
Last Samurai, The: 2003/2004
Million Dollar Baby: 2004/2005
Phantom of the Opera, The: 2004/2005
Rumor Has It: 2005/2006
Swordfish: 2001/2001
Training Day: 2001/2002
Unforgiven: 1992/2002

I'm confused. Wasn't there a new transfer done of The Fugitive for the SE? That wasn't 2001 was it?

Yes it was 2001: http://whv.warnerbros.com/WHVPORTAL/...t.jsp?OID=5616

Wait a second...
didn't people say you could see the "head" during the train sequence?

Well, you couldn't in the 2001 version. Is it possible that they used the wrong master (1997)?

What head? What's the story on this?

Apparently a crew member could be seen in the original print. They digitally removed it for the SE release.

However, I remember reading a review of this disc that says it's still there. If that's the case, they went back to the OLD print for the original DVD release.

Are you talking about this?

If so, I can confirm that there's a man's head visible at 18:57. It's on the right-hand portion of the frame, obscured by the bridge. He's got a mustache and seems to be wearing a conductor's cap.

I wish I could do a real screen-cap off an HD-DVD, but this will have to do.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/image...1149291622.jpg

Is that the shot? Can someone with the SE DVD confirm that this guy's face isn't there?

THAT IS CORRECT! It's GONE on the 2001 DVD!

http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/20/pdvd0003ds.th.jpg

Is it possible that they did the 2001 HD transfer and it had the head at first, but they removed the head before doing the 2001 DVD master? I mean, maybe they removed it after it was downconverted to DVD resolution.

It's possible, yes. It's also possible that the 2001 DVD just uses the same master as the 1997 DVD with that small digital "correction" applied.

From the review here, you can't tell. It says there are differences with compression but that could be attrbuted to single vs. dual-layer. Still could have been the same transfer.

Once again... I don't see how we can trust an industry that puts out non-OAR releases to correctly handle a format known mainly for its video quality.

Are you referring to Warner or to the entire film industry?

Full Metal Jacket transfer
 

Full Metal Jacket is by far the worst HD DVD out there.

There are jagged edges all OVER the place and you don't have to look for them either.

There were 3 releases that were supposedly messed up, right? FMJ, Fugitive and Perfect Storm, I believe.

Well, I have not seen Fugitive, but I did see Perfect Storm. I don't get what all the fuss is about Storm. It wasn't quite as impressive as some other titles, but still it was extremely good looking to me. There were 2 or 3 reviews that rated Perfect Storm highly, too.

However, Storm and FMJ are in a different galaxy as far as PQ. FMJ barely looks better than the DVD version and I'm NOT exaggerating. FMJ and PS don't look like they suffer from the same problem. FMJ is far, far worse... I can't even imagine what happened to it. It can't just be the 1080i "bobbing" issue because PS is light years ahead of FMJ.

I almost bought FMJ because people said it suffered the same transfer problem as PS did. I figured it had to look better than the DVD version... I'm glad I didn't. I would strongly encourage anyone considering FMJ to rent before buying.

It can be used as a reviewer reference. If you find a review that is positive on FMJ for video quality, you can discount that reviewer.