Frosty The Snowman
10-30-10 | 01:48 PM
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Frosty The Snowman
Comments made from the criteria of the PQ Tiers...
Found only on Blu-ray as part of the 3-BD set, The Original Christmas Classics, Frosty The Snowman looks absolutely spectacular. There is no other way to express my amazement at the 1969 animated special's first appearance in high-definition. The Christmas magic that was used to bring Frosty to life must have been applied to the Blu-ray's stunning image. You can safely donate or give away prior DVD versions to a church or charity without a second thought, for the BD is simply breathtaking.
Licensed from Classic Media, the 3-disc set was released on October 12, 2010 by distributor Vivendi Entertainment. The 25-minute television special from Rankin and Bass originally aired in 1969, but looks as sparkling in 1080p as a new feature. The video is encoded in AVC on a BD-25, at an average video bitrate around 30 Mbps that rarely dips below 27 Mbps. Given that high-quality treatment, there is zero macroblocking and the BD looks 100% transparent to the master. That allows the Blu-ray's picture to retain every bit of detail possible from it.
Correctly framed in the original broadcast aspect ratio of 4:3, the lack of debris and dirt is remarkable. The original production elements must be in fantastic shape, or a top-notch restoration of recent vintage had to have been used as the basis for the HD-transfer. It is easily in the same class as the excellent work that Warner did on the theatrical Looney Tunes shorts. Revitalized is an apt description for a Blu-ray that removes the damages of time and neglect, as in this case.
No one since the original animators working on the animation cels themselves, have seen Frosty in such vivid and pristine clarity. White levels are clean and uniformly excellent, while primary colors leap off the screen. Not a hint of fading or dullness pervades the nicely saturated hues of red and green that pepper the picture, as is common in older animated material of this type. The master has been left untouched by any postprocessing like sharpening or filtering.
The impressive picture quality deserves to be ranked somewhere in Tier One. By no means is Frosty The Snowman being graded on a curve, but for a production from 1969 the cleanliness and consistency speaks for itself. It makes the Peanuts stuff on Blu-ray look as dull as dishwater in comparison. What makes the BD important is that future generations will now have an impeccable reference version preserved for posterity of this Rankin-Bass classic in splendid 1080p resolution. The cost of the entire set is worth it for the transfer and handling of Frosty The Snowman alone.
Watching on a 60” Pioneer KURO plasma at 1080p/24, fed by a 60 GB PS3 (firmware 3.41), from a viewing distance of six feet.
Found only on Blu-ray as part of the 3-BD set, The Original Christmas Classics, Frosty The Snowman looks absolutely spectacular. There is no other way to express my amazement at the 1969 animated special's first appearance in high-definition. The Christmas magic that was used to bring Frosty to life must have been applied to the Blu-ray's stunning image. You can safely donate or give away prior DVD versions to a church or charity without a second thought, for the BD is simply breathtaking.
Licensed from Classic Media, the 3-disc set was released on October 12, 2010 by distributor Vivendi Entertainment. The 25-minute television special from Rankin and Bass originally aired in 1969, but looks as sparkling in 1080p as a new feature. The video is encoded in AVC on a BD-25, at an average video bitrate around 30 Mbps that rarely dips below 27 Mbps. Given that high-quality treatment, there is zero macroblocking and the BD looks 100% transparent to the master. That allows the Blu-ray's picture to retain every bit of detail possible from it.
Correctly framed in the original broadcast aspect ratio of 4:3, the lack of debris and dirt is remarkable. The original production elements must be in fantastic shape, or a top-notch restoration of recent vintage had to have been used as the basis for the HD-transfer. It is easily in the same class as the excellent work that Warner did on the theatrical Looney Tunes shorts. Revitalized is an apt description for a Blu-ray that removes the damages of time and neglect, as in this case.
No one since the original animators working on the animation cels themselves, have seen Frosty in such vivid and pristine clarity. White levels are clean and uniformly excellent, while primary colors leap off the screen. Not a hint of fading or dullness pervades the nicely saturated hues of red and green that pepper the picture, as is common in older animated material of this type. The master has been left untouched by any postprocessing like sharpening or filtering.
The impressive picture quality deserves to be ranked somewhere in Tier One. By no means is Frosty The Snowman being graded on a curve, but for a production from 1969 the cleanliness and consistency speaks for itself. It makes the Peanuts stuff on Blu-ray look as dull as dishwater in comparison. What makes the BD important is that future generations will now have an impeccable reference version preserved for posterity of this Rankin-Bass classic in splendid 1080p resolution. The cost of the entire set is worth it for the transfer and handling of Frosty The Snowman alone.
Watching on a 60” Pioneer KURO plasma at 1080p/24, fed by a 60 GB PS3 (firmware 3.41), from a viewing distance of six feet.
