The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Source, blu-ray.com

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

So you've said before. Why make another thread for it? Still don't see a source or article about it.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/hd-talk/604...ay-2013-a.html

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Bring it!

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

YEAAAAAAAAAA :thumbsup:

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Fox Connect Pre-order

List price is only $19.99.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Is this that TNT reality series that aired last summer with Rich Eisen as host?

http://www.tntdrama.com/title/display/?oid=290127

Who the fuck cares. It got cancelled. It was a shitty show too. Why would anyone want to buy the BD?

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

I think this is the Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Charles Bronson, and Donald Pleasence version.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

My All-Time Favorite WW2 movie. McQueen was great in this movie.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Great re-watchability quotient. So many great actors, fine performances, memorable moments.

Worth it just for the motorcycle jump...most VHS rental tapes back in the day probably were jittery/wrinkled at that spot from all of the rewinding. After that, every kid on the block wanted any old motocycle, scooter, whatever. Those of us who only had bikes built jumps to try to emulate the scene (with varying results, lumps, and bruises).

The amazing thing is that, as far-fetched as some of the events in the movie are portrayed, they actually had to DOWNPLAY many of the real events because they were so fantastic. The extra features on the special edition SD are mesmerizing and go into great detail about the history behind the movie.

All-time classic. Hope they do it justice. This one's not just a keeper...it's one to visit once a year.

One point of contention for some of the real vets is that Americans James Garner & Steve McQueen were given prominent roles whose real-life counterparts were from the British empire. Even the vets conceded that Hollywood needed to sell tickets and the variations were understandable and justified. At least they didn't make the entire cast American like the submarine movie about stealing the coding machine (the actual sub & crew were British).

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Just pre-ordered on Amazon for $14.99. A childhood favorite that I haven't seen for years, can't wait.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Blu-ray.com's review is up. Video gets a 2.5.

The Great Escape

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

And the screencaps look pretty wretched.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

McQueen launches into a spectacular jump...



... and lands with a thud. :(

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Sigh. I was looking forward to this release as well.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

That's a shame. I was looking forward to owning this.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

I'm sure it looks better than the DVD, but still, that's disappointing. I figured this would be one of those movies that warranted a thorough restoration. I guess not...

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

So disappointing. This was one of the first movies I bought on DVD. I'll probably pick this up eventually (a re-release is unlikely, I'm sure), but not until it's dirt cheap (ie: Black Friday or Boxing Day)

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

people seem to be getting bent out of shape about some softer elements and slight degraining.
Big whup.

The most overwhelming negative to me in those screenshots is the (yet again) overbearing teal push that only a few people seem to notice and/or be bothered by. THAT is the aspect that is most unnatural and anachronistically un-film-like about the screenshots- not just a few less than optimal shots or noise that actually isn't grain but sortof looks like it.
The Nazi's uniforms weren't that color and the American flag isn't red, white and a greenish blue.

And as much as that aspect annoys the ever lovin' shit out of me, this'll likely still end up being an overall net upgrade.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Video bitrate is poor (18 Mbits/sec), the picture is soft, and there is DNR. I'm going to reluctantly pass on this one. It could have been encoded so much better, there was a lot more breathing room on the disc... Disappointed.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Are people really still hung up on bit rates? It's 2013, ferchrissakes. Bit rate mania was debunked ages ago. With every passing day, video compression gets more efficient, not less.

If there are problems with this transfer, they have nothing to do with bit rate.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

But but.....the bitrate is so low....doesn't that mean DVD quality? *runs for cover*

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

There is almost no chance on the film stock used for The Great Escape that 18 Mbps is transparent to the underlying HD transfer. 18 Mbps is barely sufficient for animated material on displays larger than 50". Compression encoders have slightly improved since the debut of Blu-ray.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

amazon dropped this to $9.99 and dvdbeaver gave it a favorable review. i'm in.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

again- why do you have to check the bit rate meter to know that something is not kosher when looking at the screenshots? The florescent blue highlights are there staring you right in the face. The bit rate could be 100mbps, you could see every single particulate of grain- and this still would not look authentic.

Talk about not being able to see the forest because there are too many (teal green)trees in the way.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

And you know this because you're a professional video compressionist by trade? Or you're just talking out of your butt because you like to see high numbers on your bit rate meter?

The Predator "Ultimate Hunter Edition" has a really high bit rate. What a great looking disc that is. :rolleyes:

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

It looks so smooth and purdy.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Compression artifacts =/= color timing.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Compression artifacts =/= digital noise reduction.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

That's our point. When was the last time you honest-to-god saw a compression artifact on a Blu-ray? One that you can spot while watching the movie, not just in a screenshot magnified to 300%?

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Compression artifacts don't have to be visible to the naked eye for the video bitrate (or lack thereof) to have an impact on image quality. With a ~ 3-hour movie at ~ 18mbps, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to anticipate that the high-frequency filtration that is visible may have been used on the master in order to avoid visible compression artifacts (at that low bitrate). The end result is not visible compression artifacts, but reduced image definition/detail.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

^ Right. Bitrate still matters in 2013, encoders are more efficient, but miracles can't be performed... At 18 Mbit/sec, too much high-frequency information is thrown away and can't be recovered... DNR is the attempted "recovery" and it fails miserably...

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

You're putting the cart before the horse. The issue is the (alleged) DNR, not the bit rate.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Skipped through a few chapters tonight- Doesn't look nearly as bad (color-wise) as I was expecting based on the screencaps that are out there. Some scenes (like the 4th of July party) do look unnaturally pushed to me in the blues- but the film as a whole is a lot more natural and nuanced than the impression I was getting from the caps.
As far as DNR and bitrates go, I'm not even going to get into that. I have no idea if a significantly higher bit rate would have yielded an appreciable difference in finer detail. I don't know that it is there to extract. This was extremely widescreen, but not a large format. I would expect you hit the wall early on this one. There is definitely not the sensation that this has been scrubbed to death or saddled with overzealous DNR- not at all. The image still has a very fine texture to it. Yeah the finest detail isn't always there- but not because it's been smoothed away. It may be the bit rate infringing on the highest frequency detail- but if that were the case, I doubt I would be getting the sense of grain as often as I did.

As a fan of the film, and someone who hasn't seen it for over ten years, I'm happy to have it in my collection again. And, being one of the all-time great films to me, the best it's ever looked is good enough even if it's not going to slay ever other vintage catalog titles out there.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

It looks fine. We've been spoiled by the stellar transfers for movies like Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, etc, that when one comes along that's just okay, we get bent out of shape. So while it's not a fancy crystal-clear transfer that looks like it was shot yesterday, it looks fine, appropriately film-like with a good amount of grain and more or less what an HD version of a film this vintage should look like.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Is it worth upgrading from the DVD?

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Yes. It should have been a much better release but it is at the very least an improvement over the dvd versions.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

It looks MILES better than the dvd. If it looked like an upscale of the dvd, then it would be getting scores of 1 or so. It looks like a decent HD blu-ray of an old movie, no more, no less.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Thanks, I will pick it up. Now I will have it on Laser Disc, DVD and Blu-Ray.

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

For what it's worth, Robert Harris says nice things about the disc:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topi...pe-in-blu-ray/

Re: The Great Escape - 5/7/13
 

Yeah I'm picking this up. This will be a blind buy for me but you guys have me excited.