Pursued has been delayed until 9/4.

DVD Beaver on Rio Grande

Any word on Body Parts?

Why are their 2 versions of Bound on one bd25? Unacceptable IMHO.

Perhaps they use seamless branching? Someone correct me if you now otherwise, but I assumed the only difference between the two versions was in the lovemaking sequence. Depending on which cut of the film is selected, one or the other version of that scene could be played but the rest of the movie would be the same files.

Of course I don't have the disc yet; I'm just suggesting that would be the easiest way to encode two versions with fairly minor differences.

According to this

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/dvdre...nd_blu-ray.htm

Olive used two separate transfers instead of streaming, and just 2.0 sound too. Rather disappointing.

Lossy audio too? Really?

Olive, you are not Warner circa 2006-2008, I think.

Get with the program!

And we're finally getting some Ophuls...

October 16th
Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948) (!!!)
Three Secrets (Robert Wise, 1950)
The Slender Thread (Sydney Pollack, 1965)
The Sterile Cuckoo (Alan J. Pakula, 1969)
Up Tight! (Jules Dassin, 1968)

While the screen captures for Olive's release look quite good, IMO, it's disappointing that they didn't utilize the disc space well (by doing streaming branching, which could have opened up the space for a lossless audio track and some extras). Now I'm undecided on picking that one up...

I'll definitely have to take a look at Letter From An Unknown Woman. I was pleased with Olive's releases for High Noon and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, so hopefully Bound'll be the exception to the rule.

holy shit Up Tight!
Dassin's remake of John Ford's The Informer. Just made my day.

I wish they were releasing all three Ophuls titles in October, but I can't wait for Letter. I'll have to investigate the others.

First review of The Boogens

Blu-ray.com review of The Boogens, which has already shipped from Import CDs.

Nice reviews!

10/30:



It will include a 69-minute making-of documentary, 'Aldrich Over Munich'.

Also 10/30:

Olive is starting to cost me a lot of money! 2 more to get.

More 10/30:

Blu-ray.com review of Child's Play

DVD Beaver on Private Hell 36

Why are Olive so averse to 1:85?

Olive licenses these films from Paramount and (mostly) uses the masters that Paramount gives them. Both Paramount and Warner, as a matter of corporate policy, open the mattes on 1.85:1 movies to 1.78:1. This happens 100% of the time with all Paramount and Warner 1.85:1 movies.

DVDBeaver is being extraordinarily hyperbolic by whining, "The original 1.85:1 has been bastardized to 1.78."

"Bastardized"? Seriously? The difference between 1.85:1 and 1.78:1 is literally a few scan lines and does not affect the compositional intent. The difference is less than the overscan on most TVs, and less than the typical projection variance in most commercial theaters.





This is well within the tolerances that any director or cinematographer would find acceptable. Anyone who would call this a "bastardization" knows nothing about filmmaking.

I also find it extremely hypocritical that the site would moan about this but not complain about 2.39:1 movies that are mildly cropped to 2.35:1, which happens all the time as well.

'Bastardization' is definitely too strong a word for it, but that seems to be the boilerplate vocabularly he always uses. It's not like we're talking about pan-and-scan here. The difference is, as you note, extremely minimal, I just didn't understand why the practice seemed to be a regular occurrence.

Josh, I agree with you that the opening up the mattes to change 1.85:1 to 1.78:1 isn't a big issue (I'm sure the studios do it to fully fill the 1.78 screen), but I don't think it should be dismissed completely.

Going from 1.66:1 to 1.78:1 on a 1920x1080 screen results in a pixel gain of 6.7%.
Going from 1.85:1 to 1.78:1 results in a pixel gain of 4.0%.
Is a change of 6.7% not OK, but a change of 4.0% OK? I would much rather that the change be 0%. Holy hell was raised about Barry Lyndon being changed from 1.66:1 to 1.78:1 (yes I know Kubrick deemed 1.75:1 acceptable), but what is the cutoff? Would 5% be OK? 6%? I don't know the answer if in fact there is one; I say, if it is possible to have the correct AR (and framing of course) according to the spec, then have it be correct. This likely will more accurate to the spec than what you would get in a theater, as you note that variances in aperture plates, keystone distortion, etc. can result in an image that is not exactly 1.85:1 (and may not be framed accurately either).

And yes, if it's supposed to be 2.39:1, then it should be 2.39:1, dammit, even if I can't see the difference

By the way, these reviews, if accurate, report examples of Paramount and WB titles that are 1.85:1 on blu-ray. I'm guessing the producer insisted

Review #1

Review #2

Seems the Beaver is really choosing its battles. A 4.0% pixel gain is nothing compared to the fact the Olive routinely leaves 8 to 10 GB of a single layer disc unused by the feature. That is a huge concern for me, and one the could easily be remediated. Beaver says only that Olive "modestly" encodes its releases...

First off, altering Barry Lyndon from 1.66:1 to 1.78:1 required that picture information be cropped from the top and bottom so that the image could be zoomed up. These other 1.85:1 movies are adjusted to 1.78:1 by opening the mattes and exposing a sliver more picture information on the top and bottom. No picture information is lost, only a negligible amount more is gained. The latter is far more tolerable than the former.

Both of these discs are 1.78:1. The person who reviewed them at the time took his specs from the disc packaging or press releases. He didn't often measure the actual ratios.

Screencaps on these sites confirm the 1.78:1:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRe...de_blu-ray.htm

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Reds-Blu-ray/169/